Ecology & Zoology

Artists, man! They'll cut a square of sod out of your front yard, stick it on the wall, and call it a masterpiece. No, but actually this is quite cool: Film is said to be a dying medium, and…

One of the most exciting things about working with kids on science is that suddenly you have a dozen curious and eager eyes, much sharper than yours and much closer to the ground, who are alert to…

Usually, you have to be insanely, insanely lucky to name a species. Not only that, after the ages spent finding and researching your animal, you then have the laborious process of getting your new…

Domesticated rice, Oryza sativa indica (indica) and Oryza sativa japonica (japonica), are major staple crops in Asia.   Evolutionary biologists and historians have long wondered if both…

My pal Julie Stewart tags Humboldt squid. She catches squid, attaches little recording devices to them, then drops them back in the ocean and waits for the tag to pop off a few days later. When it…

The diving bell spider, Argyroneta aquatica, spend their entire lives underwater - they even lay their eggs in their 'diving bells'. A new study shows that each spider constructs a net of silk in…

Wooo! I won a bloggy award thing from Steve Jackson Games! If you're not familiar with them, you should be. Zombies! Conspiracy! Cthulhu! What more could you ask for? Oh yeah, and hackers too.…

Last seen in 1898, the red-crested tree rat (or Santamartamys rufodorsalis) has turned up in an ecolodge at a nature reserve in Colombia. Showing up at the front door and calmly posing for pictures,…

Argh it's taking me longer than I thought to write this fisheries post! Quick a distraction--Did you know that June 1st was Kraken Day over at Deep Sea News? Go read all their posts! There was one…

Probably not. Unless you're a squid, octopus, or cuttlefish, in which case the answer is a definite maybe. It's long been accepted that cephalopods can't see color with their eyes, but in the last…