Updating the Species Scape
This post was written by Clint Penick & Magdalena Sorger As the world’s entomologists gather in Orlando this week for the International Conference of Entomology [...]
The Value of Art to Science—A story of rotting bodies, belly buttons and the music of symbiosis
In The Man Who Touched His Own Heart I tell the story of the artist Leonardo da Vinci’s discoveries inside bodies. Among the most astonishing of [...]
The Arthropods of San Francisco (and beyond)
What's that crawling under your bed... sitting in your light fixture... lurking in your cabinets? Perhaps it's a new insect species! The Arthropods of Our [...]
Invasion of the House Finch
Once upon a time, House Finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) only lived west of the Rocky Mountains. Then, in 1940, a group of captive birds flew to [...]
Gnarly Trees
Branches of the live oak (Quercus virginiana) loop and twist their way toward openings in the forest canopy. Many branches sag down to the ground [...]
Cold Feet, Warm Heart
Raleigh has had a fit of cold, snowy (and icy) weather this week. So while I watched this snow-covered Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) swim around [...]
Look but don’t touch
Watching Out for Nesting Birds Look but don’t touch. This was a lesson I learned early on as a young boy, staring intently along with [...]
The Fashionable and Practical Turkey Vulture
Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) remind me of 16th century European royalty (you know those “ruffs” they wore around their necks?). That regal appearance results from [...]
Who’s in My House?
Tiny rustling noises arise from our kitchen garbage can. I tip-toe up to it and out pops a little fuzzy face with a twitching nose. [...]
Navel-gazing Newsflash
A few quick updates on Belly Button Biodiversity and related projects: Azeen Ghorayhshi recently wrote a short bit for Wired Magazine UK recently about Belly [...]
A Study in Scarlet
No doubt you’ve been wowed this autumn by the crimson colors of the red maple (Acer rubrum)! This tree, native to eastern North America, has [...]
Spooky Spider
I love Halloween. It’s the time of year when I can leave all the spider webs up around the front stoop and call them decorations. [...]
A Tale of Two Hemlocks
I have never poisoned anyone. I recently learned that if I were to try, I would be very bad at it. The hemlock I thought [...]
Belly Button Portraits – An Opportunity to Create Art through Science!
We’d like to think that over the course of the last few years, our Belly Button Biodiversity project has inspired quite a few things. We’re [...]
Warts & All!
Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and cauldron, bubble. Shakespeare’s witches open Macbeth by tossing a toad into their cauldron, along with parts of [...]