World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/cockatiel): Cockatiel — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus) is a small Australian parrot — the smallest cockatoo, Least Concern in the wild — kept worldwide as a gentle pet; its colour 'varieties' are captive-bred mutations of one species.

## Introduction
The cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus) is a small, crested parrot from the Australian outback and the smallest member of the cockatoo family. Wild cockatiels are grey with white wing flashes, orange cheek patches and an expressive crest, and roam the interior in nomadic flocks. As pets they are second in popularity only to the budgerigar, prized for their gentle nature and whistled tunes. Captive breeding has produced colour mutations — lutino, pied, pearl, cinnamon, whiteface and more — that are all the same species. Wild cockatiels are Least Concern, but every pet bird needs company, space and a varied diet. WARN publishes this guide as free, honest bird-care education.

## Takeaway
Cockatiels are the smallest members of the cockatoo family, native to Australia.

## Takeaway
Wild birds are grey; lutino, pied, pearl and whiteface are captive-bred mutations.

## Takeaway
They are gentle, social parrots that need daily interaction and out-of-cage time.

## Takeaway
Males tend to whistle and mimic more; females are usually quieter.

## Takeaway
An all-seed diet causes disease — they need pellets and vegetables too.

## Takeaway
With good care they commonly live 15–25 years.

## Wild cockatiels of the outback
Nymphicus hollandicus ranges across inland Australia, favouring open country near water. Flocks are nomadic, following rain and seeding grasses, and can gather in large numbers at waterholes. Their grey camouflage, white wing flash and jaunty crest are unmistakable, and the crest itself signals mood — raised when alert or excited, flattened when frightened or content.

Wild cockatiels are seed-eaters that nest in tree hollows. The species is Least Concern with a vast range, though like all hollow-nesters it depends on old trees that are slow to replace.

## From wild parrot to gentle companion
Cockatiels entered aviculture in the 19th century and became one of the world's favourite pet birds. Selective breeding produced colour mutations unknown in the wild — the yellow lutino, patchy pied, lacy pearl, warm cinnamon and orange-free whiteface — that can be combined in countless ways. They remain one species with one set of needs.

Cockatiels are gentle and sociable, often bonding closely with their keepers, and many males learn whistled tunes. They are not 'easy' throwaway pets, however: they need company, space and decades of care.

## Care, diet and welfare
A cockatiel needs a cage wide enough for flight, daily time out of the cage, and either a bird companion or plenty of human interaction, because isolation causes stress and feather-plucking. Diet is a major welfare issue: an all-seed diet causes obesity, fatty liver disease and vitamin A deficiency, so a formulated pellet base with vegetables is recommended.

Hens are prone to chronic egg-laying and egg binding if over-stimulated to breed, and all cockatiels are prone to night frights — thrashing in the dark — so a dim night light and a calm sleeping spot help.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/cockatiel): Cockatiel — wildlife guide.

## Cockatiels in the parrot family
As cockatoos, cockatiels share the order Psittaciformes with budgerigars, macaws and the large crested cockatoos — see WARN's parrot and cockatoo guides for the wider family. The welfare lesson is shared across the order: parrots are intelligent, long-lived, social animals, not ornaments.

Prospective owners should adopt where possible, buy only from responsible breeders, and plan for a bird that may live into its twenties and needs daily attention.

## Explore cockatiel varieties on WARN
WARN's cockatiel variety library at /wildlife-guides/cockatiel covers selectively bred colour mutations — starting with the wild-type Normal Grey and the Pied, with more (lutino, pearl, cinnamon, whiteface and others) added as suitable human-free photos are sourced — each with how the colour arises, how to sex the bird, common health issues and care.

The library helps owners see past colour to the bird's real needs, and choose responsibly.

## WARN work
WARN's parrot welfare work highlights that all parrots — from the trafficked macaw to the pet-shop cockatiel — are intelligent, social, long-lived animals. This cockatiel guide is free education on keeping the world's second most popular pet bird well, not as a disposable cage ornament.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/cockatiel): Cockatiel — wildlife guide.

## Are cockatiel colours different breeds?
No. Every cockatiel is the same species, Nymphicus hollandicus. The colours are selectively bred mutations — like coat colours in other animals — not separate breeds, and they share the same temperament and care needs.

## Are cockatiels good pets for beginners?
Cockatiels are gentle and relatively easy for first-time bird keepers, but they are not low-effort: they need a large cage, daily out-of-cage time, company, a varied diet and 15–25 years of care.

## Do cockatiels talk or whistle?
Cockatiels are better whistlers than talkers. Males in particular learn tunes and some words; females tend to be quieter. Both use their crest and calls to communicate mood.

## How long do cockatiels live?
With a balanced pellet-and-vegetable diet, a large cage, daily interaction and avian-vet care, cockatiels commonly live 15 to 25 years. An all-seed diet shortens life through fatty liver disease and vitamin deficiency.

## Are wild cockatiels endangered?
No. The IUCN lists the wild cockatiel as Least Concern; it is widespread and common across inland Australia. Pet cockatiels are captive-bred, not taken from the wild.

## Where do cockatiels live?
Cockatiels live in Inland Australia. The cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus) is a small Australian parrot — the smallest cockatoo, Least Concern in the wild — kept worldwide as a gentle pet; its colour 'varieties' are captive-bred mutations of one species.

## Are cockatiels dangerous?
Cockatiels are not generally dangerous to people. The cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus) is a small Australian parrot — the smallest cockatoo, Least Concern in the wild — kept worldwide as a gentle pet; its colour 'varieties' are captive-bred mutations of one species. Give wild individuals space and do not corner or handle them.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/leopard-gecko): Leopard Gecko — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius) is a hardy, ground-dwelling South Asian lizard — Least Concern in the wild — and a popular beginner pet; its many 'morphs' are captive-bred colour and pattern lines of one species.

## Introduction
The leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius) is a small, ground-dwelling lizard from the rocky dry country of South Asia, and one of the most popular pet reptiles in the world. Unusually for a gecko it has movable eyelids and lacks sticky toe pads, so it walks rather than climbs glass. Wild leopard geckos are spotted yellow and Least Concern; decades of captive breeding have produced hundreds of colour and pattern 'morphs' — all the same species. Hardy, long-lived and calm, leopard geckos are often recommended for beginners, but they still need correct heat, a varied insect diet and calcium to avoid metabolic bone disease. WARN publishes this guide as free, honest reptile-care education.

## Takeaway
Leopard geckos have movable eyelids and no sticky toe pads — they walk, not climb.

## Takeaway
Wild leopard geckos are spotted yellow and Least Concern across South Asia.

## Takeaway
Hundreds of morphs are captive-bred colour and pattern lines of one species.

## Takeaway
They store fat in their tails and can drop the tail to escape predators.

## Takeaway
Correct heat and dietary calcium prevent metabolic bone disease.

## Takeaway
The Enigma morph carries a neurological 'Enigma syndrome' welfare risk.

## Wild leopard geckos of South Asia
Eublepharis macularius lives in the rocky, arid and semi-desert country of Afghanistan, Pakistan, north-west India and parts of Iran. It shelters by day and emerges at dusk to hunt insects, using its keen eyes and (unusually for geckos) blinking eyelids. The thick tail stores fat as an energy reserve for lean times, and a threatened gecko can shed (autotomise) its tail to escape, regrowing a shorter, blunter one.

Wild leopard geckos are spotted yellow — camouflage among stones — and are listed Least Concern. The pet trade today is overwhelmingly captive-bred rather than wild-caught.

## Morphs are line-bred, not separate species
Since the 1990s, breeders have produced hundreds of leopard gecko morphs — colour and pattern lines such as High Yellow, Tangerine, the three albino strains, Mack Snow, Blizzard, Hypo and Patternless — by selecting single genes or breeding lines. They are all one species, Eublepharis macularius, and all have identical care needs.

Some morphs carry welfare problems: the Enigma morph is linked to a neurological condition (Enigma syndrome) causing balance and coordination issues, so it is widely avoided by welfare-minded keepers. Responsible buyers research a morph's genetics, not just its looks.

## Housing, heat and diet
Leopard geckos need a secure floor-space vivarium with a warm end (a basking surface around 28–30°C) and a cooler end, several hides including a humid hide to aid shedding, and a non-loose substrate to avoid gut impaction. Current best practice provides low-level UVB plus calcium and vitamin D3, even though these crepuscular geckos can also obtain D3 from the diet.

They eat live insects — crickets, dubia roaches, the occasional waxworm treat — dusted with calcium. Clean water must always be available. Correct temperatures are essential for digestion as well as comfort.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/leopard-gecko): Leopard Gecko — wildlife guide.

## Health and responsible keeping
The commonest leopard gecko problems are largely preventable: metabolic bone disease from too little calcium or incorrect lighting, gut impaction from loose substrate or oversized prey, retained shed (dysecdysis) from low humidity, and tail loss from rough handling. A correct set-up and gentle handling prevent most of them.

Responsible keeping means buying captive-bred animals from breeders who avoid welfare-linked morphs, never releasing reptiles into the wild, and planning for an animal that can live 10–20 years or more. A reptile vet should see any gecko that stops eating, loses weight or shows tremors.

## Explore leopard gecko morphs on WARN
WARN's leopard gecko morph library at /wildlife-guides/leopard-gecko covers selectively bred colour and pattern lines — including the Normal wild type, the Tremper Albino, the Mack Snow and the Blizzard, with further morphs added as suitable human-free photos are sourced — each with how the colour or pattern is inherited, adult size, husbandry and common health issues.

The library helps keepers understand that every morph is the same species with the same needs — and which traits to avoid on welfare grounds.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free reptile-welfare education. Leopard geckos are among the most-kept pet reptiles, and good husbandry — correct heat, calcium and diet — prevents most suffering. Honest guides also steer keepers away from welfare-linked morphs and the release of pet reptiles into the wild.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/leopard-gecko): Leopard Gecko — wildlife guide.

## Are leopard gecko morphs different species?
No. Every leopard gecko is the same species, Eublepharis macularius. Morphs are selectively bred colour and pattern lines produced by single genes or line-breeding, and all share the same care needs.

## Are leopard geckos good for beginners?
Yes, they are among the most beginner-friendly reptiles — small, calm, hardy and long-lived — provided the keeper sets up correct heating, a varied calcium-dusted insect diet and proper hides before buying.

## How long do leopard geckos live?
With correct husbandry, leopard geckos commonly live 10 to 20 years, and some males considerably longer. Poor husbandry, especially low calcium or wrong temperatures, causes metabolic bone disease and shortens life.

## Do leopard geckos need UVB?
They can survive on dietary vitamin D3, but current best practice provides low-level UVB plus calcium and D3 supplementation, alongside a warm basking zone and a cooler end of the vivarium.

## What is the Enigma morph and Enigma syndrome?
The Enigma morph is linked to a neurological condition causing circling, head-tilting and balance problems. Because of this welfare risk, many keepers and welfare advocates avoid breeding it.

## Where do common leopard geckos live?
Common Leopard Geckos live in Afghanistan, Pakistan, NW India, Iran. The leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius) is a hardy, ground-dwelling South Asian lizard — Least Concern in the wild — and a popular beginner pet; its many 'morphs' are captive-bred colour and pattern lines of one species.

## Are common leopard geckos dangerous?
Hardy, long-lived and calm, leopard geckos are often recommended for beginners, but they still need correct heat, a varied insect diet and calcium to avoid metabolic bone disease. Give wild common leopard geckos space; do not corner or handle them.

## How big is a common leopard gecko?
A Common Leopard Gecko is about 20–27 cm including tail. The leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius) is a hardy, ground-dwelling South Asian lizard — Least Concern in the wild — and a popular beginner pet; its many 'morphs' are captive-bred colour and pattern lines of one species. Conservation status: Least Concern (wild).

## What do common leopard geckos eat?
They eat live insects — crickets, dubia roaches, the occasional waxworm treat — dusted with calcium. The leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius) is a hardy, ground-dwelling South Asian lizard — Least Concern in the wild — and a popular beginner pet; its many 'morphs' are captive-bred colour and pattern lines of one species.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/ball-python): Ball Python — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The ball python (Python regius) is a small, docile African snake — Least Concern but heavily traded (CITES Appendix II) — and the world's most popular pet snake; its thousands of 'morphs' are captive-bred colour and pattern forms of one species.

## Introduction
The ball python (Python regius), also called the royal python, is a small, stocky, docile snake from the grasslands and forest edges of West and Central Africa, and the most popular pet snake in the world. It earns its name from its habit of curling into a tight ball when stressed. Wild ball pythons are Least Concern but are very heavily traded — wild-collected, ranched and captive-bred — and listed on CITES Appendix II. Selective breeding has produced thousands of colour and pattern 'morphs', all the same species. Calm and long-lived, ball pythons are popular but exacting: they need correct heat, humidity and feeding, and some morphs carry serious welfare problems. WARN publishes this guide as free, honest reptile-care education.

## Takeaway
Ball pythons curl into a ball to protect the head — hence the name.

## Takeaway
They are the world's most popular pet snake and among the smallest African pythons.

## Takeaway
Wild ball pythons are Least Concern but very heavily traded; they are CITES Appendix II.

## Takeaway
Thousands of morphs are captive-bred colour and pattern forms of one species.

## Takeaway
The Spider morph carries a neurological 'wobble', and some 'super' forms are lethal.

## Takeaway
They are long-lived — 20–30 years or more — and need correct heat and humidity.

## Wild ball pythons of West Africa
Python regius lives in the grasslands, savanna and forest edges of West and Central Africa, sheltering in rodent burrows and termite mounds and hunting small mammals largely by ambush. It is the smallest of the African pythons and famously shy — when threatened it hides its head in its coils and rolls into a tight ball rather than striking.

Wild ball pythons are listed Least Concern, but the species is among the most heavily traded reptiles on Earth. Large numbers are wild-collected and 'ranched' (eggs taken, hatched and exported) in West Africa, and the species is on CITES Appendix II to regulate that trade.

## Morphs are line-bred, not separate species
The pet trade has produced thousands of ball python morphs by combining dominant, co-dominant and recessive colour and pattern genes — Pastel, Albino, Piebald, Banana, Clown, Mojave, Pinstripe and countless 'designer' combinations. They are all one species, Python regius, with identical husbandry needs.

Some morphs carry real welfare costs. The Spider morph is linked to a neurological 'wobble', and certain gene combinations and 'super' forms cause lethal defects or deformities. Responsible keepers research genetics and avoid pairings known to harm the animals.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/ball-python): Ball Python — wildlife guide.

## Housing, heat and feeding
A ball python needs a secure, escape-proof enclosure with a warm end (around 31–32°C basking/hot spot) and a cooler end (around 25–26°C), measured with thermostats and thermometers, plus correct humidity (around 55–60%, raised during shedding) and a snug hide at each end. Heat sources must be guarded against thermal burns.

They eat appropriately sized rodents, best offered frozen-thawed rather than live to avoid injury to the snake. Ball pythons are famous for occasionally refusing food for weeks, especially in cooler months; healthy adults tolerate this, but ongoing weight loss needs a vet.

## Welfare, trade and responsible keeping
Because so many ball pythons are wild-collected or ranched in Africa, buyers should choose captive-bred animals from reputable sources to reduce pressure on wild populations. Avoid welfare-linked morphs such as the Spider 'wobble' line and known lethal combinations.

Ball pythons live 20–30 years and sometimes beyond 40, so they are a multi-decade commitment. They must never be released — escaped or released pet snakes can harm ecosystems and are illegal to release in most places. A reptile vet should see any snake with breathing problems, retained shed or prolonged weight loss.

## Explore ball python morphs on WARN
WARN's ball python morph library at /wildlife-guides/ball-python covers selectively bred colour and pattern lines — including the Normal wild type, the Albino, the Piebald and the Mojave, with further morphs added as suitable human-free photos are sourced — each with how the colour or pattern is inherited, adult size, husbandry and common health issues, plus honest welfare cautions about genes such as Spider.

The library helps keepers understand that every morph is the same species with the same needs — and which traits and pairings to avoid.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free reptile-welfare education. The ball python is both the world's most popular pet snake and one of the most heavily traded reptiles, so honest guidance — choose captive-bred animals, avoid welfare-linked morphs, never release pets — matters for both individual animals and wild African populations.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/ball-python): Ball Python — wildlife guide.

## Why is it called a ball python?
When stressed or threatened, the ball python curls into a tight ball with its head protected in the centre of the coils. The same species is also called the royal python.

## Are ball python morphs different species?
No. Every ball python is the same species, Python regius. Morphs are selectively bred colour and pattern lines produced by single or combined genes, and all share the same care needs.

## Are ball pythons good for beginners?
They are docile and popular, but they are exacting about heat and humidity and are a 20–30 year commitment. Beginners who research husbandry thoroughly and buy a captive-bred, established feeder can do well with one.

## What is the Spider morph 'wobble'?
The Spider morph is linked to a neurological condition causing head tremors and balance problems ranging from mild to severe. Because of this welfare risk, many keepers and welfare advocates avoid breeding it.

## What do ball pythons eat?
They eat appropriately sized rodents, best offered frozen-thawed rather than live to avoid injury to the snake. The ball python (Python regius) is a small, docile African snake — Least Concern but heavily traded (CITES Appendix II) — and the world's most popular pet snake; its thousands of 'morphs' are captive-bred colour and pattern forms of one species.

## Where do ball pythons live?
Ball pythons (Python regius) inhabit grasslands and forest edges of West and Central Africa. Wild populations are Least Concern but heavily traded — wild-collected, ranched and captive-bred — which is why CITES Appendix II regulates international trade in the species.

## How long do ball pythons live?
Ball pythons typically live 20–30 years in captivity, sometimes 40 or more according to this guide's quickFacts and stats. They earn their name by curling into a tight ball when stressed. Selective breeding has produced thousands of colour and pattern morphs, all one species.

## How big is a ball python?
Adult ball pythons reach 90–150 cm, with females larger than males according to this guide's stats. They are small, stocky, docile snakes and the world's most popular pet snake, though some morphs carry serious welfare problems such as the Spider morph's neurological wobble.

## Are ball pythons dangerous?
Ball pythons are not dangerous to people. They are small, docile African snakes that curl into a tight ball when stressed rather than striking aggressively. Wild Python regius from West and Central Africa are Least Concern but heavily traded on CITES Appendix II. They are constrictors feeding on small mammals and birds, not venomous.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/monarch-butterfly): Monarch Butterfly — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is an orange-and-black North American butterfly whose migratory population travels up to 4,000 km to overwinter in Mexican fir forests; the migratory subspecies is listed Vulnerable, and it breeds only on milkweed.

## Introduction
The monarch is the most recognisable butterfly on Earth: deep orange wings veined and bordered in black, with white flecks along the margin. What makes it extraordinary is not the colour but the journey. Monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains fly up to 4,000 km each autumn to a handful of oyamel fir forests in central Mexico, cluster there through winter in their millions, and head north again in spring. No single butterfly completes the round trip — it takes three to four generations, and the insects that arrive in Mexico have never been there before.

The monarch's whole life depends on one plant group. Females lay only on milkweed (Asclepias), caterpillars eat only milkweed, and the cardenolide toxins they take from it make both caterpillar and adult unpalatable to birds. Remove milkweed from the landscape and the monarch has nowhere to breed, however many nectar flowers remain.

## Takeaway
Monarchs are famous for migration, but their limiting factor is milkweed, the only plant their caterpillars can eat.

## Takeaway
The migratory subspecies is assessed Vulnerable; monarchs as a species remain widespread and Least Concern.

## Takeaway
The overwintering generation lives around eight months — roughly ten times longer than a summer monarch.

## Takeaway
Caterpillars sequester milkweed toxins, which is why the adult's warning colours work.

## Takeaway
Overwintering sites are tiny in area, so forest loss or a severe storm can hit a huge share of the population at once.

## Takeaway
Planting locally native milkweed and pesticide-free nectar flowers is the single most useful thing a garden can do for them.

## The migration, generation by generation
Monarchs east of the Rockies funnel south each autumn to roughly a dozen oyamel fir groves in Michoacán and the State of México, at around 3,000 m altitude. The cool, humid mountain air keeps them in a low-energy state without freezing them. Western monarchs make a shorter journey to coastal groves in California.

The butterflies that fly south are a distinct 'super generation' — reproductively delayed and long-lived. In spring they head north, breed on emerging milkweed and die; their offspring continue north, and so on, until autumn triggers another super generation. Each individual is navigating a route it has never flown, using a time-compensated sun compass and, in cloud, a magnetic sense.

## Milkweed: the whole story in one plant
A female monarch lays single eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves. The caterpillar hatches, eats the leaf and grows through five instars in about two weeks, taking in cardiac glycosides that make it toxic to most vertebrate predators. It then pupates into a jade-green chrysalis rimmed with gold, and emerges as an adult roughly ten days later.

This is why milkweed availability, not nectar availability, drives monarch numbers. Agricultural intensification, roadside spraying and herbicide-tolerant cropping have removed enormous areas of milkweed from the North American breeding range. Adults will feed on many flowers; caterpillars will starve on anything but Asclepias.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/monarch-butterfly): Monarch Butterfly — wildlife guide.

## Why the numbers fell
Three pressures stack. Breeding-habitat loss removes milkweed. Overwintering-habitat loss and degradation — illegal logging, thinning that breaks the forest microclimate — puts the whole eastern population at risk in a very small area. And climate volatility brings storms, freezes and droughts that can kill millions of clustered butterflies in a single event, or shift the timing of milkweed emergence out of step with arriving monarchs.

Insecticides, particularly systemic neonicotinoids present in plant tissue, add a further pressure on both caterpillars and adults. Counts fluctuate sharply year to year, so single-season figures should be read as part of a trend, not as a verdict.

## What actually helps
Plant milkweed native to your own region — not tropical milkweed outside its range, which can keep monarchs breeding too late in the season and sustain the parasite Ophryocystis elektroscirrha. Pair it with a long succession of pesticide-free nectar flowers so migrating adults can refuel.

Beyond the garden, the leverage is in protecting overwintering forest, keeping field margins and roadside verges unsprayed, and supporting the community forestry that makes protection viable for people living beside the reserves. Captive rearing and mass release is popular but contested: it can spread disease and does nothing about the missing habitat.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free, sourced wildlife education so that the animals people already love become an entry point into the pressures facing wildlife everywhere. Insect decline is the least visible part of the biodiversity crisis and the part most directly shaped by everyday choices — what gets planted, what gets sprayed and what gets left alone.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/monarch-butterfly): Monarch Butterfly — wildlife guide.

## Are monarch butterflies endangered?
Not as a species. Monarchs are widespread and assessed Least Concern globally. The migratory monarch of North America (Danaus plexippus plexippus) was assessed as Vulnerable by the IUCN in 2022 because of losses in breeding and overwintering habitat and the risk concentrated at its few overwintering sites.

## Why do monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed?
Monarchs have evolved to tolerate the cardiac glycoside toxins in milkweed (Asclepias) and to store them in their own tissue as a defence. That specialisation means the caterpillars cannot digest other plants — no milkweed, no monarchs, regardless of how many nectar flowers are available.

## How far do monarch butterflies migrate?
Eastern North American monarchs travel up to about 4,000 km to overwintering forests in central Mexico. Western monarchs make a shorter migration to coastal California. No individual completes a full round trip — it takes three to four generations.

## How long do monarch butterflies live?
A summer-generation monarch lives roughly two to six weeks. The autumn 'super generation' that migrates and overwinters delays reproduction and can live around eight months.

## What is the best way to help monarch butterflies?
Plant milkweed species native to your own area, add pesticide-free nectar flowers that bloom across the whole season, and avoid systemic insecticides. Supporting protection of the Mexican overwintering forests addresses the risk concentrated at the other end of the migration.

## What do monarchs eat?
Monarchs eat Milkweed (Asclepias spp.) only. The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is an orange-and-black North American butterfly whose migratory population travels up to 4,000 km to overwinter in Mexican fir forests; the migratory subspecies is listed Vulnerable, and it breeds only on milkweed.

## Where do monarchs live?
Monarchs live in North America, Central America — Mexican overwintering forests, Introduced populations in Australia, New Zealand and Iberia. The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is an orange-and-black North American butterfly whose migratory population travels up to 4,000 km to overwinter in Mexican fir forests; the migratory subspecies is listed Vulnerable, and it breeds only on milkweed.

## Are monarchs dangerous?
Monarchs are not generally dangerous to people. The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is an orange-and-black North American butterfly whose migratory population travels up to 4,000 km to overwinter in Mexican fir forests; the migratory subspecies is listed Vulnerable, and it breeds only on milkweed. Give wild individuals space and do not corner or handle them.

## How big is a monarch?
A Monarch is about 8.9–10.2 cm. The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is an orange-and-black North American butterfly whose migratory population travels up to 4,000 km to overwinter in Mexican fir forests; the migratory subspecies is listed Vulnerable, and it breeds only on milkweed.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/butterfly): Butterfly — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
Butterflies are day-flying insects of the superfamily Papilionoidea — about 19,000 species — that develop through complete metamorphosis from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to adult, and are widely used as indicators of habitat health.

## Introduction
Butterflies are day-flying insects of the superfamily Papilionoidea, with roughly 19,000 described species worldwide. They share the order Lepidoptera with moths, and the line between the two is more cultural than scientific — butterflies are essentially a group of moths that took up daytime flight, clubbed antennae and, usually, brighter colouring.

What gives butterflies their outsized importance is not beauty but sensitivity. They are short-lived, tightly tied to specific food plants and quick to respond to changes in temperature, land management and pesticide use. That makes butterfly counts one of the most responsive indicators available for the health of a landscape, and the reason volunteer butterfly monitoring underpins so much conservation policy.

## Takeaway
Butterflies and moths are both Lepidoptera; the split is a popular distinction rather than a strict taxonomic one.

## Takeaway
Nearly all butterflies are host-plant specialists as caterpillars, so losing one plant can lose the butterfly.

## Takeaway
Adults taste with their feet and drink through a coiled proboscis — they cannot chew.

## Takeaway
Wing colour comes from both pigment and microscopic scale structure that scatters light.

## Takeaway
Butterfly monitoring is a standard proxy for wider insect and habitat health.

## Takeaway
Nectar plants feed adults; host plants make new butterflies. A garden needs both.

## Butterfly or moth?
The usual rules of thumb — butterflies fly by day, hold their wings upright, have clubbed antennae and are brightly coloured — hold often enough to be useful and fail often enough to be unreliable. There are brilliantly coloured day-flying moths and drab butterflies, and plenty of moths rest with wings closed.

Genetically, butterflies sit inside the moth radiation rather than beside it: Papilionoidea is one branch of Lepidoptera, and the roughly 160,000 species usually called moths are the rest of the tree. 'Butterfly' is a real group, but 'moth' is not a single group at all.

## The four-stage life cycle
A female lays eggs on or beside a specific host plant. The caterpillar that hatches is an eating machine, moulting through several instars and growing enormously in days or weeks. It then pupates: inside the chrysalis, larval tissue is largely dismantled and rebuilt into an adult around clusters of cells set aside from the start.

The emerging adult has a completely different job — dispersal and reproduction. It drinks nectar, sap or mineral-rich moisture through a coiled proboscis, tastes potential host plants with chemoreceptors on its feet, and in most species lives only long enough to mate and lay.

## Why butterfly numbers matter beyond butterflies
Because butterflies are short-lived, specialised and easy for volunteers to identify, long-running transect counts produce unusually good data. Those counts have documented steep declines in many temperate regions, driven by agricultural intensification, habitat fragmentation, nitrogen enrichment, pesticide use and climate-driven mismatches between insect emergence and plant timing.

Butterflies are also pollinators — less efficient than bees per visit, but mobile, and important for plants with deep or exposed flowers. Their caterpillars, meanwhile, are a foundational food source: many farmland and woodland birds time their breeding to caterpillar abundance.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/butterfly): Butterfly — wildlife guide.

## Making a garden actually work for butterflies
Most butterfly gardening stops at nectar. Nectar keeps adults alive; host plants let them breed. A patch of nettles, native grasses, or the specific larval plants used in your region will do more than any amount of buddleia.

Beyond planting: skip systemic insecticides, cut less often and later, leave seedheads and leaf litter for overwintering pupae and adults, and keep a damp patch for mud-puddling. Sunny, sheltered, untidy corners support far more species than neat ones.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free, sourced species education covering the full breadth of animal life, not only the large mammals that dominate wildlife coverage. Insects carry the pollination, decomposition and food-web load that every larger animal depends on, and they are where habitat change shows up first.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/butterfly): Butterfly — wildlife guide.

## What is the difference between a butterfly and a moth?
Butterflies are a single branch (Papilionoidea) within the order Lepidoptera; 'moths' are all the other branches. Butterflies usually fly by day and have clubbed antennae, but there are day-flying moths and dull butterflies, so the everyday rules are guidance rather than definitions.

## How many butterfly species are there?
Roughly 19,000 butterfly species have been described worldwide, spread across six families, with the greatest diversity in tropical forests.

## How long do butterflies live?
It varies widely. Many adults live one to four weeks. Species that overwinter as adults, or migratory generations such as the autumn monarch, can live several months.

## What do butterflies eat?
Adults drink liquids — nectar, tree sap, fruit juices and mineral-rich moisture — through a coiled proboscis. Caterpillars eat leaves, and most are restricted to one plant or a small group of related plants.

## Are butterflies declining?
Long-running monitoring shows steep declines for many species in intensively farmed and urbanised regions, driven by habitat loss, pesticides, fragmentation and climate-driven timing mismatches. Some generalist and warmth-favoured species are increasing, which can mask losses among specialists.

## How do I attract butterflies to my garden?
Provide both nectar plants for adults and the larval host plants used in your region, avoid systemic insecticides, mow less and later, leave leaf litter and seedheads for overwintering stages, and give them a sunny, sheltered spot.

## Where do butterflies live?
Butterflies occur on every continent except Antarctica, with the greatest diversity in tropical forests. They are also familiar in gardens, meadows and hedgerows worldwide, where roughly 19,000 described species across six families make them sensitive indicators of habitat health.

## Are butterflies dangerous?
Butterflies are not dangerous to people. Adults drink liquids through a coiled proboscis and cannot chew, while caterpillars feed on leaves tied to specific host plants. Their short lifespans and rapid response to land-management changes make them important ecological indicators rather than threats.

## How big are butterflies?
Butterflies are day-flying insects of the superfamily Papilionoidea — about 19,000 species — that develop through complete metamorphosis from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to adult, and are widely used as indicators of habitat health.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/honey-bee): Honey Bee — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a social bee living in perennial colonies of tens of thousands with a single queen; it is managed as livestock worldwide, is not a threatened species, and is distinct from the wild solitary bees that face the greatest decline.

## Introduction
The western honey bee, Apis mellifera, lives in perennial colonies of tens of thousands: one reproductive queen, seasonal male drones, and female workers who do everything else. Colonies build wax comb, store honey and pollen, regulate the nest at close to 35°C year-round, and communicate the direction and distance of food through the waggle dance — a symbolic language rare outside vertebrates.

Honey bees are also, in most of the world, managed livestock. That distinction matters for conservation. Honey bee colony numbers are a beekeeping metric, not a biodiversity metric, and 'save the bees' campaigns that add hives can actively increase competition for the wild bees that are genuinely declining.

## Takeaway
Honey bees are one species among roughly 20,000 bee species; most bees are solitary and do not make honey.

## Takeaway
In most countries honey bees are managed livestock, so hive counts measure beekeeping, not ecosystem health.

## Takeaway
Adding hives in an area can increase competition for forage with declining wild bees.

## Takeaway
A colony is a perennial superorganism: it survives winter on stored honey rather than dying back.

## Takeaway
The waggle dance encodes both direction and distance of a food source.

## Takeaway
The real help for pollinators is continuous pesticide-free flowering, nesting habitat and undisturbed bare ground.

## How a colony works
A colony has one laying queen, a few hundred to a few thousand seasonal drones, and a female worker force that shifts roles with age: cell cleaning, brood feeding, wax building, food handling, guarding, and finally foraging. Workers control the colony's fate more than the queen does — they decide when to raise new queens, when to swarm and when to replace a failing queen.

The colony behaves as a single organism. It thermoregulates by clustering and shivering in cold and by fanning and evaporating water in heat, keeps brood at around 35°C, and stores enough honey to carry the whole cluster through winter. That perennial strategy is what separates honey bees from most other bees, whose colonies or individuals die back each year.

## The waggle dance
A returning forager performs a figure-of-eight run on vertical comb in the dark. The angle of the straight 'waggle' portion relative to gravity encodes the direction of the food source relative to the sun; the duration of the waggle encodes distance. Nestmates follow the dancer, sense the vibration and scent, and fly out.

Because the sun moves, dancing bees compensate for elapsed time — a bee dancing about a source found an hour ago adjusts the angle accordingly. It remains one of the most sophisticated communication systems described in an invertebrate.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/honey-bee): Honey Bee — wildlife guide.

## Why 'save the bees' is usually aimed at the wrong bee
Roughly 20,000 bee species exist. Most are solitary: a single female excavates or occupies a nest, provisions cells with pollen and dies before her offspring emerge. Many are specialists tied to particular plants, and it is these — along with bumblebees — that show the clearest declines from habitat loss, pesticides and disease.

The honey bee, by contrast, is farmed. Colony losses are a real problem for beekeepers and for pollination services, but they are a livestock-management issue, not extinction risk. Where managed hive density is high, honey bees can measurably reduce the forage available to wild bees. Conservation framed around hive counts can therefore work against the species that need help.

## Pressures that are real
The Varroa destructor mite and the viruses it transmits remain the dominant threat to managed colonies worldwide. On top of that sit pesticide exposure — particularly systemic neonicotinoids and tank mixes with fungicides — poor forage in monoculture landscapes, long-distance migratory pollination stress, and pathogens such as Nosema and foulbrood.

For wild pollinators the list overlaps but is weighted differently: loss of nesting habitat, loss of continuous flowering across the season, fragmentation, pesticide load, and spillover of managed-bee diseases into wild populations.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free, sourced species education, including where popular campaigns and the underlying science part company. Getting pollinator conservation right means directing effort at wild bee habitat rather than at hive counts — a distinction that public messaging routinely blurs.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/honey-bee): Honey Bee — wildlife guide.

## Are honey bees endangered?
No. Apis mellifera is a managed species kept in large numbers worldwide and is not assessed as threatened. Colony losses are a serious beekeeping and pollination-services problem, but they are not extinction risk. The bees in genuine decline are wild solitary bees and some bumblebees.

## Does keeping bees help conservation?
Usually not. Keeping honey bees is livestock husbandry. In areas with high hive density, managed honey bees compete with wild bees for limited forage and can spread pathogens to them. Planting season-long pesticide-free flowers and leaving nesting habitat helps wild pollinators far more.

## How do honey bees communicate?
Through the waggle dance. The angle of the waggle run relative to gravity indicates direction relative to the sun, and its duration indicates distance. Bees also compensate for the sun's movement over time.

## Are western honey bees dangerous?
Western Honey Bees are domesticated animals and are not dangerous to people in the wild-predator sense. The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a social bee living in perennial colonies of tens of thousands with a single queen; it is managed as livestock worldwide, is not a threatened species, and is distinct from the wild solitary bees that face the greatest decline. Usual risks are husbandry and handling, not unprovoked attacks.

## How long do western honey bees live?
Western Honey Bees typically live ~6 weeks in summer; months for winter bees. The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a social bee living in perennial colonies of tens of thousands with a single queen; it is managed as livestock worldwide, is not a threatened species, and is distinct from the wild solitary bees that face the greatest decline. Wild and captive figures can differ; use the sources listed on the guide for the underlying studies.

## How big is a western honey bee?
A Western Honey Bee is about 20,000–80,000 workers in summer. The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is a social bee living in perennial colonies of tens of thousands with a single queen; it is managed as livestock worldwide, is not a threatened species, and is distinct from the wild solitary bees that face the greatest decline. Conservation status: Varroa destructor mite and associated viruses.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/ladybird): Ladybird — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
Ladybirds (family Coccinellidae) are beetles — around 6,000 species — whose adults and larvae are mostly predators of aphids and scale insects; spot number indicates species, not age, and the invasive harlequin ladybird is displacing natives in Europe and North America.

## Introduction
Ladybirds — ladybugs in North America — are beetles of the family Coccinellidae, with around 6,000 species worldwide. The familiar domed, spotted adults are only part of the story: the larvae, which look nothing like the adults, are elongated, spiky and often more voracious than their parents.

Most ladybirds are predators of aphids, scale insects and mites, which makes them one of the few insects with an unambiguously positive public reputation. That reputation has driven a great deal of deliberate introduction for pest control — and some of those introductions, notably the harlequin ladybird, have gone on to displace native species across whole continents.

## Takeaway
Ladybirds are beetles (Coleoptera), not bugs in the entomological sense.

## Takeaway
The number of spots identifies the species — it does not indicate the ladybird's age.

## Takeaway
Larvae look completely different from adults and often eat more aphids than the adults do.

## Takeaway
Threatened ladybirds bleed foul-tasting haemolymph from their leg joints — reflex bleeding.

## Takeaway
A few species are plant-eaters and are agricultural pests; most are beneficial predators.

## Takeaway
The introduced harlequin ladybird is displacing native ladybirds across Europe and North America.

## What ladybirds actually are
Coccinellidae are beetles: the bright domed shell is a pair of hardened forewings (elytra) covering the membranous flight wings beneath. Colour and spot patterns are aposematic — a warning that the beetle tastes unpleasant — and vary enormously, from the familiar red-with-black to yellow, orange, black-with-red, chequered and plain.

A persistent myth holds that spots count the ladybird's age. They do not. Spot number and arrangement are species characters, fixed when the adult emerges, though they can vary within a species and fade with wear.

## Larvae: the unrecognised stage
Ladybird larvae are long, segmented, often blue-grey or black with orange markings, and bristly. People routinely kill them as pests because they look nothing like the adult. Through four instars over a few weeks, a single larva can eat several hundred aphids before pupating, usually glued to a leaf.

Eggs are laid in small upright clusters, typically near an aphid colony so the hatching larvae have food immediately. Some species lay infertile eggs alongside fertile ones as a food buffer for the first-hatched larvae.

## Predators, and a few pests
The majority of ladybirds eat aphids, scale insects, mealybugs, mites and other soft-bodied invertebrates, which is why they are valued in orchards, allotments and glasshouses. Several species are reared commercially as biological control agents.

A minority break the pattern. The subfamily Epilachninae are herbivores — the Mexican bean beetle and the 24-spot ladybird among them — and can damage crops. Others feed on mildew. 'Ladybird' is therefore a description of a family, not a guarantee of what any given species eats.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/ladybird): Ladybird — wildlife guide.

## The harlequin problem
Harmonia axyridis, the harlequin or Asian ladybird, was introduced widely for aphid control from the late twentieth century. It is large, highly variable in colour, breeds fast and eats not only aphids but also the eggs and larvae of other ladybirds. It has since spread across Europe and North America and is implicated in sharp declines of native species, including the two-spot ladybird.

It also carries microsporidian parasites to which it is resistant and native ladybirds are not. The episode is a standard cautionary example of biological control introduced without adequate assessment of non-target effects.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free, sourced species education across the whole of animal life. Ladybirds are a useful way into two ideas that matter well beyond insects: that a life stage people do not recognise often gets destroyed, and that species moved around the world for a good reason can still cause serious harm.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/ladybird): Ladybird — wildlife guide.

## Do a ladybird's spots show its age?
No. Spot number and pattern are characteristics of the species and are fixed when the adult emerges from the pupa. A seven-spot ladybird has seven spots on its first day and its last.

## Are ladybirds beetles or bugs?
Beetles. Ladybirds belong to the order Coleoptera, family Coccinellidae. True bugs are the order Hemiptera, a different group entirely.

## What do ladybirds eat?
Most species are predators of aphids, scale insects, mealybugs and mites, and a single ladybird may eat around 5,000 aphids in its lifetime. A minority of species are plant-eaters or mildew-feeders.

## What do ladybird larvae look like?
Nothing like the adult — elongated, segmented, spiky and usually dark with orange or yellow markings, a little like a tiny alligator. They are voracious aphid predators and are frequently mistaken for pests and killed.

## Why do ladybirds gather in houses in autumn?
Many species overwinter communally in sheltered, dry places, and buildings mimic the rock crevices and leaf litter they would otherwise use. They are dormant rather than breeding, and are best moved gently to a cool, sheltered outbuilding rather than a warm room.

## Where do ladybird / ladybugs live?
Ladybird / Ladybugs live in Worldwide except polar regions, Gardens, farmland, hedgerows, woodland and grassland. Ladybirds (family Coccinellidae) are beetles — around 6,000 species — whose adults and larvae are mostly predators of aphids and scale insects; spot number indicates species, not age, and the invasive harlequin ladybird is displacing natives in Europe and North America.

## Are ladybird / ladybugs dangerous?
Ladybird / Ladybugs are not generally dangerous to people. Ladybirds (family Coccinellidae) are beetles — around 6,000 species — whose adults and larvae are mostly predators of aphids and scale insects; spot number indicates species, not age, and the invasive harlequin ladybird is displacing natives in Europe and North America. Give wild individuals space and do not corner or handle them.

## How long do ladybird / ladybugs live?
A precise wild lifespan for ladybird / ladybugs is not firmly established in the sources cited on this guide. Ladybirds (family Coccinellidae) are beetles — around 6,000 species — whose adults and larvae are mostly predators of aphids and scale insects; spot number indicates species, not age, and the invasive harlequin ladybird is displacing natives in Europe and North America. Where longevity figures appear in the literature they vary by region, sex and whether animals are wild or captive.

## How big is a ladybird / ladybug?
A Ladybird / Ladybug is about 1–10 mm depending on species. Ladybirds (family Coccinellidae) are beetles — around 6,000 species — whose adults and larvae are mostly predators of aphids and scale insects; spot number indicates species, not age, and the invasive harlequin ladybird is displacing natives in Europe and North America.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/praying-mantis): Praying Mantis — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
Praying mantises are ambush-predator insects of the order Mantodea — about 2,400 species — with stereoscopic 3D vision, a head that rotates roughly 180 degrees, and spined forelegs that snap shut on prey in around 50–70 milliseconds.

## Introduction
Mantises are ambush predators of the order Mantodea, named for the folded raptorial forelegs that give them a prayerful posture. They are the only insects with true stereoscopic vision — genuine depth perception used to judge a strike — and among very few that can rotate the head to look behind without moving the body.

The strike itself takes around 50–70 milliseconds, far faster than the human eye can follow. Spined forelegs snap shut and hold the prey while the mantis eats it alive, usually head first. The rest of the animal is built for not being seen: leaf mimics, flower mimics, bark mimics and stick mimics have all evolved within the order.

## Takeaway
Mantises are the only insects with true stereoscopic vision, used to judge striking distance.

## Takeaway
The strike takes around 50–70 milliseconds — too fast to follow by eye.

## Takeaway
Many species have a single ultrasound-sensitive ear in the middle of the thorax to detect hunting bats.

## Takeaway
Sexual cannibalism is real but far from universal and is much commoner in captivity than in the wild.

## Takeaway
Females lay eggs in a foam case (ootheca) that hardens to protect them over winter.

## Takeaway
Mantises are generalist predators — they eat pest and beneficial insects alike, so they are poor targeted pest control.

## Built to ambush
A mantis hunts by staying still. Camouflage does most of the work — species mimic leaves, twigs, bark, lichen and, in the orchid mantis, flowers convincingly enough to attract pollinators directly to the predator. When prey moves into range, the mantis judges distance with stereoscopic vision and strikes.

The forelegs are femur-and-tibia traps lined with spines that interlock as they close. Because the strike outruns most escape reflexes, capture rates are high. Mantises take insects, spiders and, in larger species, occasionally small vertebrates such as lizards and hummingbirds.

## Senses: 3D vision and a bat detector
Mantis stereopsis works differently from ours. Experiments using tiny prisms over mantis eyes showed the insects track relative motion between the two eyes' images rather than matching static detail — a computationally cheaper form of depth perception that works on moving prey.

Many species also carry a single tympanal ear in a groove on the underside of the thorax, tuned to the ultrasonic frequencies of hunting bats. A mantis that hears a bat mid-flight goes into a steep spiral dive. Having one ear rather than two means it can detect a bat but not locate it — enough to trigger evasion.

## Reproduction and the cannibalism story
Sexual cannibalism happens: a female may seize and eat the male before, during or after mating, and there is evidence that the nutrition gained can increase egg production. But its frequency is routinely exaggerated. Field estimates vary widely by species and condition, and rates are far higher in small captive enclosures where the male cannot retreat.

Females lay eggs in a frothy secretion that hardens into an ootheca, a protective case attached to a stem, wall or bark, holding tens to hundreds of eggs. Nymphs emerge looking like miniature adults and grow through successive moults without a pupal stage — incomplete metamorphosis.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/praying-mantis): Praying Mantis — wildlife guide.

## Mantises in the pet trade and the garden
Mantises are among the most commonly kept invertebrate pets, and captive breeding is well established for popular species. Welfare basics are unglamorous but decisive: correct temperature and humidity for the species, enough vertical height to hang and moult (a mantis that cannot hang freely will moult badly and may die), appropriately sized live prey, and no cohousing of species that will eat each other.

In the garden, mantises are sometimes sold as biological pest control. They are not selective. A mantis eats whatever it can catch, including bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects, so it is a poor tool for targeted control — though a welcome sign of a garden with enough insect life to support a top invertebrate predator.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free, sourced species education including the welfare needs of animals kept in captivity. Invertebrate pets are widely sold with almost no husbandry guidance, and simple facts — such as a mantis needing vertical space to moult safely — prevent a large share of avoidable deaths.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/praying-mantis): Praying Mantis — wildlife guide.

## Do female praying mantises always eat the male?
No. Sexual cannibalism occurs in a number of species and can boost egg production, but it is far from universal. Reported rates vary widely between species and situations, and are much higher in small captive enclosures, where the male has no room to escape, than in the wild.

## Can a praying mantis really turn its head all the way round?
It can rotate its head roughly 180 degrees — a flexible neck joint that is very unusual among insects — but not a full circle. This lets it scan for prey and predators without moving its body and breaking its camouflage.

## Do praying mantises have good eyesight?
Yes, exceptionally so for an insect. Mantises are the only insects known to have true stereoscopic vision, giving them genuine depth perception. Their version works by tracking motion differences between the two eyes rather than matching static detail.

## Are praying mantises dangerous to humans?
No. They have no venom and no sting. A large mantis can deliver a startling pinch with its spined forelegs if handled roughly, but it cannot meaningfully injure a person.

## What do praying mantises eat?
Sexual cannibalism happens: a female may seize and eat the male before, during or after mating, and there is evidence that the nutrition gained can increase egg production. Praying mantises are ambush-predator insects of the order Mantodea — about 2,400 species — with stereoscopic 3D vision, a head that rotates roughly 180 degrees, and spined forelegs that snap shut on prey in around 50–70 milliseconds.

## Are praying mantises good for pest control?
Not in a targeted way. Mantises are generalist ambush predators that eat beneficial insects such as bees and butterflies as readily as pests, and they do not stay where they are released. They are a good indicator of a garden rich in insect life rather than a control method.

## Where do praying mantis / mantids live?
Praying Mantis / Mantids live in Tropical and temperate regions worldwide, Richest in the tropics; several species widely traded as pets. Praying mantises are ambush-predator insects of the order Mantodea — about 2,400 species — with stereoscopic 3D vision, a head that rotates roughly 180 degrees, and spined forelegs that snap shut on prey in around 50–70 milliseconds.

## How long do praying mantis / mantids live?
A precise wild lifespan for praying mantis / mantids is not firmly established in the sources cited on this guide. Praying mantises are ambush-predator insects of the order Mantodea — about 2,400 species — with stereoscopic 3D vision, a head that rotates roughly 180 degrees, and spined forelegs that snap shut on prey in around 50–70 milliseconds. Where longevity figures appear in the literature they vary by region, sex and whether animals are wild or captive.

## How big is a praying mantis / mantid?
Praying mantises are ambush-predator insects of the order Mantodea — about 2,400 species — with stereoscopic 3D vision, a head that rotates roughly 180 degrees, and spined forelegs that snap shut on prey in around 50–70 milliseconds.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/scorpion): Scorpion — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
Scorpions are arachnids of the order Scorpiones — about 2,500 species — that have existed for over 430 million years, fluoresce under ultraviolet light, and give birth to live young; only around 25 species have venom dangerous to humans.

## Introduction
Scorpions are arachnids — relatives of spiders, ticks and mites — with a body plan that has barely changed since the Silurian, more than 430 million years ago. Grasping pedipalps at the front, a segmented tail carrying a venomous stinger at the back, book lungs for breathing, and a cuticle that fluoresces bright blue-green under ultraviolet light for reasons still debated.

Roughly 2,500 species are described. Almost all are nocturnal ambush predators of insects and other invertebrates, and almost all are medically trivial to humans: of the full order, only around 25 species have venom capable of killing a healthy adult. The reputation vastly outruns the risk.

## Takeaway
Scorpions are arachnids, not insects — eight legs, two body regions, no antennae and no wings.

## Takeaway
All scorpions fluoresce blue-green under UV light; the function is still not settled.

## Takeaway
Every species is venomous, but only around 25 are dangerous to healthy adults.

## Takeaway
As a rule of thumb, large claws and a thin tail signal lower risk; small claws and a thick tail signal higher risk.

## Takeaway
Scorpions give birth to live young, which ride on the mother's back until their first moult.

## Takeaway
Some species survive a year without food and months without water — an extreme low-metabolism strategy.

## An ancient, conservative body plan
Scorpions appear in the fossil record over 430 million years ago and are recognisably scorpions from the start. The design — pincered pedipalps for grasping, a flexible metasoma ending in a telson and stinger, comb-like pectines on the underside for sensing substrate texture and chemistry — has needed very little revision.

They breathe with book lungs, detect airborne and substrate vibration through fine sensory hairs and slit organs in the leg cuticle, and hunt largely by touch and vibration rather than sight. Most species have poor vision despite having several pairs of eyes.

## Venom, and the risk in proportion
Scorpion venom is a complex mixture of neurotoxic peptides, tuned in most species to subdue invertebrate prey. For the great majority of scorpions, a sting to a human produces local pain, swelling and numbness comparable to a wasp sting.

A small number — mostly in the family Buthidae, including Androctonus, Leiurus, Centruroides and Tityus — carry venom that is medically significant, and scorpion envenomation is a genuine public-health issue in parts of North Africa, the Middle East, Mexico, Brazil and India, particularly for children. The rough guide is anatomical: heavy claws and a slender tail suggest a scorpion that subdues prey mechanically; slender claws and a thick, muscular tail suggest one that relies on potent venom.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/scorpion): Scorpion — wildlife guide.

## Reproduction and maternal care
Scorpion courtship involves the promenade à deux, in which the male grasps the female's pedipalps and manoeuvres her over a spermatophore he has deposited on the ground. Gestation is long — months to over a year in some species — and all scorpions are viviparous, giving birth to live young rather than laying eggs.

The newborn scorplings climb onto the mother's back and stay there until their first moult, protected and kept from desiccating. This level of maternal care is rare among arthropods and is one reason scorpion reproductive rates are low.

## Survival strategy, and the pet trade
Scorpions are extreme energy minimisers. Many can lower their metabolic rate to a fraction of the arthropod norm, surviving a year without food and long periods without free water, which is what makes them so successful in deserts. It also makes them slow to recover from population losses.

They are widely kept as pets, with emperor scorpions and related large species dominating the trade. The species is CITES Appendix II listed, largely because of collection pressure. Welfare needs are simple but non-negotiable: correct substrate depth for burrowing, appropriate humidity and heat gradient, secure housing and undisturbed moulting. Handling is unnecessary, stressful for the animal and the main cause of stings to keepers.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free, sourced species education for the animals people fear as well as the ones they love. Fear-driven killing is a real conservation pressure on scorpions, snakes and spiders, and accurate information about which species actually pose a risk is the most effective thing that changes behaviour.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/scorpion): Scorpion — wildlife guide.

## Are scorpions insects?
No. Scorpions are arachnids, in the same class as spiders, ticks and mites. They have eight legs, two body regions and no antennae or wings; insects have six legs, three body regions and usually antennae and wings.

## How dangerous are scorpions?
Far less than their reputation suggests. All scorpions are venomous, but of roughly 2,500 species only around 25 have venom capable of killing a healthy adult. Most stings cause localised pain and swelling similar to a wasp sting. Serious envenomation is a real public-health problem in specific regions, particularly for children.

## Why do scorpions glow under UV light?
A compound in the hyaline layer of the cuticle fluoresces blue-green under ultraviolet light. The function is unresolved — proposed explanations include helping the scorpion detect light levels to decide whether to surface, confusing prey, or being a by-product of cuticle chemistry with no function at all.

## How can you tell if a scorpion is dangerous?
As a rough guide, scorpions with large heavy pincers and a slender tail subdue prey mechanically and tend to have weaker venom; those with slender pincers and a thick, muscular tail rely on potent venom. It is a guideline, not a rule — identify the species where possible, and treat any sting in a high-risk region as medical.

## Do scorpions lay eggs?
No. All scorpions give birth to live young. The newborn scorplings climb onto their mother's back and stay there until their first moult, which is unusually developed parental care for an arthropod.

## Where do scorpions live?
Scorpions live in Every continent except Antarctica, Deserts, grassland, forest, caves and mountains, Absent from New Zealand and most far-northern latitudes. Scorpions are arachnids of the order Scorpiones — about 2,500 species — that have existed for over 430 million years, fluoresce under ultraviolet light, and give birth to live young; only around 25 species have venom dangerous to humans.

## How long do scorpions live?
A precise wild lifespan for scorpions is not firmly established in the sources cited on this guide. Scorpions are arachnids of the order Scorpiones — about 2,500 species — that have existed for over 430 million years, fluoresce under ultraviolet light, and give birth to live young; only around 25 species have venom dangerous to humans. Where longevity figures appear in the literature they vary by region, sex and whether animals are wild or captive.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/snail): Snail — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
Snails are shelled gastropod molluscs living on land, in fresh water and in the sea; they move on a single muscular foot, feed with a toothed radula, and land snails account for more documented modern extinctions than any other animal group.

## Introduction
Snails are shelled gastropod molluscs, found on land, in fresh water and throughout the sea. The body plan is simple and effective: a coiled calcium-carbonate shell, a single muscular foot that glides on secreted mucus, eyes on retractable stalks in land species, and a radula — a ribbon of chitinous teeth used to rasp food.

They are also, quietly, the group hit hardest by modern extinction. Land snails on oceanic islands and isolated limestone outcrops evolve into narrow-range endemics, and introduced rats, ants and predatory snails have wiped out enormous numbers of them. More recorded animal extinctions since 1500 involve molluscs than any other group.

## Takeaway
Snails and slugs are both gastropods — slugs are essentially snails whose shell has been reduced or lost.

## Takeaway
The radula is a toothed ribbon; a garden snail may carry thousands of teeth, continuously replaced.

## Takeaway
Most land snails are hermaphrodites, and each individual can produce eggs.

## Takeaway
Shells are built from dietary calcium, so snails are scarce on calcium-poor soils.

## Takeaway
Molluscs account for a disproportionate share of documented modern extinctions, mostly island land snails.

## Takeaway
Slug pellets containing metaldehyde poison predators up the chain; barriers, timing and tolerance work better.

## How a snail is built
The shell is secreted by the mantle from calcium carbonate and grows with the animal, adding material at the aperture in a logarithmic spiral. Because the shell is made from dietary calcium, land snails are abundant on chalk and limestone and scarce on acidic, calcium-poor ground.

Movement comes from waves of muscular contraction running along the single foot, lubricated by mucus that also seals moisture in and helps the animal cross rough or sharp surfaces. Land snails carry eyes at the tips of the upper tentacles and chemosensory organs on the lower pair; aquatic snails generally have eyes at the tentacle bases.

## The radula
Instead of jaws, gastropods feed with a radula — a flexible ribbon carrying rows of chitinous teeth that rasps material into the mouth. Tooth number runs into the thousands in some species, and the ribbon is continuously produced at the back as the front wears away.

Radula shape tracks diet, and gastropod diets are extraordinarily varied: algae grazers, leaf eaters, detritivores, filter feeders, and predators. Cone snails have modified the radula into a hollow, harpoon-like tooth used to inject venom into fish — venom now studied intensively for pain medicine.

## Reproduction and dormancy
Most land snails are simultaneous hermaphrodites, carrying both male and female organs. Courtship can be elaborate, and in some species includes firing a calcareous 'love dart' into the partner, which improves the sender's sperm survival. After mating, both individuals may lay eggs, usually in a shallow chamber in damp soil.

When conditions turn hostile, land snails seal the shell aperture with a mucus membrane — an epiphragm — and go dormant: aestivation in heat and drought, hibernation in cold. Some species can hold that state for months or, in desert species, far longer.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/snail): Snail — wildlife guide.

## The extinction record nobody talks about
Land snails are extremely prone to becoming narrow-range endemics: poor dispersers, tied to specific microhabitats, isolated on islands and limestone hills. That makes them exceptionally vulnerable. Introduced rats, ants and flatworms, habitat clearance, limestone quarrying and — notoriously — the deliberate introduction of the predatory rosy wolfsnail as a failed biological control, have driven very large numbers of species to extinction, particularly in Hawai'i and French Polynesia.

Molluscs make up roughly 40% of documented animal extinctions since 1500, overwhelmingly land snails, and the true figure is almost certainly higher because many species were never described before disappearing. A handful of Partula tree snails survive only because captive populations were established in zoos before their islands were overrun.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free, sourced species education across the whole of animal life. The animals that carry the heaviest extinction burden are rarely the ones that attract attention, and land snails are the clearest example: enormous losses, almost no public profile, and a well-documented history of harm caused by badly assessed biological control.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/snail): Snail — wildlife guide.

## What is the difference between a snail and a slug?
Both are gastropod molluscs. Snails carry an external coiled shell they can withdraw into; slugs have lost the external shell or reduced it to a small internal plate. Slugs are not a single group — shell loss has evolved repeatedly in different snail lineages.

## Do snails have teeth?
Yes, thousands of them, on a ribbon-like structure called the radula rather than in jaws. The teeth rasp food into the mouth and are continuously replaced as they wear down.

## How long do snails live?
Garden snails typically live two to five years. Some larger land snails reach ten or more, and certain deep-sea and freshwater species live considerably longer.

## Are snails male or female?
Most land snails are simultaneous hermaphrodites with both male and female reproductive organs, so two mating snails can each go on to lay eggs. Many marine snails have separate sexes.

## Are snails dangerous?
Snails are not generally dangerous to people. Snails are shelled gastropod molluscs living on land, in fresh water and in the sea; they move on a single muscular foot, feed with a toothed radula, and land snails account for more documented modern extinctions than any other animal group. Give wild individuals space and do not corner or handle them.

## How big is a snail?
Snails are shelled gastropod molluscs living on land, in fresh water and in the sea; they move on a single muscular foot, feed with a toothed radula, and land snails account for more documented modern extinctions than any other animal group.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/moth): Moth — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
Moths are the roughly 160,000 lepidopteran species that are not butterflies; most fly at night, they carry out substantial unrecorded pollination, and their caterpillars are the primary food for nestling birds.

## Introduction
Moths are, numerically, what Lepidoptera actually is: roughly 160,000 described species against about 19,000 butterflies, and probably several times that number still undescribed. They are not a natural group — 'moth' simply means every lepidopteran branch that is not a butterfly — which is why no clean rule separates the two.

Most fly at night, navigating by scent and celestial cues, and carry out a large share of pollination that goes unrecorded because nobody is watching after dark. Their caterpillars are the single most important food source for insectivorous birds raising chicks. Where moth numbers fall, bird breeding success follows.

## Takeaway
Moths outnumber butterflies roughly nine to one and do not form a single taxonomic group.

## Takeaway
Male moths locate females by pheromone, in some species from many kilometres away.

## Takeaway
Night-flying moths are significant pollinators, particularly of pale, strongly scented flowers.

## Takeaway
Moth caterpillars are the primary protein source for most nestling songbirds.

## Takeaway
Artificial light at night disrupts moth navigation, feeding and breeding — a well-evidenced driver of decline.

## Takeaway
Only a handful of species damage clothing, and it is the larvae, not the adults, that feed on fibres.

## Why 'moth' is not a real group
Lepidoptera splits into many lineages. Butterflies (Papilionoidea) form one of them; everything else gets called a moth. That means moths are a paraphyletic grab-bag, and the familiar distinguishing rules — night flight, feathery antennae, wings held flat, drab colour — all have abundant exceptions.

Day-flying moths are common and often brilliantly coloured. Some moths have clubbed antennae. Plenty of butterflies are dull brown. The only reliable approach is family-level identification, which is why moth recording is a specialist skill and why so many species remain unrecorded.

## Navigating and finding a mate in the dark
Male moths of many species detect female pheromones with enormous feathery antennae carrying tens of thousands of receptors, tracking a scent plume upwind over distances that can exceed several kilometres. It is among the most sensitive chemical detection systems known in animals.

Flight orientation uses celestial cues, and this is where artificial light causes damage. A moth holding a constant angle to a distant light source flies straight; the same behaviour around a nearby lamp produces the spiral that ends at the bulb. Light pollution keeps moths circling instead of feeding, mating and dispersing, and concentrates them for predators — one of the better-evidenced mechanisms behind documented moth declines.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/moth): Moth — wildlife guide.

## The night shift, and the bird-food question
Moths pollinate a substantial number of plants, favouring pale, tubular, night-scented flowers — honeysuckle, evening primrose, jasmine, tobacco plant. Because pollination studies have historically run in daylight, this contribution has been consistently underestimated; pollen-load studies on moths have shown far wider plant networks than expected.

The bigger ecological role is as food. Nestling songbirds are fed almost entirely on caterpillars, and moth larvae make up the bulk. A single pair of blue tits may deliver several thousand caterpillars to one brood. Declines in moth abundance propagate straight into bird breeding success, which is why farmland bird trends and moth trends track one another.

## Clothes moths, and moths in the garden
Of roughly 160,000 species, a very small number damage textiles — principally the common clothes moth and the case-bearing clothes moth. The adults do not eat fabric at all; the larvae do, feeding on keratin in wool, silk, fur and feathers. Control is physical: cleaning, freezing, sealed storage and disruption, since larvae favour undisturbed, soiled material.

For everything else, moths are worth encouraging. Night-scented flowers, a long unmown season, native trees and shrubs for larvae, leaf litter left in place for pupae, and — the cheapest single intervention — turning off or shielding outdoor lighting and using warm-toned, downward-directed lamps.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free, sourced species education across the whole of animal life, including the groups that carry ecosystems without ever attracting attention. Moth decline is a quiet driver of visible bird decline, and light pollution is one of the very few conservation problems an individual household can meaningfully reduce overnight.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/moth): Moth — wildlife guide.

## What is the difference between a moth and a butterfly?
There is no strict biological line. Butterflies are one branch of the order Lepidoptera; 'moths' are all the other branches, so moths are not a single group. The usual rules — moths fly at night, have feathery antennae and rest with wings flat — have many exceptions in both directions.

## Why are moths attracted to light?
Moths navigate by holding a constant angle to distant celestial light. A nearby artificial lamp is not distant, so maintaining that angle produces an inward spiral. The behaviour is a navigation system being exploited by a light source it did not evolve to handle.

## Are moths important pollinators?
Yes, and more so than long assumed. Night-flying moths pollinate many pale, strongly scented flowers, and studies of pollen carried on moths reveal far broader plant networks than daytime observation suggests. Their contribution has been systematically underestimated because pollination surveys mostly run in daylight.

## Do moths eat clothes?
Only a handful of species, and it is the larvae that feed, not the adults. Clothes moth caterpillars digest keratin in wool, silk, fur and feathers. The great majority of moth species have no interest in textiles whatsoever.

## Where do moths live?
Moths live in Worldwide except Antarctica, From Arctic tundra to tropical rainforest and deserts. Moths are the roughly 160,000 lepidopteran species that are not butterflies; most fly at night, they carry out substantial unrecorded pollination, and their caterpillars are the primary food for nestling birds.

## Are moths dangerous?
Moths are not generally dangerous to people. Moths are the roughly 160,000 lepidopteran species that are not butterflies; most fly at night, they carry out substantial unrecorded pollination, and their caterpillars are the primary food for nestling birds. Give wild individuals space and do not corner or handle them.

## How long do moths live?
A precise wild lifespan for moths is not firmly established in the sources cited on this guide. Moths are the roughly 160,000 lepidopteran species that are not butterflies; most fly at night, they carry out substantial unrecorded pollination, and their caterpillars are the primary food for nestling birds. Where longevity figures appear in the literature they vary by region, sex and whether animals are wild or captive.

## How big is a moth?
A Moth is about ~30 cm (white witch, Thysania agrippina). Moths are the roughly 160,000 lepidopteran species that are not butterflies; most fly at night, they carry out substantial unrecorded pollination, and their caterpillars are the primary food for nestling birds.

## What do moths eat?
The adults do not eat fabric at all; the larvae do, feeding on keratin in wool, silk, fur and feathers. Moths are the roughly 160,000 lepidopteran species that are not butterflies; most fly at night, they carry out substantial unrecorded pollination, and their caterpillars are the primary food for nestling birds.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/wasp): Wasp — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
Wasps are hymenopteran insects — over 100,000 species — of which the great majority are tiny solitary parasitoids; social wasps such as yellowjackets are a small minority that act as major predators of pest insects and as pollinators.

## Introduction
Almost everything most people believe about wasps describes about a dozen species. The order contains more than 100,000 described wasps, and the overwhelming majority are tiny, solitary, stingless-to-humans parasitoids that spend their lives finding a single host insect in which to lay an egg.

The familiar yellow-and-black social wasps — yellowjackets and hornets in the family Vespidae — are a small, conspicuous minority. They are also serious predators: a medium-sized colony removes many thousands of caterpillars, flies and aphids from a garden over a season, and the same colony pollinates while foraging for sugar. The late-summer nuisance behaviour that shapes their reputation is the tail end of a colony cycle, not the whole animal.

## Takeaway
Over 99% of wasp species are solitary, and most are parasitoids that never interact with people.

## Takeaway
Social wasp colonies are annual: workers die in autumn and only mated queens overwinter.

## Takeaway
Wasps are significant predators of caterpillars, aphids and flies, and are also pollinators.

## Takeaway
Fig wasps and figs have a mutual dependency — no fig wasps, no figs.

## Takeaway
Only female wasps sting; the sting is a modified ovipositor, which is why males cannot.

## Takeaway
Late-summer 'aggression' is a colony with no brood left to feed, switching to sugar sources.

## The 99% nobody sees
Most wasps are parasitoids: a female locates a specific host — a caterpillar, aphid, beetle larva, spider or egg mass — and lays an egg in or on it. The larva develops by consuming the host. Many are under a few millimetres long, and some of the smallest insects known are parasitoid wasps.

This makes wasps a foundational regulator of insect populations. Agricultural biological control relies heavily on them, with species such as Trichogramma and Encarsia reared commercially by the billion. Remove parasitoid wasps and herbivorous insect populations increase sharply — an outcome measured wherever broad-spectrum insecticides have wiped them out.

## How a social wasp colony runs
In spring a single overwintered queen starts a nest alone, chewing wood into paper pulp, building the first cells and raising the first workers herself. Those workers take over foraging and construction, and the colony grows through summer, reaching hundreds or thousands of individuals.

Throughout that growth phase, workers hunt protein — caterpillars, flies, aphids — to feed the larvae, and in exchange the larvae secrete a sugary fluid the adults consume. In late summer the colony produces new queens and males, brood rearing stops, and the sugar supply from larvae ends. Workers, now with no purpose and no larval sugar, go looking for it in fallen fruit, drinks and bins. That is the entirety of the 'wasps get aggressive in September' phenomenon.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/wasp): Wasp — wildlife guide.

## Figs, pollination and mutualism
Fig wasps (family Agaonidae) and fig trees are locked into one of the tightest mutualisms known. A fig is an inverted flower cluster; a female fig wasp enters through a narrow opening, usually losing her wings and antennae doing so, pollinates the flowers inside, lays eggs and dies. Her offspring mature inside the fig, mate, and the females leave carrying pollen to the next tree.

Most of the roughly 900 fig species depend on a specific wasp species, and those wasps depend entirely on their fig. Figs are a keystone food resource for tropical birds, bats and primates, which makes this obscure partnership between a tiny wasp and a tree one of the load-bearing relationships in tropical forest ecology.

## Living alongside them
Wasps sting defensively — around the nest, or when trapped against skin. Unlike honey bees they can sting repeatedly, since the sting is not barbed. Only females have one, because it is a modified egg-laying organ.

Practical coexistence is straightforward: keep bins closed and sweet drinks covered in late summer, do not swat (crushed wasps release alarm pheromone that recruits nestmates), move away calmly, and leave nests alone unless they are genuinely in a high-traffic location. Nests are not reused the following year, so an out-of-the-way nest can simply be left until the colony dies naturally in autumn.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free, sourced species education for the animals people are most inclined to kill on sight. Wasps do a substantial share of the predation and pollination that keeps gardens and farmland functioning, and the gap between their reputation and their record is one of the widest in the animal world.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/wasp): Wasp — wildlife guide.

## What is the point of wasps?
Wasps are major predators of pest insects — a single social colony removes thousands of caterpillars, aphids and flies in a season — and they pollinate while foraging. The 100,000-plus solitary parasitoid species regulate insect populations across every terrestrial ecosystem, and fig wasps are the sole pollinators of figs, a keystone tropical food resource.

## Why do wasps get aggressive in late summer?
Social wasp colonies stop rearing brood in late summer. Until then, workers were fed a sugary secretion by the larvae they cared for. When that stops, workers seek sugar elsewhere — fallen fruit, drinks, bins — which brings them into contact with people. The behaviour is hunger and colony collapse, not increased aggression.

## Are all wasps able to sting?
No. Only females can sting, because the sting is a modified ovipositor. Most of the world's wasp species are tiny parasitoids whose ovipositor is used to lay eggs in host insects and cannot penetrate human skin.

## What is the difference between a wasp and a bee?
Bees evolved from wasps and switched to feeding their young on pollen and nectar; wasps feed their young on animal protein. Bees are generally hairier, with branched hairs that carry pollen; wasps are smoother and more sharply waisted. Both belong to the order Hymenoptera.

## Do wasps reuse their nests?
No. In temperate regions a paper wasp or yellowjacket nest is used for a single season. The colony dies in autumn, only mated queens survive the winter, and each builds a new nest in spring. An old nest can be removed safely once the colony has died.

## What do wasps eat?
Wasps eat Animal protein, unlike bees. Wasps are hymenopteran insects — over 100,000 species — of which the great majority are tiny solitary parasitoids; social wasps such as yellowjackets are a small minority that act as major predators of pest insects and as pollinators.

## Where do wasps live?
Wasps live in Worldwide except polar regions, Every terrestrial habitat; some species introduced far outside their native range. Wasps are hymenopteran insects — over 100,000 species — of which the great majority are tiny solitary parasitoids; social wasps such as yellowjackets are a small minority that act as major predators of pest insects and as pollinators.

## How long do wasps live?
A precise wild lifespan for wasps is not firmly established in the sources cited on this guide. Wasps are hymenopteran insects — over 100,000 species — of which the great majority are tiny solitary parasitoids; social wasps such as yellowjackets are a small minority that act as major predators of pest insects and as pollinators. Where longevity figures appear in the literature they vary by region, sex and whether animals are wild or captive.

## How big is a wasp?
Common wasps measure about 12–17 mm. The Asian giant hornet, the largest wasp, reaches around 4.5 cm with a 7.5 cm wingspan, while the smallest parasitic wasps are under 0.2 mm — smaller than some single-celled organisms.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/barn-owl): Barn Owl — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The barn owl (Tyto alba) is a pale, heart-faced owl found on every continent except Antarctica; it hunts almost entirely by sound, using asymmetric ear openings and a facial disc to locate prey it cannot see, and flies almost silently.

## Introduction
The barn owl is one of the most widespread land birds in the world, found on every continent except Antarctica. Pale, heart-faced and almost silent in flight, it hunts low over rough grassland at dusk, locating voles beneath vegetation and even beneath snow using hearing alone.

That hunting method depends on two adaptations. Its facial disc funnels sound to ear openings set at different heights on each side of the skull, so the bird can pinpoint a sound source vertically as well as horizontally. And the comb-like leading edge of its flight feathers breaks up the air turbulence that makes wingbeats audible — silence that protects both the hunt and its own hearing.

## Takeaway
Barn owls locate prey by sound alone and can catch voles hidden under vegetation or snow.

## Takeaway
Their ear openings sit at different heights, giving vertical as well as horizontal sound location.

## Takeaway
Fringed flight feathers break up turbulence, making the flight almost silent.

## Takeaway
A breeding pair may take around 3,000 small mammals in a year — significant natural rodent control.

## Takeaway
The barn owl screeches; it does not hoot. The classic hoot belongs to the tawny owl.

## Takeaway
Second-generation rodenticides accumulate in barn owls and are a documented cause of death.

## Hearing built for hunting in the dark
The barn owl's heart-shaped facial disc is a sound collector, funnelling noise towards the ear openings hidden at its edges. Crucially those openings are asymmetric — one sits higher than the other — so a sound arriving from above reaches one ear marginally before the other. The bird reads that difference as elevation, and the left-right difference as bearing, giving it a full three-dimensional fix on a rustle in the grass.

Laboratory work established that barn owls can strike prey accurately in total darkness. In the field this means a bird can take a vole moving under a layer of vegetation or snow, having never seen it at all.

## Silent flight, and what it costs
Barn owl flight feathers carry a comb-like fringe on the leading edge and a soft, velvety upper surface. Together these break large air vortices into smaller ones and damp the sound of feathers sliding over one another, cutting the noise of flight to near nothing.

Silence serves twice: prey gets no warning, and the owl's own hearing is not masked by its wingbeats. The trade-off is that the soft feather structure sheds water poorly, so barn owls hunt badly in sustained rain and can be grounded by prolonged wet weather — a real cause of winter mortality.

## Farmland, and why numbers fall
Barn owls need rough, tussocky grassland holding field voles, plus cavities for nesting. Modern farmland often supplies neither: grass margins are cut short or ploughed out, old barns are converted, and mature hollow trees are removed.

Second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides are the other major pressure. A poisoned rodent stays active and easy to catch for days, so it is exactly the prey an owl is most likely to take. The compounds accumulate in the liver, and post-mortem surveys in several countries have found residues in a large majority of barn owls tested. Road collisions add to it — verges are good vole habitat, so owls hunt beside fast traffic.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/barn-owl): Barn Owl — wildlife guide.

## What actually helps a barn owl
Leave rough grass margins uncut through winter, which is where the voles are. Put up a correctly sited nest box — high, sheltered, facing away from prevailing weather, and away from major roads. Switch to trapping or first-generation compounds rather than second-generation rodenticides, and never leave poisoned carcasses accessible.

Barn owls will use a well-placed box readily, and a single pair is a substantial and free rodent-control service. The limiting factor is almost always food and nest sites together — a box in a landscape with no rough grass will stay empty.

## WARN work
WARN publishes free, sourced species education covering the wildlife people live alongside as well as distant flagship species. Barn owls are a clear case where an everyday decision — which rodenticide to buy, whether to cut a field margin — decides whether a predator survives on that land.

## Donation hook
If this guide helps you understand wildlife and the pressures it faces, a gift to WARN supports habitat protection and free public education in our partner countries.