Unusual Labmates

Whitehead Institute Member Siniša Hrvatin is studying tardigrades to decode the mechanisms enabling their survival in extreme environmental conditions. Learn about the biology of these microscopic “water bears” and what makes them a particularly fascinating model organism.

Axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) are a critically endangered species of salamander. They are also highly regenerative. Read the latest story in our Unusual Labmates series to learn more about these fascinating creatures, what Whitehead Institute researchers are hoping to discover by studying them, and why they are worth preserving in the wild.

In this edition of our series Unusual Labmates, meet science's most beloved worm. 

This edition of Unusual Labmates, our series on the species used for research at Whitehead Institute, focuses on fruit flies. Fruit flies may seem like pests when they are encountered in the wild. However, they have been used in research for more than a century, and in that time, they have been engineered to become powerful, malleable models capable of answering questions in many areas of research.

Nymphaea thermarum is a tiny waterlily with big potential as a research tool to learn about the evolution of flowering plants. The fact that this research can happen is quite remarkable, because N. thermarum went extinct in the wild around 2009.

This entry of Unusual Labmates features fireflies, including the American species Photinus pyralis and the Japanese species Aquatica lateralis, which graduate student Tim Fallon in Whitehead Insitute Member Jing-Ke Weng's lab is using to better understand the ability to emit light.

Graduate student Zak Swartz in Whitehead Institute Member Iain Cheeseman's lab uses bat stars to study how cells divide. Click to experience a multimedia story about bat stars, from their arrival at Whitehead Institute in a chilly cardboard box to the role of their tiny eggs in Swartz' research.