Ever wonder what leafcutter ants do with all those leaves? Turns out, they’re not for eating (at least, not directly). The leaves serve as the raw organic material on which to grow the real prize – a crop of delicious fungus. The cultivation of fungus by ants is thought to have begun around 50 million …
What is Petrified Wood? Petrified wood is the fossilization of plant materials, mainly woody stems, trunks, and roots. When a freshly toppled tree is covered with ash or other oxygen-depriving materials, the process of decomposition is halted. Instead, the process of permineralization slowly replaces the organic constituents over time. After millions of years, movements in …
The largest known insect of all time was a predator resembling a dragonfly but was only distantly related to them. Its name is Meganeuropsis, and it ruled the skies before pterosaurs, birds and bats had even evolved. Most popular textbooks make mention of “giant dragonflies” that lived during the days before the dinosaurs. This is …
Sand dollars and sea urchins both belong to the phylum Echinodermata, a group which contains other radially symmetrical animals such as starfish and sea cucumbers. Unlike starfish and sea cucumbers, sea urchins and sand dollars belong to the same class: Echinoidea. Members of this class are part of Echinodermata but have a few differences. The …
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