The Atavism

Sunday Spinelessness – All in the eyes

David Winter • May 01, 2011

• arachnophilia,
• Cycloctenidae,
• photos,
• sci-blogs,
• spiders

Can you guess what these patterns represent? Well, having read the title of the post you may have guessed that each black dot is an eye. In fact, these pictures all represent the way a particular family of spiders arrange their eyes. For spiders, th... Read More

Sunday Spinelessness – Incertae sedis

David Winter • Apr 24, 2011

• molluscs,
• New Zealand,
• photos,
• sci-blogs,
• sunday spinelessness

I was going to start this post by saying taxonomy has a language of its own, but that's not really true. Taxonomy just has a whole lot of Latin. When I've given talks in schools, I've almost always been asked why scientists insist on giving creatures t... Read More

Conserving Don Merton’s achievements

David Winter • Apr 19, 2011

• black robin,
• conservation,
• don merton,
• kakapo,
• sci-blogs

Don Merton holding Richard Henry, an important Kakapo. Photo is CC 3.0 from here (thanks to Errol Nye from DoC) Don Merton probably saved more species from extinction than anyone on earth. If it wasn't for his efforts we would have lost the Chatham Isl... Read More

Sunday Spinelessness – The sight of a wild slug eating

David Winter • Apr 17, 2011

• leaf veined slugs,
• photos,
• sci-blogs,
• snails,
• sunday spinelessness

Did you know that I'm in the pocket of big bussiness ? Or that I set out to bamboozle people with fancy graphs? Or that I show the typical arrogance of the modern scientist? Well, it was news to me as well, but all this, and much more, appeared in the ... Read More

What makes a great scientific talk?

David Winter • Apr 06, 2011

• sci-blogs,
• science communication

Genetics Otago (the group behind the Southern Genes blog at sciblogs) runs a bi-weekly meeting for postgrads to catch up, find out about each others work and perhaps even learn something about life as a budding academic. Next week I'm going to present ... Read More

Sunday Spinelessness – The Entomologist who invented Daylight Saving Time

David Winter • Apr 03, 2011

• butterfly,
• GV Hudson,
• history of science,
• sci-blogs,
• sunday spinelessness

Today marks the end of the Daylight Savings Time in New Zealand, so local readers will have had an extra hour at their disposal to sleep through, get more work done, or explain to their children that they are meant to stay asleep for longer today. Howe... Read More

Sunday Spinelessness – The rest of Vanuatu

David Winter • Mar 27, 2011

• diptera,
• fly,
• nephilla,
• nerridae,
• photos,
• sci-blogs,
• spider,
• vanuatu

It's about time I stopped drip-feeding these Vanuatu photos and presented the "best of the rest".I've had a very tough time trying to identify most of the bugs that I came across in Vanuatu - there aren't really any resources dedicated to invertebrates... Read More

Sunday Spinelessness – Dragonfly

David Winter • Mar 20, 2011

• Anisoptera,
• dragonfly,
• Odonata,
• photos,
• sci-blogs,
• vanuatu

I appear to have run out of Sunday in which to write about bugs. No matter, I think I have a photo that'll more than make up for a lack of words on my part. Face to to face with one of the orange dragonflies that spent their days zooming over (and, in ... Read More

From a blog post to TV

David Winter • Mar 17, 2011

• sci-blogs

There can't be many countries in which you could end up on national TV for staying up all night and writing a blog post criticising someone, but New Zealand is one them. I knew when Campbell Live aired that interview with Ken Ring there was going to be... Read More

Sunday Spinelessness – Why we have bumblebees

David Winter • Mar 13, 2011

• bumblebee,
• insects,
• photos,
• sci-blogs

We've had a stunningly beautiful day here in Dunedin. It's been feeling pretty autumnal around here lately, so there was no way I was going to spend any more time in front of a keyboard than was strictly necessary. As a result today's post is going to ... Read More