this week in biodiversity….

I’ve come across some pretty fantastic biocreative material about biodiversity this week. The first I found through the Center For Biological Diversity’s facebook feed, which was created last year by graduate students at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology with hand-drawn artwork by Marley Davis:

“This all started when two graduate students, Laurel Hiebert and Kira Treibergs, were late-night tidepooling on the Oregon coast. They came across some amazing animals, such as a tiny sea spider, a carnivorous chiton, and a brittle star hidden beneath a boulder. They were talking about how invertebrates represent 97% of all animal diversity, but are greatly underrepresented by humankind. Originally, they thought that this would make a great message for a t-shirt for their marine lab, the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology. Then an idea hit them suddenly: “Octopi Wall Street” – it seemed a perfect analogy for this cause. They put together a shirt design for the marine lab’s t-shirt contest with this message. But, soon after that, it went even further. After posting their design on Facebook, it quickly became clear that people all over the country (and world) supported this cause: vertebrates steal the spotlight and the 97% deserve recognition. A PHYLOGENETIC REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN!”

Now, not to overshadow or under-appreciate the invertebrates (hey, I let them go first today!), the second piece is from AmphibiaWeb.org in celebration of the 7,000th described species of amphibian. This song, by The Wiggly Tendrils, sings some cool facts about many different species of amphibians. The Atlantic even picked it up in an article yesterday. And, I’m so excited that it features the name of my dissertation study species: Eurycea sosorum!

Finally (and I wish I could find a higher res image and a credit for this image), I really enjoyed this poster on the biodiversity of Mexico. It’s just overflowing with incredible diversity of all types of organisms!