Author: Caitlyn Finton
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Meet the sea cucumbers
I was talking to my friend, wondering who I should write about this week. She told me I should write about sea cucumbers. I’ll admit, I was skeptical starting out. But friends, these animals are WILD. Some simple facts to start with. There are over 1,000 species of sea cucumbers. They live on the sea […]
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Meet the hooded pitohui
This week’s animal comes courtesy of one of my old lab mates. I was chatting with her about science when she mentioned hearing about a poisonous bird. My reaction: what??? A poisonous bird???? I need to know more! It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to said poisonous bird, the pitohui. The name […]
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Meet the European mink
Do you remember the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. I know, it’s hard to forget. But think hard. Do you remember when there was a big outcry about Covid-19 and mink farms? If you can’t recall, basically there was an outbreak of Covid-19 jumping from humans to mink and back to humans again. So Denmark […]
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Meet the wandering albatross
Have you ever heard the saying, “there’s an albatross around your neck”? It’s a phrase that comes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It’s a long poem (~77 pages, would take the average reader ~28 minutes to read). But the TL:DR version is that a sailor killed an albatross that […]
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The case for indoor cats
Today is a very important day: my cat’s birthday! Ori is turning 4 years old today. He’s a sweet black cat that my boyfriend and I have had since August 2021 and honestly, I don’t know how I lived without him. Cute things about Ori: He’s missing his canines on the right side of his […]
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Meet the green turtle
This past October, I went to the New England Aquarium in Boston for the first time with some visiting friends. You should go if you’ve never been; it’s a solid aquarium! One of the coolest parts was this giant tank in the center. We’re talking four stories tall. 40 feet wide. 200,000 gallons of salt […]
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Meet the central rock rat
As you may know, I studied rodents in during my PhD work. While I specifically studied prairie voles, I did some field work that exposed me to other rodents (i.e., rats, mice, shrews, etc.). So I thought I had a good handle on the types of rodents out there. But guess what? I just found […]
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Meet the flamingo
I’ll admit, I had trouble deciding what animal to tell you about this week. Since its New Year’s Eve, I knew I wanted one that symbolized a new year and a new start. My head immediately went to the phoenix, the mythical bird that bursts into flame upon its death only to be reborn from […]
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Meet the reindeer
It’s almost Christmas, so I thought the obvious animal for this Animal Friday was the reindeer! Scientists (sadly) haven’t found any reindeer with a glowing red nose. But that doesn’t mean that reindeer aren’t super cool! Check out these cool reindeer facts: Reindeer and caribou are the same I always thought reindeer and caribou where […]
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A 2021 Update
Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve looked at this blog. Between grad school and trying to start my writing career, I haven’t had a chance to get this up and running like I wanted…. But you’ll be happy to know that my plan for 2022 is to actually start writing on a semi-regular […]