On a bright and sunny day in the eastern rainforests of Madagascar, I prepared for another day in the field, following a group of wild lemurs. I filled my water bottle, grabbed my lunch, threw my backpack over one shoulder and set off up the hill to meet my local guide at our usual meeting…
Author: The Ethogram
The official blog of the UC Davis Animal Behavior Graduate Group.
Creature Feature: Tailless whip scorpion
These elusive critters look like something straight out of a horror movie. They are members of the order Amblypygi and within the arachnid family, which includes spiders1. In contrast to the whip scorpions or vinegarroons (Uropygi)—another order of arachnids—these creatures lack the tails that lend them the partial title of “scorpion”. Though they have the…
Sunday Sketch: Grandma Aphid
Did you know? In many aphid species, a female will regularly give birth to a live clone. These newborn clones already contain a developing daughter within them. Termed “telescopic generation”, this allows aphids to multiply very quickly with or without males. So, the next time you’re pulling out your hair over these little bugs, be…
Creature Feature: Great white shark
It all begins with an innocent evening dip. A woman runs down the beach, stripping off her outer garments and diving into the cold, dark water of the Atlantic Ocean. Her identity is barely relevant, because just days later, remnants of her corpse are washed ashore – she is just another victim of the leviathan…
Field Fiasco Friday: The Ticking Tick Bomb
As a native to the mountains of New York, I considered frog catching a favorite childhood pastime. I remember spending hours at the local streambed catching frogs, confining them in jars, and studying their behavior. In retrospect, this may have been my first signs as a budding field biologist, along with a naivety to the…
Sunday Sketch: Hamster Party!
Did you know? Golden hamsters (Phodopus cambelli) can ingest nearly eight times the amount of alcohol than humans can- without showing signs of impairment. This high tolerance is due to a specialized metabolism, since their staple food source throughout the winter consists of seeds that undergo fermentation. Older Hamsters can even prefer food with a…
Creature Feature: California Golden Trout
California has long been known as the ‘golden state’. This could be attributed to its golden sunshine, the golden hills that the summer brings, or the gold flakes that line its streams. Thus it is only fitting that the official state fish is the California Golden Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita). It is one of three…
Field Fiasco: Heavy Lifting
During my time as an undergraduate, I enrolled in a semester abroad in Madagascar. When I first heard the news, I couldn’t believe it: I was going to a foreign island off the south-eastern coast of Africa, home to some of the most unique and diverse animals on the planet. Up until that point, I…
Field Fiasco Friday: It’s Raining Monkeys!
During her time as a graduate student, Dr. Suzanne Austin took a tropical field course at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute at Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Her goal was to work with other evolutionary biology and ecology graduate students to learn all about the tropical fauna and hone her ornithological (bird science) skills, like mist-netting,…
Field Notes: Camera-trapping capuchins in Coiba National Park, Panama
Field Notes is a monthly segment in which we (the students of the Animal Behavior Graduate Group) recount the scientific side of our fieldwork – why we are there, what we do when we get there, and what we learned from our time. Stay tuned each month as we travel the globe studying a variety…
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