in the wild

Despite the evidence of the cobwebs that accumulate in our cellars and gardens, relatively few of the world’s spiders regularly weave webs. Most of them regards it as too laborious and risky a means of trapping their food. Webs give weaving spiders a...

Although we have been building houses for many centuries, we have not always constructed them in a way that achieves maximum warmth in winter and coolness in summer. Termites , probably the most prolific insects of the world’s warmer areas learned that...

Many plants park a powerful dose of poison, a fact known since earliest times. The ancient Greeks used infusion of aconite, an extract from the roots of monkshood (wolfsbane), to dispose of the aged and infirm. Spears dipped in aconite were deadly weapon...

Cheetahs seem out of place on the African plains where most of them live. Unlike other cats, they hunt in full day-light and against a background of dry grass and scrub, their strongly spotted coats give them little camouflage. Rarely successful in stalking...