Highly diverse and charismatic, these creatures deserve recognition as a sixth great extinction dawns We are prone to obsessing over ourselves and over animals like us. But most of the life on Earth ...

Invertebrates—creatures without spines—make up 98% of known animal species, but their backboned cousins get all the attention. Photographer Susan Middleton explores the strange world of underwater ...

For a portrait photographer, Susan Middleton has an unusual studio. It's mobile, for one thing, and it requires the subject to be confined in a small glass box. But the results are gorgeous. In her ...

Kylie Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

"Susan, your octopus got loose again!" A crewmember delivered the news to photographer Susan Middleton late at night during a 2006 expedition in the French Frigate Shoals, the largest atoll in the ...

To be considered "spineless" is an insult. Worms and insects are spineless. For many biologists, however, these are the very best of the animal world. Yet the invertebrates get no respect. They're ...

Invertebrates make up about 99 percent of all species. But they're no longer being featured at the National Zoo, due to budget problems. The Invertebrate Exhibit was shut down Sunday, less than a week ...

There is something missing in Jim Brown’s science class. No “ughs.” Not one “eww.” Only rapt attention abides in this science class about those yukky spineless creatures otherwise known as ...

Roy Sawyer is in “the felicitous position of earning a living while thinking about nothing but leeches 24 hours a day,” writes Deep River author Richard Conniff. That Conniff is fascinated with Sawyer ...

A rare view of a frilled anemone–most of us never see the stalk exposed or all the tentacles extended. (Susan Middleton) What would a nature photographer consider “the most beautiful animal I’ve ever ...