Wonder on the Web

Issue 46: Links to amazing stuff.

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Orchid Mantis

This kind of mantis favors haute couture over neutral garb. The elaborate disguise would seem to be a form of “cryptic mimicry”: unsuspecting prey insects land in a cluster of flowers, only to be snatched up by the mantis lurking there, unnoticed. This ruse apparently fooled the 19th-century travel writer James Hingston, who wrote of visiting an Indonesian garden harboring a certain carnivorous orchid, which “enclosed ...

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Also in this Issue

Issue 46 / April 14, 2016
  1. Editor's Note from April 14, 2016

    Issue 46: Gorgeous feathers, Cairo’s cave churches, ant trails, and clouds. / Ted Olsen

  2. Simply Beautiful Feathers

    A display of birds’ useful adornments. / Photos and text by Robert Clark

  3. From Garbage to Glory

    The cave churches of Cairo offer sanctuary in the midst of squalor. / Text and photos by Jayson Casper

  4. Not All Who Wander Are Lost

    How ants have solved the Traveling Salesman Problem. / Andy Walsh

  5. Under the Cloud

    Five amazing facts about the fluffy, immense formations above our heads. / Rebecca Randall

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