Ichthyology Blog
August 22, 2012
The Aug. 6 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences included a large-scale analysis of bony fishes using DNA sequencing. One of the major conclusions is that tarpons, eels...
September 7, 2011
Like any good ichthyologist, I keep saltwater fish. When I lost a Banggai cardinalfish recently, how did I deal with this tragedy? Not by flushing it or starting a pet cemetery, but by turning...
July 25, 2011
Summertime means summer fieldwork for many academic scientists, but some researchers skip the far-flung places in favor of urban habitats close to home.
There are plenty of places to look at...
March 25, 2011
A week before the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, an omen washed up on its beaches. The appearance of the oarfish, a ribbon-like, deep sea fish has long been perceived as a warning that seismic...
March 2, 2011
Most of the museum's reptile, amphibian and fish specimens are kept in jars, along with ethanol to preserve them. These collections contain nearly one million specimens that provide vital information...
August 25, 2010
Caiman latirostris - a crocodile
Some of our specimens, recently discussed in our post about specimens as snapshots in time, take on a unique role after entering the museum's collections. Certain...
August 16, 2010
Jonathan Coddington is the head of research and collections at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. He recently told National Public Radio's Guy Raz that the ...
July 28, 2010
Two articles published in Nature today and reviewed by The Scientist point to climate-induced (most probably) changes in marine biodiversity, including reduced numbers of phytoplankton, which are the...
June 11, 2010
And so, a scant 10 days after it began, my Greenlandic adventure is at an end. I got to experience big polar science, witness the first suggestions of climate change in the form of retreating...
June 10, 2010
Our final day in Greenland was best characterized by last-minute good intentions and chaos as we tried to do everything we had been putting off all week. After breakfast, we visited the...
The Biodiversity Institute's blogs include the expedition blog Fieldnotes, the research blog Lab Notes and the Science Life, which highlights science in the news. You can browse our most recent posts here.