Common swifts are tiny birds with impressive flying abilities. Some individuals are airborne 10 months out of the year. That means even sleeping in flight! They only land for mating and caring for young Sketch and fact by Amelia Munson Source: Hedenström, Anders; et al. (September 2016). “Annual 10-Month Aerial Life Phase in the Common Swift Apus…
Author: The Ethogram
The official blog of the UC Davis Animal Behavior Graduate Group.
Ask A Scientist: That’s a lot of birthdays to shell-ebrate!
How old are clams?
Sunday Sketch: Party Platypus
A fact about glowing marsupials
Arts & Crafts: Sunshine and Elephant Design
Check out this young explorer’s sunny elephant design!
Creature Feature: Greater glider
That “new” mammal that made a splash over social media isn’t so new.
Sunday Sketch: If the shrew fits
Elephant shrews (now in the Family Macroscelididae) were originally classified as true shrews due to their obvious physical similarities. However, studies using actual genetic sequences to analyze evolutionary relatedness show that elephant shrews are not closely related to shrews and actually belong to an African lineage which includes aardvarks, manatees, and elephants! Sketch by Nicole…
Ask A Scientist: So many animals!
Wondering Whale asks “How do you decide what animal to study?” Good question, Wondering Whale! Deciding what animal to study depends on a few different things, but one of the first things we can do to help us decide is to think about why we want to study animals. You may have a specific scientific…
Sunday Sketch: Bird’s Eye View
What big eyes you have! Ostriches have the biggest eyes of any land vertebrates– roughly the size of a billiard ball. Sketch and fact contributed by Amelia Munson Source: Brown, L. H.; Urban, E.K.; Newman, K. (1982). “Ostriches and to Birds of Prey”. In Curry-Lindahl, Kai (ed.). The Birds of Africa. I. London, UK: Academic Press. pp. 32–37. ISBN 978-0-12-137301-6.
Arts & Crafts: Turkey Time
Happy Thanksgiving! Check out this turkey double feature from two sister explorers!
Creature Feature: Tidewater mucket mussel
If there had been a fall feast at Plymouth in the early 1600s, it probably would have included a food uncommon at modern-day Thanksgiving meals: mussels!
