Here we present every month a blog about an animal group.
Category: Group of the month
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Group of the Month: Tree ferns – an Australian holiday discovery
A visit to the Adelaide Botanic Garden is certainly high up on the to-do list of a biologist visiting the capital of South Australia. In December 2024, a couple of days before the Australian midsummer, I had the pleasure to visit the Adelaide Botanic Garden and explored the […]
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Christmas in the Ocean: The Marvel of Christmas Tree Worms
Today, I want to introduce a fascinating group of worms that are particularly relevant during the Christmas season. Known as Christmas tree worms, these marine annelids belong to the family Serpulidae. They are renowned for their radiolar crowns and their habit of dwelling within calcareous tubes attached on […]
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Group of the month November: Metchnikovellidae
Cover image: Metchnikovella incurvata, a parasite of a bristle worm infecting gregarine. Picture from Galindo et al. 2018, https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evy205 For this month’s group, I want to present you another group of organisms I am currently working with in my postdoc project PolyPro3 here at NHM Oslo. This is […]
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Group of the month September– Viola
This month I wish to present a group that I have been working on for nearly 30 years, the angiosperm genus Viola which comprises violets and pansies (Figure 1). Our group recently produced a monograph of the genus (Marcussen et al. 2022) – the first comprehensive (and very […]
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Group of the month: The boring worms
This month, we will present to you the boring worms. These are worms of different genera, which belong to the polychaete family Spionidae. Polychaetes are also called bristle worms as the often have a large number (poly) of bristles (chaetae) on their segments. The family Spionidae is a […]
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Månedens gruppe: De “boring” ormene
Denne måneden vil vi presentere de “boring” ormene. Dette er ormer av forskjellige slekter, som tilhører polychaete-familien Spionidae. Polychaeter kalles også flerbørstemarker, ettersom de ofte har et stort antall (poly) børster (chaetae) på segmentene sine. Familien Spionidae er en familie som omfatter mer enn 600 arter i mer […]
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Group of the month July – Phoronida
This month, I wish to present a very beautiful invertebrate phyla, namely Phoronida – also known as Horseshoe worms. The phylum is fairly small, with 13 recognized living species, divided into two genera; Phoronis and Phoronopsis. They are found within the phylogenetic grouping of Lophotrochozoa, more specific […]
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Group of the month: The Laptev walrus – an enigmatic marine mammal
The walrus (Odobena rosmarus) is certainly one of the most fascinating arctic and enigmatic marine mammal species. It is the enormous size of the animal (it is the largest pinniped in the Northern Hemisphere) and the enormous tusks that attract our attention. Walruses are distributed in the circumpolar […]
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Group of the month: Gregarisina
For this month’s group, I’m presenting you one of the three groups I am working with here at CEG group, the gregarines (Gregarisina, Apicomplexa). I got to know this group during my PhD research and I grew fond of them as study system for marine symbiosis. Gregarines are […]
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Månedens gruppe: Loricifera
I månedens gruppe i april tar vi for oss en hel fyla!Loricifera er en av de nyere gruppene, og ble først oppdaget i 1983. Siden den gang har 44 arter blitt navngitt, fra Frankrike til Antarktis og Japan, og flere oppdages hvert år. Jeg skrev en artikkel om […]