Organisms
pharyngula | April 25, 2008Octopus maorum
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | April 23, 2008
The title gets the principal objection of any creationist out of the way: yes, this population of Podarcis sicula is still made up of lizards, but they're a different kind of lizard now. Evolution works.
Here's the story: in 1971, scientists started an experiment. They took 5 male lizards and 5 female lizards of the species Podarcis sicula from a tiny Adriatic island called Pod Kopiste, 0.09km2, and they placed them on an even tinier island, Pod Mrcaru, 0.03km2, which was also inhabited by another lizard species, Podarcis melisellensis. Then a war broke out, the Croatian War of Independence…
pharyngula | April 18, 2008Octopus abaculus
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | April 11, 2008Euprymna tasmanica
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | April 10, 2008Check it out: it's yet another transitional form, a 92 million year old snake with two hindlimbs. Cool! Just last week I was told that none of these things exist.
pharyngula | April 4, 2008Nautilus pompilious and some chordate
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | March 28, 2008Thaumelodone gunteri
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | March 26, 2008Look! He's been plastinated and hung in a Paris museum!
OK, that's not so bad — if anyone wants to plastinate me after I'm dead and string me up from the rafters, I won't mind. This next bit, though, is going too far: people are laughing at the giant squid's embarrassing little sexual accidents. Seriously, everyone looks ridiculous during sex and it's not unusual to have the occasional slip up … and we bipedal mammals can screw up in even more embarrassing ways. And to add ignorance to insult, the squid article even gets it wrong.
But males get round their inferior size by being endowed with…
pharyngula | March 24, 2008When Surinam Toads mate, the male fertilizes the eggs and rubs them onto the female's back, where they adhere…and the female's skin responds by swelling and enveloping the eggs. Then, a few months later, we get this lovely scene:
pharyngula | March 21, 2008Octopus aspilosomatis
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | March 18, 2008
You know how people can be going along, minding their own business, and then they see some cute big-eyed puppy and they go "Awwwww," and their hearts melt, and then it's all a big sloppy mushfest? I felt that way the other day, as I was meandering down some obscure byways of the developmental biology literature, and discovered the dicyemid mesozoa … an obscure phylum which I vaguely recall hearing about before, but had never seriously examined. After reading a few papers, I have to say that these creatures are much more lovable then mere puppy dogs. Look at this and say "Awwwww!"
Light…
pharyngula | March 14, 2008Bolitaena pygmaea
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | March 7, 2008Heteroteuthis hawaiiensis
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | February 29, 2008Metasepia pfefferi
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | February 22, 2008Loligo opalescens
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | February 21, 2008It's a baby, and it's cute, and it's marine. Do I need any other excuses to post this?
pharyngula | February 19, 2008
It means "devil toad," and it was a 10 pound monster that lived 70 million years ago, in what is now Madagascar. It's huge, and judging by its living cousins, was a voracious predator. If it were alive today, it would probably be eating your cats and puppies.
In other words, this was an awesome toad, and I wish I had one for a pet.
Here's what it looks like, with some very large extant toads for comparison.
Beelzebufo ampinga, Late Cretaceous of Madagascar. (A) Skull
reconstruction showing parts preserved (white areas, Left) and distribution of
pit-and-ridge ornament (stippling, Right). (B…
pharyngula | February 17, 2008
Since I wrote about the wacky creationist who couldn't wrap his mind around the idea that plants and animals are related, and since I generally do a poor job of discussing that important kingdom of the plants (I admit it, I'm a metazoan bigot…but I do try to overcome my biases), I thought I'd briefly mention an older review by Elliot Meyerowitz that compares developmental processes in plants and animals. The main message is that developmental processes, the mechanisms that assemble the multicellular whole, are very different in the two groups and are non-homologous, but don't get confused:…