Ecology & Zoology

A key question in ecology is: who eats whom? This can be fairly straightforward to answer, by observing predatory or grazing activities, by opening up stomachs or sifting through feces, or even by…

Big squid news, in California at least: the state Department of Fish and Game announced that the fishery for California market squid is hitting its harvest limit and is scheduled to be closed on…

All this talking I've been doing about those nasty ol' sperm whales hunting down and devouring poor defenseless squid (okay, they're not quite defenseless, but still) might make you think I'm a whale…

Colors are not constant, they are relative and relatively speaking, bees see much differently than we do.Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London and Imperial College London have developed…

The mechanisms are used by plants when they extract water from very dry or inhospitable land could provide insight into how to do the same thing more efficiently for people. "In the case of mangrove…

Okay, this is really cool. It's an interdisciplinary project between biologists, mathematicians, and engineers to understand and, eventually, mimic cephalopod skin. One of Hanlon's many discoveries…

Back in October I wrote on the subject of the Kraken, stating rather emphatically and cantankerously that whales eat squid. It is a unidirectional ecological interaction. I received a very thoughtful…

Almost nothing in the ocean can resist eating squid. That includes the macaroni penguin, which "live almost entirely on krill" but "do supplement their krill diet with up to five percent squid." I…

More cephalopods in pop culture: not anime this time, but games! Mobile phone games, to be specific. "Squibble" sounds like a lot of fun: A mad scientist has captured your cutesy, albeit deranged-…

We instinctively know how to keep ourselves safe and so do other animals, according to neuroscientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.   University of Washington…