Sea cucumbers aren’t all boring, trundling bags. Some of them swim — and glow. Though I opted to focus on creatures found at greater depths in my last post, one of the creatures observed by the Deepsea Challenger expedition in the New Britain Trench at a relatively shallow 1000 meters was just such a swimming [...]

Anglerfish and comedy always seemed like a natural pairing. But it took internet humorist Ze Frank to bring the two together in one delicious dish. The natural history documentary parody series “True Facts About …” by Frank has become a minor youtube sensation. I’d seen one of his works before “True Facts About Land Snails” [...]

It’s often said that we know less about the bottom of our own ocean than we do about the surface of Mars. The governments of the world, and our government in particular, seem presently much less than enthusiastic about exploring the oceans of our own planet than in exploring other planets (ocean research seems to [...]

Consider this image: Is it a work from a modern-day Book of Kells? A Chinese seal? The cover of The Neverending Story?  No. Would you have guessed it is from a U.S. government publication? Here it is in its original context (don’t miss the caption!). Here’s another, of a free-living marine nematode called Draconema (see [...]

The next time you find yourself becoming mosquito chow, remember this video: This is Strelkovimermis spiculatis — a parasitic nematode, or roundworm — casually escaping from an unlucky, soon-to-be-expired mosquito larva. The way this larva twitches as the nematode slithers out is gut-wrenching. You can still see the poor larva’s vitals pumping even after nematode [...]

This curious creature, captured here under the microscope, is not a protist. It’s an animal. An animal, in fact, that can be smaller than some unicellular microbes. It’s a rotifer, and its stock in trade is sucking tiny prey to their doom. These multi-cellular micro-animals — which, let me emphasize again, are smaller than some [...]

When you think of a mollusk, you probably have something shelled, slimy, and possibly stalk-eyed in mind. But mollusks include creatures that are none of these things. In fact, there are mollusks that are wormy, be-spined, and eyeless. They are called aplacophorans, and scientists have long puzzled over their place in the mollusk family tree. [...]

Does these look like lichens to you? According to Gregory Retallack, they should. Yesterday, Nature published an article by Retallack that makes a radical claim: the Ediacaran Biota (635-542 mya) of bizarre creatures that preceded the Cambrian Explosion were not pneumatic semi-mobile marine animals, but instead sessile land-dwelling lichens and protists living high and very [...]

Blogger’s note: I’m still away from the blog for a few weeks. In the meantime, here is another post from the Artful Amoeba archive. It originally appeared on October 4, 2010. I recently read a delightful leaflet on water bears which gave me a whole new appreciate for their anatomy (some of them have armored [...]

After nearly two months of wandering the Southern Hemisphere and a few weeks of recovery post-return, it’s time to get back into the blogging here at the Artful Amoeba. We’ll begin with a few wrap-up posts of stuff I didn’t get time to blog about while I was down under before resuming our regularly scheduled [...]

Last week, while in a drowsy, altitude-induced delirium 35,000 feet somewhere over Iceland, I groped mindlessly for the cozy blue blanket poking out beneath my seat, only to realize—to my unutterable horror—that I was in fact tugging soundly on a wriggling, sock-covered big toe. Now with a temperament such as mine, life tends to be [...]

By Mara Grunbaum and Ferris Jabr Dear Evolution, Let’s start with the wings: did you really have to turn them into flippers? Don’t get us wrong—we appreciate the swimming and diving talents. But couldn’t you have come up with some kind of compromise so that we could still fly? Maybe a 2-in-1 special, a wing/flipper [...]

Previously, on Know Your Neurons: Chapter 1: The Discovery and Naming of the Neuron Chapter 2: How to Classify Different Types of Neurons Chapter 3: Meet the Glia Chapter 4: What is the Ratio of Glia to Neurons in the Brain? By Daisy Yuhas and Ferris Jabr Last time on Know Your Neurons, we talked [...]

Until recently, the only association I made between dogs and pantyhose would have involved an unfortunate trip to the vet. Of the inanimate objects pulled from pets’ gastrointestinal tracts — from drywall and hearing aids to corn cobs and toy cars — pantyhose, and their cousins, socks and underwear, top the list. But last week, [...]

The news about endangered species doesn’t slow down. Here, we update some Extinction Countdown stories covered in recent weeks: A plan to save bats The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a national plan to combat the bat-killing white-nose syndrome (WNS) on May 17. As we have reported here many times before, the fungus that [...]

The rarest of the nine giraffe subspecies, the West African giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis peralta), almost didn’t make it to the 21st century. After years of being poached and losing habitat to development, only 50 of these animals were left in Niger in 1996, and the subspecies’s future seemed bleak. But today, just 13 years later, [...]

Heading into the jungles of Madagascar in search of the world’s rarest lemur—the greater bamboo lemur (Prolemur simus)—was a gamble that paid off, said Damian Aspinall of The Aspinall Foundation. An expedition of scientists from the foundation, Conservation International (CI), Association Mitsinjo, and GERP (Groupe d’Etude et de Recherche sur les Primates de Madagascar) searched [...]

Gray wolves have a price tag on their heads in Idaho, and it’s a bargain-basement price at that. Starting Monday, Idaho residents can get wolf-hunting permits for just $11.75 (after purchasing a state hunting license for $12.75, of course). Nonresidents have to pay a bit more: $154.75 for a hunting license, plus $186 for a [...]

Happy father’s day! First off, to every father out there (biological or not), this is the time where we stand up and say thank you. We may not always show it, but we love you and appreciate everything you have done for us thus far. Today is also the day where we celebrate the uniqueness [...]

In early 1997, while still a freshman in college pondering whether to study biology or archaeology, I opened up my copy of Discover Magazine to find an article that startled and captivated me. "When Life Was Odd", read the headline, and if that didn’t sell me, the photos did. They were of Ediacarans, creatures named [...]

We, as emotional beings, place a high value on happiness and joy. Happiness is more than a feeling to us – it’s something we require and strive for. We’re so fixated on happiness that we define the pursuit of it as a right. We seek happiness not only for ourselves and our loved ones, but [...]

February is the month of love, and with Valentine’s Day behind us, it is only natural to feel a certain affection for those that were sadly alone on this year’s February the 14th. That is why this post is devoted to the outcasts on the animal kingdom, the species that sadly do not get as [...]

Migrating animals are always impressive to watch. The ability to cover huge areas of land in massive groups can be a beneficial strategy for many animals; whether birds, mammals or shoals of fish. Yet even more impressive than migrations by groups of individuals are those that take place over several generations. In the case of [...]

It has been a while since I’ve last posted. Usually I try not to give excuses for lateness, but this time I do have a very good one. I’m currently 15 and a half weeks pregnant! In the UK there is a fairly good and well thought-out system to make sure pregnant women get all [...]

For free-living organisms, the ability to sense and respond to the outside environment is crucial for survival. Eukaryotes, such as animals and plants, often have highly complex network systems in place to monitor their surroundings and respond effectively, but bacteria have developed a remarkably simple system. It’s called the ‘Two Component System’ because it literally [...]

Milk is produced by mammals in order to provide nutrition to their growing young. It’s pretty special stuff, as not only does it provide all the nutrients and energy needed to fuel a growing baby (consider that for at least six months a human infant drinks nothing but milk) it also aids in the development [...]

As far as bacteria are concerned, other living creatures are just another niche to exploit, which means that pretty much every animal and plant has a set of bacterial pathogens that come along with it. These bacteria have made the animal in question their speciality, and are highly adapted to live inside their hosts. While [...]

I’ve been on holiday for the last few days, so haven’t had much time to read papers about bacteria. What I have been doing, however, is looking at butterflies. Since my sudden and unexpected discovery that I was obsessed with them I have since bought a butterfly field guide and now try to identify them [...]

There’s been a lot of focus on the human microbiome recently, and while I’m obviously thrilled at anything which makes people think more about bacteria it’s easy to forget that it isn’t just humans who provide internal living space for bugs. Bacteria are everywhere, inside and among every living creature, and some of them form [...]

Although this blog tends to deal almost exclusively with the life and times of bacteria occasionally I find something else that catches my fancy, and over the long bank holiday weekend I visited a wildlife park. Along with the usual big-park animals (giraffes, zebras, very cute monkeys) they also had a butterfly tent. I went [...]

The discovery that stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria is quite recent and was proved fairly conclusively in 1984 when the Australian scientist Barry Marshall drank a petri-dish full of the bacteria Helicobacter pylori and five days later developed serious gastritis, which cleared after antibiotic treatment. As stomach ulcers are quite common, and can be a major [...]

I’m having a break before starting my PhD next week, so I thought I’d have a brief non-microbial post with a few adventures from my fish-tank. The other day, my husband decided to try sticking a whole prawn (dead and cooked) into the fish tank to see the reaction of our underwater lodgers. Most of [...]

The U.S. has spent several billion dollars looking for life on other planets. Shouldn’t we spend at least that much finding and identifying life on Earth? That is the argument behind a taxonomy analysis by a trio of scientists in Science, published on January 25. They argue just $500 million to $1 billion a year [...]

Michael Hearst seems to enjoy making music with a purpose. About five years ago the Brooklyn, N.Y., musician made headlines with a pretty self-explanatory record called Songs for Ice Cream Trucks. Since then, he and his band One Ring Zero have released an album-long ode to the planets (including Pluto), as well as a record [...]

How would you walk if you had five arms and no brains? If you’re a brittle star, the answer turns out to be quite well (for an echinoderm)—although it’s a little complicated. The blunt-spined brittle star (Ophiocoma echinata) looks like a claymation creature from an alien horror movie as it moves its disk-like body along [...]

On the evening of Wednesday, March 21, a mouse scurried into a storm drain near the southeast corner of Central Park in New York City. If anyone noticed the mouse at all, whatever shallow impression the sight of a Manhattan rodent made on their minds likely vanished within seconds, rinsed away by a new wave [...]

The proverbial primordial soup from which our earliest, multi-cellular ancestors emerged was presumably seething with many much simpler, single-celled organisms. Finding the first indications of evolution into more advanced, embryonic development has proved difficult, however, both because of the organisms’ small size and soft structures. A famous collection of minute 570-million-year-old fossils, from the Doushantuo [...]

Most dog and cat owners will happily describe their pet’s disposition down to the smallest, human-like detail. But how much of that is over-reaching anthropomorphizing and how much is an individual animal’s actual "personality" shining through? Researchers in the U.K. devised a series of tests to see how individual animals respond—both behaviorally and biologically—to different [...]

In Australia, some dolphins suit up for dinner. Before poking through seafloor mud for a delectable crustacean or cephalopod, the dolphins protect their sensitive snouts with marine sponges. What’s more, dolphins teach each other this behavior. It’s a kind of cultural learning observed in other highly intelligent animals, such as chimpanzees, who teach one another [...]

NEW YORK—When it comes to brain power, we humans like to think we’re the animal kingdom’s undisputed champions. But in the past few decades we’ve had to make a lot of room on our mantle place for shared trophies. Problem-solving? Sorry, but crows and octopuses do that too. Tool use? Primates, birds and even fish [...]

Elephants cooperate to solve problems. Chimpanzees teach youngsters to make tools. Even octopuses seem to be able to plan. So should we humans really be surprised that “consciousness” probably does not only exist in us? This privileged state of subjective awareness in fact goes well beyond Homo sapiens, according to the new Cambridge Declaration on [...]

As a young girl, Katie Hinde became quite excited when her dad was preparing to watch the Bengals vs. the Bears on TV. It seems she was expecting this: What an education for the then four year old as she did not see a single tiger OR bear on TV that day and instead saw [...]

Bored? Looking for things to do? No, me neither. But have some fun and look at these skulls — then identify them (taking care to note your identifications in the comments below). And then… … see if you can go that extra bit further and say something especially interesting*, since there’s lots of neat stuff going [...]

It’s Friday and I’m about to go away on fieldwork for a while, so let’s have some fun (even though substantial media interest in the new Isle of Wight azhdarchoid pterosaur Vectidraco continues unabated). Why not knock yourself out and have a go at identifying this bizarre skeletal tetrapod, surely one of the weirdest things [...]

Tet Zoo ver 3 – the Sci Am incarnation of this august and influential institution – has now been going for about 10 months, and a moderately respectable 78 articles have appeared on the blog so far (excluding this one). The vast majority have been lengthy, referenced, heavily illustrated articles – no brief, picture-of-the-day-style contributions [...]

I see these magnificent shells littered on the ground – in the woods, on lawns, everywhere. It’s the shell of the Giant African Land Snail. In Tanzania, they are native – living in terrestrial habitats or on land. But back in the United States they are an invasive species. Not only do they devour vegetation of most [...]

It took longer to get,set up but I am finally trapping. That means I’m collecting data. Woo, hoo! Here is a peek into all of the fun I’ve had working hard in Tanzania! (You can follow my real time updates from Tanzania on Twitter, @DNLee5 and the hashtag #DispatchesDNLee. If you would like a Dispatch [...]

I am really missing the States right now. Today marks the most exciting sport event in my book, the 139th Run for the Roses, the most exciting 2 minutes in Sports: The Kentucky Derby! I can’t even watch it on TV. (Pole sana for me.) But I was scanning my Twitter feed and discovered that [...]

This post was originally posted at Urban Science Adventures! © on March 2, 2010 titled: Honey Bees Buzz with Individuality. I still enjoy the subject of this paper.  I lead a journal discussion with my lab group.  I thought it would be a great paper for our group since research topics include individual variation, genetic, [...]

I have been pre-occupied with paperwork and approvals to get my rats to Oklahoma so that I can get started with my laboratory studies on behavior and genetics.  Fingers crossed (and prayers solicited) for a safe and uneventful trip for my rats and the courier. UPDATE: Rats are NOT en route. While I was sleeping [...]

Originally posted at Urban Science Adventures! © I took these photos at Litszinger Road Ecology Center (an Urban Nature Reserve) spring 2006. Two Tom Turkeys (males) facing off. Two Tom Turkeys trying to impress a Hen Turkey (female). Can you see her? She’s much smaller and to the right of the males. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

In all of the excitement and concern in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, many people’s attentions have turned to rats? So What Happened to All of the Subway Rats? The Ratpocalypse Has Been Canceled Did NYC rats survive hurricane Sandy? And one that hits a little closer to home: It spurred some comments, mostly tongue-in-cheek [...]

I’ve closed down my trapping grid and began the breaking down preparations of my field work.  I’ve been spending my remaining days at APOPO shadowing the staff and taking measurements and observations of the rats here.  Seeing animals of a known age really helps me estimate the age and condition of animals I encounter in [...]

Checking traps…. I get a lot of giggles for tweeting this.  I catch something everyday, sometimes females, sometimes males…I get more giggles when I tweet this.  On Thursday, September 6, 2012 I caught something new, different.  I knew right away it was a carnivore and it was beautiful.  I am doing a capture-mark-recapture study of [...]