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 […]
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true 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 readingfrom small beauties to a big one
Is it a peacock? Is it a turkey? Another in the occasional series of gorgeous creatures: the ocellated turkey 🙂 Image credit: backyardchickens.com Over on Tetrapod Zoology, Darren Naish provides the detailed story of this species' biology & evolution. Apparently they are difficult creatures to keep in captivity, so they won't be appearing on the Christmas menu […]
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 readingfluffy the dinosaur
Over the last 20 years quite a bit of evidence has accumulated indicating that at least some dinosaurs were feathered, much of it in the form of beautiful fossils from China. Up until now all the feathery dinos have been members of the carnivorous theropods, but this new paper by Godefroit et al (2014) extends that […]
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 […]
Continue readinga bunch of fascinating animals you’ve never heard of…
… unless you've been following this blog for a while, in which case you may already have read about the sarcastic fringeheads (who are not members of a rock band, despite the wonderful name!). The dumbo octopus, the pacu (a fish with teeth like nutcrackers, an attribute that has given rise to an urban myth […]
Continue readingfascinating stories of dna, and the kiwi’s close cousin uncovered
On Monday I was lucky enough to attend a lecture by Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA and one of the authors on a very recent paper that provides a new view of kiwi evolution (Mitchell et al., 2014). It was a fascinating & wide-ranging talk that started with a bit […]
Continue readingsomething reassuringly disgusting…
This post's title comes from Something Fishy where, talking about sea cucumbers, Illya wrote "But there's something else they can do. Something reassuringly disgusting. Something totally Sea Cucumber." I was mildly let down to find he was talking about bioluminescence, & not self-evisceration. Yes, that's right. When threatened (or repeatedly prodded by some uncouth human […]
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