Marine invertebrate larvae are incredibly diverse. They have all sorts of unique features—tentacles, lobes, bands of cilia, shells, bristle hairs, etc.—which they use to capture food, to swim, to protect themselves from predators. Their morphology is functional. But also beautiful. That’s why I was excited to discover these larval stickers made by Dexter Davis: They […]
Tag: larva
Posts about larvae. Endless most beautiful larval forms.
Every time I open Spotify, I see the pattern of engrailed expression in an early Platynereis larva. Once you see it, there is no turning back! Reference Prud’homme, B., de Rosa, R., Arendt, D., Julien, J.-F., Pajaziti, R., Dorresteijn, A. W. C., Adoutte, A., Wittbrodt, J., & Balavoine, G. (2003). Arthropod-like expression patterns of engrailed […]
This image of a brachiopod larva was selected in the Nikon Small World 2021 photomicrography competition!
The Pluteus Trip is a music compilation that I created inspired by the life of these nifty echinoderm larvae named pluteus. It was released more than ten years ago on my (now defunct) music blog, ccNeLaS. The album is freely available at: https://archive.org/details/ThePluteusTrip Download it, read the description below, and enjoy the trip! Plutei are […]
The pelagosphera larva of #Sipuncula. Photo by Alvaro Migotto via @cifonauta http://cifonauta.cebimar.usp.br/photo/10874/
My former—but not forgotten—larval crush is the Image of the Week on @BIOINTERACTIVE Larval Biscuit: https://www.biointeractive.org/classroom-resources/larval-biscuit See A sea biscuit’s life for more.
Read the previous section: What a larva is. Francis M. Balfour set the pace on discussions about the evolutionary importance of larvae by addressing many of the fundamental questions regarding larval evolution (Balfour, 1874; Balfour, 1880; Balfour, 1881). He wondered about the ancestry of larvae. Can larvae reveal the ancestral forms of metazoans? He indicated […]
This text is a section of my PhD thesis. The Latin word lārva means evil spirit, ghost or mask1. In the 18th century, the naturalist Carolus Linnaeus was the first to employ the word larva to describe a stage in the life of an animal in which its adult form is still hidden or masked […]
The BEST footage of bryozoan life cycle on the internet. Meet the coronate larva of Bugula neritina. Wow!