I’ve just learnt (thanks, Marko Bosscher) that today (April 27th) is World Tapir Day, an annual event in which the world unites in celebration of our plucky, trunk-nosed perissodactyl pals and in which we aim to enhance awareness of tapir conservation through the raising of funds and sale of tapir-themed merchandise...
So, the name Brontosaurus is back in business. After comparing, analysing, measuring and coding an extraordinary amount of anatomical detail pertaining to diplodocid sauropods, Emanuel Tschopp and colleagues have produced the largest-ever phylogenetic analysis of sauropods (Tschopp et al...
A United States federal agency is not necessarily the first place you think of when it comes to answering some of the deepest existential questions for our species...
Have decades of protection allowed the endangered humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) to recover? That's the question asked this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)...
Editor's Note: "The Richest Reef" follows members of a scientific dive team as they attempt to pinpoint the center of the most biologically diverse marine ecosystem in the world...
As a regular reader, you might know that Tet Zoo has been going for over nine years now. I've written about a lot of stuff, I’ve been intrigued and enthused by a substantial number of animals and animal-themed topics, and I’ve been attracted to a variety of controversial ideas and claimed discoveries...
I’ve been blabbing a lot about free speech lately–in posts here and here, on New Hampshire Public Radio and the online chat show Bloggingheads.tv, in my classes.
It's a sad fact that as members of a species become rarer they tend to suffer from inbreeding. This lack of genetic diversity can lead to birth defects and other problems, making a species even more endangered as time progresses...
Over the last several days a consortium of people interested in herpetology, weird animals, animal lore, and special effects have worked together to help resolve an incredible and bizarre `mystery'*...
The evolutionarily unique frogs of Cameroon's Lake Oku have no tongues, claw-tipped toes and 12 full sets of chromosomes. What the Lake Oku clawed frogs (Xenopus longipes) don't have, however, is a lot of habitat in which to live...
Editor's Note: "The Richest Reef" follows members of a scientific dive team as they attempt to pinpoint the center of the most biologically diverse marine ecosystem in the world...
For an in-class exercise, I like asking students: “What’s your utopia?” I tell them that utopias aren’t fashionable these days; “utopian” is generally employed in a derogatory sense, meaning naively optimistic...
A recent article by Samuel Arbesman in the science magazine Nautilus discusses the extraordinary sounding possibility that – just perhaps – a search for extraterrestrial intelligence could be made by looking at our DNA...
One of the coolest—and most stressful–moments of my career took place November 7, 1996, when I was a staff writer for Scientific American.
I'm about as interested in domestic animals as I am in non-domesticated ones. Sheep of various kinds have been discussed on Tet Zoo a few times, and right now I want to say a few brief things about a breed I recently saw on several occasions in Romania - the Turcana or Tsurcana, a highly [...]..
It’s true, Mr. and Ms. Hollywood Producer, Nash, Hawking, Turing were great and all, and their stories brought big bucks and a few Oscars rolling your way, but come on!
A funny thing happened on the way to the endangered species list. Five years ago the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) petitioned to protect an Appalachian crayfish species under the U.S...
Editor's Note: "The Richest Reef" follows members of a scientific dive team as they attempt to pinpoint the center of the most biologically diverse marine ecosystem in the world...
It must be the Year of the Sponge here at The Artful Amoeba, because I can’t seem to write enough posts about sponges and their amazing micro-scale architecture.
Higashijima Island doesn't look like much from the sky. This tiny, uninhabited scrap of land 1,000 kilometers south of the coast of Japan is only a few hectares in size.
