What is a giant squid? Many different species have been referred to by this name, from the "calamar gigante" that Danna studied in Mexico and California to other species alternately known as warty squid, clubhook squid, and colossal squid. Danna will give a tour of the unique features and record-holders of each species, with plenty […]
Come and learn all about garter snakes (what they eat, where they live, how they spend their time) and the cool part .... they play in the west coast ecosystems around us.
Life At Night, Speakers Series 2023 Working the night shift: Urban racoons in Canada They work at night, traveling unseen through the city like masked bandits, one of the true success stories of species adapting to human disturbance. How do raccoons (Procyon lotor) survive so well in the urban jungle? And are humans unwittingly creating […]
Nature has developed amazing chemical sensors which greatly surpass man-made sensors in sensitivity and speed. A male Manduca sexta hawkmoth can sense the female's pheromone in concentrations as small as 1 in 10^17 molecules of air! To learn more about and mimic the way moths locate food and mates, I equipped a small palm-sized drone, […]
Life At Night, Speakers Series 2023 The Magical World of Bats Like bats or not, you will after hearing and seeing for yourself what Dr. Tuttle has learned about these mysterious but magical animals. As you’ll see bats come in an amazing variety, as cute as any panda or as strange as any dinosaur, ranging from […]
Since 1984 my wife Patsy and I have studied owls in Manitoba, Canada. Recently we wanted to start a new research project using camera traps to record owl breeding behaviour. In 2015 a pair of Long-eared Owls nested on our farm literally a stone's throw from our house. This was a great chance to test […]
Life At Night, Speakers Series 2023 Galactic Archaeology - This is the encore presentation of February 23 The history of our universe spans 13 billion years, 99.998% of which humanity did not yet exist. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is at least ten billion years old, having survived what we believe is a violent […]
Introducing two unique gelatinous zooplankton and their roles in the ocean. Salps and pyrosomes are zooplankton – free floating animals that drift with the ocean currents. They are unique because they have gelatinous bodies, similar to cnidarian jellies, but unlike jellyfish they don’t have stingers and primarily consume phytoplankton. They are part of a group […]
Related to dull-colored, garden-munching land slugs, “naked gilled” sea slugs (nudibranchs) are some of the most colorful and charismatic inhabitants of the marine world. They come in all different shapes and sizes – as small as a grain of rice or as large as a loaf of bread - yet these animals have no commercial […]
Little Known Giant: The life history of the world's largest amphibians The giant salamanders in the Family Cryptobranchidae represent the largest amphibians in the world. Five giant salamander species are currently recognized, all of which are of conservation concern. Over the past decade, I have studied the Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) and the eastern […]
Hagfishes are bottom dwelling marine animals that are capable of producing startling amounts of defensive slime when they are provoked. We have investigated the composition and mechanical properties of the slime using a variety of techniques. We have also demonstrated that hagfish slime is especially good at clogging the gills of would-be fish predators, which […]
Dr. Bridgette Clarkston & Dr. Bridgette Clark present Seansational Seaweeds and How to Celebrate Them! Join us Friday June 7th @ the Ucluelet Community Centre. Seaweeds are weird. Weird, but oh so wonderful. And for coastal marine ecosystems, they are vital — creating habitats, providing food, stabilizing shorelines, and looking gorgeous. This talk will explore […]