Parasite ecology cartoon feedback

The main goal of this blog is to communicate recent symbiont ecology science to people in the field and to students and non-scientists outside of the field. Judging by the feedback that I’ve received already, the cartoons that accompany (most of) my posts are one of the main draws for scientists visiting the blog. They’re also the most important selling point for educators using my posts in their classes and other educational material. I have a few years of cartoon experimenting under my belt, but it is still difficult to guess which cartoons will be crowd pleasers. So, if you’re a regular visitor and/or you’re an educator using my cartoons for educational purposes, I’d greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to give me some cartoon feedback. Thank you in advance!

First, you can visit last week’s post and vote on the best parasite ecology cartoon from 2015. I really use that feedback to think about what kinds of cartoons to make in the future.

Second, you can post in the comments of shoot me an email to tell me what you like and/or what could be improved to make my cartoons more accessible to students.

One recent experiment has been embedding movie/TV references in my cartoons. The downside of this is that not everyone will get all of the references. (I fear I’m getting old….) Stay tuned next week for my best and most timely movie reference yet!

Forrest Gump

House, MD

Home Improvement

Terminator

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Fringe

300

Best parasite ecology cartoon of 2015?

Happy New Year!

It’s the first day of the new year, which means that you get to vote on the best parasite ecology cartoon from last year! In 2013, the winner was “Social Networking in Lemurs,” a cartoon about this study that painted lice on lemurs to infer lemur contacts. In 2014, the winner was “Oldest Trick in the Book,” a romantic cartoon about a snail who was castrated by trematodes. Which 2015 cartoon was best?! I’m opening up the voting for these candidates:

Dispersal is like a box of chocolates

Tethered love

Tastes like chicken

Crappy relationships:

House (finch), M.D.:

When snails feel sluggish:

The host plant is always greener on the other side:

Hasta la vista, Biomphalaria:

You don’t guano know:

Bring out yer dead (prairie dogs)!:

S Car Go

Hi, Folks! I’m still traveling for the holidays, so I can’t do a full post this week. But here’s a punny cartoon! (This doesn’t have anything to do with symbionts, unless you count the fact that both snails and caterpillars have many symbionts.)

Also, remember to vote on the best Parasite Ecology cartoon of 2014! So far, no one has voted Gary for Snail President.

Get it? 😛

Pinchy Has an Itch

Last week, I told you that small crayfish groom off their branchiobdellids.  Intermediate-sized crayfish try to groom off their branchiobdellids, but the crayfish can’t reach all of the worms.  Specifically, they can’t reach the worms that hang out on that one place on their dorsal carapaces.  Have you ever had an itch on your back that you couldn’t reach?  Yeah, that’s the story of the intermediate-sized crayfish’s life.

Marriage of Math and Parasites

A beautiful marriage between Miss Math and Mr. Parasite.

I’ve been doing lots of modeling… this is all I’ve got for you guys this week.  😛  

 

Labwork Zombie

How I feel after sitting at the microscope all day…or all week…

The Three Muskrat-eers!

I submitted revisions for a manuscript today, and my present to myself was spending a few minutes doing something totally mindless: CARTOONS.

Today’s cartoon is brought to you by the fact that someone found this blog by googling “three muskrats.”  I’m sensing a Disney movie in the making…