Voracious Grasshoppers Puzzle Texas Entomologists:
They're not afraid of heights, they're voracious, and Dr. Spencer Behmer wants to know if you've seen them hanging out in oak trees or on your house. They're post oak grasshoppers, and Behmer, a Texas Agricultural Experiment Station entomologist, wants to research their life cycle and behavior. If you haven't heard of them, don't feel alone. Until recently, most Texans hadn't. "I didn't see them for the first 25 years of my career," said Dr. John Jackman, Texas Cooperative Extension entomologist. "I would have told you there weren't any grasshoppers that chewed on trees."
Amur Leopard Still On The Brink Of Extinction, Scientists Say:
A new census of the world's most endangered cat, the Amur or Far Eastern leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis), shows that as few as 25 to 34 are left in the wild, renewing fears for the future of the species. In February and March, World Wildlife Fund along with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Pacific Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Science, conducted a routine snow-track census of leopard numbers.
Orchid bees use their extraordinarily long tongues to drink nectar from the deep, tropical flowers only they can access. Researchers have long suspected that this kind of exclusive access came with a mechanical cost. According to common sense and a classic law of fluid mechanics, it's just plain hard to suck thick, viscous nectars up through a long straw.
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