Zombies

What better way to mark learnalittle’s return from the dead than a short history of zombies?

Tales of the living dead abound in cultures across the world. The Norse draugar are the bodies of slain Vikings, said to inhabit their graves and jealously guard the treasures buried with their former selves. In Chinese folklore, jiang shi are reanimated corpses that hop around with their arms outstretched, sucking the life-force qi out of the living. And according to Medieval British accounts, deceased ne’er-do-wells may return as revenants – risen bodies bloated with blood – to terrorize their families and neighbors.

Daddy Long Legs

Sometimes, inspiration comes from the most unexpected places.

Endearing accent aside, this indignant German does bring up an excellent point: what exactly is the deal with daddy long legs?

As it turns out, the name "daddy long legs" is shared by three separate creatures, which all sport - you guessed it - notably long legs. The critters our Deutsch friend refers to are called Opiliones (or harvestmen). These eight-legged animals have two-segment oval bodies, have barely changed in the past 400 million years, and can be found across the globe. Though arachnids, harvestmen are not spiders, and lack both silk and venom glands; still, an erroneous urban legend contests harvestmen are the most venomous creatures on earth, yet lack fangs strong enough to pierce human skin.

Cicadas

Today on learnalittle, find out what all the buzz is about with rundown of the cicada.

Cicadas are winged insects of the superfamily Cicadoidea. There are over 2,500 species of cicada, native to temperate and tropical regions across the globe. While most cicadas are an inch or two long, members of the Pomponia and Tacua genera can be over half a foot with an 8inch wingspan. Cicadas live on tree sap, sucking up the sweet stuff by puncturing the bark with their straw-like proboscis; as they have no defenses, the only way a cicada might hurt a human is by mistaking them for a tree and going in for drink.

Octopuses

Are two arms just not enough? Learn how the other half lives with a look at octopuses.

Octopuses (or octopodes) are mollusks in the Cephelopoda (literally “head-feet”) Class, along with squids, cuttlefish, and nautilus. Unlike their relatives, most octopuses lack an external or internal shell; their squishy bodies can easily squeeze through small spaces. These creatures sport eight muscular arms used for swimming, usually lined with suction cups for walking, climbing, and grasping prey. At the center point of its arms, there’s a hard beak used to crush and eat.

Bees

They say beauty is in the eye of the bee holder. Well, learnalittle… holds… um. Today’s post is about bees.

Bees are flying insects, closely related to ants and likely descended from wasps. Some bees are highly eusocial: one queen breeds for the entire colony, while female workers guard the hive, collect resources, produce honey, and tend to the queen and her young. A handful of male drones – which hatch from unfertilized eggs – exist primarily to mate with the queen. To raise new queens, workers feed select larvae protein-rich royal jelly, making them larger than the average bee and sexually mature.  These new queens may leave the hive with a swarm entourage to form a new colony.

Horseshoe Crabs

In observance of beach season, today’s post honors one of the sea shore’s oldest inhabitants: the horseshoe crab.

Horseshoe crabs date back to the Ordovician Period, and haven’t really changed in the intervening 450 million years; these ancient origins have earned them living fossil status. With their hard, dome-shaped shells, horseshoe crabs look like fossils; they molt this armor about 18 times over their life to keep growing. Under the shell, they have five pairs of clawed legs that converge at a central mouth. Instead of teeth, their mouths sport stiff bristles for eating mussels and worms.

Naked Mole Rats

They say to not judge a book by its cover, but they might need a more convincing adage to keep us from judging the naked mole rat. Though a little hard to look at, these rodents have a lot more going for them than their horror movie-worthy appearance.

Naked mole rats are native to East Africa, living in elaborate underground burrows and tunnels that they dig with their large teeth (their lips are behind these teeth to prevent dirt from getting in their mouths). Their small bodies – 3 to 4 inches long and 30-35 grams – and short legs are ideal for navigating cramped tunnels; they can scurry quickly both backward and forward.

Mole rats rarely leave their burrows: their mostly hairless, almost pigment-less bodies don’t fair well in the sun and their weak, beady eyes give them poor visual acuity. Fittingly, mole rats live mainly on tubers – starch-rich vegetables that grow underground. Additionally, mole rats have naturally low metabolisms and eat relatively infrequently; they can reduce their metabolisms even further when food is scarce.

Jellyfish

There are some creatures that seem too strange to be true. Chief among them are the ghostly, alien – and sometimes deadly – jellyfish.

“Jellyfish,” although widely used, is considered a misleading name, as they aren’t related to fish. Instead, researchers prefer the terms jellies and medusas. Medusas belong to the phylum Cnidaria (pronounced “nidaria”) along with corals, anemones, and certain parasites. The incredibly venomous Portuguese Man o’ War is also among this group, but – despite a striking resemblance – it’s a siphonophore, not a medusa.

Marsupials and Monotremes

In case being a mammal hasn’t made you an expert, today’s post covers two of this Class’ underrepresented members: marsupials and monotremes.

In general, mammals are air-breathing vertebrates characterized by three traits: hair, mammary glands in mothers, and three middle ear bones for hearing. After these universal traits, birth method distinguishes the three different groups of mammals.


Placental mammals are by far the biggest group and include humans (along with almost every other mammal that comes to mind). During fetal development, this Group employs a placenta – an organ that connects a gestating fetus to its mother, to supply nutrients and oxygen and eliminate waste.