Category: Climbing the Tree of Life

Gently gliding through the waters, rays look peaceful and calming. As close relatives of the sharks, this shows how arbitrarily humans prescribe characteristics to animals. Rays are calm and majestic, sharks are dangerous killers. And then, the very first topic I find during my research is shark abortions. Yes, shark abortions. But let’s start at…

There are two groups of jawless fishes, and I can’t even decide which one is creepier: the lampreys or hagfishes? The short version is that lampreys are fish with mouths that don’t have a jaw but rings and rings of teeth. They feed on blood and tissues, which probably loses them quite a few sympathy…

What’s a fish? Sounds like a simple question, right? Unless we are talking about your dinner, figuring out what a fish actually is, might be a lot harder than you think. After all, a seahorse is a fish but a whale isn’t. So, what the duck is a fish? We’ve been climbing this tree of…

Introduction Sea urchins are essentially folded-up sea stars. Very poky folded-up sea stars with spikes poky enough that even I might consider putting some shoes on my feet. Maybe. Today, we’re finishing our exploration of the hedgehog-skinned echinoderms. Climbing up the Tree of Life one group at a time. Most sea urchins look exactly like…

There is a photo from one of our dive trips that confused the shit out of me. A fuzzy structure that looked somewhat coral-like but wasn’t. When my husband said it was a cucumber, I was sure he was joking. Months later, I found a similar photo online and realized he’d not only meant it…

When I learned how to dive, a whole new world opened up—but it soon felt like this world was dying! Sargassum seaweed was taking over where kelp forests had been, and bristle stars took over entire reefs. It was at the height of the mysterious sea star wasting syndrome, and many thought one of the…

Eating baby turtles got crabs a bad reputation, but there is much more to these ten-legged living armors—and more to their relationship with turtles, too. So, let’s take a deep breath and dive in.

Between lobsters the color of cotton candy, depressed lobster men, and misinformation spread by the wonderful Phoebe from Friends, there is a lot to learn about lobsters. Let’s dive in.

Shrimp are the cleaners of the ocean and can even influence the current of the ocean. I’ll tell you all about shrimp. They are way more interesting than you think!