Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium

Old Four Lobes

Vicki writes

This coelacanth is on my abdomen. I've been fond of these rare, distant relatives for a while, and got this inked a couple of years ago.

Cousins with tails

Rich writes, "These are two species of primates that I had tattooed on my forearms.  One is a tamarin monkey in honor of Paul Garber (who studies tamarin monkeys), the professor who started me off on the path to becoming a biological anthropologist.   The other is a sifaka, my current study species.  This tattoo was actually paid for by my advisor, Alison Richard (how cool is that!).  Alison promised me a sifaka tattoo once I finished my dissertation.  Overall, I have three tattoos, as part of a silly/dorky--but accomplished--plan I came up with my freshman year in college after I decided I wanted to be a primatologist: get one tattoo for each degree I earn.  I have a DNA "armband" for my BA; the tamarin monkey is for my MA degree, and the sifaka marks my Ph.D."

Land of Hobbits and Monster Grasshoppers

Chris writes, "This is an image of a female Cave Weta - A New Zealand indiginous insect similar to a grasshopper, except much larger."

Jellyfish

 Amy writes, "I am a marine biologist and I find jellyfish intriguing.  I just thought a jellyfish would make a cool marine bio tattoo."

Zebrafish

Robin writes, "I recently graduated from Bard College. My senior thesis in biology used zebrafish as a model organism, and in honor of this and the three previous years I spent working with this animal, I got a tattoo of one. He's a male, as one can tell by the all green fins and the slim belly."

Hidden Biology

Tony writes, "While my hobby lies with spiders (mainly theraphosids)  and other arachnids, scorpions also have some attraction for me as well.  When I found a tattoo ink that fluoresces under blacklight like a scorpion does, well it seemed to make for a perfect tattoo!"

The Invader

Russ writes:

Podarcis sicula (Italian wall lizard) is native to Italy, and the nearby Mediterranean coast. It thrives in cities, and has probably been
a human urban commensal for 2000 years. They and their congeners (P. muralis) have been
introduced into many places in Europe, including France, southern England, and Germany. they may be the most widely introduced temperate reptile species.

There are at least four extant populations of Podarcis sicula and muralis introduced to North America: Long Island (NY), Topeka (KS), Cincinnati (OH), and Vancouver Island, British Columbia. there was a population in Philadelphia but they are apparently now extinct, and I recently heard of what sounds like a separate introduction in central NJ. All releases are associated with the pet trade and are decades old. Podarcis is here to stay, lacertid lizards finally made it over the pond.

I'm interested in them because I'm interested in invasive species and what they can tell us about natural invasions. I've looked at the parasite loads of all four extant pops, and they are quite depauperate compared to what would be expected. I've done really detailed work on the demography and the food habits of the LI pop, and next year I'm going to Italy to document the same things in the native habitat. I'm
expecting to see evolutionary changes as they adapt to the new environments.

I mostly study turtles; this is my first real foray into lizard work. However, I couldn't see how my favorite turtles would transfer into a nice tattoo, not quite colorful enough.

Never Forget Your Squid Anatomy

Rachel writes, "I recently got this tattoo as a graduation present to myself. I just graduated from Florida Tech with my BS in marine biology. I'll be moving to New Zealand in July to study giant squid with my childhood hero, Dr. Steve O'Shea."

Carl: That's like a physicist saying she's going to work with Einstein. Have fun. [O'Shea on Wikipedia]

Feminism And Cannibalism

I am a soil scientist and entomologist. My favorite insects/arthropods are praying mantises, psuedoscorpions and spiders. I am also a big time feminist. I find praying mantises to be so fascinating, and while they are extremely adept killing machines, they are also one of the oldest insects around! This tattoo is a metaphor for my independance and tribute to my mantis friends.

From Wikipedia: Sexual cannibalism is common among mantids in captivity, and under some circumstances may also be observed in the field. The female may start feeding by biting off the male's head (as with any prey), and if mating had begun, the male's movements may become even more vigorous in its delivery of sperm. Early researchers thought that because copulatory movement is controlled by ganglion in the abdomen, not the head, removal of the male's head was a reproductive strategy by females to enhance fertilisation while obtaining sustenance. Later, this bizarre behaviour appeared to be an artifact of intrusive laboratory observation. Whether the behaviour in the field is natural, or also the result of distractions caused by the human observer, remains controversial. Mantises are highly visual creatures, and notice any disturbance occurring in the laboratory or field such as bright lights or moving scientists. Research by Liske and Davis (1987) and others found (e.g. using video recorders in vacant rooms) that Chinese mantises that had been fed ad libitum (so were not starving) actually displayed elaborate courtship behavior when left undisturbed. The male engages the female in courtship dance, to change her interest from feeding to mating. Courtship display has also been observed in other species, but it does not hold for all mantises.

So in fact, the common assumption that all females cannabilize their mates either during/after copulation is debated because most observations of this were in a lab, where the mantis was likely highly aware of her captors. I have a magnet on my fridge with a woman in a wedding dress that says..."Marriage? No...I don't mate well in captivity!"

Carl: For more on mantises and their hungry love, see my article in the New York Times.

Cheshire Cat Tattoo

Orla writes, "I'm a Zoology undergrad in Dublin, Ireland. I got this tattoo of an orangutan to ensure that, even if they die out in the wild, which seems to be quite likely, they'll still be remembered. The noblest of the apes sits on my lap forever."

The Illustrated Swamp

Maureen writes: "I am a PhD student in Ecology. I have toiled away the years of my dissertation working in wetlands across Ohio. The extended exposure to methane gases and gallons of blood donated to mosquitoes, ticks and leeches inspired my tattoo. In addition to the clear inspiration from my habitat of choice, each item in the tattoo symbolizes a very personal analogy in my own life - past, present and future. I'm pretty sure only nerds among wetland nerds can figure it out. Anyway, as you can see it's still a work in progress. I have 18 hours in so far and have been working on it for two years. Only a wetland ecologist with a penchant for entomology would sit for such a tedious process, right?"

Here's a life list...

Sphagnum moss (Sphagnum sp.),

Rat-tailed maggot (Sryphidae Eristalis tenax),

Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus),

Green Darner Dragonfly (Aeshnidae Anax junus),

Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis),

Field Horsetail (Equisetum arvense),

Blunt Spike Rush (Eleocharis obtusa),

Canadian waterweed (Elodea canadensis)

Cousin to Pigeons

Jeremiah Drewel, a geology student at the University of Alaska writes, "This is my personal favorite Deinonychus!"

Carl: Deinonychus holds a special place in the history of paleontology. Its remains were first discovered in 1931 in Montana, but for decades they languished, unstudied, at the American Museum of Natural History. In the 1960s Yale paleontologist John Ostrom discovered a wealth of new fossils from the same species and began to contemplate what the animal was like in real life. At the time, dinosaurs were still widely considered to be sluggish scaly lumps. But Ostrom argued that Deinonychus was for more active, able to keep its stiffened tail straight out behind its body. He argued that they may have even been warm-blooded. Ostrom also noticed a number of similarities in Deinonychus's skeleton and those of birds. He revived an old theory that birds are dinosaurs, and argued they were closely related to Deinonychus. It's a connection now almost universally accepted by paleontologists.

Deinonychus changed the way we see birds, but birds have also changed the way we see Deinonychus. Many relatives of Deinonychus--non-flying dinosaurs--show evidence of primitive feathers. Velociraptor, a close relative of Deinonychus, had what look like quill knobs on its bones. It's plausible that Deinonychus itself was covered in feathers of some sort as well, which it might have used to attract mates. Depending on what paleontologists discover in years to come, Jeremiah may need to get re-inked.

Cephalopod

My cephalopod tattoos--Jada Fitch

Fig Wasps

"I'm a grad student and I love me some science."

Haeckel

"This is a Tubulariae organism penned by the German biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel . Flower-like - it is in fact a marine organism – I love the ambiguity. The image can be found in Haeckel’s original grand publication Kunstformen der natur (1904) . A stunning book." – Science journalist.

Honu the Turtle

Rick MacPherson writes, "I give you honu, the hawaiian green sea turtle on my marine biologist leg... oh the sweet pain..."

Octopus

From Craig McLean at Deep Sea News: scienceblogs.com/deepseanews/2007/08/science_tattoo.php

Dromeosaur

Cleek writes: "Here's my dromaeosaur (unfeathered) but, i'm a programmer, not a paleontologist, so i guess it's not exactly my science. maybe i'll get some C++ for the next one."

Siphonophores

Allen writes: "In our case, my wife and I got tattoos as our wedding rings. I can still hear the guffaw of one of my wife's good friends at the wedding when it was announced what we did. Our tattoos are ankle rings composed of a siphonophore, deep sea relatives of the Portuguese Man-o-War. We modeled it after one of Haeckel's plates, but have since been told by the guy who knows more about siphonophores than anyone else alive that it "doesn't exist". That is one aspect for which it is not an apt symbol."

Bugs, etc.

From an entomologist. More information here.