It's Valentine's Day.

When trying to come up with a card this year I was inspired by these hilarious, not-so-romantic cards:

(from Sad Shop)

(from Emily McDowell)

 (from Lost Marbles)

I was also inspired by my renewed interest in rhizocephalans after seeing UAF student Leah Sloan's zombie-themed poster at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium. So I came up with this beauty that you can share with your loved ones or your not-so-much-in-love-but-you-don't-hate-them-either ones!

To make this heart-warming card:
1. Download the PDF
2. Print out the card and fold on the dotted line
3. Give to someone!

they will be thrilled.

Check out these other cards too:

Love Like a Mantis Shrimp
Lobster Love
I *crab heart* you

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Crabday!

I hope you are all having a lovely day! To celebrate Valentine's Crabday, I thought it would be perfect to introduce you all to the incredibly lovely

Heart Crab

Phyllolithodes papillosus

I *heart* this crab!

 
Imagine my surprise and joy when I found out this beauty is an Alaska native! Heart crabs, or flatspine triangle crabs (yawn), spread the love from Dutch Harbor, Alaska all the way to southern California. They're lithodids, meaning they're related to the king crabs we know and love. The red hearts are actually large bumps, or 'papillae', hence their species name papillosus. The neat thing is that, while the adults are beautiful in their own Valentine-themed way, the juveniles have white, purple, and orange markings too!

"Yar, check out me orange beard!" - juvie heart crab

If you haven't already, don't forget to make someone (or some pet) a special card for today:

 

I *crab heart* you

Lobster Love (a bit risque)

I love you like a mantis shrimp

Share the Crab Love!

I *crab heart* you!

Valentine's Day is coming up, which means it's time for another crustacean-themed card for your sweetie! I was thinking about crab hearts a while back (when discussing pain in crustaceans) and realized they're just as beautiful as the fake hearts we see everywhere around this time of year!

 The blue really catches the eyes, but check out that fun shape!

(drawing from here)

Inspired by the ol' crab circulatory system, I decided to keep this year's Valentine's Day card simple and sweet:

To make your own, simply download the pdf here, print it out, fold in half, then write something sweet or snappy inside! Your loved ones will love it!

You may be asking yourself: what are those little holes in the crab heart drawing? Those are the ostia (singular = ostium) through which hemolymph, or crab blood, is pumped. When the heart is in its relaxed state, the pores open and pull hemolymph in. The hemolymph gets oxygen, then the heart pumps it back out to all the crab innards and extremities to deliver that oh-so-important O2. You see, crabs have an open circulatory system, as opposed to people: blood just goes everywhere and isn't limited to blood vessels like mammals (which is why it was so easy for me to take hemolymph samples, but you wouldn't want to count on me drawing your blood). In my mind, a card with a crab heart representing an open circulatory system is WAY better than one of those "Keep an open heart" necklaces Jane Seymour's been peddling! And you can quote me on that!

Happy Valentine's Day 2012

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day filled with the things you love, whether that's crabs, a pet, a favorite song, or someone special. Or bacon. You know, whatever makes you happy!

true *crab* love!

(from here)

If you haven't made a card already, here are 3 options:

Lobster Love Card

Mantis Shrimp Soul Mate Card

Pop-out Crab Card

That last one was originally a Christmas card, but since you can write whatever you want and use whatever paper colors you'd like, I can see it more like this:

...or pinch?

Valentine's Day Lobster Craft

Valentine's Day is coming up and I know you want to make something special for that lucky person/pet/study animal in your life. I was inspired by these cards I bought for my sister 2 Christmases ago from the wonderful Alaskan artist Sarah Asper-Smith (of Smack of Jellyfish fame):

The idea is she takes an Alaskan animal and says, "If you were a [catchy animal]..." (open the card) "I would [do something similar to what the aforementioned animal does in the wild]". A sweet example is her octopus card that reads, "If you were an octopus, I would grow eight arms to hold you." Aw!

I was also inspired by Trevor Corson's book "The Secret Life of Lobsters" about American lobsters (Homarus americanus). In it I learned that, to let a male know the female is ready to molt and willing to mate, she will approach his den and "waft her perfume" towards him, i.e. she releases urine filled with her pheromones towards his face. She pees on him.

poor (lucky?) guy

There's so much more to it than that, so if you're interested in lobster mating, you should pick up the book. But that's the... aromatic gist.

so sweet, and yet I can't help but laugh!

SO, I've made my own lobster-themed card a la Sarah Asper-Smith with my Trevor Corson knowledge so that you can have a special card for that special someone on Valentine's Day!

Directions:
1. Download above picture

2. Print onto paper or cardstock

3. Fold in half and cut out the heart through two layers

4. Fold in half again

peek-a-boo!

5. Sign it, give it to someone, wait for their unencumbered love in response

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to all you crab lovers out there!

In honor of the day, I thought I'd share my favorite happy-love song, and wouldn't you know it, there are crustaceans in it!

(If you haven't made a card for your Valentine yet, you can print out the card from the end of the mantis shrimp blog!)

SICB Lessons: Mantis shrimp are AWESOME

this Odontodactylus scyllarus is just oozing awesomeness

OK, OK, this isn’t really something I needed to learn at a conference, but this fact is reinforced every time I go to SICB. That’s because I get to see presentations about these cool stomatopods from Sheila Patek and her lab. They look at the muscle physiology and mechanics of mantis shrimp raptorial appendages. You can read the 2010 abstract here and the 2011 abstract here. The main take-away message is that mantis shrimp are super fast and wicked strong!

[This is a long video, but really interesting if you have the time.]

I also learned that, within 8 genera, there are monogamous mantis shrimp (at least for one breeding season) from Molly Wright with UC Berkeley. So that means that we can stop worshipping those pesky penguins as our models for (eternal) love!

I sketched that guy, so sorry if it's not entirely accurate

(Feel free to use this card for your loved ones:

1. Download it and print it out on white card stock, trimming any edges

2. Fold on the grey dashed line

3. Write something meaningful inside like, "... at least for this year" or "I smashed some snails just for you! Love, Me" (that last one would be great if you have escargot on hand))

I linked up to the XLV Carnival of the Blue: