Awesome Insects

While spiders might creep you out, most are harmless to humans and help eliminate nasty pests like wasps and hornets. In this fascinating video, an orb-weaver makes quick work of a wasp by capturing it in its web and then wrapping it up in silk in about a minute. It almost looks like the video has been sped up, but it’s in real-time.

This award-winning short film by Kristina Dutton and a team of scientists and animators gets us up close to the wings of butterflies and moths. The microscopic and macro images show off the varied patterns and colors that appear in their wings, demonstrating the incredible biodiversity within the order of insects which includes over 180,000 species.

“Ugh, I’m going to my room!” So goes the lighthearted narration in Deep Look’s video about how flies mature from maggots to the pesky insects we know. It’s a good thing the narrator is so comforting and fun to listen to, because seeing a fly up close and in high resolution is quite bizarre and unsettling.

There’s a real camera out there that’s the size of a grain of sand. But for this video, the guys from Corridor didn’t strap one of these technological marvels to a bee. Nope, they used a drone and their visual effects skills instead, giving us a fun bee’s-eye perspective on the world as the apian buzzes around. See how they made the clip in the Behind-the-scenes video.

Bees are an important part of our ecosystem, pollinating the plants that give us food and making their own delicious honey. Ze Frank explains how intelligent these insects are despite their tiny brains. They not only know how to make perfect hexagons for their hives, they can be trained to solve puzzles and simple math problems when motivated.

Director and animator Elizabeth Fijalkowski created this wonderfully off-kilter short film about an elderly entomologist who becomes obsessed with collecting an unusual moth that has eluded him for years. The creepy soundtrack by Daniel Carpenter and Foley work by Orb Community Arts help set the tone.

Inspired by Bernard Werber’s eponymous fantasy novel, Empire of the Ants is a photorealistic real-time strategy game. You play as 103,683rd, the heralded savior of their ant colony. Build and expand your anthill, conquer other territories, and befriend and fight other forest creatures. Coming to PS5 in 2024.

(Flashing lights) Jacob Weldon’s gruesome horror short film BUG has a slick, neon-lit style inspired by the 1980s. But there’s nothing glossy about what happens to its protagonist after she gets bitten on her arm by a pesky fly. It makes us wonder if the bug was related to Jeff Goldblum’s infamous Brundlefly.

When it comes to living creatures, everything starts small. This fascinating and creepy nature video from Adrian Kozakiewicz’s Insecthaus uses jump cuts to show how insects progress from eggs or larvae to their adult forms. Adrian also has no problem letting his menagerie of bugs crawl all over his face.

Insects are weird, so we’re not surprised by some of the strange things we learned about butterflies and moths in this video from Ze Frank. Lepidoptera are attractive prey for birds, reptiles, wasps, and other animals. To help survive against these threats, these insects have evolved defenses, including unpredictable flight patterns, toxins, and mimicry.

Despite their lack of wings, spiders can actually take flight. This video from the University of Bristol video explains a process called ballooning, in which spiders take advantage of static electrical charges and wind currents to carry silk – and their bodies – through the air.

Ants are well known for their ability to work together to build things and accomplish tasks for their colony. In this fascinating video from Horace Zeng, we see how hundreds of fire ants work in concert to pick up, move, and place pieces of glass gravel on a piece of sticky tape, resulting in a colorfully-paved road of sorts.

Adam from North of the Border apparently got confused and got the names of two of Marvel’s superheroes backward. His Man-Ant and Man-Spider sculptures are two of his most disturbing creations to date, making the insects the hosts with human genetics taking over their bodies. It’s the human skin that really creeps us out.

If you’re familiar with The Last of Us, the idea that a fungus could turn us into zombies isn’t that far-fetched. ZeFrank looks at three cases where this happens in nature, with a nasty infection that takes over the bodies of insects and controls them. You might not want to eat before watching this video.

Nature filmmaker Lothar Lenz is an expert at capturing macro footage of insects. In this video, we get to watch some hornets competing with a colony of ants for a drink of water. The incredible audio recording puts you right there in the action. The ants get a little feisty in this other video.

Once in a great while, nature show host ZeFrank revisits animals and insects he’s featured with the most noteworthy traits. While they’re not nearly as prestigious as the Academy Awards, the True Facts Animal Awards distinguished itself with categories like Best Worst Jumping and Most Unfortunate Sage Grouse.