Category Archives: Uncategorized

You should all know that velociraptors weren’t really like they were portrayed in ‘Jurassic Park’. They were an awful lot smaller, they had feathers, and they probably weren’t quite so smart. But they *were* nasty predators. Or were they? This … Continue reading →

Great amateur video of phantom crane flies, which have very cool black and white legs. Phantom crane flies – Bittacomorphids of the Family Ptychopteridae – are found in North America; their maggot has an amazing extensible respiratory siphon, which means … Continue reading →

The most dramatic early eyes known up to now have been, not surprisingly, the calcite eyes of trilobites. These mineral lenses, formed into a compound eye, lend themselves to fossilisation, plus there are millions of fossilised trilobites lying around in … Continue reading →

How do we know what to accept as fact? This perpetual epistemological issue is only heightened by the internet and CGI. Here’s another enigma. A seagull picks up a video camera and zooms round night-time Nice. But is it real? … Continue reading →

Context is everything. We know how being very small alters the ways physical factors are felt – eg through small insects being stuck in water tension, the power of Brownian motion, or the scaling effects of falling from a height. … Continue reading →

Spotted on Lucas Brouwers’ Twitter feed (@lucasbrouwers), this great video of a Powelliphanta snail from New Zealand snarfing an earthworm. Keep your eye on the video – it all happens incredibly quickly! Odd thing to say about a snail, but … Continue reading →

Anomalocaris – literally “unusual shrimp” – was first identified in 1892 by Joseph Frederick Whiteaves from mid-Cambrian deposits in British Columbia. It looked pretty much like this fossil, and was thought to look something like the drawing below. One of … Continue reading →

The colours aren’t real! Post your answers in the comments box below.

I work with maggots. Not big fat maggots you use for fishing, but Drosophila maggots. They are incredibly simple, but are capable of performing most of the behaviours shown by the adult fly (with the obvious exceptions of mating and … Continue reading →

This one is from Amanda Clarke (final year). What animal is it, and why does it show that odd claw/digit dimorphism?