In this podcast we go underwater to hear what killer whales sound like and explore the adaptations that different populations of killer whales have evolved to capture prey.

Image in the public domain.

Killer Whales

An ethnobotanist hopes that a native tree will help an island nation avoid an epidemic.

Image credit: Christopher Kitalong

Delal a kar

EOL fellow Rosario Castañeda takes us to the back rooms of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, searching through dozens of jars of pickled anole lizards to see the traces of evolution in action.

Image credit: catherinemorrison29, Flickr: EOL Images. CC BY-NC-SA. http://eol.org/data_objects/29208468

Anoles

The arctic tern travels distances of more than 50,000 miles, from pole to pole, crossing through temperate and tropical regions along the way. Carsten Egevang used geo-locator tags to track some of these terns, and he shares their story with us in this podcast.

Image credit: Blake Matheson, Flickr: EOL Images. CC BY-NC

Arctic Terns

Ugandan lepidopterist Perpetra Akite studies at a university in the capital city, far from the farm where she grew up. Since she began studying butterflies as a girl, the landscape of her homeland has changed radically, for butterflies as well as people. It’s change that can be measured in many ways—in the inches of rainfall, acres of forest cleared—or the span of a tiny butterfly’s wings. 

Image courtesy of Perpetra Akite

Ugandan Butterfly

This week’s podcast begins with a riddle about a life form that’s all around us, yet rarely seen. Working under cover, it sends its ghostly tendrils into almost every corner of the terrestrial world. We associate it with death and decay, but life as we know it would be impossible without it. Come for a walk in the woods with Ari Daniel Shapiro and learn how this mysterious form of life, neither animal nor vegetable, shapes our world.

Photo Credit: Hypholoma fasciculare. Albert P. Bekker, CalPhotos. CC BY-NC-SA

Fungi

Ari Daniel Shapiro joins the serious beachcombers along the high-tide line of Sanibel Island, Florida. These “shellers” come in search of beautiful sea shells, sometimes no bigger than a grain of rice, that are the remains of marine snails, bivalves, and other mollusks. Along the way, Ari learns why Sanibel’s shores are so rich in molluscan treasure, and how shelling has captured the imaginations of scientists and enthusiasts alike.

Photo Courtesy of Wendy Shaprio.

Sanibel Shells

While the conflict between the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots dates back centuries, twenty-first century problems such as climate change make it urgent for scientists in the north and south to find ways around the old differences, before endangered sea turtles slip across a different kind of dividing line—from living to extinct. 

Photo Credit: Brocken Inaglory, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA. http://eol.org/data_objects/28669174

Sea Turtles

Dr. Colleen Kavanaugh dives deep to discover a white worm as tall as your refrigerator that breathes through bright red feathery “lips.” This isn’t a creature from outer space. Meet Riftia, a tube worm that lives in deep-sea vents, and learn the surprising lessons this denizen of the abyss is teaching scientists about life on Earth.

Vent Worms

Hosted by Ari Daniel. Produced by Atlantic Public Media and supported by the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology.

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