Ecology & Zoology

Hazel Dormice Wonder When To Have Kids Also

If a species´ reproductive strategy is evolutionarily adapted to the environmental constraints encountered by that species in its natural habitat, such as availability of food resources and predictability of the environment, and the aim generally is to pro ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 30 2012 - 8:30pm

The Tiniest Squid Is Also The Winningest Squid

I love four things about this story. First: there is an All England squid catching championship. Did you know that? I did not know that. Second: the weather this year was so bad the competitors were almost completely skunked. Almost. Third: This is the cut ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - May 3 2012 - 7:26pm

Pseudopulex Jurassicus: Giant Insects Annoyed Dinosaurs Also

Giant flea-like animals, possibly the oldest of their type ever discovered, bit creatures much larger than they are 165 million years ago- and lived to talk about it. These flea-like animals, were similar to modern fleas but 10 times the size of a flea you ...

Article - News Staff - May 4 2012 - 3:30am

Traumatic Insemination- How Bugs Get Over It

If bugs have their own Tori Amos, she is likely writing about sexual conflict and how reproduction exists at all given that it can be so costly, especially to females. One aspect of this conflict concerns how females respond to increased mating events that ...

Article - News Staff - May 9 2012 - 6:50pm

California Is The Benchmark For Sustainable Fishing- And Activists Want To Ruin That

More than 150 years ago, immigrant Chinese fishermen launched sampans into the chilly waters of Monterey Bay to capture squid. The Bay also lured fishermen from Sicily and other Mediterranean countries, who brought round-haul nets to fish for sardines. Th ...

Article - Steve Scheiblauer - May 15 2012 - 10:45am

Hatchery Salmon Versus Wild Salmon

A group of studies says  that salmon raised in man-made hatcheries can harm wild salmon through competition for food and habitat. Salmon, which survived millions of years of evolution, are in danger from...salmon. The studies provide new evidence that fast ...

Article - News Staff - May 16 2012 - 3:49pm

Eminent Squid Scientist Retires

My very first mentor in cephalopod research was Eric Hochberg at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. I think I was seventeen when he welcomed me into the museum's secret catacombs (at least, that's how I thought of them) of preserved spe ...

Article - Danna Staaf - May 15 2012 - 11:22pm

Sustainable Yield in Fisheries

It is very difficult to achieve this goal. Typically, fisheries undergo stocks permanently at different temporal and spatial scales of exploitation that exceeds the biological capacity and ecological recovery of the species. Plus, the fishery always begin ...

Blog Post - Víctor Aramayo - May 17 2012 - 3:04pm

Modern Squid Ink Unchanged From Jurassic Times

Usually "No Change in X" doesn't make a very splashy headline, but when the lack of change occurs over 160,000,000 years and X is squid ink, people get excited. And with good cause. This is the first time that ink from a fossil cephalopod ha ...

Article - Danna Staaf - May 24 2012 - 1:14am

Squid-dorable Photos from the Vancouver Aquarium

Jonathan Wong, Vancouver Aquarium HuffPo has some fantastic photos and a video up from the Vancouver Aquarium. The species is Doryteuthis (once was Loligo) opalescens, sometimes called the inshore opalescent squid or market squid. ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - May 24 2012 - 3:49pm