An undiscovered island… After several days aimlessly wandering in a boat through the Pacific Ocean, Einar Pettersson-Skamtvist, a Swede soldier, finally set foot on an island. His escape from the Japanese prisoner’s camp had been a success. But luck is ephemeral and found himself drifting on a malfunctioning boat. On the verge of starvation and…
The scientific imaginary creatures (II): Floaters and other life in Jupiter
It’s 1980. The decade of the 70’s has come to an end, and with it, a time when space travel seemed to be achievable just in a few decades. Fueled by Apolo’s XI landing in 1969, science fiction had just experimented a sudden rise that had even been promoted to the mainstream media…
The scientific imaginary creatures (I): The history of Caminalcules
In On elephants and bacteria we always try to present unconventional theories, unique animals or just basically whatever has caught up our attention. In this new series of articles (we have not forgotten about Strangers in the animal tree….) we are going to look at the “pinnacle of imagination” in biology: the creation of scientific…
Seaweed for sceptics: ammonoids and brown algae
Welcome to the next issue of the Seaweed for Sceptics series. The first post of the series explored the rough origin of the red algae, showing the genetic impariment that these seaweed suffer as a result of their extreme origins. In this second post we shall focus on one of these weird connections that crop…
Strangers in the animal tree (P2)
We continue our series with some of the most strange and unknown animals on earth. In Strangers in the animal tree (Pt1) we got to known two monotypic phyla with mouth issues: Ciclyophorans, who are only found in the mouth of some common lobsters and Micrognathozoans, which have one of the most complex mandibles on…
Say it with leaves: a gymnospermic romance
Happy Valentine Day everyone! We would like to give our biological slant on this romantic date. The Internet is ripe with dating techniques and romantic proposals, ranging from original to pure nonsense. Here we want to show you yet another way to communicate your love for someone: say it with leaves! Johann Wolfgang von Goethe…
Strangers in the animal tree (Part1)
Animals are extremely diverse in anatomy, life cycle, adaptations… Our planet is full of imaginative wonders (many of them will be covered in future issues): survivors in the hardest conditions, ultraspecialized parasites, sun-powered animals, overcomplicated mating strategies… the list just has no end. Amongst the uniqueness of animal diversity we found some animals that…
Greek mythology invades biodiversity!
Giving a name to an organism is one of the most thrilling moments for any biologist. Not only it’s a perfect opportunity to show off their inventive and imaginative skills, but it’s also a way to reach immortality (to put it in a poetic way). The organism will carry this name at least until someone…
Seaweed for sceptics (I): a rough origin for the red algae
Seaweeds are one of those things we might take for granted. Even many biologists would call this fleshy marine algae “dull” or “uninteresting” (we guess they’d be called seaweed sceptics?). One of the points of this blog is to show that life’s magnificence is to be found everywhere, if you are open to it….
Welcome
Welcome to On Elephants and Bacteria. Humble salutations from the Biosphere to the Blogosphere. What is this blog? What can you expect from it? This is a blog devoted to the diversity and quirkiness of the living realm. Not a regular biology site, here we aim to cover a wide spectrum of topics in…
On elephants and bacteria 