Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 23, 2013

Discovered: Plastic-Eating Barnacles

The oceans are full of plastic. Now, research finds that even barnacles are feeling the consequences. A third of barnacles caught in the North Pacific gyre, a region of the ocean notoriously littered with scraps of plastic, have microfragments of the plastic material in their digestive systems at a given...

Nov 13, 2013

Crazy Cretaceous Find: Intersex Crabs

DENVER — It's a crustacean conundrum: Why did some Cretaceous crabs sport both male and female characteristics? The answer is unknown, but new fossil discoveries reveal that intersex crabs were a small but persistent part of the population in South Dakota during the Cretaceous Period — and a parasitic barnacle...

Nov 19, 2013

New Cave-Dwelling 'Shrimp' Discovered in California

A translucent underwater cave dweller that looks like a skeleton and travels like an inchworm is the newest member of California's array of marine life. Scientists found a new species of skeleton shrimp — a group of tiny crustaceans that are actually caprellid amphipods, not shrimp — in vials collected...

Jan 23, 2014

In Photos: Mantis Shrimp Show Off Googly Eyes

Crazy Eyes (Image credit: Image courtesy of Roy L. Caldwel)The peacock mantis shrimp, like this juvenile Odontodactylus scyllarus, are smashing superheroes. The colorful crustaceans have a hammerlike claw that can smash prey with the acceleration of a 0.22-caliber bullet — not unlike Thor's mythological weapon. Turns out, they also have...

Jan 23, 2014

Aggressive Mantis Shrimp Sees Color Like No Other

The colorful mantis shrimp is known for powerful claws that can stun prey with 200 lbs. (91 kilograms) of force. Now, new research finds that these aggressive crustaceans are weird in another way: They see color like no other animal on the planet. In fact, the 400-million-year-old visual system of...

Jan 23, 2014

Shrilk: Bug-Inspired 'Plastic' Made from Shrimp Shells

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then insects have a lot to be flattered about. From cameras to robots, bugs have already inspired a lot of technology, and now two scientists working at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering are looking to replace plastic with a new...

Mar 26, 2014

Gigantic Cambrian Shrimplike Creature Unearthed in Greenland

A new filter-feeding giant that trolled the Cambrian seas has been unearthed in Greenland. The species, dubbed Tamisiocaris borealis, used large, bristly appendages on its body to rake in tiny shrimplike creatures from the sea, and likely evolved from the top predators of the day to take advantage of a...

Mar 27, 2014

There's Just One Thing Stopping Killer Shrimp from Wreaking Even More Havoc

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Alien species become invasive when their introduction to an ecosystem ends up causing ecological disruption in their new home. Cane toads, rabbits, water hyacinth, and zebra mussels are all...

Apr 9, 2014

Adorably Tiny Crayfish Discovered (and It's a Cannibal)

A new species of crayfish discovered in southeast Australia's coastal lakes and swamps is one of the world's smallest crayfish species, researchers report. The tiny, blue-black crustacean resembles its larger cousins that end up in cooking pots, such as lobsters and crawdads. But this species, which locals call a lake...

Jun 1, 2014

The Crab-Castrating Parasite That Zombifies Its Prey

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Meet Sacculina carcini – a barnacle that makes a living as a real-life body-snatcher of crabs. Unlike most barnacles that are happy to simply stick themselves to a rock...

Jun 10, 2014

Drastic New England Lobster Decline May Be Linked to Warmer Waters

This article was provided by AccuWeather.com. Despite booming populations of adult lobsters, marine biologists and fisheries along the northern Atlantic coast of the United States are concerned about a dramatic population decline for young larval lobsters. Scientists searching for the cause of this drop see signs that ocean currents and...

Sep 30, 2014

Tiny Sea Monkeys Create Giant Ocean Currents

Every evening, sunset signals the start of dinner for billions of wiggling sea monkeys living in the ocean. As these sea monkeys — which are not actually monkeys but a type of shrimp — swarm to the surface in one large, culminating force, they may contribute as much power to...

Feb 19, 2015

Shrimpy Sharks to Great Whites: Marine Animals Have Gotten Bigger Over Time

Animals tend to evolve toward a larger body size over time, and marine animals are no exception, a study suggests. In fact, the average size of marine animals has increased significantly over the past 542 million years, according to researchers who recently compared the body sizes of ocean-dwelling creatures from...

Mar 3, 2015

Animal Sex: How Barnacles Do It

Barnacles are invertebrates related to crabs and lobsters. But unlike their crawly cousins, adult barnacles permanently attach to surfaces, raising an interesting question: How do these sessile creatures mate? Numerous immobile invertebrates, including clams and sea anemones, reproduce via broadcast spawning, in which the animals release sperm and eggs into...

Mar 19, 2015

Mystery of the 'Vampire Crabs' Solved

The mystery of the origin of two strange-looking species of vampire crabs is finally solved. The crabs come from the island of Java in Indonesia, according to the scientists who officially describe the species in a new report. Vampire crabs owe their name to their spooky appearance, as they have...