Beetles are creatures with built-in body armor. They are tiny tanks covered with hard shells, also known as exoskeletons, protecting their soft, skeleton-less bodies inside. In addition to providing ...

The leaf beetle, Plateumaris sp., is one of just two such advanced age insect fossils that retain substantial original color molecules. Another beetle, dating to 50 million years ago, also appears to ...

Color-changing animals, such as chameleons and squid, typically alter their hues when nerve signals or hormones spur pigment cells in their skin to expand or shrink. The Panamanian golden tortoise ...

Fossils tend to offer a black and white view of the past, but new research on prehistoric beetles brings the insects' flashy metallic colors back to vivid life. The findings, published in the journal ...

3D printing has become mainstream. For a few hundred euros you can buy a 3D printer online. But what about 4D printing? How do you print an object that can change over time, for example by reacting to ...

I was at Heil Ranch, working on a study of mountain pine beetles with my graduate student Scott Ferrenberg, when a brilliantly colored beetle landed on our equipment. I picked it up and confined it ...

Biologists have discovered that the bright color patterns of beetles are not a warning signal to predators as previously believed, but actually a form of camouflage, turning an old assumption on its ...

Fossils tend to offer a black-and-white view of the past, but new research on prehistoric beetles brings the insects' flashy metallic colors back to vivid life. The findings, published in the journal ...