Organisms
pharyngula | January 30, 2010
(Note also: I think someone with a bird fetish has a birthday coming up…)
pharyngula | January 25, 2010Behold the magnificent geoduck:
Oh, I know why! Because, after mentioning the mascot of UCSC, she remembered that Evergreen State College also has a molluscan mascot:
Go, Geoducks go,
Through the mud and the sand,
let's go.
Siphon high, squirt it out,
swivel all about,
let it all hang out.
Go, Geoducks go,
Stretch your necks when the tide
is low
Siphon high, squirt it out,
swivel all about,
let it all hang out.
(via Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife)
pharyngula | January 24, 2010Please, please, National Geographic — get a more serious narrator and some non-cheesy commentary. Otherwise, though, this movie about romantic arthropods is very nice.
pharyngula | January 20, 2010My wife says I need to diversify, and ought to make an occasional nod to these strange organisms called 'non-animals'. Weird. So she sends me this photo by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and reminds me of those days in our youth when we'd find these whiplike kelp washed up on the beaches…I think it was a hint.
Nereocystis luetkeana
pharyngula | January 18, 2010It was tough being a biologist during my kids' brief Pokemon craze. What kind of animals were those? What was this business of stuffing them into balls? And what a horrible mangling of evolution was portrayed in those transformations! Ick, ick, ick. The game just annoyed me in principle.
Those wild and crazy guys at the World's Fair have had an idea: redo the whole Pokemon concept with real animals. It's going to be called Phylomon. They've just started assembling a few bits and pieces — not only do they need to flesh out a game, but they also need to gather user-submitted illustrations. If…
pharyngula | January 18, 2010Last week's metazoan was a walrus, which many people mistook for a manatee. This meant that my inbox was flooded with outraged email from the manatee community, which was deeply offended at the confusion. So, today, here is a portrait of one of the handsomer representatives of the fine warm-water aquatic mammals that were insulted.
As you can plainly see, there is no resemblance at all.
(via National Geographic)
pharyngula | January 17, 2010Warning: Explicit Sex Video involving Tentacles ahead!
Warning #2: Really Cheesy Narration ahead, too!
pharyngula | January 11, 2010She says these guys (it's a WALRUS, not a manatee) really like molluscs, too.
(via National Geographic)
pharyngula | January 8, 2010Allonautilus scrobiculatus
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | January 7, 2010Some stunning fossil trackways have been discovered in Poland. The remarkable thing about them is that they're very old, about 395 million years old, and they are clearly the tracks of tetrapods. Just to put that in perspective, Tiktaalik, probably the most famous specimen illustrating an early stage of the transition to land, is younger at 375 million years, but is more primitive in having less developed, more fin-like limbs. So what we've got is a set of footprints that tell us the actual age of the transition by vertebrates from water to land had to be much, much earlier than was expected…
pharyngula | January 4, 2010
It's a bit disappointing. This video would be so much cooler if it were arboreal goats on fire.
pharyngula | December 31, 2009I don't usually post videos for the Friday Cephalopod, but you've got to see it in motion to appreciate the cuddliness.
pharyngula | December 28, 2009
You can play the "Where's Waldo" game and browse an interactive album of animal mimics, too.
pharyngula | December 25, 2009Carl Zimmer has some videos of explosive erections in ducks you might not want to miss. Or might want to miss, depending on your kinks. I may have nightmares tonight.