Zooillogix is finally living up to the 'x' in our namesake. We have discovered a microscopic animal that engages in lesbian sex with its dead female friends in order to obtain DNA and thus survive to reproduce.
Bdelloid rotifers are tiny creatures that live in moss and small pools of water. Every single bdelloid is a female, and they reproduce exculsively by cloning themselves. When their watery habitats dry up, however, so do they, where they remain for days, months, even years in form of dehydrated stasis until the water returns.
This is my friend, Shari. She just came over to use the shower.
The drying up process leaves the bdelloids with no metobolic activity and causes their cells to rupture and their DNA to fragment. For almost any other creature in this world, this would spell disaster. The bdelloids, though, have a way of reconstructing themselves: They take in fragments of DNA that float around them in the water, whether they come from plants, fungi or even other dead female bdelloids (hence the necrophilial lesbian sex with other bdelloids.) Though it is not nearly as spicy as the title of this piece suggests, labeling bdelloids as lesbian necrophiliacs is extremely useful when trying to get someone to read an article that you wrote on the topic whether it's here on Zooillogix, Discover Magazine or in the nature journal Science.
NVDH does it again...
Life Science
Comments
I'm not so sure the folks at Nature could be counted upon to adapt your little trick to boost their readership... ;^)
Posted by: ctyankee | December 15, 2008 11:06 PM
"We have discovered a microscopic animal that engages in lesbian sex with its dead female friends in order to obtain DNA and thus survive to reproduce."
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Posted by: tresmal | December 16, 2008 12:33 AM
The things are so freaking cool. O_O
Crazy weird survival stuff.
Posted by: Zelly | December 16, 2008 10:59 AM
This is my friend, Shari. She just came over to use the shower.
BWAH HA HA HA HA HA!
Posted by: Jenbug | December 16, 2008 2:11 PM
Wait till Swank gets a hold of this information. I sense a new genre of porn emerging!
Wait, who am I kidding? Lesbian necrophiliac porn surely already exists.
Posted by: juliagoolia | December 16, 2008 3:52 PM
Shari is quite lovely, but I wonder which end is up?
Posted by: ym | December 16, 2008 6:30 PM
Good Lord these replies are all stunningly funny.
Posted by: Pat | December 17, 2008 6:04 PM
Do NOT let the Fundamentalist Xtians find out about this!
Mixter
Posted by: Mixter | December 19, 2008 12:11 AM
Not that there is anything wrong with that."We have discovered a microscopic animal that engages in lesbian sex with its dead female friends in order to obtain DNA and thus survive to reproduce."
Posted by: neon | April 11, 2009 9:45 AM