Since the Industrial Revolution, human activity has led to a surge in environmental noise. The sounds of traffic, airplanes, construction and more clutter the outdoor soundscape, challenging animals' ...

Some see them as architectural marvels of nature, while others can hardly bear to look at them: Spider webs both fascinate and frighten. While they usually measure only a few inches in Central ...

Step aside, Van Gogh. Some spiders are out here making self-portraits for survival. New research shows that several orb-weaving species construct giant web-mounted “doppelgängers” convincing enough to ...

A Costa Rican pirate spider lives up to the family name: It tricks closely related orb weaver spiders into “walking the plank,” right to their doom. Like any respectable pirate, pirate spiders have an ...

Introduction -- The "hardware" of web-building spiders: morphology, silk, and behavior -- Functions of orb web designs -- Putting pieces together: tradeoffs and remaining puzzles -- The building ...