Tuesday, February 24, 2015

A New Species of Sea Dragon Means I'm the Happiest Girl in the World Right Now

In case you're wondering, my favorite animal is the sea dragon (particularly the leafy sea dragon - so beautiful!). And now there's a new species, bringing the grand total of sea dragon family members up to three.

Photo © Scripps Institute of Oceanagraphy

Scientists at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography discovered the ruby sea dragon through their study of their museum collections. Originally thought to be a variant of the common, or reedy, sea dragon, they discovered that it was in fact an entirely new species, through a combination of tissue samples and photographs of the original specimen, which had been lying dormant in the Western Australia Museum's archives since 1919.

You can read more details about the discovery here at Scripps' website.

Not only does this add to the already amazing biodiversity of our oceans, but it really hammers home the importance of maintaining a museum's collections. You never know what you might find the bowels of a museum's basement archives.

Also, have a video of leafy sea dragons on me:


Sunday, February 15, 2015

The Biodiversity Heritage Library

(http://www.archive.org/download/birdsofamericafr01audu/page/n33_w409, "The birds of America" by John James Audubon, 1840-1844)

If you haven't made use of the Biodiversity Heritage Library, you're seriously missing out.