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Susan Milius

Susan Milius

Life Sciences Writer

Life sciences writer Susan Milius has been writing about botany, zoology and ecology for Science News since the last millennium. She worked at diverse publications before breaking into science writing and editing. After stints on the staffs of The Scientist, Science, International Wildlife and United Press International, she joined Science News. Three of Susan's articles have been selected to appear in editions of The Best American Science Writing.

All Stories by Susan Milius

  1. A photo of Joseph L. Graves Jr., the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology.
    Science & Society

     Meet the first Black American to earn an evolutionary biology Ph.D.

    In ‘A Voice in the Wilderness,’ Joseph L. Graves Jr. discusses his scientific journey, how he debates racists, and more.
  2. This sleeping female glass frog tucks away most of her red blood cells while she sleeps. Her eggs are visible within her transparent ovaries.
    Life

     Sleeping glass frogs hide by storing most of their blood in their liver

    Glass frogs snoozing among leaves blend in by hiding almost all their red blood cells in their liver until the tiny animals wake up.
  3. photo of a black and yellow Anterhynchium mason wasp and a green tree frog on a white background
    Life

     Long genital spines on male wasps can save their lives

    A male wasp’s genital spines can save his life in an encounter with a scary tree frog, a new study shows.
  4. A male fruit fly with a long skinny red body and long dark eyestalks with red tips, stands on a leaf
    Life

     Certain young fruit flies’ eyes literally pop out of their head

    The first published photo sequence of developing Pelmatops flies shows how their eyes rise on gangly stalks in the first hour of adulthood.
  5. two springtails standing on a flat surface against a black backdrop
    Life

     Video reveals that springtails are tiny acrobats

    Poppy seed–sized cousins of insects, famed for wild escape leaping, right themselves in mid-falls faster than cats.
  6. a mosquito larva lunging to eat a different mosquito, with tweezers shown to show the tiny size of the insects
    Animals

     Video captures young mosquitoes launching their heads to eat other mosquitoes

    New high-speed filming gives a first glimpse of mosquito hunting too fast for humans to see.
  7. Two endangered Pahrump poolfish swim in an aquarium. The long-isolated desert fish have lost their fear of some dangers, experiments show.
    Animals

     After eons of isolation, these desert fish flub social cues

    Pahrump poolfish flunked a fear test, but maybe they’re scared of other things.
  8. portrait of a northern giant hornet specimen
    Animals

    ‘Murder hornets’ have a new common name: Northern giant hornet

    Anti-Asian hate crimes helped push U.S. entomologists to give a colorful insect initially dubbed the Asian giant hornet a less inflammatory name.
  9. Dozens of tiny Delena huntsman spiderlings in or near their white egg sac, surrounded by their much larger, red-legged mother.
    Animals

     These huntsman spiders do something weird: live together as a big, happy family

    Five unusual species of spider moms let youngsters live at home way past the cute waddling baby phase.
  10. a wood frog on wet forest ground
    Animals

     An ‘acoustic camera’ shows joining the right boy band boosts a frog’s sex appeal

    Serenading with like voices may help male wood frogs woo females into their pools, analysis of individual voices in a frog choir shows.
  11. images of A. angustatum, left, and A. peninsulae, right
    Plants

    These flowers lure pollinators to their deaths. There’s a new twist on how

    Some jack-in-the-pulpit plants may use sex to lure pollinators. That's confusing for male fungus gnats — and deadly.
  12. photo of a black and yellow female jorō spider
    Animals

    Invasive jorō spiders get huge and flashy — if they’re female

    Taking the pulse (literally) of female jorō spiders hints that the arachnid might push farther north than a relative that has stayed put in the South.