In honor of this phylogenetic factoid, I present the other crustacean I find flirting in tropical habitats: the swordtail crickets of Hawaii (genus Laupala). So named because the females (one seen here) have an egg-laying appendage (ovipositor) that is curved like a saber. #Crustmas

Another #Crustmas photo of ostracods to help show scale. These are males of a closely related species to the females I posted earlier. In the bioluminescent species, you can tell because their bodies are less round and their eyes are relatively larger.💡🦐🦀🧪

I guess I can try #Crustmas! Here’s two female ostracods brooding their developing young inside their marsupium. You can peep their little eyes (black dots) through their own and their mother’s shell. Festively, these females will brood young for ~26 days before they crawl away to grow up 🦀🧪💡🦐

Very happy that our new paper is just out in Proc B, on the synchronous mating displays of sea fireflies! We describe ecological and social dynamics contributing to collective behavior. doi.org/10.1098/rspb... With @ostratodd.bsky.social and others; see his posts for coverage by NYT and Science! 🧪🦑

Brood parasites look like so: first image has a normal brooding female (below) and a parasitized female above. Second image is the parasitized female alone. Parasite will eat/destroy (?) the deposited embryos and replace with her own egg sacs that mimic the shape of the embryos

Not sure if this is a trematode, but we def see wormy parasites from the guts of our marine myodocopids. Also see parasitic copepods.