Complete metamorphosis transforms caterpillars into butterflies, reshaping not only the bodies of the insects but their behaviors and identities. New work reveals in detail for the first time how ...

John E. Woodmansee Photo: Tobacco hornworm on a tomato plant that has been attacked by a parasitic Braconid wasp. The white capsules on its back are the pupal stage of the tiny wasp. Braconid larvae ...

Many people use 'bug' and 'insect' interchangeably. Scientifically, insects are a broad class. True bugs are a specific order within insects, known as Hemiptera. They have unique piercing-sucking ...

A research team of scientists from Freie Universität Berlin and Princeton University has provided insights into the origins of complete metamorphosis in insects. More than 60% of all animal species ...

The Nature Index 2024 Research Leaders — previously known as Annual Tables — reveal the leading institutions and countries/territories in the natural and health sciences, according to their output in ...

The transformation of metamorphosis evolved gradually over hundreds of millions of years. It involves both genetics and natural selection pressures on species. This insect is studied by scientists to ...

“For me, it was a road-to-Damascus type of moment,” James Truman, an entomologist, told me, recalling an encounter when he was sixteen. “My family had a summer place, a trailer, on the shores of Lake ...

Holometabolous insects undergo complete metamorphosis to become sexually mature adults. Metamorphosis is initiated by brain-derived prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH), which stimulates the production ...

The order Neuroptera, which encompasses lacewings, antlions and their kin, exhibits an extraordinary evolutionary narrative spanning over 100 million years. Fossil discoveries, combined with recent ...