Organisms
pharyngula | November 16, 2007Sepia officinalis
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | November 15, 2007
Last August, when I was at the Sci Foo camp, Paul Sereno brought along the skull of one of his latest discoveries…and whoa, is it ever a weird one. This is Nigersaurus taqueti, an herbivorous dinosaur with specializations for ground-level grazing. Look at this picture; in reality, it's even more striking.
Those jaws and teeth—they are so neatly squared off and flat-edged. In addition, the skull itself on the spinal column is turned habitually downward. This is a creature that kept its face pressed to the ground as it nibbled its way across the landscape.
Another feature that was apparent is…
pharyngula | November 13, 2007I was sent this story of Russian workers in Chelyabinsk discovering a 5-foot long monster prehistoric fish that attacked them and that they had to kill with their equipment. Does this look like a horrible monster to you? Does it even look like a fish?
I could tell at a glance that neither was the case. I got a quick confirmation from our expert invertebrate taxonomist down the hall, Tracey Anderson, and I can assure you that it is a branchiopod crustacean, a poor abused tadpole shrimp. Even the photography tells you that this was a little guy, with a length measured in, at best, inches not…
pharyngula | November 2, 2007I'm off at this meeting and neglecting the site a bit, so when you've got little time and you want something cute to make everyone go "awww," what do you do? Find a picture of a cuttlefish, of course.
pharyngula | October 30, 2007
If you are wondering who that little guy is on my shoulder, you need to be enlightened. Of course they're beautiful. I keep a model right next to my spring-loaded squid toy.
So you want a closeup?
katie glasrud | October 28, 2007A friend of mine has a badger preoccupation. It was his expertise I consulted for last week's blurb on badger culling. Between speaking with him and trying to plan a mad dash to Madison for its famous Halloween party, I've had badgers on the brain all week, so for this week's post, I decided to couple "badger" and "neurobiology" in a literature search.
I found a delightful 2001 article on "Daily Activity Budgets of the Taiwan Ferret Badger (Melogale moschata subaurantiaca) in Captivity" by Kurtis Jai-Chyi Pei. It turns out ferret badgers spend most of their awake time traveling about followed…
pharyngula | October 28, 2007This is pretty nifty: it's a nine-tentacled octopus. Count 'em!
If I may be so bold as to remind you all of the basics of cephalopod development and evolution, the primitive condition in cephalopods is to form ten arms; in the octopods, one pair is secondarily lost by some unidentified suppression in development. It's not too surprising that there would be some low frequency of re-expression of members of the fifth and normally missing pair — and the article mentions that the Akashi Seafood Council reports that they see this once in every 20 years or so.
They should keep an eye open for…
pharyngula | October 26, 2007Octopus briareus, the Caribbean reef octopus
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | October 12, 2007Watasenia scintellans
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | October 9, 2007
Early Cambrian shrimp! I just had to share this pretty little fellow, a newly described eucrustacean from the lower Cambrian, about 525 million years ago. It's small — the larva here is about 1.8mm long, and the adults are thought to have been 3mm long — but it was probably numerous, and I like to imagine clouds of these small arthropods swarming in ancient seas.
The head limbs are drawn in median view and the trunk limbs in lateral view.
There are a couple of notable things about this animal. One is that they're preserved in full 3-dimensional detail in an Orsten-type lagerstätte, which…
pharyngula | October 8, 2007
One last compendium, I think, unless I find unusually large quantities of Cephalopod Awareness links in my mailbox tomorrow.
A whole museum dedicated to octopus balls? The Japanese can be very strange, Tikistitch.
How to eat a cephalopod, if you're a mosasaur.
Nifty squid art.
What? A whole collection of squid posts at Progressive Gold, and I've been missing them?
What? Is that woman vomiting up a tentacle? Or is that supposed to be her tongue? I don't know whether I'm supposed to gag or be aroused.
Babies are always cute.
A Nude, Transexual, Pornographic LOLCthulhu. Enough…
pharyngula | October 8, 2007
More cephalopods are being celebrated everywhere. Send me more!
Cephalopod eyes, and a question: Does your god like octopuses more than men? I don't know about you, but any gods I might have would be cold and cruel and regard us both with unheeding contempt.
A tentacled bra? For belly dancing? Paging Kristine…
Peter documents attacks by cephalopods on humans. There are three. That's pathetic, and somebody needs to put some spine in those invertebrates.
I had not realized that the Canadians were trying to usurp our day with Canadian Thanksgiving. Do they serve stuffed squid on this…
pharyngula | October 8, 2007
We have another round of cephalopodic loveliness. Send me more!
Chris Clarke contemplates the word "sepia".
Why chiropractors shouldn't mess around with invertebrates.
Kevin submits the ubiquitous octopus vs. shark movie.
How can something so cute be angry? (Oh, man, I hear that one all the time.)
Poulperia. I think it's a variant on Santeria.
Roger Burnham sends us some movies:
href="http://blennylips.com/Critter%20Clips/Below/Critter/Mollusks/Caribbea
n%20Reef%20Squid/Caribbean%20Reef%20Squid%20001.wmv">Caribbean Reef Squid 001,
href="http://blennylips.com/Critter%20Clips/…
pharyngula | October 8, 2007
Here's the first volley of cephalopod recognition posts I've received. Do send me more, and I'll put them up later. Do me a favor and put "Cephalopod Awareness" in your subject line so I can sort them out more easily.
The blog that kicked this all off, Cephalopodcast, has a vintage octopus wrestling video. I remember my dating days, too. It's even from the Pacific Northwest, and that guy has a classic Seattle Scandihoovian accent.
From Greta Christina, Peter the Pirate Squid!
Somebody has found their way to the inner sanctum of the cephalopod lords, and returned with pictures. Yes, it…
pharyngula | October 8, 2007
Remember, it's International Cephalopod Awareness Day! Send me links to your articles that express your appreciation of our 10- and 8-armed friends, and I'll periodically put them up right here on Pharyngula.
pharyngula | October 3, 2007&
This ad campaign is going to have some troubles, I suspect. It's saying something I want to hear: they're marketing wild seafood from Alaska, and they're trying to convince me that it is a sustainable fishery. I have my doubts; but they are about to start a series of ads to tell me that it is, and they're pushing salmon and king crab. Mmmmm. I want to believe. Delude me, baby, I want to taste your sweet, sweet lies.
The slogan is "Grab a fork, and eat all you want. There's a lot more out there," though, which I find appalling. And worse, far worse, I watched the ads. Who is mouthing…