crustacean
zooillogix | June 22, 2010In this nightmarish time lapse video, a gentle spider crab is internally consumed by a terrifying angry red spider crab who then dispenses of the empty husk of its former host.
... or maybe its just molting
Thanks to our Asian friend Kangatron for sharing.
sb admin | May 17, 2010So a week back or so, a number of friends read an article about death by rectal eel and immediately thought of me. For those of you who missed the story, it went a little something like this:
* Chinese man gets drunk with friends and passes out
* Friends think it would be hilarious to insert a large living swamp eel into the man's butt while he is unconscious
* Hilarity does not ensue. In fact, the man dies. Chinese doctor says the eel "consumed the man's bowels"
The article was widely reported in major news outlets like CNN and the Times, but I am linking instead to the UK edition of…
zooillogix | May 6, 2009I cannot train my dog Mathman not to pee on the damned carpet but New England Aquarium's senior trainer, cryptically known simply as "Erin", can teach a lobster to score higher on the GRE than me.
As some readers of this blog may know, I have long been concerned with growing Lobster / Human tensions as illustrated in this alarmist Geocities site I created in 2000 while hungover in Belgium at "work." So the question I pose is this: will training lobsters lead to mutual understanding or merely create more efficient killers ala the CIA and Taliban circa 1985?
Although it might not make…
zooillogix | December 28, 2008We (I) here at Zooillogix have a thing for lobsters. It involves Belgium, pasta tongs, and a Dutch boy named Lourens. I'll leave it at that.
Anyway, this mutant lobster was pulled out of the briny depths near Newport, RI earlier this month. Lobsterman Patrick Marks sometimes releases lobster "when they look at him funny" and so this almost-Pokemon-character was returned to the sea after a day-long publicity tour.
bleimanb | November 14, 2008The Census of Marine life is the gift that keeps on giving. Here are the latest pics of some new species they've discovered at the bottom of the ocean.
A blind lobster from the genus--Thaumastochelopsis
Sweet new comb jelly
More below the fold...
Ampelisca mississippiana - a new kind of amphipod
New species of squat lobster
Adorable new pebble crab
A new species of shrimp, seen here standing on a yellow worm (they both eat the same marine plants)
Read more about these species on nationalgeographic.com.
zooillogix | June 4, 2008A fascinating article in Livescience reveals the answer to a century-old zoological mystery: what do y-larvae grow up to become? Discovered in 1899, y-larvae are clearly young crustaceans but their adult stage could not be determined. While this in itself was perplexing, the newly discovered answer is even more startling: y-larvae metamorphosize into "simple, pulsing, slug-like masses of cells... far simpler than their larval stage." In a sense, the creatures revert backwards to forms more commonly seen further down the evolutionary ladder as they mature.
Watch the process
This awesome video…
zooillogix | June 26, 2007But I just want to cuddle! Bathynomus giganteus
In what might be described as the world's most destructive termite problem, Hotboro Island is actually being eaten away by isopods only about an inch long. Isopods are not in fact insects, but primitive crustaceans ranging in size from the size of a pin to the size of a bowling ball. Inhabitants of neighboring Higohihiroshima had been noting the steady erosion of the island for years. After each tsunami, parts of the island would break off and disappear. When scientists finally examined the remnants of the island last year, they found isopods…
zooillogix | June 20, 2007Triops australiensisWhere the hell were these things when I was a kid? Triops are small crustaceans in the class branchiopoda, that grow quickly and massively, reaching three inches or longer at full size. Their external appearance has apparently not changed since the appearance of Triops cancrifromis, 220 million years ago in the Triassic Period. This may make the Triops, also called tadpole shrimp or shield shrimp, the oldest living animal species on earth.
An adorable triops eating a piece of corn. This playful behavior in juveniles has a very practical application in adulthood, when…
zooillogix | June 18, 2007Don't look at me, I'm hideously bloated!
Researchers at Ben-Gurion University in Negev, Israel, have identified whiteleg shrimp as the only known species where the male has a reproductive cycle or "period." The male whitelegs--actually a type of prawn--generate two sperm packets per month which they attach to their female mates during reproduction. If, however, these packets are not used, they can solidify and prevent the male from getting rid of them. Thus, these prawns have developed a period or cycle of every two weeks, whereby they lose their sperm packets and develop new ones.
Scientists…