invertebrate

To investigate this issue in Canada, our recent research paper examined mislabelling and ambiguous market names in invertebrate and finfish products — fish with fins, like cod, salmon and tuna — in Calgary between 2014 and 2020.

This summer, Austin Hendy, an assistant curator at the Natural History Museum who specializes in invertebrate paleontology, spent hours sifting and sorting through thousands of fossilized shells found in the shell bed.

Mark Carnall, invertebrate specialist at Oxford’s Museum of Natural History, agreed: “Just look at the structure of textbooks, departments, conservation designations such as endangered species. Vertebrates. It’s mostly vertebrates. I would call that a clear subjective bias.”

Research suggests that TV wildlife documentaries are four times more likely to feature animals with bones than their invertebrate alternatives.

In fact, invertebrate animals are likely to have many other untold secrets and stories we humans could learn a great deal from in future.