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Zoology

Okeanos: A Performance Where Dancers Move Like Octopuses and Seahorses

Jodi Lomask, director of the dance company Capacitor, has choreographed an ocean-inspired show, now at San Francisco’s Aquarium of the Bay

Horseshoe crab

Animal Specimens, From Fish to Birds to Mammals, Get Inked

Inspired by Japanese fish rubbings, two University of Texas biologists make spectacular prints of a variety of species at different stages of decay

Photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher uses a powerful scanning electron microscope to capture all of a bee’s microscopic structures in stunning detail. Above: a bee’s antennae sockets, magnified 43 times.

What Does A Bee Look Like When It’s Magnified 3000 Times?

Photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher uses a powerful microscope to capture all of a bee’s microscopic structures and textures in stunning detail

You might be curious, is this something macroscopic or microscopic? It’s actually the wing of a green darner dragonfly, as seen through a scanning electron microscope.

Macro or Micro? Test Your Sense of Scale

A geographer and a biologist at Salem State University team up to curate a new exhibition, featuring confounding views from both satellites and microscopes

Artist Nickolay Lamm’s depiction of a polar-grizzly hybrid

What Would a Cross Between a Polar Bear and a Grizzly Really Look Like?

As climate changes and Arctic sea ice melts, species shift habitats and may interbreed. Lamm digitally manipulates photographs to imagine these hybrids

A calcified flamingo, preserved by the highly basic waters of Tanzania’s Lake Natron and photographed by Nick Brandt

This Alkaline African Lake Turns Animals into Stone

Photographer Nick Brandt captures haunting images of calcified animals, preserved by the extreme waters of Tanzania’s Lake Natron

Osmia chalybea, Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia

Bee-utiful! The Stinging Insect Gets a Close-Up

Biologist Sam Droege’s sharply-focused photographs of bees, used for identifying different species, make for fine art

These Tattoos Honor Lost, Not-So-Loved Species

To overcome how people tend to care only about cute endangered animals, Samantha Dempsey designed and distributed temporary tattoos of ugly extinct species

Hairy woodpecker (Picoides villosus)

Diana Beltran Herrera’s Flock of Paper Birds

We are not talking origami here. The Colombian artist has created paper sculptures of more than 100 species, and they are startlingly realistic

Oceanographer Gareth Lawson, who studies pteropods, was able to identify Kavanagh’s sculptures to species, such as this Limacina helicina.

The Gorgeous Shapes of Sea Butterflies

Cornelia Kavanagh’s sculptures magnify tiny sea butterflies—ocean acidification’s unlikely mascots—hundreds of times

Cuban Emerald (Chlorostilbon ricordii), Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, Collected from Andros Island, Bahamas, on January 22, 1988.

The Art of the Bird’s Nest

The architectural masterpieces of numerous bird species are the subject of Sharon Beals’ latest photo series—on display at the National Academy of Sciences

Red Mural, by Amber Hasselbring

A Butterfly Species Settles in San Francisco’s Market Street

Two advocates track Western tiger swallowtails through the city and use art to encourage residents to think of the fluttering creatures as neighbors

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Sharks Made Out of Golf Bags? A Look at the Big Fish in Contemporary Art

Intrigued by the powerful hunters, artists have made tiger sharks, great whites and hammerheads the subjects of sculpture

Bacterial Dragon (Paenibacillus dendritiformis), by Eshel Ben-Jacob

Colonies of Growing Bacteria Make Psychedelic Art

Israeli physicist Eshel Ben-Jacob uses bacteria as an art medium, shaping colonies in petri dishes into bold patterns

The city of Shanghai presents A True Story (above), an impressive work of mosaïculture, at Mosaïcultures Internationales de Montréal 2013.

Horticultural Artists Grow Fantastical Scenes at the Montréal Botanical Garden

Take a peek at some of the living artwork entered in an international competition in Quebec this summer

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The Vibrant Patterns of Portuguese Men-of-War

Beachgoers despise the stinging animals, but photographer Aaron Ansarov finds surreal beauty in them

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What Animal Sounds Look Like

Mark Fischer, a software developer in California, turns data from recordings of whales, dolphins and birds into psychedelic art

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Princeton University Celebrates the Art of Science

In a new exhibition, the university showcases 43 images rooted in scientific research that force viewers to contemplate the definition of art

Suzan Murray — Chief Veterinarian at the National Zoo

“Future Is Here” Featured Speaker

The shelled sea butterfly Hyalocylis striata can be found in the warm surface waters of the ocean around the world.

Amazing Sea Butterflies Are the Ocean’s Canary in the Coal Mine

These delicate and stunning creatures are offering Smithsonian scientists a warning sign for the world’s waters turning more acidic

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