Red slate-pencil urchins (Heterocentrotus mamillatus) often have permanent housemates (called obligate simbionts) a small shrimp (Levicaris mammillata) or the aptly-named red slate pencil urchin shrimp. While the relationship hasn’t been thoroughly researched, it seems that the shrimp keeps things nice and tidy, while the red-slate pencil urchin protects the shrimp from predators. [Photo and caption…

Although they may not look much like their more famous dancing sifaka cousins, woolly lemurs (Avahi) move by vertical clinging and leaping. Eastern woolly lemurs (Avahi laniger) like the one seen here are nocturnal, pair-living, folivorous (leaf-eating) primates only found in Madagascar. Madagascars’ 112 and counting lemur species are currently the most threatened mammal group…

Ever have a coastal picnic and have a uninvited guest sneak onto your picnic blanket and make off with your sandwich? Research shows that to protect your food, try staring down the gull that is eyeing that delicious feast you brought to the beach. When stared at, gulls took on average 21 seconds longer to…

Unlike other marine birds such as cormorants and pelicans, western gulls (Larus occidentalis) don’t have the ability to dive. They considered foraging generalists and have 3 primary foraging methods: picking up prey from the ground or intertidal zone, surface dipping (pictured here), and jump plunging (where gulls will jump off a rock head first to…