Collecting Bryozoa from Stevns Klint, Denmark 70 million years ago, Denmark was a warm sea. Rich and varied communities of invertebrates inhabited the seafloor. These ecosystems left behind vast chalk deposits, which have been mined for building material, writing utensils, and fertilizer for over a thousand years. The chalk is also special to paleontologists, because it is rich in fossils and spans the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, one of the largest mass extinctions in Earth’s … [Read more...] about How do mass extinctions reshape ecosystems?
A Photo essay – Great Basin, a time in the Ordivician and Cambrian
The 2023 Field Methods in Paleobiology course revisited the Basin & Range Province in Nevada and Utah, lead by Professors Seth Finnegan and Jack Tseng. Seth and Professor Cindy Looy spearheaded this trip back in 2017, which was documented by my predecessor Dave Smith. Find them here: part 1 and part 2. The group would investigate Paleozoic-early Mesozoic shale and limestone topped by Miocene-Pleistocene deposits of sedimentary rock and perhaps learn about how that unconformity … [Read more...] about A Photo essay – Great Basin, a time in the Ordivician and Cambrian
Science at sea with STEMSEAS
Director of Education and Outreach Lisa White spent part of the 2023 winter break sailing on the R/V Armstrong with scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and educators from the STEMSEAS (STEM Student Experiences Aboard Ships) program. Sailing from Woods Hole, MA to Pensacola, FL from January 3-11, 2023, the cruise was designed to build partnerships and opportunities between STEMSEAS and the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Lisa’s background and … [Read more...] about Science at sea with STEMSEAS
Forgotten Fossils
Greeting you at the entrance of the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) is the ever-charismatic Nation’s T. rex, immediately grabbing your attention and drawing you in. Within the UCMP collections area your eyes dart to extinct marine reptiles lining the walls, plant fossils in the aisles with leaves larger than your torso, and woolly mammoth skulls tucked between cabinets. As a vertebrate paleontologist I’m captivated by these grand fossils, making it easy to overlook the … [Read more...] about Forgotten Fossils
Forty phyla in forty days
Marine invertebrate zoology in Friday Harbor, Washington Paleontologists speak of Friday Harbor Labs in the nostalgic tones reserved for only the best field stations. As I hopped off my ferry to the San Juan Islands, carried my duffel bag through the namesake harbor town, and stepped at last under the campus’ old-growth cedars, it was clear why. I came to take FHL’s flagship summer course, Marine Invertebrate Zoology, which surveys forty phyla in as many days. In the mornings, we … [Read more...] about Forty phyla in forty days
The tortoise and the hare: the varied pace of research
Confinement at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity to reflect on the pace of my research over the last year. Thinking back to Aesop’s fable of the Tortoise and the Hare, I see that my research has adopted traits from both animals: sometimes moving slow and steady, while other times travelling at break-neck speed. Despite this variability in research pace, the UCMP has been a constant presence during my research through its supportive staff and generous financial … [Read more...] about The tortoise and the hare: the varied pace of research
Back to the Devonian for the Pteridophyte Collection Consortium (PCC) project
During the summer of 2019 we (graduate students Mackenzie Kirchner-Smith and Ixchel Gonzalez-Ramirez) spent a month working in the Paleobotanical Collections of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) in DC as part of the NSF-sponsored Pteridophyte Collection Consortium project (PCC). This project, led by PIs Carl Rothfels, Diane Erwin and Cindy Looy, seeks to digitize more than 1.7 million modern and fossil pteridophyte specimens. During the month at the NMNH we digitized more than 700 … [Read more...] about Back to the Devonian for the Pteridophyte Collection Consortium (PCC) project
Fossil fishing for clues about a prehistoric invasion
The school year has ended, but with the ongoing pandemic pushing most usual summertime activities off the table, my thoughts have been turning to how I spent my last summer: organizing fishing trips to Nevada. These excursions weren’t exactly spent relaxing on a boat in Tahoe reeling in trout. Rather, my companions and I were kneeling in a defunct quarry under the desert sun, prying apart layers of blindingly white rock in search of the fossils of small fish that once lived in a long-disappeared … [Read more...] about Fossil fishing for clues about a prehistoric invasion
South Korea’s rich Cretaceous history: A window into the past
Unique and rare deposits in South Korea provide a glimpse of Cretaceous flowering plant ecosystems It has been over a month since the closure of the UC Berkeley campus and the UCMP due to the ongoing pandemic. During the shelter-in-place, I have been fortunate enough to be able to continue research from home. Many images of fossils that I am working on at the moment are from a summer 2019 research trip to South Korea. Thanks to the research award I received from UCMP, I was able to do fieldwork … [Read more...] about South Korea’s rich Cretaceous history: A window into the past
Reading Between the Rocks: The Return to Anticosti
Having the opportunity to return to a field site is, in many ways, like rewatching a favorite movie series. On your first pass through, everything is unexpected and unfamiliar. For some movies, the amount of information and detail can be overwhelming. On your second pass through, even though you now know the characters, the setting, and the plot, you begin to notice important details that you missed the first time. Each time you rewatch the series, you discover new things and form new ideas, and … [Read more...] about Reading Between the Rocks: The Return to Anticosti
Reading between the rocks: Reinterpreting the Late Ordovician mass extinction
This past summer, I had the opportunity to conduct my first field season on Anticosti Island (Québec, Canada). Located in the subarctic of Canada, Anticosti Island preserves a 200 kilometer-long transect of ancient seafloor. Late Ordovician tropical reefs and fossils are beautifully preserved across the island in towering coastal cliffs and river canyons. The sheer size of the island is astounding, and the insight its fossil record could provide into early Paleozoic marine communities is … [Read more...] about Reading between the rocks: Reinterpreting the Late Ordovician mass extinction
2018 Spring Break Field Trip
Four states, nine days, 2,850 miles, 48 hours cumulative driving and enumerable sponges. The Field Methods in Paleobiology Course, also known as the 2018 Spring Break Field Trip, from March 24, 2018 to April 1, 2018, was a whirlwind tour of the Southwest with IB Faculty/UCMP Curators Cindy Looy, Ivo Duijnstee and Seth Finnegan leading a group of students, a professor on sabbatical and one staff member to West Texas to the explore the ancient Capitan Reef formation in and around Guadalupe … [Read more...] about 2018 Spring Break Field Trip
A new destination for disaster enthusiasts
The Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg or K-T) mass extinction — the event in which the non-avian dinosaurs, along with about 70% of all species in the fossil record went extinct — was probably caused by the Chicxulub meteor impact in Yucatán, México. However, scientists have long wondered about the massive volcanic eruptions that were occurring in northwestern India at about the same time, the Deccan Traps. Volcanism is the likely cause of several prior mass extinctions, with no convincing evidence for … [Read more...] about A new destination for disaster enthusiasts
A Pleistocene pit-stop: the Barnosky lab excavates Natural Trap Cave, Wyoming
You might think that an 85-foot-deep hole where a bunch of horses, wolves, camels, elephants, and plenty of other animals accidentally plummeted to their death over tens of thousands of years would have enough red flags to make going into it yourself sound like a bad idea. But what if these unfortunate critters could tell you what their life was like and how they died? What if they could give you a warning about their death in a warming world after the last ice age and what it means for life in … [Read more...] about A Pleistocene pit-stop: the Barnosky lab excavates Natural Trap Cave, Wyoming
What do traces of predators tell about ancient marine ecosystems?
Reconstructing biotic interactions is crucial to understand the functioning and evolution of ecosystems through time, but this is notoriously difficult. Competition in deep time cannot be readily seen except for overgrowth of one organism by another under the assumption that both were alive at the same time. Parasites usually do not preserve because they are soft-bodied and tend to be small so that they are not spotted easily. The most abundant evidence of biotic interactions comes from the … [Read more...] about What do traces of predators tell about ancient marine ecosystems?
Understanding the evolutionary history of the cassiduloid echinoids
It is widely recognized that major groups evolve at different rates, in their own evolutionary trajectories. Some evolve fast and are very diversified while others evolve slowly and may never experience an explosion of diversity throughout their trajectory. One of my research interests is understanding the pace of morphological evolution through time, and the organisms selected to investigate this topic are the irregular echinoids. Commonly known irregular echinoids include the sand dollars … [Read more...] about Understanding the evolutionary history of the cassiduloid echinoids
Surprising new finds in museum specimens
I am very grateful to have received a UCMP Graduate Student Research Award via the Barnosky Fund in April 2016. I used these funds to collect pilot data from major natural history museum collections around the country for my dissertation research. My research investigates responses in fossil animal communities to climate change over long time intervals. We need historical data about the affects of climate change on animals in the past in order to anticipate these affects on animals in the … [Read more...] about Surprising new finds in museum specimens
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Pleistocene Sea
Using Fossil Whale Barnacles to Reconstruct Prehistoric Whale Migrations Baleen whales, as we know them today, lead lives that are largely defined by their annual migrations. Every year, whales spend their winters breeding and reproducing in tropical waters, then travel to poleward feeding areas each summer. For North Pacific humpback whales, winter breeding areas cluster around Central America and Hawaii, and then they travel to the Gulf of Alaska to feed in the summer (small numbers also … [Read more...] about A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Pleistocene Sea
Bringing the field to our users through EPICC’s Virtual Field Experiences
Ever wonder where fossils from the UCMP were collected or want to know more about the geological setting of UCMP field areas? Curious about why an area looks the way it does? These questions and others are driving the development of Virtual Field Experiences (VFEs) associated with the EPICC project (Eastern Pacific Invertebrate Communities of the Cenozoic, http://epicc.berkeley.edu). Together with EPICC partners from the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI), UCMP Assistant Director Lisa … [Read more...] about Bringing the field to our users through EPICC’s Virtual Field Experiences
Cryptic caves and paleoecology of crustaceans in Cenozoic coral reefs
Just some months ago on a Saturday in July, I had the pleasure of snorkeling above the only coral reefs in the continental Unites States. These reefs in southern Florida still harbor many species of corals, fish, and other animals including crustaceans such as crabs, shrimps, and lobsters. These decapods are difficult to spot while snorkeling, but that does not mean they are not there. Their usually small size in this landscape of incredibly variable topography ensure they are able to hide … [Read more...] about Cryptic caves and paleoecology of crustaceans in Cenozoic coral reefs
Terraces through time: Reconstructing fossil beaches in southern California
San Nicolas Island is a strange, far-away place very familiar to a surprising number of Californians. Thanks to Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins, this island — the most remote of California's eight Channel Islands — and it's native Nicoleño people have been engrained into the imaginations of many elementary school children. My own mind was captivated by this story in the fourth grade when I had the opportunity to conduct fieldwork on San Nicolas Island with Daniel Muhs (U.S. Geological … [Read more...] about Terraces through time: Reconstructing fossil beaches in southern California
Our journey from the UCMP to South Africa to study fossil monkeys
At the time we got involved in what has now become for us - the South Africa project - one of us (Tesla) was soon-to-be a second year graduate student, and the other (Marianne) was about to start her senior year as an undergraduate student here at UC Berkeley. We began working together in the UC Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) during the summer of 2013, making our way through a massive project and cataloguing exceptional fossil material collected during the UC Africa Expedition of 1947 and 1948. … [Read more...] about Our journey from the UCMP to South Africa to study fossil monkeys
A first: Sauropod bones found in Ethiopia!
Assistant Director Mark Goodwin and his project collaborators (see Feb. 1 blog post) made a surprising discovery while collecting microvertebrates, turtles, and fish. Within a small area of exposure in the Late Jurassic Agula Shale in the Tigray Province, just south of Mekele, Ethiopia, were the first sauropod dinosaurs ever reported from Ethiopia! The team found mostly partial bones and bone fragments, and the local school kids delighted in holding Ethiopia's first sauropod dinosaur bones. … [Read more...] about A first: Sauropod bones found in Ethiopia!
Assistant director reunites with UCMP alumni in Ethiopia to investigate Mesozoic ecosystems
Assistant director Mark Goodwin is in Ethiopia for several weeks as part of a collaborative project with UCMP alums Greg Wilson (University of Washington) and Randall Irmis (Utah). Together with colleagues from the University of Oklahoma, Addis Ababa University, and Mekelle University in Ethiopia, the team is investigating non-marine Mesozoic ecosystems from the Northwestern Plateau, Ethiopia. Mark reports "we had great success in the Late Jurassic units and it is gratifying working with … [Read more...] about Assistant director reunites with UCMP alumni in Ethiopia to investigate Mesozoic ecosystems
National Fossil Day website features research by UCMP and partners
The UCMP partnership with Point Reyes National Seashore and the National Park Service continues to thrive and fossil discoveries made as a result of this partnership are highlighted in a previous post. Lillian Pearson, who works part-time with Museum Scientist Erica Clites cataloging specimens from the Point Reyes National Seashore, is the lead author on an article posted in honor of National Fossil Day (October 14, 2015) describing Cenozoic life and landscape features. National Fossil Day … [Read more...] about National Fossil Day website features research by UCMP and partners
Building a forest: The adventures continue in the Jose Creek Member
It's April 18, 2015, and I am sitting in a room at the Charles Motel in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, the same apartment-style room that I have stayed in during the past four years of field work. Time sure has passed by quickly; from my first paleontological dig as an undergraduate at Texas State University-San Marcos under Dr. Gary Upchurch, to my ambitious inaugural self-guided field trip as a first-year graduate student at Berkeley, to last year's even longer field excursion, and finally … [Read more...] about Building a forest: The adventures continue in the Jose Creek Member
Do green tide algae reproduce all year?
Occurrences of green tides have been on the rise in recent years worldwide. The most impressive have been reported off the coast of China in the Yellow Sea. In August 2014, the Monterey Bay area experienced a green tide that resulted in the accumulation of the macroalgae, Ulva, on its beaches. Algal blooms often make the headlines in spring and summer yet they are not a new phenomenon. In fact, toxic algal blooms may have been responsible for bird, fish and marine mammal die-offs recorded in … [Read more...] about Do green tide algae reproduce all year?
Southern California Spring Break 2015 field trip
Annual field trips used to be something of a tradition at UCMP, but that tradition faded once the Department of Paleontology merged with other units to become the Department of Integrative Biology in 1989. In recent years, former UCMP Director Jere Lipps organized and led three field trips: Baja in 2001, southern California in 2008, and Oregon in 2009. And now two of UCMP’s newest curators, Assistant Professors Seth Finnegan and Cindy Looy, are trying to revive the annual field trip tradition. … [Read more...] about Southern California Spring Break 2015 field trip
California pollen taphonomy and pollen trap study in Clear Lake, California
Pollen analysis (or palynology) has been used to study Quaternary changes in vegetation and climate in North America since the nineteenth century. Palynologists generally compare plant assemblages in spatial-time frames instead of focusing on particular plant species. These changes in plant assemblages across landscapes through time are a good indication of vegetation shifts caused by environmental changes. Besides using pollen assemblages to reconstruct parent plant communities in a particular … [Read more...] about California pollen taphonomy and pollen trap study in Clear Lake, California
The hunt for a Ph.D. thesis: Collecting Late Cretaceous plant fossils in New Mexico
"It ain't Mexico and it ain't new" [quoted from a postcard in a gift shop] Armed with hammers, chisels, pry-bars, boxes of newspaper, and sunscreen, two trusty assistants (recent graduate Meriel Melendrez and current undergrad Nicolas Locatelli) and I drove from Berkeley in our 4WD extra-long SUV heading for southern New Mexico. There, we met up with paleobotanist Dr. Gary Upchurch and crew from Texas State University and geologist Dr. Greg Mack from New Mexico State University for two weeks of … [Read more...] about The hunt for a Ph.D. thesis: Collecting Late Cretaceous plant fossils in New Mexico
A trip to New Mexico
Why New Mexico? Like someone else put it "it ain't new and it sure ain't Mexico!" So why make the trek? To attend the Carboniferous-Permian Transition Meeting! Five members of the Looy Lab piled into a van and drove all the way from Berkeley to Albuquerque. With the enormous number of meetings and conferences being organized, why did we decide to go to this particular one? I think there is a checklist that most people go over before they decide on which conference to attend. In random … [Read more...] about A trip to New Mexico
Cataloging the Archives: Three Fine Trikes
Another in a series of blog posts relating to the museum's "cataloging the archives" project Ask children what their favorite dinosaurs are, and it's almost guaranteed that Triceratops (refer to them by their nickname, Trikes, and you'll earn tons of street cred) will be on the list. The three-horned, frilled wonder is one of the most recognizable creatures of the Cretaceous. Many a visitor has walked by the Triceratops display here in the Valley Life Sciences Building's Marian Koshland … [Read more...] about Cataloging the Archives: Three Fine Trikes
Dispatches from Clear Lake, part 1
UCMP's Cindy Looy is leading a project to collect 130,000 years worth of sediment data from Clear Lake in order to better understand how life has adapted to climate change. Along the way, members of her team will report back to us with all the progress and drama from the field. Here's our first set of dispatches. From Ivo Duijnstee: Thu, April 26 First mud It has begun. Except for some minor delays, the Clear Lake drilling expedition had a relatively smooth start. When our … [Read more...] about Dispatches from Clear Lake, part 1
Erin’s Adventures in Marine Conservation: A quick introduction to a snail’s tale
Follow Erin Meyer as she takes us on a journey through the Caribbean, on the tail of an important snail she hopes to conserve. To learn more about her seasonal trips, visit her blog - "Adventures in Snail Conservation." … [Read more...] about Erin’s Adventures in Marine Conservation: A quick introduction to a snail’s tale
Field work during a mass extinction
Imagine that a “time machine” allowed you to go back in time — back exactly 64,999,995 years ago, just five years before the crash of the meteor that marked the end of the Age of the Dinosaurs. You have just enough time to do your field work, analyze your data, and write your Ph.D. dissertation. Your field work starts in the closest emerged land to the Chicxulub impact site. In no time at all you begin discovering new species of dinosaurs that are unknown from the fossil record, and you … [Read more...] about Field work during a mass extinction
Relicts of the Bug-men
What are bug-men and how did their existence benefit UCMP? Watch and listen to this slideshow about an obscure link recently discovered by UCMP micropaleontologist Ken Finger. Click cover page below to download the full article. … [Read more...] about Relicts of the Bug-men
Student Spotlight: Jenna Judge travels to Japan in search of deep sea snails
Congratulation to UCMP's Jenna Judge who was awarded a spot in the NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) last spring. NSF EAPSI provides funding for a graduate student to spend a summer in an East Asian or Pacific country to conduct scientific research as well as engage in societal and cultural practices. Jenna spent her summer in Japan, studying the evolutionary history and ecology of a group of limpets that live in a variety of habitats in the deep sea! Check out her adventures … [Read more...] about Student Spotlight: Jenna Judge travels to Japan in search of deep sea snails
One fossil locality, eight days, 513 rocks, 757 photographs and thousands of plant fossils
This summer we headed to the Italian Alps to work on fossils from a newly discovered Late Permian plant locality in the incredibly scenic Bletterbach gorge. This research is part of a larger project, which tries to quantify the hits that the terrestrial ecosystem took during the end-Permian world-wide biotic crisis. Back in those days Europe and North America were connected and part of one and the same floral realm, not surprisingly called Euramerica. Euramerica was tropical and semi-arid, and … [Read more...] about One fossil locality, eight days, 513 rocks, 757 photographs and thousands of plant fossils
Student Spotlight: Joey Pakes 2010 Diving Expedition for Remipedes in the Yucatan
Imagine what it would be like: swimming in the dark, deep underwater, in an enclosed space, “armed” with only a flashlight and a tank of air. For UCMP graduate student Joey Pakes, that is a typical day of research in the subterranean caves in Mexico. Check out her video which describes her 2010 expedition to the Yucatan Peninsula as part of her ongoing investigations into underwater cave systems. Meet some of the people and animals that make her research so … [Read more...] about Student Spotlight: Joey Pakes 2010 Diving Expedition for Remipedes in the Yucatan
Student Spotlight: Emily Lindsey and the late Pleistocene megafauna in South America
This post's text is also available in Spanish. Congratulations to graduate student Emily Lindsey, this year's recipient of the George D. Louderback Award! Emily has been hard at work the past few years investigating the timing, dynamics, and key players behind the late Pleistocene extinction of megafauna in South America. Like the famous La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California, Emily's excavation site on the Santa Elena Peninsula in Ecuador is an asphalt seep preserving the remains of a … [Read more...] about Student Spotlight: Emily Lindsey and the late Pleistocene megafauna in South America
Molly Wright’s Trip to the Smithsonian Collection
DAY 1 (5/17/2011): I work with Professor Roy Caldwell to study the evolution of the behaviors and morphology of mantis shrimps – pugnacious crustaceans that are distant cousins to lobsters, true shrimps, and crabs. Mantis shrimps use fearsome raptorial appendages to smash or spear their prey. Even more surprisingly, some mantis shrimps live in male-female pairs in sandy burrows, with both sexes caring for the young and sharing food. Social monogamy, when a single male and female live as a pair … [Read more...] about Molly Wright’s Trip to the Smithsonian Collection
“Field Notes”: Devonian liverworts and Permian conifers
On a cold Berkeley morning late in March paleobotanist Cindy Looy and grad student Susan Tremblay hopped on a plane to Washington DC. Their goal was not to enjoy the gorgeous spring weather and peaking cherry blossoms, but instead to search for clues to the early evolution of plants in the collections of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). Devonian liverworts and Permian conifers were on the menu. Pallaviciniites devonicus, described by Francis Hueber in 1961, is one of the oldest … [Read more...] about “Field Notes”: Devonian liverworts and Permian conifers
Museum nomads
For many paleobiologists summer is that part of the year during which data is gathered in its purest form: fossils. Such summers may take you in diametrically opposite directions, though. Some bring broadly boasted outdoor adventures of fieldwork. Others, however, take you deeper and deeper into the collection labyrinths in the dark bowls of natural history museums around the globe. Despite what others may let you believe - and don’t tell anyone we told you - fieldwork is often boring, tedious … [Read more...] about Museum nomads
Even a mantis shrimp is what it eats
Ask most anyone what butterflies use their wings for or what fish do with their fins and you will undoubtedly hear an answer like, "Wings are used for flying and fins are used for swimming!" Some body parts just seem so well-adapted to perform certain functions; this is why there is a paradigm in biology that "specialized" body parts correspond to specific ways in which animals go about their daily business. In other words, specialization in morphology corresponds to specialization in ecology. … [Read more...] about Even a mantis shrimp is what it eats
Marine vertebrate paleontology in Half Moon Bay
This week, we welcome guest blogger Robert Boessenecker. Bobby has been interested in paleontology since he was a kid. He grew up in the Bay Area; when he found Miocene shark teeth in the Santa Cruz Mountains, he was hooked. He first got involved with the UCMP when he was a high school freshman — he visited the museum with his dad, to interview UCMP Assistant Director Mark Goodwin for a school project. Bobby is now getting a Masters' degree at Montana State University. He studies the taphonomy … [Read more...] about Marine vertebrate paleontology in Half Moon Bay
Middle schoolers and marine biodiversity in Moorea
Scientists from institutions like the UCMP travel all around the world and interact with many local communities. Last year the Berkeley Natural History Museums launched a project called the GK-12 Moorea fellowship to foster collaboration between graduate students and local communities in Moorea, French Polynesia. The program sends one graduate student to Moorea, a small island about 10km from Tahiti, to teach interactive science lessons in public schools and do ecological research. As the … [Read more...] about Middle schoolers and marine biodiversity in Moorea
Paleo Video: Kaitlin Maguire at the John Day Fossil Beds
Watch this video and join UCMP graduate student Kaitlin Maguire on a field trip to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument! After visiting the park last spring, Kaitlin decided it's the perfect place to do her dissertation research. "When you do a field project for paleontology, especially if you're looking for fossils, you never know what you're going to find — you never know if there's going to be enough data," says Kaitlin. But paleontologists from the UCMP and elsewhere have been … [Read more...] about Paleo Video: Kaitlin Maguire at the John Day Fossil Beds
A summer studying snails in the Caribbean
I am a graduate student with the UCMP and the Department of Integrative Biology at Berkeley, and I study the biogeography, conservation biology, and microevolution of molluscs. From July through August of 2009, I traveled to nine islands in the Eastern Caribbean looking for Cittarium pica, a large, marine gastropod, or snail. This species has many common names, including West Indian Topshell, burgao, burgos, cingua, magpie shell, wilke, and “whelk”, which is why knowing the scientific name is so … [Read more...] about A summer studying snails in the Caribbean
Field notes: Collecting stomatopods on the Great Barrier Reef
UCMP graduate student Maya deVries traveled to Australia's Great Barrier Reef this summer, to collect stomatopods for her research. She shares her underwater adventure in this video. [flv:http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/images/video/MayaAustralia.flv 360 264] … [Read more...] about Field notes: Collecting stomatopods on the Great Barrier Reef