Happy Easter! On this episode, we discuss Eye types, pupillary shape, and photosensitive cells–all the extra-neural things that determine how an animal sees. Link to sources and downloadable PDFs of articles: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Y3Q6So1szGEAnwp15Pu-p-STCc87D453?usp=sharing
Month: April 2019
Double Trouble Creature Feature: Two F-Ant-astic Manipulators
What do you call an ant that abandons the nest? A tru-ant! Just kidding, it’s been parasitised.
Birds, not Bees, but Salamanders
Differences in monogamous behavior between several vastly different species are discussed.
Can you Hear me Now???
Communication is key, and to this rule electric fish are no exception. In the last post I briefly defined what communication is in terms of a signaler and a receiver I also touched on why communication is important due to…
Why Only One?
Monogamy, or the practice of having one mate at a time, has been a subject of interest likely for all of human history. The question of when and why monogamy evolved are debated, but not as much so as whether…
“I Bark to Say I Love You” Coevolution and Communication
In our last post, we covered some of the genetic shifts that helped distinguish our dogs from their wolf ancestors – both physically and behaviorally. Today, we are going to discuss how this new relationship between dog and man has…
Birds and Magnets – Navigation by Magnetoreception
One interesting form of navigation is magnetoreception; the use of the Earth’s magnetic field to determine location of oneself and other objects. Unlike navigation by sight or smell, magnetoreception is a sense that humans can’t relate to, as they simply…
Rabbit Vibrissae
Welcome back! This week’s blog post will focus on vibrissae in rabbits. The brains of rabbits contain two complete maps of the entire body surface, both of which are in the somatosensory cortex of the parietal cortex (Gould 1986). The…
A Fungus That Gives Fish Anxiety
We have to take some pressure off these little Zebrafish… and their brain cells.
You Should See This 1: Retina? I Hardly Know Her!
The first episode of You Should See This, the nonvisual podcast on how vision works! We discuss the evolution of simple eyes, their basic structure, and new research on Muller cells in the retina. Link to sources and downloadable PDFs…