A few weeks back I briefly mentioned the 'bobbit worm' – a rather large polychaete worm of scary appearance (a friend said 'nightmarish' was closer to the mark) and predatory habits. I've noticed on Facebook how interest in any particular subject seems to come in waves, and so it is with this creature. For via […]
Continue readingTag: animal diversity
a really strange sea urchin
I mean, look at those really weird spines! Image from Moorea Biocode via ScienceAlert This unusual creature is Chondrocidaris brevispina, which appears to be much less spiny than the urchins we're probably all more familiar with. Those pinkish pimply bumps towards the creature's right-hand side are the bases of missing spines, which articulate with their bumps via a type of ball joint. […]
Continue readingis this a coat of many colours?
I had to look twice at this undersea Liberace-lookalike before recognising it as an octopus (more precisely, a blanket octopus, Tremoctopus sp.) These beautiful creatures live in the open ocean where they grow up to 2m long. The female in this image (thanks, Science Alert) has unfurled a sort of cape (called a ‘web’ in […]
Continue readinghave you heard of a pyrosome?
"Have you heard of a pyrosome?" asks Carin Bondar. My immediate answer was, no; no, I haven’t – but you know me, I’m always curious 🙂 Turns out that pyrosomes – which look almost other-worldly in the video below – are colonial tunicates: the same taxonomic group as the perhaps-more-familiar sea squirts. And that means […]
Continue readingstunning spiders
I won’t post the photos here – but drop over to wired & admire the stunning spider images from photographer Nicky Bay. I think my favourite would have to be the Mirror Spider (Thwaitesia sp.), which looks as though it’s got a disco ball for an abdomen. And for awesome mimicry, take a look at […]
Continue readingthe sea’s strangest square mile, indeed
From Shark Bay Films on vimeo, via PZ, comes this awesome video – life and death on the sea bed. It opens with a species of polychaete worm (aka bobbit worms**) – what an amazing stealth predator! And surely one to give small children – and first-year biology students! – nightmares. And there are ribbon […]
Continue readingthe male himalayan monal – an absolutely gorgeous bird
Another for the ‘gosh, isn’t this beautiful?!’ files: the Himalayan Monal (the national bird of Nepal). (Image via Facebook: Tambako the Jaguar; Flickr — with Robin Subba, Sarvesh Wangawad,Jeriko Angue, Roberto Delapisa, Jonas Mgr, Neelesh Suryavanshi, Shashank Asai,Sushant Bhujel and Pabitra Lamichhane.) This stunning bird (Lophophorus impejanus) is a type of pheasant, and like other pheasants the species is strongly sexually dimorphic: the males […]
Continue readingmmm, ravioli?
My blogging buddy Grant suggested an image competition as a way to lure me back into a blogging mindset **. And then, I saw this (courtesy of the FB page for the team at Amazing Earth): My first thought (following a passing glimpse) was, "embroidery". Followed, I’m sorry to say, by "mmmm, ravioli!" (In my […]
Continue readingpretty jelly
I’ve got heaps on at work at the moment, but there’s always time to share a lovely picture 🙂 So here’s the stunning Australian spotted jellyfish, Phyllorhiza punctata. It’s native to Australian waters but has apparently become an invasive species elsewhere (eg in the Gulf of Mexico). And yes, I found it on FB: Photo: Mister […]
Continue readingthe gastric-brooding frog – not quite back from the dead
I first found out about gastric-brooding frogs (Rheobatrachus silus) when reading Stephen Jay Gould’s essay "Here Goes Nothing" (as published in the 1991 book Bully for Brontosaurus). As he said, these frogs really do live up to their name: the frog swallows its fertilised eggs, broods tadpoles in its stomach, and gives birth to young frogs […]
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