Bella Ritchie

3 women standing in front of a research poster on the response of an urchin-killing ciliate to different temperature and salinity conditions.

NYU undergrad Skylar Baria presenting her poster on growth variability of an urchin-killing ciliate under different temperature and salinity conditions

USF undergraduate Jewelia Keller presenting about a newly identified bacteria

USF undergrad Zoe Lawrence presenting a poster about using DNA barcoding to identify fish eggs from the West Florida Shelf in December 2024

Yet another devastating science news cycle day, but I’m choosing to focus on today’s Undergrad Research Symposium and all the incredible rising stars I had the chance to interact with. 3 of our lab’s wundergrads presented today! 🧪 🌊 @cmarinescience.bsky.social @bellathebiologist.bsky.social

24.07.2025 01:05 — 👍 48    🔁 5    💬 3    📌 0

Is Banana Slug Monday a thing?

We should make it a thing!

And yes, they come in quite a variety of colors and spots are optional!

Note to dogs (and people) DO NOT LICK THE SLUG

If dog does lick slug - DO NOT USE WATER TO REMOVE SLIME

#inverts #becurious

27.01.2025 17:45 — 👍 127    🔁 11    💬 8    📌 2

When I was younger, I naively assumed that every non-beetle species on earth had grad students doing this at some point, and it came as a great shock that there were bugs in my yard that NO ONE HAD STUDIED. I’m so glad the shrew got some!

27.01.2025 17:11 — 👍 583    🔁 56    💬 8    📌 0

A photo of a small season that has white, purple, yellow and red candy stripes along the length of its body. It’s rhinophores has bands of orange, purple and pink.

So this colourful wee beastie is Mexichromis lemniscata that I found in the United Arab Emirates. It was super small and happened to be hiding under a piece of coral rubble. A lot of #Nudibranch I find in less than 5m of water under rubble and stones where they hide during the day.
#SeaSlugs #🦑 #🦐

27.01.2025 20:04 — 👍 116    🔁 21    💬 1    📌 2

A highly detailed black and white graphite drawing depicting a surreal scene. A snake skeleton with delicate ribs is entwined around a Copperbelly Water Snake, whose grey scaled body is twists in loose curves. Fragile, transparent strips of snake skin float around the snake and skeleton.

A colorful procreate drawing depicting five species of turtles found in Woodstock, NY. Clockwise from the top left: Wood Turtle, Spotted Turtle, Eastern Box Turtle, and Common Snapping Turtle. The turtles swirl around one another, some frozen in poses that suggest they are swimming through the air. Beneath the head of the watchful Snapping Turtle, hatchling turtles emerge from soft shells. Hatchlings of each turtle species swim among the adult turtles. The stems of American White Pond lilies weave through the ensemble towards the top of the drawing, where lily pads and white blooms rest.

A detailed graphite drawing depicting at-risk species found in the state of Maine. Two orchids bloom across the page: a petite Ram’s-head Lady’s-slipper on the left, and a Showy Lady’s-slipper with two blossoms on the right. A Sedge Wren perches on the stem of the Ram’s-head Lady’s slipper, its tail raised, chest feathers fluffed and its beak slightly parted as if it is mid-call. Slightly below the wren, on the underside of one of the Ram’s-head Lady’s slippers curled leaves, a tiny, dark and shiny Six-whorl Vertigo snail climbs slowly upward, its eye-stalks extended. Below and to the right of the wren, a striped juvenile Black Racer winds itself around the stems of the two plants, its gentle coils resting on the leaves of the Showy Lady’s-slipper, and its head pointed attentively towards the top right, looking at something off of the page. Above the scene, a Twilight Moth flies, its wings extended.

A realistic procreate drawing of a male Ruffed Grouse, with its crest, ruff and tail feathers erect in a mating display.

Hi Bluesky! I create detailed drawings of the natural world, focusing on at-risk species and ecosystems. Prints and original drawings are available at zoekeller.com. My clients include Texas Monthly, The NYT and Hachette. I am always open to discussing new projects! Email: zoekellerdraws@gmail.com

27.01.2025 18:45 — 👍 551    🔁 86    💬 11    📌 4

A friend hiding in the leaves
wishing you a good morning and a calm week

27.01.2025 15:11 — 👍 37    🔁 8    💬 0    📌 0

A tiny (about 1 to 1.5 cm total length) seahorse clings to a twig covered in transparent hydroids. Lateral view looking to the left of the frame. The seahorse is white with yellow coloration along his back, the top of its head and the tip of its tail and he has also red linear markings in the same area. His face and abdomen are white. The background is a dark array of algae, tunicates and encrusting spongers of various colours.

おはよう, Skylings! You should know by now of my love for tiny sea creatures. Big ones too, though. Anyway, for my UW pic of the day, here´s the second smallest seahorse ever found. Hippocampus pontohi. He was named after Pontoh, a divemaster!
Batu Tiga, North Sulawesi, 2006.
🦑🌊 #UnderwaterPhotography

17.12.2024 09:17 — 👍 14    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0

What do barnacles parasitize?

✅️ corals
✅️ burrowed into whale flesh (and sharks, and turtle shells)

Some that no longer resemble arthropods
✅️ inside of/mimicking sea stars shape
✅️ inside of crabs, making them turn into females and reproduce barnacle babies instead of their own

❎️ you?

#Crustmas 🧪🦑

17.12.2023 17:11 — 👍 144    🔁 50    💬 8    📌 10

A top down photo of a bubble snail that has an orangey cream body colour. In its centre is a shell that is cream in colour with thin white stripes across its body. There is a slight bluish tinge around its mantle edge.

So here we have a Bubble Snail - which is a type of primitive sea slug - but not a #Nudibranch. This prey on polychaete worms that it finds in the substrate. It is able to sequester toxic compounds from its prey that it utilises for defence.
This one was from Oman.
#MarineLife #Inverts #SeaSlug

17.12.2024 17:30 — 👍 123    🔁 29    💬 2    📌 1

Transglobal spread of an ecologically relevant sea urchin parasite Abstract. Mass mortality of the dominant coral reef herbivore Diadema antillarum in the Caribbean in the early 1980s contributed to a persistent phase shift fro

Excited to share our new paper showing the unfortunate spread of scuticociliatosis to Diadema setosum in the Sea of Oman. #urchin #USFCMS 🦑🧪 #protistsonsky @bellathebiologist.bsky.social @brayan-vilanova.bsky.social @drchriskellogg.bsky.social @ianhewson.bsky.social academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

24.03.2024 21:27 — 👍 23    🔁 7    💬 0    📌 1

Group of scientists posing outside in the sunshine in front of USF College of Marine Science

It’s urchin experiment time! #USFCMS @drchriskellogg.bsky.social @ianhewson.bsky.social @bellathebiologist.bsky.social @brayan-vilanova.bsky.social 🧪🦑 🧬 🦠

21.03.2024 02:16 — 👍 13    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0

@viromegirl.bsky.social @drchriskellogg.bsky.social @ianhewson.bsky.social @brayan-vilanova.bsky.social

26.03.2024 01:02 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

It's finally out, my first first-author paper as a grad student! 🤓🥳

Unfortunately more sea urchins are dying at the hands (or should I say cilia?) of the scuticociliate "Philaster apodigitiformis" in the Sea of Oman, as we report here:

academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

26.03.2024 01:01 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

Macro photo of the long-spines Black Sea urchin Diadema setosum. Bright orange anal cone and blue chromatophores really make it shine!

“Ecological Insights and Technological Advances in Coral Reef Monitoring and Restoration” session at #OSM24 tomorrow - come hear about the ciliate causing disease in Diadema from @bellathebiologist.bsky.social @drchriskellogg.bsky.social @ianhewson.bsky.social @brayan-vilanova.bsky.social

19.02.2024 02:30 — 👍 11    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0

Group of women in front of a fake seagrass maze, holding marine stuffed animals and sitting behind a table of stickers

Group of school kids gathered around scientists learning about seagrass ecosystems. Many students are raising their hands to ask/answer questions

Elementary school kids navigating a fake seagrass maze made of green streamers to collect representative animals that live in seagrass beds which they will later build a food web out of

Group of students constructing a marine food web with the animals they discovered in the seagrass maze

Great day at the St Petersburg Science Festival today with local school groups! Free event open to the public tomorrow from 10-4. Come join our lab to learn about seagrass ecosystems and food webs! There’s truly something for everyone at this fantastic annual event! @bellathebiologist.bsky.social

10.02.2024 03:24 — 👍 7    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Large group of people posing outside in a screened patio with presents for the White Elephant gift exchange in front of them. Many wearing holiday antlers/outfits. Two cute dogs too!

Fantastic lab holiday party today - and so happy to have 2 new micro/molecular/phytoplankton lab groups to celebrate with this year! @margaretbrisbin.bsky.social @bellathebiologist.bsky.social @lydiaruggles.bsky.social @microbusta.bsky.social

15.12.2023 02:08 — 👍 14    🔁 3    💬 1    📌 0

I know @bellathebiologist.bsky.social is working on her application right now! 🤞

28.12.2023 03:14 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

For the record I DID back up everything on the cloud, which I’m thankful for, or else I may have had to drop out of grad school/off the face off the earth due to losing all my data 🙃

18.11.2023 21:01 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Mac laptop, covered in stickers, water damaged on the inside

RIP to my first MacBook 🤧
And please learn from my mistakes:
1. BACK UP EVERYTHING ON A CLOUD DRIVE
2. Close your water bottles fully before placing them in the same bag as your laptop
3. Buy a waterproof case for your laptop

2 and 3 may be completed in any order BUT 1 is required 🥲

18.11.2023 20:59 — 👍 7    🔁 1    💬 2    📌 0

A scuticociliate causes mass mortality of Diadema antillarum in the Caribbean Sea A scuticociliate (Philaster sp.) causes mass mortality of the long-spined sea urchin Diadema antillarum.

No worries, here is a link to the paper where we first described the scuticociliate! A scuticociliate, or ciliate for short, is a single-celled protist, and the one we study lives in marine environments and parasitizes long-spined sea urchins.
www.science.org/doi/full/10....

17.11.2023 16:31 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

4 day old sea urchins. This is how they look like while travelling through the oceans looking for a place to settle and start their benthic life.

16.11.2023 17:55 — 👍 10    🔁 2    💬 2    📌 0

Me holding a long-spine sea urchin in the lab

Let me introduce myself: I’m a PhD student in @viromegirl.bsky.social lab at USF, where half of my research focuses on the interactions between long-spined sea urchins and a scuticociliate parasite!

15.11.2023 22:24 — 👍 18    🔁 3    💬 1    📌 1

My awesome PhD student @bellathebiologist.bsky.social just joined BlueSky! Her research focuses on sea urchin parasites and seagrass viruses, plus she posts cute cat photos 🧪🦑🦠

08.11.2023 02:46 — 👍 28    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0

The swimming snail know as a sea angel. So cute. So sweet. So casually everting a crown of tentacles, encircling another helpless snails, and ripping it’s still-living body from its shells to be shredded alive and swallows. Nature, so beautiful. So soothing. 😇
📸 http://bit.ly/2CJhWfc 🧪

17.06.2023 00:00 — 👍 341    🔁 103    💬 9    📌 7