The Wild Life

Butterflyfish are a group of around 120 species in the Family Chaetodontidae. They can be found in reefs around the world in the tropical and subtropical regions of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. Butterflyfish are probably most recognizable for their disk-like body shape, pointed snout, and striking patterns and coloration seen across most species in stark contrast with the blue ocean background. 

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Your hikes that used to take an hour have just turned into three hours. At first, this is super stressful. Like, I just want to finish my hike. But, do you know what this allows you to do? It allows you yourself to be mindful and to stop and smell the roses. Hiking with a toddler is definitely a different experience, but it doesn't have to be stressful. Here are some tips to keep in mind.

Originally written as a blog post by my wife

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Skinks are often overlooked, even unknown, (even as I write this, spell-check doesn’t even recognize “Skink” as a word) but there are over 1,500 species of them on the planet. That makes them the most diverse family of lizards.

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This is the answer to a question asked by a listener who submitted a photo saying “It landed on the road right in front of me and then was flying around and gliding in the wind. What is it? Is it like a vulture?”

Meet the Crested Caracara

See, horseshoe crabs are a  biological oddity, a valuable one at that, especially to drug companies who look to them to ensure medicines and vaccines are safe for all of us.

And the key is in their blood.

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They look like some sort of illustration in a mid-90’s kids book about prehistoric animals, which, if you’re familiar, is a really specific aesthetic that deserves some sort of a revival.

Maybe you’re familiar with the Pokemon called Kabuto. I have to admit, my wife got me a classic Gameboy Color for Christmas, exactly like the one I had when I was a kid, and I’ve put close to 20 hours into Pokemon Gold over the past 4 weeks.

Anyway, the point is that they look like, like many things from the sea, otherworldly, ancient, relics of a bygone era, even straight made up for an animated children’s television and game series that somehow manages to rely on its characters training animals to fight each other as a universe building plot point which is, I mean, problematic, right? I don’t know.

They somehow manage to simultaneously embody the moniker of horseshoe while also looking nothing alike other than a U-ish similarity, just as much as their sight immediately calls to mind a crab while not being one in the slightest. I’m talking about, of course, the horseshoe crab. That’s today’s topic. Horseshoe crabs. Their history, their very nature, and their relationships…to each other, other species, us, and even our health.

Today’s special guest, Dr Daniel Sasson (@Daniel_A_Sasson)

He’s a behavioral ecologist primarily interested in studying the evolution of reproductive behaviors. He did his PhD at Florida working with Horseshoe crabs and now conducts research on them at the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, and as you’d expect, he’s pretty mch always loved science

Learn More about The Horseshoe Crab

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Yasuhiro Tsukamoto and his team of researchers at Kyoto Prefectural University in Japan have developed a mask that helps detect COVID-19 under blacklight using cells from the Ostrich.

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The species is perhaps most well known for their impossible appearance and a hilarious (though not entirely correct) viral internet rant about the uselessness of the species. I personally think they look sort of like the Face of Bo from Doctor Who.

But there's more to them than their shocking appearance.

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Whale Sharks. Are they whale, or are they shark? What do they eat? Where do they live? Just how big are they. All of that and more in today’s short!

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They came in droves but no one knows where from. You find them in your homes and cars, scuttling across your windows. They line the sidewalks and entryways of every building.

They’re Asian Lady Beetles, and they’re back.

Read the transcript and check out helpful visuals

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