Organisms
pharyngula | November 29, 2013 In Medias Res
Vampyroteuthis would like you to know that it is forgivable that you visit Walmart or any of the other greedy big box stores today in search of bargains; however, the retailers who exploit their workers and gin up scarcity and treat the desperate poor as targets are going to someday find themselves dying cold, dark, hypoxic deaths, and the grim clammy bleak squid of their conscience will rise up to drag them down into oblivion. Live humanely while you can. They wait.
pharyngula | November 4, 2013The article this came from says something cute and charming about Finding Nemo, but I just don't see it.
pharyngula | November 1, 2013The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a clever scheme for aerating their babies that involves a little creative surgery on pop bottles. It looks good, though!
I'm tempted to try something similar with zebrafish, just because. I don't have a problem with keeping them supplied with oxygen, but I do have to maintain good concentrations of food available…and this would hinder more than it would help. But it's the coolness of it!
pharyngula | October 28, 2013I had no idea such things existed, but behold the remipede:
Yes, it's a crustacean, although it doesn't look like any I've seen before. You're not likely to run into them casually; they're found deep in Central American caves, with one species found in the Canary Islands and another in Western Australia. Besides being weird-looking critters, they're also the only known venomous crustacean. Take a look at that clawed face!
There are no known instances of humans being bitten by one of these things — they aren't exactly living underfoot. They have big sacs inside those front claws that contain…
pharyngula | October 25, 2013Last weekend, in San Francisco…I could have been hanging out with my people.
And my favorite non-people.
Maybe next time…
pharyngula | October 18, 2013Oooh, those glossy thick pages. The bright colors that pop. The action shots. The extreme closeups. I admit it: I have an addiction to aquarist magazines. You've gotta check out CORAL: the reef & marine aquarium magazine, especially this issue, the one with the big bold feature on "WRASSES". Turn to page 70. Oooh, baby. Wonderpus action, with the camera right up in the sweet spot.
Insertion! Hooah!
Money shot. Mmmm.
Was it good for you, too?
pharyngula | October 7, 2013I don't know why Mary suddenly thinks highlighting a giant man-killing hornet would be appropriate…
NatGeo
…but I'm not going to argue with her.
pharyngula | October 4, 2013The latest celebrity fad is getting pet lorises. They're adorable! They have such big eyes and a funny face! And look, they like to get tickled!
Aww, so cute. I want one. At least, that seems to be the typical response in followers of pop culture. Anna Nekaris, a professor of primate conservation at Oxford Brookes University, has been documenting the loris fad and doing her best to expose the reality of the loris trade.
They created a Wikipedia page on loris conservation, and Nekaris appeared in a powerful BBC documentary, Jungle Gremlins of Java. The film paints a decidedly less cute…
pharyngula | October 4, 2013This cat is going to be insufferable
You may have heard we've got this satanic feline padding about the house now, getting into mischief -- she has discovered my collection of cephalopodiana, and her favorite toy is one of my stuffed octopuses that she wrestles and bats around the floor. It's like she's rubbing it in.
Anyway, a new paper in Nature Communications describes a comparative analysis of the genomes of tigers, lions, snow leopards, and…housecats. I'm not letting her read it, lest she acquire delusions of grandeur (oh, wait, she's a cat — she already has that.)
There's nothing too…
