Ecology & Zoology

The Puny Crayfish Bluff Strategy- How Do They Get Away With It?

Puny Crayfish may have big claws for show but they can't really use them- their muscles are actually weaker than females with smaller claws. So why does it work?  A group of scientists writing in The Journal of Experimental Biology set out to discover ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 1 2009 - 10:02am

Psychedelica- A Fish Aging Hipsters Can Love (And You Can Too)

"Psychedelica" seems the perfect name for a species of fish that is a wild swirl of tan and peach zebra stripes and behaves in ways contrary to its brethren, says University of Washington’s Ted Pietsch, first to describe the new species in the sc ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 1 2009 - 10:50am

Those Crafty Cephalopods...

An octopus flooded the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium (note the link on the 2nd page to a video showing an octopus climbing through a very small hole- really cool if you haven't seen them in action before)!  And here's another take. ...

Blog Post - Mrs. H. - Mar 2 2009 - 10:48pm

Gosztonyia Antarctica- New Fish Discovered In The Bellingshausen Sea

A new species of Antarctic fish, Gosztonyia antarctica, has been discovered at a depth of 650 meters in the Bellingshausen Sea in the Antarctic Ocean, an area which had not been studied since 1904 and where the fauna is "completely" unknown. Jesú ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 7 2009 - 11:49am

Amazon Frogs Hopped Down From The Mountains 10 Million Years Ago

Colorful poison frogs in the Amazon owe their great diversity to ancestors that leapt into the region from the Andes Mountains several times during the last 10 million years, a new study from The University of Texas at Austin suggests. This is the first st ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 9 2009 - 10:18pm

Duck duck gay duck

Whether you follow the "duck, duck, gray duck" school of thought or are firmly ensconced within the "duck, duck, goose" camp, you probably agree that it takes a male and female duck to make a baby duck. Add another male and maybe you� ...

Blog Post - Becky Jungbauer - Mar 11 2009 - 9:36pm

Female Antbirds Are Literal Cock-Blockers

When a single female antbird is nearby, those with male partners will sing over the songs of their betrothed in an apparent attempt to keep their messages from getting through, according to a new report in Current Biology. Males, of course, then change the ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 12 2009 - 12:33pm

Cretaceous Octopus With Ink And Suckers-- The World's Least Likely Fossils?

New finds of 95 million year old fossils reveal much earlier origins of modern octopuses. These are among the rarest and unlikeliest of fossils. The chances of an octopus corpse surviving long enough to be fossilized are so small that prior to this discov ...

Article - News Releases - Dec 22 2012 - 12:00pm

the coolest thing I saw at the Natural History Museum today....

was a  SEA PIG!  (Sorry, giant squid. Maybe next time.) This cool critter is an Echinoderm, which means it's related to sea stars, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers.  Despite several months studying invertebrates with my Marine Science class this year, I ...

Blog Post - Mrs. H. - Mar 19 2009 - 8:57am

How Do Bats Land? Well, That's Complicated...

People have always been fascinated by bats, but mostly in their erratic flying and their bizarre habit of sleeping upside down.    But landing with bad eyesight is not so easy either and a research team is the first to document the landing approaches of th ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 20 2009 - 9:20am