About Me

My name is Jessica Venard. I am a senior studying Biology with a minor in Microbiology and plan to attend dental hygiene school after graduation. I currently work as a dental assistant at an office here in Stillwater and I love it. In my free time I enjoy hanging out with my friends and in the summer I especially enjoy reading a good book by the pool. Even with this world pandemic, I was fortunate enough to get to go on vacation to the beach which was a much needed get-away with all the stress surrounding life in general right now. 


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Blog Response to Aug. 31

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The variation that I found most interesting is the hybridization of species. As young scientists, most of what we learn relates to the fact that a species is its own, and cannot cross breed with other species. Because of this, when I think of hybrid species, I tend to think of hybrids as fictional creatures shown on Vampire Diaries or Teen Wolf. However, hybrid species are in fact real and are nothing like the powerful creatures we see on shows.  Hybridization of a species occurs when two different species mate to form a completely new species, who is reproductively isolation from those two parent species. An example of this are the Heliconius butterflies. Researchers believe there are at least 39 known species of Heliconius species, meaning they are able to interbreed to create brand new species.  Shown above are a few different species of the same Heliconius genus of butterflies. As you can tell, they are all similar in wing shape, but their patterns are quite different.
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Blog Response to Aug. 17

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Blog Response to Oct. 15

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