This story was updated May 4 at 1:15 p.m. EDT. The planet is crawling with critters, but scientists are meeting some of them only just now. During the past month, researchers have published studies on ...

Spiders might not be everyone’s favorite creature, but they provide a vital service to us all, every year consuming as much prey as all the world’s whales do. But the eight-legged critters don’t just ...