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Behold the dazzling colors of an iridescent ammonite (Placenticeras intercalare)! A relative of today’s squids, this ammonite lived some 80 million years ago near what is now Alberta, Canada. This fossil’s spectacular coloration is the result of millions of years of high temperatures and pressures. As these forces acted on nacre in this ammonite’s shell, it was transformed into a gemstone known as an ammolite. Along with amber and pearl, ammolite is one of only a handful of gems made by living organisms.

You can spot this rare specimen in the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Collections Core in the Museum’s Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation! Plan your visit.

Photo: © AMNH 

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New species alert!

Teaming up for survival 🕷️🤝🦠

Deep-sea animals have evolved remarkable strategies for surviving in one of the toughest environments on Earth. MBARI Adjunct Shana Goffredi leads the SymbiOxy Lab at Occidental College and studies the symbiotic relationships between invertebrates and bacteria. This week, Goffredi and her team shared an exciting discovery: tiny sea spiders who farm crops of bacteria.

Microbes power unique communities of life on the deep seafloor. The edge of the Eastern Pacific Ocean hosts many methane seeps, where hydrocarbons bubble up from the seafloor and fuel a complex food web anchored by methane-eating bacteria.

Goffredi and her team have been studying seeps from Alaska to California, and in 2021, she led an expedition aboard MBARI’s retired flagship research vessel, Western Flyer, to study the Del Mar Seep offshore of Southern California. This expedition and additional fieldwork with the submersible Alvin in Southern California and the Aleutian Islands revealed three new species of sea spiders in the genus Sericosura who appear to live exclusively at methane seeps.

These spiders host methane-oxidizing bacteria on their exoskeleton, which they cultivate and consume. This novel partnership represents a previously unknown interaction between animals and chemically fueled microbes, expanding our understanding of microbial symbiosis in the deep sea.

This research underscores the complex web of life that thrives in the ocean’s depths. Who knows what we’ll discover next?

Learn more about these spectacular spiders.

📸 Bianca Dal Bó, Occidental College

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lest this be lost in the bellicose noise of the day

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Excussse us… have you ever heard of the blunthead slug snake (Aplopeltura boa)? This nocturnal reptile, which can reach lengths of up to 33 in (85 cm), primarily feeds on slugs and snails. Unlike many other snakes, this species eats using a technique called mandibular sawing: To slice off the indigestible parts of prey, the blunthead slug snake slides its jaws back and forth like a saw! It can be found in parts of Southeast Asia including Thailand, Sumatra, and Java. 

Photo: Alexander Gregory Mason, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

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It’s Fossil Friday, so soar into the weekend with Archaeopteryx! When this dinosaur was first described in 1861, it caused a sensation. Discovered shortly after Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by means of natural selection, Archaeopteryx provided an example of evolution in action—a fossil that showed the transition between reptiles and birds. The first Archaeopteryx fossils ever found included exquisitely preserved skeletons with clear imprints of wings and feathers, but also teeth and a bony tail. Today, scientists think Archaeopteryx wasn’t able to fly very well, but the species still represents a turning point in paleontologists’ understanding of the relationship between ancient dinosaurs and modern birds in the design of both its body and brain.

Learn more about the fascinating world of dinosaurs at the Museum!

Photo: © AMNH 

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Unique Rooms and Historic Splendor in a Medieval English Country House (click for the full tour)

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Misfolded proteins thought to play a critical role in the progress of various neurodegenerative conditions could be prevented from forming toxic plaques with the injection of a specially designed nanomaterial. Developed by an international team of researchers, the tiny particles with both fat- and water-loving properties were shown to trap misbehaving amyloid beta proteins before they could clump together, protecting tissue against damage thought to be responsible for Alzheimer's disease.

Continue Reading.

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A new study suggests that Anna's Hummingbirds in the western United States are not only keeping up with human influence on their habitat, they're thriving. According to a recent study in Global Change Biology, a journal focused on environmental change, the use and prevalence of hummingbird feeders — like those red and clear plastic ones filled with homemade sugar water — changed the size and shape of the birds' beaks. The range of the hummingbird also spread from the southern part of California all the way up the West coast into Canada.

Continue Reading.

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by Konstantin Malanin

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madleen update

The 8 still being illegally detained in a Israeli detention centre are being threatened and not being allowed to sleep or given access to drinkable water, Thiago avila has gone on a hunger strike and now is being moved into solitary confinment. Rima Hassan french Palestinian member of the EU has been threatened with physical assault if she doesn't sign papers.

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Not to get on my soap box or anything, but I'm getting a weird amount of hate rn and being accused of like, engaging in a full on harassment campaign, because of one reply I made to a post, pointing out that we cannot boil down Greta's situation to just a "normal detainment" when Israeli propaganda sites are proudly declaring her and other activists are going to be forced to sit through a 43-minute-long propaganda-infused literal snuff film showing footage of October 7th from body cams of the Hamas attackers.

So, I've had some time to think about it, and if I'm gonna get hate about it, I'm going to be clear on all topics so you can hate on me and post weird comments on my pinned post bc my asks are closed accurately.

1.) The claim this was just a publicity stunt. Yes. It was a publicity stunt. I am not disagreeing with that, but to boil it down to "just a publicity stunt" in a derogatory manner severely downplays the point behind said publicity stunt, which I will get into in a moment.

Did Greta know this was a situation where she was going to be detained? Yes. She did. Is she purposefully using inflammatory language? Yes. She is. But that's the point. Which I will expand on in a moment.

2.) The reminder that Freedom Flotilla is not a sanctioned aid organization permitted to have access to the Gaza Strip. Some people went as far to say "If Doctors Without Borders weren't even allowed in, what made them think they would be permitted?" I daresay that was the point. If you pay attention, almost every humanitarian aid organization operating within Gaza at the moment is Palestinian run. I could be wrong on this point, but I am 90% sure there are no major international organizations "permitted" to operate within Gaza at this time. That is going to be brought up in a moment.

3.) The point everyone made that Israel has promised to deliver the aid from the Freedom Flotilla, and the implication that we should take that at face value. Israel, who has a rich history of not only blocking aid, but actively using relief supplies as a means of marking out drone strikes and massacre sites. They have repeatedly either failed to let aid they promised would be let through to actually make it into the strip, even stolen it, and have also used relief supplies as literal bait.

Listen. I've thought about it. A fucking lot. Yes, what Greta did was a publicity stunt, and she made the entire voyage extremely loud and public, spread it all over social media. You can say that was a publicity stunt. But that was very much intentional.

The vast majority of humanitarian groups operating within Gaza right now are run by Palestinians. No foreign nationals are really permitted in the strip. Why is that? Maybe it's because of Israel's habit of targeting medics and aid workers and journalists and hospitals. Perhaps. Maybe it's because if a couple of foreign nationals die, other countries can wave it off with a "strongly worded email" and let it die, because that's just one citizen being an idiot, and they can spin it that way in the media.

"She absolutely knew she was going to be detained, sailing into a war zone like that without the proper permits." Maybe that was the point. Maybe this was less about Israel, and more about pointing a gun at all of their governments and saying do something, you sniveling cowards. Maybe it was to force them to finally get the gears working.

It has been made very clear from the start that everyone should be putting pressure on the individual governments involved to act. This was not solely about Israel. It was about the collective failure of the international governing body. That's why a member of the EU Parliament was there in the first place. Or did we forget one of the detainees was an actual sitting politician in all of this, not just some random activist private citizen?

We can go in circles saying it was a legal detainment. Sure, it was, but laws often function in the favor of the governing bodies, and we have to consider how Israel is exploiting those laws to their benefit right now.

The claim she was doing it for clout, of all the things, is absolutely fucking insane. This is not on the same level as a random YouTuber rage baiting, my gods, what the hell is wrong with you all. Greta and the other activists knowingly and intentionally sailed into an active warzone controlled by a government with decades of war crimes going entirely unimpeded under its belt, and you all want to cry she was doing it for clout. Insane behavior. What is wrong with all of you.

Overall, I was very polite in the post, and when I saw it was not going to be a productive conversation, I disengaged. But, I just blocked my second person on my pinned post spewing vile comments at me to circumvent my closed ask box, equating to one single post like I was leading some kind of mass harassment campaign.

I am very sorry to the Jews around the world being targeted and attacked in the name of "Free Palestine". At no point did I indicate that was correct behavior, or that I agreed with it, nor did I ever indicate that was an acceptable sacrifice in my eyes. I understand the extremely valid concerns that this incident will instigate further attacks. But, the solution to dispelling the building antisemitism right now is not to downplay the actions of the Israel government, shame the aid workers trying to force their governments to act, and boil down an instance of activism as nothing but "a publicity stunt she knew would go wrong."

Yes, Greta likely did know the consequences of her actions. But to play it all as selfishness and a desire for attention is really not okay.

I am no longer interested in being polite.

If you want to come at me, come at me. Here's allllll my thoughts on the matter. If you got a problem with it, fuck it, I'm opening my ask box, but I'm not turning on anon for any of you. If you want to say something, say it with your chest.

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Israel placed EU Parliament member Rima Hassan in solitary confinement and Thiago Avila was also placed in solitary confinement. Rima Hassan was placed in isolation under inhumane conditions in Neve Tirza Prison after writing "Free Palestine" on a wall in Givon Prison. She was moved to a small, windowless cell with extremely poor hygienic conditions and has been denied access to the prison yard. Thiago Avila was placed in isolation in Ayalon Prison due to his ongoing hunger and thirst strike, which he began two days ago. He has also been treated aggressively by prison authorities, although this has not escalated to physical assault.

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Guys I want to bring attention to the Revive Gaza’s Farmland initiative!!!! APN is working w farmers in Gaza to help restore Gaza’s agricultural sector. They’re just shy of being within 67% of their goal at the moment. Please show them some love by donating & spreading the word

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Floating with our favorite football-shaped friend. 🏈🤩

The vampire squid, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, has a grim reputation and name, but these gentle scavengers are "living fossils" that have remained relatively unchanged for hundreds of millions of years.

This species is the only living member of Vampyromorpha, an ancient cephalopod order that gave rise to both squids and octopuses. Vampire squids are often found in the oxygen minimum zone, an area ranging from 500 to 700 meters deep (1,640 to 2,296 feet) in Monterey Bay, which is very low in dissolved oxygen and hosts very little life within its boundaries.

Vampire squid use long feeding filaments to capture marine snow, including gelatinous zooplankton, abandoned larvacean houses, crustacean molts, dead diatoms, and fecal pellets. They can grow up to 30 centimeters (12 inches).

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Trachipterus sp.

Video is a powerful tool for studying the ocean. Cameras on MBARI’s advanced underwater robots help our scientists discover remarkable new species, describe communities, and assess ocean health. We’ve amassed a unique archive of deep-sea video that’s essential for research groups across MBARI and beyond. Our Video Lab Team combs through thousands of hours of footage to identify and label animals and objects we film.

These sightings are all of fish in the genus Trachipterus—members of the ribbonfish group, aptly named for their thin, ribbon-like bodies. As these fish mature, they change dramatically from dark red to shiny silver, and their frilled caudal and pelvic fins are greatly reduced. ⁠Because adult ribbonfishes spend most of their time in the ocean's dark depths—generally around 900 meters, or nearly 3,000 feet below the surface—sightings of this regal resident of the deep are uncommon.⁣⁣

From our first sighting of Trachipterus in 1991 to our most recent in 2021, these rare encounters highlight the value of long-term deep-sea exploration.