By Alberto Valero-Gracia In my second post of the advent calendar, I would like to share with you some of the pictures I’ve taken during our field trip to Sylt (Germany), a very nice island with sandy beaches in which a lot of tradition on the study of […]

“On the thirteenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me”…an unbridled curiosity of organismal diversity and their relationships, historical contexts, and the natural world that has directly informed my career. Me too! While my fascination of the natural world isn’t directly related to the holidays, I […]

As the nights get longer and the end of the year draws ever nearer, the FEZ advent calendar gives us the opportunity to introduce what we’ve been working on this year to everyone. My role in the group is tied to the Invertomics project, the quest for a […]

Most species of the hydraenid beetle genus Ochthebius are associated with fresh water habitats e.g. creek margins. One clade, the vandykei group, succeeded in a very different habitat, fissures and crevices of the supralittoral coastal rocks on both sides of the northern Pacific. One species of this group […]

Species of the genus Stygocapitella belong to the ringed worms, also known as Annelida. Annelids are worms like earthworms, lugworm or christmas tree worms, but also leeches or very tiny worms living in the spaces between the sand grains, called the interstitium. Such an interstitial group of worms […]

Bowhead whales (scientific name Balaena mysticetus) are baleen whales that spend the entire life in the Arctic and subarctic waters. They are named after their characteristic triangular skull that allows them to break through ice for breathing. They are 15-20 meters long and may weigh up to 100 […]

After introducing the Artsdatabanken project and telling about our summer collection trips (Trøndelag and Oslo), it is time to present the six invertebrate groups that we are working with. From star ascidians to Christmas-tree worms, this seems to be the adequate time of the year to get to […]

A year has passed since the last update on my project related to the Aegialites-beetles. Throughout the year, the project has moved slowly forward with some minor corona-bumps in the way. The intended fieldwork to Japan is still postponed, but trough Vladimir, we have managed to get a […]

By Alberto Valero-Gracia In this blog post I will briefly comment about our first field trip outside Norway, a trip done to sample at the Station Biologique de Roscoff (France). During this trip (3rd – 17th of September, 2021), my supervisor, Prof. Torsten Struck, and I, were able […]

Pia Merete Eriksen, Rita M. Austin In June 2021, I, Pia M Eriksen, conducted a research project under the guidance of Rita M Austin to sequence herptile type specimen DNA using in-house sequencing techniques, supported by Oslo Natural History Museum and UiO: Life Sciences. Now, 5 months later, […]