Organisms
pharyngula | June 2, 2009One of those other godless, unfeeling scientists dared me to post this cuddly video of frolicking furry animals.
I'm only doing it to lull you all into a false sense of security. One minute you put your guard down in the presence of all the furry warm cuteness, then wham! Out comes the chitin and slime and the tentacles and the cold staring eyes oh god oh god the eyes the implacable glare. Then where will your puppies and kittens be, hey?
pharyngula | May 30, 2009This is really low, and I'm already ashamed of myself…but I couldn't resist, either. Behold the cuteness.
(via Chris Clarke)
pharyngula | May 30, 2009Let's hear it for those awesome diploblasts!
Drifters of the deep from Eugenia Loli-Queru on Vimeo.
pharyngula | May 29, 2009Sepia bandensis
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | May 22, 2009Hapalochlaena maculosa
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | May 18, 2009This is not for the squeamish: watch what parasitic wasps do to a caterpillar.
Body Invaders - Watch more videos
The Aliens movies missed some potential for creepiness, I think.
pharyngula | May 18, 2009I've been reading a new book by Jack Horner and James Gorman, How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), and I was pleasantly surprised. It's a book that gives a taste of the joys of geology and paleontology, talks at some length about a recent scientific controversy, acknowledges the importance of evo-devo, and will easily tap into the vast mad scientist market.
It is a little scattered, in that it seems to be the loosely assembled concatenation of a couple of books, but that's part of the appeal; read the chapters like you would a collection of…
pharyngula | May 15, 2009Ommastrephes bartramii
Via tolweb:
Ommastrephid squids are among the strongest swimmers in the Cephalopoda. Some are commonly known as "flying squid" due to their ability to glide over the ocean surface…
pharyngula | May 10, 2009And her name is Karta, and she is an orangutan. Karta escaped from her zoo pen by using a stick to short out an electric fence, then building a crude ladder to climb over a wall.
If only she'd had some coconuts and vines, she would have built a radio and called the Orangutan Liberation Front for rescue.
pharyngula | May 8, 2009Hapalochlaena fasciata
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | April 30, 2009Octopus kaurna(That's one female at the center of a mass of males)
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | April 24, 2009Octopus kaurna
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | April 23, 2009
It's yet another transitional fossil, everyone! Oooh and aaah over it, and laugh when the creationists scramble to pave it over with excuses.
What we have is a 23 million year old mammal from the Canadian arctic that would have looked rather like a seal in life…with a prominent exception. No flippers, instead having very large feet that were probably webbed. This is a walking seal.
(Click for larger image)a, Palatal view of skull; b, lateral view of skull and mandible, left side; c, occlusal view of left mandible. Stippling represents matrix, hatching represents broken bone surface. The…