Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Harvester ants live in desert grasslands and eat seeds. Colonies manage water stress by regulating foraging using olfactory interactions between outgoing and returning foragers. A long-term study in New Mexico shows how this collective behavior is evolving in drought conditions.
Parhyale hawaiensis comes from tropical intertidal shores and mangroves. In research, it is used to explore topics ranging from embryonic development and regeneration, to tidal rhythms and environmental pollution.
Tardigrades are everywhere. They’re tiny — usually under a millimeter long — and they’re mostly transparent, so they’re easy to miss. But you probably walk by them every day. We’ve been grooming them as emerging models for studying how body forms evolve and how biological materials can survive extreme conditions.