Inverts
laelaps | May 18, 2008I just got back from my weekend trip to Delaware. Friday night was absolutely miserable (cold, wet, half-cooked hot dogs for dinner, etc.), but by Saturday morning the weather had greatly improved. Unfortunately, however, a big storm had thrown off the rhythms of the up the annual horseshoe crab spawning and the majority of the ones I saw were either dead or dying. Late Saturday night I stumbled across two "in the act" (the week before, apparently, there had been thousands along the beach), but otherwise I saw more sun-bleached carapaces than living animals. Still, it was a good trip and here…
laelaps | March 12, 2008Like every kid who went on family outings to the NJ shore, I ended up coming home with any number of hermit crabs over the years. I'd make sure the sponge was wet, that they had food, that they were really in their shells and not just hiding elsewhere (probably terrorizing them in the process), but they generally didn't last long. My grief as to my departed pets is now made all the worse by a new paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B that suggests that hermit crabs have personalities. Oh Pinchy, how I miss you...
The experiment on responses of the hermit crab species Pagurus…
laelaps | February 1, 2008As I mentioned not too long ago, the natural world is more weird and wonderful than anyone can imagine, and yet another example of the diversity of life is the giant Palouse earthworm (Driloleirus americanus). This super-sized worm was thought to be extinct by the 1980's, but a number of the worms have been seen recently, showing that they are still hanging on. Unlike the worms in your garden (which are actually European in origin), this worm is native to North America and presently can be found in Washington state and Idaho. Indeed, this isn't just an ordinary worm, the species being known…
laelaps | January 17, 2008
I know most of you have seen this one before, but it's still one of my favorites. It was taken during sunrise on July 15th, 2007 at Cape May, NJ, and there were a number of large, expired cnidarians floating around in the surf. I have no idea what species this is, but it did make for a beautiful photograph.
laelaps | January 15, 2008Plumulites bengtsoni. From Vinther, J.; Van Roy, P.; Briggs, D. (2008) "Machaeridians are Palaeozoic armoured annelids." Nature, Vol 451, pp. 185-188 doi:10.1038/nature06474 Last week I briefly mentioned a new paper in Nature about an "armored worm" called Plumulites bengtsoni, and I've finally gotten a chance to read a bit more about this strange Ordovician creature. Previously, fossils determined to belong to a group called the machaeridians were found in great abundance, but like conodont teeth before the discovery of a more complete organism, no one was sure what sort of animal the…
laelaps | January 8, 2008
I'm not enough of an entomologist to know what species of insect this is, but I do know that it is a katydid (Family Tettigoniidae), although I used to refer to them as grasshoppers when I was little. Given that there are about 6,400 species worldwide and about 255 in North America, though, it'll take a bit of work to figure out what this one is. (If you happen to know the species identification, please speak up in the comments).