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Don't Stick Your Fingers in the Cage
Hairless Racoon
In the wild, Andrew feeds on fish, sponges, small crustaceans, nematode worms and protozoans.
Benny's diet is very specialized, consisting mainly of the interior of Ramy nuts, nectar from the Traveller's Palm tree, some fungi and insect grubs. He is also known to raid coconut plantations, and has been seen eating lychees and mangoes, which are also plantation crops.
November 17, 2009
Category: seal
Feast your eyes on this, squares...
Big up to Ben Thorne for passing this along. And big up to his business, Sneaky's BBQ, the best ribs and pulled pork in the Bay Area. Check them out at www.sneakysbbq.blogspot.com.
Posted by Benny Bleiman at 6:41 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 16, 2009
Category: fish
New footage of the world's largest stingray.
Thanks to Hunter for bringing this to our attention.
Posted by ableiman at 10:24 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 12, 2009
Category: seal • waddell seal
A clip from Werner Herzog's Encounters At The End Of The Earth:
Here's what they look like:
Richard warms up:
Posted by Katie Thompson at 9:43 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: osedax worms
Robert Vrijenhoek and Shannon Johnson (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute), and Greg Rouse (Scripps) have recently completed research aimed at classifying 12 new lineages of Osedax worms as their very own species. Upon their 2004 discovery in Monterey Bay, geneticists classified them under the polychaete annelid family Siboglinidae. Since then, approximately 17 distinct lineages have been found, making the "Osedax as full animal kingdom citizens" movement strong.
"Why should I care", you ask.
Say you were a whale from Monterey Bay and your time had come to go on to the great whale afterlife. You would slowly fall to rest peacefully at the bottom of the bay, far below the many tour boats filled with drunk famous people. More than likely, the bones of your former body would be munched on by the aforementioned Osedax worms. And not so much "munched on" as dissolved and absorbed by these mouth-less, gut-less, and anus-less worms.
If that's not bizarre enough: they also exhibit bizzarrer sexual habits. The much smaller males gather in groups of 50-100 to live inside some lucky female. The males never mature past the larval stage, yet are able to be fertilizers.
That's why you should care.
It appears that before these fascinating new Osedax worms are finally treated like the unique species they are, more research will have to be done. Fossils to be examined, evolutionarily ages to be determined, yadda yadda.
Stay strong, Osedax. You're day will come.
Some great bone eatin' photos from the Moneteray Bay Aquarium Research Institute below the fold.
Posted by Katie Thompson at 12:48 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 8, 2009
Posted by ableiman at 7:50 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 4, 2009
Category: bat
Andrew just sent me some footage he shot of Benny this past weekend:
Posted by Katie Thompson at 11:45 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 3, 2009
Category: Naked Mole-Rats • cancer • genetic modifications
While I believe this bit of news has been well circulated this week, I wanted to give it the Zooillogix bump. Plus, I can only assume Zooillogix readers look to our blog for the latest breaking news... thus it would be a great disservice to all 25 of them to leave this unreported. University of Rochester biologists think they've figured out why the beloved naked mole rat continues to live their entire 30 year moley lifespans without ever having a tumor. That's right. No researcher has ever discovered evidence of cancer in these beauts.
The biologists claim that the naked mole rats express a certain gene that prevents cells from reproducing when the cells become crowded, thereby stopping would-be tumors in their tracks. I say we need only to triple these genes, making the mole rats cancer free for 90 years, then replace our own genes with that of the naked mole rats. Duh.
It seems that other small, but long lived rodents, like some species squirrels and some marmots, have little to no evidence of cancer, too. But researchers such as Vera Gorbunova from U. of Rochester still aren't sure exactly what kinds of anti-cancer going-ons are present in each one of the species.
The images below are for mature audiences only.
Perhaps now they should look into pale, wrinkly, bald skin and blindness immunity genes.
Posted by Katie Thompson at 11:43 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Oral sex is a rarity in the animal kingdom with just a handful of species (humans, bonobos) who participate in the act. Well, move over high-functioning primates because there's a new, high-fellating mammal on the bj circuit, the short-nosed fruit bat. Yeah, we get it, "short-nosed..." We seriously can't make this stuff up.
Random Fact #265: Due to the terms of his Federal plea bargain, Andrew is actually not allowed to watch this video!
Apparently, according to the paper recently published in PLoS ONE, about 70% of female short-nosed fruit bats engage in oral sex with their partners. Furthermore, "a positive relationship exists between the length of time that the female licked the male's penis during copulation and the duration of copulation." This may indicate that females who engage in fellatio may be, in fact, improving the likelihood of fertilization.
Just to recap the findings: All females, of any species, who engage in fellatio increase their genetic fitness. That will be all, thank you.
P.S. NVDH in da house.
P.P.S. We cannot WAIT to use Google Analytics to see what combination of words people entered into Google that led them to this post!
Posted by Benny Bleiman at 6:08 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 30, 2009
Category: bioluminescence • jellyfish
Beautiful and fascinating footage of a Bloodbelly Comb (not a jellyfish, but similarly gelatinous, like my brother) from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's remote operated vehicle. The laser light show comes from tiny transparent, hair-like cilia combined with trace amounts of LSD that will forever remain in your spine.
I could point out that it appears Deep Sea News ran this a few days ago, but we're not talking to them anymore since they went all "academic" on us... I bet they don't even have any shirts with wolves on them.
Posted by ableiman at 11:37 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Neurophilosophy 11.19.2009
The Island of Doubt 11.20.2009
Greg Laden's Blog 11.20.2009
The World's Fair 11.19.2009
Laelaps 11.20.2009
