Ecology & Zoology

Beware Pests; There Is A New Carnivorous Plant Out There

Urban people may believe nature is balanced and peaceful and pristine but biologists know that nature really just wants to suck the nutrients from your dead corpse. Insects have more nature to worry about, in the form of the delicate stalk and pretty white ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 9 2021 - 7:10pm

Citrus Canker Returns To Texas, This Time With An Asian Strain

Citrus canker, caused by the bacterium Xanthomonas citri, was first identified in the United States near the Florida-Georgia border in 1910 and then raged across southern states.  It was considered eradicated in 1933, thanks to chemical intervention, but i ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 16 2021 - 1:11pm

Playful Waterbabies — Porpoise

These delightfully friendly and super smart fellows are Dall's porpoise. Porpoise are marine mammals who live in our world's oceans and breathe air at the surface, similar to humans. They have lungs, inhaling and exhaling through a blowhole at t ...

Article - Heidi Henderson - Aug 23 2021 - 2:10pm

Decapods: Warrior Crabs

Look how epic this little guy is! He is a crab — and if you asked him, the fiercest warrior that ever lived. While that may not be strictly true, crabs do have the heart of a warrior and will raise their claws, sometimes only millimetres into the air, to ...

Blog Post - Heidi Henderson - Aug 24 2021 - 3:05pm

Beekeeping Fad And The Stress Of Traveling Is Harmful To Bees

Are bees in peril or not? It's difficult to know, because the moment science declares one thing not an issue (example: neonicotinoid targeted pesticides), environmental groups move the goalposts and declare something else is the problem. When honey be ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Sep 22 2021 - 11:45am

Some Cats Are Better At 'Reading The Room'

Do cats adjust their behavior to what works to get what they want or do they nag humans until people begin to respond in more agreeable ways? Some cat owners, and probably most dog owners, might argue that cats engage in the latter and when it seems like t ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 17 2021 - 2:20pm

A Hunter Shot A Buck, Which Turned Out To Be A Doe With Antlers. Here's How

In 2021, there remains some confusion about the distinction between biological sex and gender. The fossil record only shows males and females, it does not show how those people, or even precursors of modern humans, felt about themselves. And fossil records ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Dec 1 2021 - 1:21pm

The Zombie Fires Of Siberia Burn At 75 Degrees Below Zero

Oymyakon, Russia is the coldest town on earth- but that doesn't stop fires. According to Accuweather, the temperature in Delyankir, Russia, about 300 miles (483 km) to the north of the Sea of Oshkosh, fell to 75 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (59.2 deg ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 7 2021 - 6:15pm

Dinosaurs Weren't Green, Some Even Had Colors Like Peacocks

Popular imagery is that dinosaurs were a bland color, but most birds are have bland color palates as well. Then you have parrots or peacocks. In between the extremes of bland and flamboyant, there are pink pigeon feet, red rooster combs and yellow pelican ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 28 2021 - 2:16pm

Politicizing Aphid Poop

We all know there is no Beepocalypse by now, right? Seeing it referenced in sit-coms from the 2010s  is as anachronistic as watching "Soylent Green" from the 1970s and seeing them lament that they didn't listen to scientists and make the hol ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jan 11 2022 - 5:11pm