WaterNotes

Well my friends it’s May 1st and sea turtle nesting season in Florida has officially begun.  (Yeeeeeeehaw!) I can’t quite get out to the Canaveral National Seashore today to look for fresh nests, but here’s hoping in the next few weeks that we have a successful start to the season.
Sea turtle biologists and naturalists alike [...]

Sneaker males are downright dastardly. Isabella Rosselini shed some light on this in her series Seduce Me on the Sundance Channel, but it also got press on the Life series on Discovery Channel.
Sneakers aren’t strictly just for cuttlefish either.  My lovely Apistogramma cichlids that I kept in aquaria during high school and college had their [...]

Behold, the mighty horseshoe crabs of the Indian River Lagoon are spawning again! While out and about for a quick shoreline cleanup this afternoon I spotted ten females digging into the sand with several males either attached or hovering about hoping to sneak in on all the action.  Such males are not uncommon in mating [...]

Gnarly stuff to share this morning: killer whales going after pseudorca whales off the coast of New Zealand. A good friend of mine is currently visiting family down under, and apparently she was able to see much of this action in person!  (Lisa, if you’re reading this, I’m terribly jealous!)
It’s not easy to tell if [...]

There are many hunting techniques recorded for various dolphin species around the world. As opportunistic and inventive hunters, they’ve found ways to corral and catch many different types of prey using strategies that often involve barriers, physical prowess, and outright deception.  In Australia one group uses sponges as tools; the females carry sponges over their [...]

By drawing some deep parallels and contrasts between humans and animals Professor Robert Sapolsky makes some fascinating connections in this talk filmed at Stanford University and highlighted by TED’s Best of the Web feature earlier this week.  I particularly loved the mention of stickleback behavior (of course) but the final thoughts on culture – as [...]

A report released in Polar Biology had an interesting incident involving an overeager king penguin to relate.  Apparently a researcher happened upon a particular king that had decided he was ready to raise some offspring.   Since it was too early for king penguin breeding season, the adult went after his neighbors’ chick which belonged to a pair of skua [...]