Ecology & Zoology

There's a paper out in ProcSoc B about aggressive mimicary, a very devious way to hunt by pretending to be prey or a mate, and then gobbling the hapless critter that comes to investigate. Here are…

. . . don't exist. But because it's finger squid season in Texas, I've been reading up on the closest approximation to a freshwater squid: the Atlantic brief squid, Lolliguncula brevis. It's a pretty…

Researchers have discovered a 525-million-year-old fossil which belongs to a group of tentacle-bearing creatures which lived inside hard tubes.  The creature belongs to a group called…

It's one of the most persistent problems in camouflage: how do you hide your eyes? Skin is not that difficult to disguise. You can change its color, cover it up, match it to your environment. But…

Tree islands, patches of high, dry ground a meter high that dot the marshes of the Florida Everglades, are elevated enough to allow trees to grow and provide a nesting site for alligators and a…

I'll confess it. Even though they're the divas of the ocean, the quintessential charismatic megafauna, even though they overshadow all the other weird and wonderful marine life, I still like whales.…

This is the best song I have heard all year. (Thanks to i'm a chordata! for the shout out.) I might even go so far as to say it's the best song I will hear all year. What could possibly be more…

Polar bears’ noses are phenomenal. They smell a seal’s fart through a light year of snow and ice or something like that. Polar bears are cute, strong, beautiful, pure awesomeness all the way. Come on…

My friend and colleague Judit Pungor, a graduate student in Stuart Thompson's lab at Stanford's marine station, drew the most amazing poster of how squids see: It's so adorable, and so educational.…

José Marian, the author of this paper about sperm injection, very kindly and promptly provided me with a copy. I began reading with an enthusiasm which only increased as I proceeded through the…