It is pretty amazing the amount of enrichment supplies “The Manatee” (the name of my trusty Prius) can hold! While all this equipment may not look anything like what a seal interacts with in the ocean, to quote Aristotle, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” From PVC pipes to milk crates…

Rainbow lorikeets (Trichoglossus moluccanus) are nectarivores (i.e. feed on nectar, pollen, flowers, and soft fruits) that use contingencies to remember what flowers they have recently fed at, so they do not waste energy returning to a nectar-depleted flower. This requires cognitive abilities to encode, retain and integrate relevant information while foraging! [Photo and caption by…

For us terrestrial bound land-lubbers, going under the coastal waters of the eastern Pacific can be daunting; it is cold and quite dark! However, this is not a problem for harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) and other pinnipeds (i.e. seals, sea lions, and fur seals), who have sensory adaptations to thrive in this dark and murky…

While some of us are rockin’ around adorning our bristly Christmas tree tops with twinkling stars, brittle stars (Class: Ophiuroidea) adorn sea floors around the world. This little star, found on the shores of western France, has relatives in the tropical reefs of Hawaii, the sediments of the Arctic, and even floors of the deep…

In the age of technology, animal behavior scientists are able to use high-definition videos, behavioral coding software, and strings of code to help with their research. Sometimes however, there is nothing quite like hanging out with your research journal and your very own eyeballs observing and recording what animals are doing. This can often be…