Marmorkrebs profiled

Jacqueline Bird, who blogs at Masit: The Curious Blog of a Vancouver Technical Writer did a little profile on Marmorkrebs! It is somewhat immodestly titled, “A Science Blogger Overview: Welcome to the Fascinating World of Marmorkrebs!” You can read it here.

China’s crustie conference

The next International Crustacean Congress is the seventh in the series, to be held 20-25 June 2010, in the port city of Qingdao in China.

The webpage for it is up here. There’s also a PDF announcing the meeting available here.

And to anyone going, please ask around about Marmorkrebs. I keep hearing about Marmorkrebs in China, but am never able to get any details.

Colossal conference for crayfish

The IAA18 meeting (that’s the International Association of Astacology’s 18^th) registration and paper submission website is now open, here: http://muconf.missouri.edu/IAA18/Registration.html

The IAA’s main website is here: http://iz.carnegiemnh.org/crayfish/IAA/index.htm

Limerick

Marmorkrebs are so photogenic
Because they are parthenogenic.
“Who needs a man?
When I’ve got a plan
That’s much more clean and hygenic!”

Inspired by rhymes here.

Celebrate diversity

This blog is devoted to one species (if, indeed, it can be called a species). But that does not mean that I do not appreciate diversity here; quite the opposite.

This year is the International Year of Biodiversity, and I intend to be celebrating it as much as possible. Last month, columnist Olivia Judson put it this way:

This, then, is what the International Year of Biodiversity should be about: it should be about conveying the excitement of discovery in biology, coupled with an intimate knowledge of the majesty of nature. For we must start cherishing our fellow life forms, and treating them well: we need them, in more ways than we probably imagine. Their loss makes the planet — and ourselves — poorer.

So please be up-standing, raise your glasses and join me in a toast to: “Other Life Forms!”

And let’s make sure that in the years ahead, we don’t need to change it to “Absent Friends.”

Over the course of this year, I plan to feature other organisms from time to time, and see if I can’t draw some sort of link between them and Marmorkrebs.