Podcasts

Lend an ear and discover the wonders of nature—right outside your back door and halfway around the world. In our new season of audio broadcasts, we’ll be learning about life as small as yeast and as big as a bowhead whale. Hear people's stories about nature and hone your backyard observation skills. We’ll be exploring the diversity of life—five minutes and One Species at a Time. Listen to us online, or download us and take us with you on your own exploration of the world around you. Hosted by Ari Daniel Shapiro and brought to you by the Encyclopedia of Life, and Atlantic Public Media.

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Mangroves

Rhizophora mangle

Follow researchers Candy Feller and Dennis Whigham as they scramble, climb, crawl, and creep through the tangled roots of a mangrove forest. Along the way, learn what’s threatening these unique...
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Sanibel Shells

Epitonium angulatum

Ari Daniel Shapiro joins the serious beachcombers along the high-tide line of Sanibel Island, Florida. These “shellers” come in search of beautiful sea shells, sometimes no bigger than a grain of...
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Chinook Salmon

Oncorhynchus tshawytscha

Can painted wooden fish on a schoolyard fence change human behavior and help clean up the ocean for the real salmon? Stream of Dreams in British Columbia thinks so, and a lot of wooden fish and...
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Sea Grapes Google Earth Tour

Caulerpa racemosa variety cylindracea

“Sea grapes” may sound like something Poseidon would snack on, and not a killer algae. Yet Caulerpa racemosa var. cylindracea poses a serious threat to marine life. Spread by the bilge water of...
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Greenland Shark

Somniosus microcephalus

Join shark expert Greg Skomal as he ventures under the Arctic ice in search of the Greenland shark. Sharing this icy, blue twilight with an apex predator is a thrill--so long as you don’t end up...
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Red Knot

Calidris canutus rufa

The red knot is a tiny shorebird that undertakes a mind-boggling migration from the tip of South America all the way to the Arctic Circle. One of the few stops on that marathon journey is the...
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Dinoflagellates

Dinophyta

Science contributor Josh Kurz, tells the story of dinoflagellates through “music from the bottom of the food chain.” There are “billions of these microscopic creatures in every bucket of the salty...
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Ediacaran Fossils

Trepassia wardae

When the cod fishery collapsed in Newfoundland in the early 1990s, the hopes of the local fish harvesters collapsed with it. Hundreds of Newfoundlanders moved away and businesses that depended on...
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Martens

Martes martes and Martes foina

On the forested mountain slopes of the Basque country, we follow two Spanish biologists on the track of a pair of secretive mammals. Pine and stone martens are elusive carnivores that make their...
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Muskox

Ovibos moschatus

There’s a chill in the air this week as we travel to a mountain range in Norway in search of muskoxen, Ice Age survivors that once roamed the far north alongside the woolly mammoth. Introduced to...
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Marine Iguana

Amblyrhynchus cristatus

No iguana wants to be cooked alive on a hot rock and then served up as dinner for a Galapagos hawk. But it turns out the marine iguanas have a strategy that warns them of the presence of hawks...
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Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

Thunnus thynnus

What is it like to be eyeball to eyeball with a fish the size of a Volkswagen? Learn about the process of tagging tuna and how those tags are revealing surprises that might help save tuna from...
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Branch-tip Spiders

Dictyna

The hills near Missoula, Montana, are changing, native grasses and other plants increasingly squeezed out by nonnative plants. Knapweed, cinquefoil, and other weeds aren’t only changing the look...
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Box Jellyfish

Cubozoa

Learn how three fiery, painful stings during an early morning swim in Hawaii changed the life of researcher Angel Yanagihara. Once the young biochemist had recovered from her box jelly encounter...
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Riftia

Riftia pachyptila

Host Ari Daniel Shapiro dives deep to discover a white worm as tall as your refrigerator that breathes through bright red feathery “lips.” This isn’t a creature from outer space. Meet Riftia...
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Sea Slugs

Elysia chlorotica

Come one, come all! See the amazing, the astonishing, half-animal, half-plant! Journey to Tampa Bay, Florida, where scientist Skip Pierce and one of his students first made a remarkable discovery...
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Insects of Costa Rica

Insecta

In this episode, EOL education director Marie Studer journeys to Costa Rica to experience firsthand the astonishing variety of insect life in this tiny Central American nation—20,000 different...
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Giant Squid

Architeuthis dux

How do you get two dead Giant Squid the size of a school bus from a fishing boat in Spain to a museum in Washington, DC, USA? Call in the Navy! Find out how Operation Calamari unfolded and how the...
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Polar Bears

Ursus maritimus

In this podcast, host Ari Daniel Shapiro relates two close calls with polar bears. Listen as Heather Cray recalls how, dumped by a storm on a small Arctic island, she got an unexpected wake-up...
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Water Hyacinth

Eichhornia crassipes

It may have pretty purple flowers, but Eichhornia crassipes can be a green menace. Introduced to Africa from the neotropics, this invasive weed is choking Lake Victoria, the world’s...
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Red Paper Lantern Jellyfish

Pandea rubra

Vacuumed up from its habitat a mile down in the ocean, the red paper lantern jelly may not look like much. Mostly water, it’s so fragile that once brought to the surface it’s reduced to a tattered...
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Red-Shouldered Soapberry Bug

Jadera haematoloma

In the lab at American University in Washington, DC, evolutionary biologist David Angelini and graduate student Stacey Baker are studying a snazzy red-and-black insect called the red-shouldered...
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Coral

Acroporidae

Coral reefs are bustling cities of marine life, until rising ocean temperatures turn them into ghost towns. Can reefs spring back from devastating bleaching events? Ari Daniel Shapiro and...
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Great White Shark

Carcharodon carcharias

Students from Martha's Vineyard Regional High School in Massachusetts and La Salle Academy in Rhode Island question shark researcher Greg Skomal about this charismatic predator at the top of the...
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Sea Cucumbers

Holothuroidea

What reef animal comes in a rainbow of crazy colors, can throw out its innards to immobilize predators, then creep away and regrow a brand-new stomach? It’s the sea cucumber, prized as a...
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Quinine Tree

Cinchona pubescens

In a large greenhouse at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, there grows a slender...
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E.O. Wilson

Solenopsis invicta and Paraponera clavata

Renowned evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson has spent his long career cracking the code of ants. It’s the ants’ ability to communicate and form tight-knit societies that lies behind their...
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Lichens

Xanthoparmelia plittii and Umbilicaria mammulata

Most of us walk past lichen-covered rocks, splotched with grays, greens, and golds, without giving them a closer look. Ari Daniel Shapiro visits with mycologist Anne Pringle and graduate student...
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Right Whale

Eubalaena glacialis

Hear how research unfolds at sea. Playing female whale calls into the water, researcher Susan Parks suddenly finds herself the center of attention of a group of male North Atlantic Right Whales....
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Island Fox

Urocyon littoralis

In this episode, reporter Molly Samuel journeys to Santa Cruz Island, off the coast of California, to look into the mystery of the island’s tiny foxes, descendants of gray foxes who rafted...
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Ediacaran Fauna Fossils

Funisia dorothea and Dickinsonia

In this episode, journey back in time to learn about Ediacaran Fauna, a diverse group of organisms that lived in the world's oceans about 580 million years ago. We’ll meet Dickinsonia rex...
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Scottish Wildcat

Felis silvestris grampia

Scottish Wildcats or Felis sylvestris grampia have been around since the last ice age. A symbol of strength and independence, the cats used to roam the whole of Great Britain, but...
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Beetles and Moths

Anoplophora glabripennis, Nebria brevicollis and Lymantria dispar

How much trouble can an unassuming black beetle no bigger than your fingernail be? Plenty, as we learn in this episode of One Species at a Time. Tiny stowaways like the European Gazelle beetle are...
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Bowhead Whale

Balaena mysticetus

Writer Karen Romano Young takes an icebreaker to Barrow, Alaska, to join in the festival of Naluqatak and learn about the intimate relationship between the Inupiat Eskimos and the bowhead whale....
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Chamois

Rupicapra rupicapra

Growing up in a village in the foothills of the French Alps, Francis Roucher used to hunt the chamois, a cross between a goat and an antelope. But on the day one of his shots went astray, Roucher...
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Chaffinch and Winter Wren

Fringilla coelebs and Troglodytes troglodytes

Every morning when he walks the dog, retired professor of natural history Peter Slater can identify as many as thirty birds by their song alone. On a walk in a Scottish town with Ari Daniel...
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Lebanon Cedar

Cedrus libani

Mentioned in the Bible and in the 8000-year-old epic Gilgamesh, Lebanon’s iconic cedars have been reduced to a fraction of their former range by centuries of logging. Ari Daniel Shapiro walks the...
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Foothill Yellow-legged Frog

Rana boylii

How is a tadpole like a short-sleeved white tee shirt? The answer lies in the Alameda Creek outside San Francisco, California, USA. Ari Daniel Shapiro wades into the issue of dams and biodiversity...
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Four-Leaf Clover

Trifolium repens L.

Scientist-in-training Summer Praetorius has an unusual skill—she is really, really good at spotting four-leaf clovers (Trifolium repens L.). A single gene causes the normally three-leafed clover...
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One Species at a Time

Stay tuned for our next podcast series coming soon!

Our most recent episode on Marine Iguanas concluded the pilot season of our podcasts featuring marine species. We will be back next time with a new series - same idea, but we’ve changed the name...
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