About

Hi everyone! My name is Burt, and I’m an African cichlid fish Astatotilapia burtoni. Check out my first post (“Hi! I’m Burt!”) to learn more about me. I was raised in the Maruska lab in Baton Rouge, LA. I’ll be sharing lots of cool information here about how scientists are making new discoveries by studying me and my friends. I’m a colorful macho male with a territory, so sometimes my girlfriend Toni will give you the ladies perspective too. Enjoy!

If you want to know more about those crazy scientists and their research projects, check out their website.

Burt’s Blog was created in 2017 by Julie Butler and is maintained by the Maruska Lab at Louisiana State University.

Blog Contributors:

Julie Butler (with artwork)

Karen Maruska

Karen Field

Teisha King

Brandon Tramontana

Rose Wayne (with artwork)

Alora McInnis

Emily Ray


Popular posts from this blog

Fish Have Feelings Too!

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Hey guys, Tyrone here! I’m feeling down lately because I’ve been dealing with bullying a lot, especially from Burt. So, I’ve been trying to figure out how I should act when he inevitably decides to be mean to me again. Fortunately, the scientists in the lab care about my behavior and want to figure out what makes a fish susceptible or resilient to bullies like Burt! To cheer myself up, today I want to tell you all about the fun way the scientists study my behavior after repeatedly being bullied in a resident-intruder experiment (if you don’t remember the details check out my previous blog posts about this!). The scientists start with videos of these experiments to quantify our behavior. They specifically want to see how the intruder (like me, Tyrone) reacts to aggression from the resident (like Burt). By using a cool program called BORIS (which stands for B ehavioral O bservation R esearch I nteractive S oftware) they are able to see just how often and for how long we display certa...
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Immune System to the Rescue!

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Hey guys! It's Burt back again with another exciting post. Sorry it’s been a while! I’ve been busy taking care of Toni as she has been sick for the past few weeks. I hope you all have been able to stay healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Surprisingly, we get sick just like humans, although our response to a pathogen is a bit different. You see, our immune systems are split into two types of responses; innate and adaptive. Innate immune responses are the body’s general immediate response to a pathogen, while the adaptive response works more slowly and is more specific. This means that adaptive immunity mounts responses that are specific to the type of pathogen attacking the body while the innate immune response generally fights pathogens the same way regardless of the type or class of pathogen threatening it. If we compare innate and adaptive immunity to COVID-19, the innate response would be similar to the first responders, like doctors and nurses that work extremely hard to trea...
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Time Fries When You’re Growing Up!

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Hi everyone, Pia here! I’m a fry, which is just a fancy name for a baby fish. You might remember that my mom Toni is a mouthbrooder. That means she protects us fry in her mouth while we grow up! Before we get released from her mouth, we have yolk sacs that we use to feed ourselves and we don’t get to see or do too much – we just stay nice and protected inside mom’s mouth until we’re big enough to swim and eat on our own! Once we’re released, there’s SO much to do and see! We have to find our own food, communicate with other fish, and escape from predators back to the safety of mom’s mouth. Plus, there’s lots to see around our tank like our fancy clay pot shelters and the scientists when they come to visit! Because the environment is so different inside and outside our mom’s mouth, the scientists wanted to see which brain regions we use before and after we leave. They looked for a molecule in our brains called pS6 which tells them which neurons were “turned on” or “activated” while we w...
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