Ecology & Zoology

As a teaching assistant for the pilot section of Bio 44Y, I spend Wednesday afternoons accompanying 10 students of field ecology to Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. Only five miles from the main…

Squids, as I may have mentioned before, are the snacks of the sea. Everyone who can eat them, does. Whales. Sharks. Birds. Other squids. They're swimming tubes of protein with no scales or bones to…

I thought I'd write a compelling story about Humboldt squid and one of their favorite prey items, the lightfish Vinciguerria. These two creatures are quite the dynamic duo: one flashing like a red-…

I have always liked dolphins but I can't pinpoint why - maybe it was "Flipper" when I was a kid, it can't be "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" because a whale was saving the Earth in that one.…

No, I'm not suggesting that when a recession hits, you should go out and invest in squid fisheries. (But I'm not not saying that. I'm--oh, forget it.) Rather, in the words of my PhD advisor William…

The famous Northwest Passage has become infamous in recent years, as Arctic sea ice coverage shrinks and leaves an open waterway between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. We tend to…

A couple of curious squid stories have been peppering my news feed this weekend:First, a dried squid in Hawaii looked enough like a severed hand to get the homicide brigade called out to the beach.…

I really want a bumper sticker that says that, with this picture: Obviously the news CotS is up! Go check it out at the Artful Amoeba--it is seriously awesome. HONK.

The news finally broke last week, months after the first anxious reports of browning and dying trees near lawns and golf courses across America.  Unlike their wild cousins in the Rockies and…

Giant squid are pretty cool, right? If you want to see one (without having to go fishing) then you have a number of museums to choose from. Specimens and models are abundant enough that Indie Squid…