Blogs of the CEG research group

Suddenly it’s already November, so let us introduce another cool animal in the FEZ blog. This time you can learn about an enigmatic little-known group: the acoels. Acoela is an order of tiny flattened unsegmented worms, belonging to the phylum Xenacoelomorpha (pronounced “zenacelomorpha”). They live mainly in benthic […]

Spiders, insects and even more so worms and wormlike invertebrates are often considered ugly and disgusting, at least unappealing, and sometimes even dangerous. Certainly, there is also beautiful invertebrates such as e.g., butterflies, beetles, dragonflies, or some sea slugs, but usually invertebrates appeal little to our understanding of […]

What is so fascinating or even better said the beauty of working with tiny worms? Many might be curious about this, when they meet researchers like me. I would suggest to look at the marvelous wonders of the hairybellies, the phylum Gastrotricha, and you will understand why it […]

After two years of hard work and many meetings, we can officially announce that the Biodiversity Genomics Europe consortium has started this month. The road to this consortium at the European level started actually from two points. It is a collaboration between two of the most ambitious biological […]

Gnathostomuida, also known as “lesser jaw worms”, is a phylum of about 100 described species of minute marine worms. The first gnathostomulid was discovered in 1928, in the fine sand of Kiel (Germany), by Adolf Remane. Later, Riedl (1969) elevated the animal group to the rank of phylum. […]

When an organism dies, it decomposes, whereby complex structures are broken down. Broadly following 5 to 6 stages, decomposition may be halted or accelerated at any point depending on conditions, such as temperature, water, and oxygen, resulting in different morphological and chemical changes to the organism. By chance, […]

Hallo again, and welcome to August’s entry in the FEZ blog’s Group of the Month club! This time, we’ll be exploring a charismatic wonder of the microscopic world: the tardigrade. Their ability to withstand incredible heat and cold, and even survive in space, has brought them a certain […]

Summer is here, so it’s time for the Artsdatabanken project team to go back to the field. Or to the sea, in our case. After driving 500km from the east to the west coast, through beautiful mountains and majestic fjords, we arrived at Austevoll (Figure 1), an archipelago […]

Black coffee but also cookies, nuts, chocolate and fruits – certainly highly appreciated ingredients to support lively scientific discussions. This is also true for the recent SNAC discussions of scientific staff at the Natural History Museum Oslo (NHM). Lively discussions – isn’t that the normal default for scientists? […]

Written by Line Willersrud and Rita M. Austin The phylum Chordata contains the three subphylums, Tunicata, Cephalochordata and Vertebrata. Vertebrata, which includes humans and all other mammals, birds, fishes, amphibians and reptiles, are differentiated from other chordates by having an enclosed vertebral column, the backbone. But inclusion in […]

A 130,000 to 115,000 years old polar bear jawbone fossil from Svalbard. Photo: Karsten Sund, Natural History Museum Oslo.

Spooky scary skeleton shrimp, send shivers down your spine, their appearance will shock your soul, but certainly don’t seal your doom tonight! Family Caprellidea, otherwise known as skeleton shrimp, are small marine arthropods that are found world-wide. Using their specialized ‘feet’, called pereopods, these slender, segmented invertebrates cling […]

There is increasing societal discussions on and measures against climate change and biodiversity loss, topics that touch the self-conception and tasks of natural history museums. In 2015, the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for the 2030 Agenda. To what extent do the SDG affect scientific […]

The phylum Kinorhyncha – often referred to as mud dragons – includes exclusively marine meiofaunal species. Meiofauna or meiobenthos comprises animals that are characterized by size (> 45 μm and < 1mm) in order to discriminate them from micro- and macrofauna. Accordingly, Kinorhyncha are usually < 1 mm in […]

The bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) in the East Greenland Sea, the Svalbard region and the Barents Sea (referred to as the East Greenland-Svalbard-Barents Sea (EGSB) stock) has been intensively studied for many years by members of the FEZ group. The stock is classified as Endangered in the International Union of […]

By Liepa Adomaityte Many of us would agree that planet Earth is filled with incredible beauty, and the flora and fauna we observe are breathtaking. However, in many ways, mother nature can also be macabre, horrid, and contain beings that we may only imagine in our nightmares. One […]

We were fortunate to obtain finding from ArtsDatabanken for new project. Yesterday the contracts were signed and hence our project can start soon. We are an international team of researchers: Torsten Struck and Rita Austin from Norway, Arne Nygren from Sweden, and Maria Capa from Spain. Maybe not […]

Insects are not particularly diverse in the marine and coastal habitats. This contrasts strikingly with their dominance in most terrestrial ecosystems. Yet, certain insect groups have been quite successful in coastal environment, and one good example is the beetle family Staphylinidae. Diversity of the littoral and intertidal staphylinids […]

Usually I work with marine invertebrates from a group called Lophotrochozoa, which comprises among others mollusks, segmented worms and flatworms. However, the paper featured in this blog is the first of several papers to come on insects. While the others will come from Marianne’s PhD project on Aegialites […]

By Pia Merete Eriksen and Rita M. Austin I think most of us conceptualize a seal as a comical or cute animal, darting through open waters – I don’t think many of us envisage blood-red balloons and bulging sacs, specialized for a ritual of dominance and mating. Enter, […]

Another paper involving a FEZ group member, this time about silk from a marine crustacean group! What can we learn from the history of the silk of the Tanaids, and how can it help us make better materials in the future?

Here at our blog, we will keep writing posts about our current projects, but we’ll also start a new blog series; group of the month. To kick start the new year and the new series, I will present the first group: Bryozoa. As you might have understood by […]

Christmas is just around the corner, so it’s time to open the last door of our advent calendar. We hope you enjoyed this year’s wrap up. 2021 was a demanding year, but quite successful for our group, so we still have a lot to celebrate! We wish all […]

Everyone has missed a day of ticking off advent as some point! Making today a two-for-one post day! Enjoy! By Alberto Valero-Gracia This year has been a bit peculiar for most of us. However, as with most of our colleagues at the NHM, the FEZ group has always […]

By Vetle Løveng Since last year’s entry, I have yet to come to a conclusion on the origin of the Islandic beetle-fauna. All the collecting and lab work is done, what remains is the bioinformatic analysis. The dataset that was produced is fairly comprehensive, and hopefully there is […]