Whales – competing with us for food, or helping to sustain the phytoplankton production on which most life in the oceans depends? The story and video at this link make a good case for the latter. Then there's the wolves – their return to Yellowstone Park in the US has led to a whole cascade […]
Continue readingCategory: animal behaviour
selecting for maladaptive behaviour
One of the questions that often comes up in my first-year bio classes relates to natural selection and human evolution. Does the fact that modern medical science keeps alive people who in previous centuries might have died, mean that we're countering the effects of natural selection? As you can imagine, this generates quite a lot […]
Continue readingwhy did the pigeon cross the road?
if I lived in Hawkes Bay I'd be keen to attend this Royal Society public lecture, & I'll certainly be watching the video, which will be available after. It looks like being of interest & value to senior Biology teachers. The ninth lecture in the 10X10 series Why did the pigeon cross the road? […]
Continue readinga creeping assassin
The daughter & her friends play Assassin's Creed from time to time. This little arachnid would fit right in: Photo: Jeremy Miller For this is an assassin spider, one of a number of species (in the superfamily Palpiamanoidea) that prey on other spiders. The assassin spiders have a long history: a combination of fossil & DNA evidence suggests […]
Continue readinga beautiful nightmare
A few weeks back I briefly mentioned the 'bobbit worm' – a rather large polychaete worm of scary appearance (a friend said 'nightmarish' was closer to the mark) and predatory habits. I've noticed on Facebook how interest in any particular subject seems to come in waves, and so it is with this creature. For via […]
Continue reading“the only memory of the bee is a painting by a dying flower”
The image below is of the bee orchid, Ophrys apifera. I know I'm 'seeing' something – the 'face' – that isn't really there (an example of pareidolia), but still, that's one happy-looking flower! Image courtesy of Hans Hillewaert, from wikimedia.
Continue readingis this a coat of many colours?
I had to look twice at this undersea Liberace-lookalike before recognising it as an octopus (more precisely, a blanket octopus, Tremoctopus sp.) These beautiful creatures live in the open ocean where they grow up to 2m long. The female in this image (thanks, Science Alert) has unfurled a sort of cape (called a ‘web’ in […]
Continue readingbicep-flexing & s*xual selection
When I was a kid, we’d all look forward to Friday evenings – because Dad & Grandma would come back from town with the weekly supply of comics. The ads in the back were almost as good as the cartoons, although we were very disappointed to find out that sea monkeys were definitely not as […]
Continue readingstunning spiders
I won’t post the photos here – but drop over to wired & admire the stunning spider images from photographer Nicky Bay. I think my favourite would have to be the Mirror Spider (Thwaitesia sp.), which looks as though it’s got a disco ball for an abdomen. And for awesome mimicry, take a look at […]
Continue readingthe sea’s strangest square mile, indeed
From Shark Bay Films on vimeo, via PZ, comes this awesome video – life and death on the sea bed. It opens with a species of polychaete worm (aka bobbit worms**) – what an amazing stealth predator! And surely one to give small children – and first-year biology students! – nightmares. And there are ribbon […]
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