Scientists love to group things. We also like to name things. We also like to plot data on bivariate graphs. On really crazy nights, we…
View More Who likes protandric hermaphrodites?Category: Biology
The Origins of Deep-Sea Fauna
If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development. –Aristotle To understand the biogeography of the modern deep sea, we must examine the…
View More The Origins of Deep-Sea FaunaAnother Species With Forehead Sexual Organs
Chimaeras are sharks much cooler cousins. They are not sharks, i.e. elasmobranchs, but rather a whole other subclass, Holocephali, that split from sharks nearly 400…
View More Another Species With Forehead Sexual OrgansBiogeography of the Deep Sea
“There is absolutely nothing to restrict the geographical ranges of animals in the deep sea. Dr. Wallich, the pioneer of deep-sea research, eighteen years ago…
View More Biogeography of the Deep SeaTGIF: O’ those crazy aquatic mammals? Wait a minute…
At the Rayavadee hotel in Krabi, Thailand Aurora gives birth to her latest calf at 3:39 PM, on Sunday, June 7, 2009 at the Vancouver…
View More TGIF: O’ those crazy aquatic mammals? Wait a minute…Simple Summer Recipes for Dead Seafloor Carrion
The 285 macrourid fishes, the rattails, whiptails, and grenadiers, are one of, if not the, most abundant fish in the deep. You cannot throw…well anything…without…
View More Simple Summer Recipes for Dead Seafloor CarrionWorst Evolutionary Designs? No! Brilliant Solutions to the Complexity of Nature and Constraints
It’s been eight days since Miriam posted at Double XX This Wired piece on the 10 Worst Evolutionary Designs also made me want to smash…
View More Worst Evolutionary Designs? No! Brilliant Solutions to the Complexity of Nature and ConstraintsFriday Picture: Have your coral and eat it, too?
People accept the idea of echinoderm predation on shallow reef building corals. The voracious Crown of Thorns seastar Acanthaster planci is a familiar coral antagonist…
View More Friday Picture: Have your coral and eat it, too?100 Million Year Old Giant Sperm
Barnacles may have big penises but ostracodes of the superfamily Cypridoidea have giant sperm. Ostracode range are mostly near a millimeter but sperm range from…
View More 100 Million Year Old Giant SpermCoral and Brittle Stars, Together Forever
I mean it, FOREVER! No paper out yet but the abstract has sufficiently enticed me. Mosher and Watling report that the species Phiocreas oedipus, an…
View More Coral and Brittle Stars, Together Forever