Professor Brian Cox explains how Monarch Butterflies navigate by “monitoring the position of the sun, and compensating for its location in the sky using their internal timekeeping mechanism… even when it’s cloudy.” This is an episode 5 preview of the BBC’s Wonders of Life. Full screen this.

This is the swima bombiviridis, a bioluminescent “Green Bomber” that was found in deep Pacific waters in 2009 by Karen Osborn of Scripps Oceanography. From ScienceMag.org: 

Thousands of meters below the sea, a tiny worm wriggles through the darkness, its dozens of paddle-shaped bristles moving in beautiful coordination. Suddenly, a hungry predator appears. The worm releases a glowing green sac, and the fish homes in on this bright new trophy. By the time the fish realizes the sac is no meal, the worm is long gone.

From MBARI.org.

Bees and the waggle dance: a figure eight series of movements that a scouting honey bee will make on its return to the hive. 

By performing this dance, successful foragers can share with their hive mates information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new housing locations…

Waggle dancing bees that have been in the hive for an extended time adjust the angles of their dances to accommodate the changing direction of the sun. Therefore, bees that follow the waggle run of the dance are still correctly led to the food source even though its angle relative to the sun has changed.

How amazing is that?! 

Thanks, Pete.

About 4,000 species of cockroaches are known to science, and all but the leaproach scuttle on the ground. (Zoologist Mike) Picker and his colleague Jonathan Colville discovered the leaproach in 2006 as the insects hopped around a field of sedge grass in South Africa…

The new study reveals the leaproach uses its legs much like grasshoppers do, and yet — ounce for ounce — the leaproach far out-jumps locusts. While a grasshopper can jump up to 20 body lengths, a leaproach can sail forward 48 body lengths…

“They’re extremely accurate, and they don’t just sit around,” (Mike Picker) said. “They’re always moving, moving, moving, jumping, jumping, jumping.”

Via Wired Science.