I've always liked frogs. I remember, when I was probably around 4 years old, being fascinated by the tadpoles that Dad brought home in a big jar from a farm pond. Mum explained about how they'd gradually metamorphose (thought I doubt she used that word!) & we watched their legs slowly grow & their tails […]
Continue readingCategory: animal behaviour
the mysteries of cannibal octopus s*x
And oh, how I wish I could say it was me who came up with that title! But it wasn’t; it was the BBC, headlining a fascinating article about how octopuses get it on. It seems it’s rather difficult to be a male octopus with mating on his mind. Like a female spider, his prospective […]
Continue readinga mantis? or a fly?
So, which is it? A mantis? Or a fly? (Image by kind permission of Daniel Llavaneras) In fact, the creature shown in this gorgeous image by Daniel Llavaneras is neither mantis nor true (Dipteran) fly, although its common name is 'mantisfly'. Instead, it belongs to the insect family Mantispidae (a group that includes lacewings and antlions). Like real praying mantids, matisflies walk […]
Continue readingonly the bones remained
And at the end, there weren’t many of those. One of the things we talk about in biology class is the importance of decomposers. Most students think in terms of bacteria when this topic’s raised, & maybe things like fungi. But there is more to the breakdown of a body than those microorganisms. Think worms, […]
Continue readinga tale of two tails
Lizards, like us, are chordates. One of the defining characteristics that all chordates share at some point in their development is the presence of a notochord: a stiff rod of tissue that runs along the dorsal side of the animal, just beneath the hollow dorsal nerve cord. (Yes, hollow. This is the result of its […]
Continue readingtrue facts about owls
A lot of my friends seem to like owls, if their tendency to post photos of adorable fluffy feathered faces on Facebook is anything to go by. I rather like them too; we live close to a gully & it’s lovely hearing the moreporks calling at night. Once or twice one has sat in a […]
Continue readingit’s the season for ‘best-of’ science compilations…
… and so here are a couple of compilations. The first is Sciencealert's top 10 animal videos for this year. They include a lone porcupine seeing off a pride of 17 (!) lions; an octopus 'walking' on land (which is really really strange: it must take an awful lot of effort to do this, unsupported […]
Continue readingthe amazingness of lyrebird vocalisations
This is one impressive lyrebird – laser guns and kookaburras! (Not quite at the same time.) I found him on a ScienceAlert page, which has more info and also links to other videos of these vocally talented birds.
Continue readingrapid evolution in cane toads
In her book Paleofantasy, Marlene Zuk discusses cane toads (Bufo marinus) as an example of just how rapidly evolutionary processes can work. These amphibian pests were introduced into Australia in 1935 to control borer beetles in sugar cane. Unfortunately the toads never got the memo about this expectation, and have spread rapidly across the continent, […]
Continue readingif fish had nightmares, these spiders would feature in them
If asked, "what do spiders eat?", my answer would probably include insects, spiders, other arthropods, and maybe birds. I'd never have thought of fish! And yet it seems that fish-eating by spiders is, if not common, then not exactly rare, although other food items still account for most of the spiders' diets. In a paper […]
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