beak
dr. dolittle | September 20, 2012This is a must-see special from NOVA highlighting nature's secret to creating very strong things: like the beak of a toucan, an abalone shell and a spider's web. It aired last night on PBS (premiered Jan 2011) and I found myself glued to the TV. Scientists are working hard to try to re-create some of nature's amazing strength to help improve existing technologies. One that I found amazing: scientists have been able to create genetically modified sheep to mass produce spider silk, which is reportedly stronger than kevlar!
Watch Making Stuff: Stronger on PBS. See more from NOVA.
If you…
edyong | July 23, 2009Relative to its body size, the huge beak of the toco toucan is the largest of any bird. It allows the toucan to eat both fruit and small animals, and display to both mates and rivals. Darwin himself speculated that it acts as a billboard, shaped by sexual selection to display bright colours that could be attractive to potential mates. But the toucan's bill has another function that has only been discovered. Like the ears of an elephant, the toucan's bill is a radiator.
It certainly has all the characteristics of a biological radiator. It's big and has a surface area that's 25-40 times…
edyong | March 17, 2009The giant cephalopods (squids and octopuses) of the deep sea have captured the imagination for centuries. But despite our fascination with these creatures, they are still enigmas, their behaviour illuminated only by the occasional lucky video or the presence of scars on animals they fight with. For many species, including the famous giant squid, we still know relatively little about what they eat and what position they occupy in their ecosystems.
Yves Cherel from the Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chize has some new answers about the behaviour of deep-sea cephalopods and they came from a…
edyong | March 27, 2008
Imagine that you hand is made of jelly and you have to carve a roast using a knife that has no handle. The bare metal blade would rip through your hypothetical hand as easily as it would through the meat. It's clearly no easy task and yet, squid have to cope with a very similar challenge every time they eat a meal.
The bodies of squid, like those of their relatives the cuttlefish and octopus, are mainly soft and pliant, with one major exception. In the centre of their web of tentacles lies a hard, sharp and murderous beak that resembles that of a parrot. The beak is a tool for killing…
zooillogix | October 26, 2007According to the Tree of Life project, Promachoteuthis sulcus is known from a single, small (25 mm ML, sex unknown) but distinctive individual from great depths in the south Atlantic Ocean. Now Benny and I are no cephalopodologists, but those chompers look a little different from the typical squid beak which we have come to know and fear.
Those of you looking to find or avoid the aforementioned denture squid should steer clear of here: 36°49'S, 12°17'W off Tristan Da Cunha, south Atlantic Ocean. Captured from WALTHER HERWIG at 1750-2000 m depth (open net).
Kevin Z? PZ? Other…