Sand-flies a flying, or sand fleas a fleeingI shan’t discuss; I’d rather be freeingMy mind on more weighty affairs and things,Like angels’ wings and serpents’ and spiders’ stings. Arthur Clifford Hawes, 1893, The Muse Poetic: In Eight Cantos (Canto III, XXIII) Unlike Arthur Clifford Hawes who wrote the poem above, I feel a pressing need…
Read MoreCategory: Creature Feature
Stellar Creatures: Basket Stars
“A-tisket a-tasket, A green and yellow basket…” star? Recently the NMI Unit conducted a social media poll to see which invertebrate people would most like to see moved to the front of the 3D printing queue. The choice was among a sea urchin, hermit crab, squat lobster, and basket star and the winner was….envelope, please… BASKET…
Read MoreWhat’s in a Name: Shrimp
Shrimp! So, here’s me, an invertebrate paleontologist, thinking I know, I’ll write a blog about shrimp, or more specifically a blog about animals we call shrimp but aren’t. You know, quickly explain what makes a shrimp a shrimp, throw in a quick gif from the movie “Forrest Gump,” and then ramble on about non-shrimps. But…
Read MoreThe Trouble with Gribbles
What are gribbles? WHY are gribbles? Are they important? Who cares? We cover all that and more!
Read MoreGhosts of the Coast
BOO!! If you follow us on Instagram, then you’ve seen that for the month of October we featured an especially spooky specimen in all of our pictures. As today is Halloween, I think we are all a little more aware of things that… shall we say… go bump in the night? One of those things…
Read MoreDances with Leeches
Yep…Leeches! This summer, as Dr. Bronwyn Williams and I were planning our annual excursion to New England to collect crayfish for an ongoing pet project of mine, I was told Anna Phillips, Research Zoologist and Curator of Parasitic and Gummi Worms1, at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, wanted to join us, because…
Read MoreBryowhatza??
While crayfish may win the award for most lots in the NCSM NMI collection, the group bryozoans is a little bit harder to quantify. Considering there are about 5,000 known species living today, we have comparatively few lots actually representing the phylum Bryozoa – the real trick is: how many lots contain bryozoans? This is a…
Read MoreCray-zy about Crayfish!
For our first specimen feature post, it seems only fitting that we are launching our #1001jars blog with a post about crayfishes. Why? Because we are cray-zy about crayfish in our lab! Crayfishes occupy a broad, yet patchy global distribution, with more than 660 described species spanning both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Nearly 500…
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