The deepest, darkest, scariest place on the maps I loved pondering as a child was a crescent-shaped canyon in the western Pacific Ocean. It was called the Mariana Trench, and at the very, very bottom was the lowest point on Earth’s surface, the Challenger Deep. Its floor was seven terrifying miles down. What was down [...]

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. [...]

On land, snails and slugs — the Gastropods — are confined to terrestrial prison, but in the ocean, they are free to shed their shells and fly. These are the sea angels, the sea butterflies, and the sea elephants — and probably quite a few more I’m not aware of. For instance, this slinky and [...]

It’s no secret that frogs and toads in the Americas, Australia, and Europe have suffered extinctions and massive declines at the hands of a chytrid fungus on a global genocidal rampage. What is much more of a mystery is exactly what a chytrid fungus is. Or, for that matter, what to do about it. I [...]

Author’s note: This essay was originally posted on April 19, 2011, at Artful Amoeba 1.0 honoring the work of the late Thomas Eisner, a world-renowned chemical ecologist. I’m reposting it in honor of Chemistry Day. Enjoy! If I read my notes correctly, Thomas Eisner once had a pet thrush named Sybil who rejected only five [...]

UPDATE: Broken links fixed! Welcome to the July edition of Circus of the Spineless — the Blog Carnival for Invertebrates and Only Invertebrates. Since the Circus was on hiatus for June, is this #63 or 64? I will leave it up to the next host to decide and will claim for this edition #63.5. Ants [...]

By Jason G. Goldman and Matt Soniak Humans have a complicated relationship with our non-human cousins. Some animals we invite into our homes, and treat as members of our families. Indeed, in November of this year singer Fiona Apple made headlines when she announced that she would cancel the South American segment of her tour [...]

The idea behind quantifying personality is deceptively simple: personality refers to predictable differences in behavior between people. Those differences should be reasonably reliable. That is, they ought to hold constant across different types of situations. Those differences should also be reasonably stable, which means they should be consistent over time. For example, you might score [...]

It’s better than an ant farm. It’s more exciting than a flea circus. Welcome to Cricket Fight Club. The first rule of Cricket Fight Club is: you do not talk about Cricket Fight Club. The second rule of Cricket Fight Club is: you do not talk about Cricket Fight Club. In aggressive conflicts between individuals [...]