zoology
laelaps | April 23, 2010
For at least 30 million years, bone-eating worms have been making their homes in the bodies of decomposing whales on the seabottom, but the rotting cetacean carcasses are not just food sources for the polychaetes.
The term "worm" immediately conjures up images of the red, squiggly things which crawl all over the sidewalk after it rains, but this imagery does not fit the boneworms of the genus Osedax. These worms start off life as sexless larvae, and the timing of their arrival at a whale corpse makes all the difference as to whether they will be male or female. If the larva lands on the…
grrlscientist | April 22, 2010tags: Koralle, Senckenberg Naturmuseum, museums, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, travel, nature, cities, image of the day, photography
Koralle.
Senckenberg Naturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 13 April 2010 [larger view]
Brain coral is a common name given to corals in the family Faviidae, so called due to their generally spheroid shape and grooved surface which resembles an animal brain. Each head of coral is formed by a colony of genetically identical polyps which secrete a hard skeleton of calcium carbonate; this makes them important coral reef builders like other…
laelaps | April 22, 2010
A Madagascar sucker-footed bat (Myzopoda aurita).
In the tropical forests of Madagascar, there lives a very peculiar kind of bat. While most bats roost by hanging upside-down from cave ceilings or tree branches, the Madagascar sucker-footed bat (Myzopoda aurita) holds itself head-up thanks to a set of adhesive pads on its wings. Nor is it the only bat to do so. Thousands of miles away in the jungles of Central and South America, Spix's disk-winged bat (Thyroptera tricolor) does the same thing, but how do their sucker pads work, and why do they choose to roost in a different way from all…
grrlscientist | April 22, 2010tags: Glowing Life in an Underwater World, marine biology, bioluminescence, luciferase, luciferin, green fluorescent protein, eye-in-the-sea cam, ethology, evolution, Edith Widder, TEDTalks, streaming video
Some 80 to 90 percent of undersea creatures make light -- and we know very little about how or why. Bioluminescence expert Edith Widder explores this glowing, sparkling, luminous world, sharing glorious images and insight into the unseen depths (and brights) of the ocean.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's…
laelaps | April 19, 2010
Two giant anteaters fight it out. On the left, the individuals lash out at each other with their enormous claws, and on the right they posture at each other (with the dominant animal, with the upright and puffed-out tail, on the right). From Kruetz et al 2009.
In the northern state of Roraima in Brazil, small plantations of the black wattle tree (Acacia mangium) serve up plenty of food to carpenter ants and other insects, and the variety of six-legged pests has attracted numerous giant anteaters. The trouble is that these immense xenarthrans don't typically get along very well.
As…
grrlscientist | April 19, 2010tags: evolutionary biology, evolutionary biogeography, molecular biology, medicine, ectoparasite, orificial hirudiniasis, mucosal leech infestation, hirudinoids, leech, Tyrannobdella rex, public health, zoology, PLoS ONE, anatomy, phylogenetic analysis, taxonomy, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, journal club
Figure 1. Mucosally invasive hirudinoid leeches. Known from a wide variety of anatomical sites including eyes (A) as in this case involving Dinobdella ferox (B), mucosal leech species, as in a case involving Myxobdella annandalei (C), more frequently feed from the…
laelaps | April 17, 2010
What kind of social-insect-eating mammal is stranger than a numbat? Well, a pangolin, for one. From The Life of Mammals.
For more on the pangolin's prey, check out one of the newest additions to the ScienceBlogs family, Myrmecos.
grrlscientist | April 16, 2010tags: Versteinerung Muschelschale, Senckenberg Naturmuseum, museums, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, travel, nature, cities, image of the day, photography
Versteinerung Muschelschale.
Senckenberg Naturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 13 April 2010 [larger view]
This is a gorgeous fossil shell photographed at the Senckenberg Naturmuseum .. how old is this? What species is this? I don't know .. but I will return and collect more detailed information to share with you (this first visit was a quick pass through the museum to see what they have on display).
grrlscientist | April 16, 2010tags: Hooked by an Octopus, animals, zoology, invertebrates, octopus, marine biology, film maker, animal behavior, Mike deGruy, TEDTalks, streaming video
Underwater filmmaker Mike deGruy has spent decades looking intimately at the ocean. A consummate storyteller, he takes the stage at Mission Blue to share his awe and excitement -- and his fears -- about the blue heart of our planet.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have…
grrlscientist | April 15, 2010tags: Koralle, Senckenberg Naturmuseum, museums, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, travel, nature, cities, image of the day
Koralle.
Senckenberg Naturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 13 April 2010 [larger view]
If you were here today, I would show you around the Senckenberg Natural History Museum. During your visit, this is one of the many natural wonders you would see.
laelaps | April 13, 2010
A red panda (Ailurus fulgens, left, photographed at the Bronx Zoo) and a giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, right, photographed at the National Zoo).
As the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould observed in one of his most famous essays, the thumbs of giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) are nothing at all like the large digits on our own hands. Their accessory "thumbs", visible on the surface as a differentiated part of the pad on the "palm" of the hand, are modified sesamoid bones derived from the wrist. They are jury-rigged bits of anatomy which cast nature as an "excellent tinkerer, not…
grrlscientist | March 30, 2010tags: evolution, evolutionary biology, UV light, flight, dinosaur, dromaeosaur, theropods, Microraptor gui, paleontology, fossils, birds, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper, journal club
Figure 1. The holotype of Microraptor gui, IVPP V 13352 under normal light. This shows the preserved feathers (white arrow) and the 'halo' around the specimen where they appear to be absent (black arrows). Scale bar at 5 cm. [larger view]
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009223
It has long been known that when exposed to ultraviolent light, fossilized bones and shells -- and even…
laelaps | March 19, 2010
At almost every aquarium I have ever visited with a seahorse exhibit, the plaque in front of the tank says the same thing: in seahorses and their relatives, males, not females, carry the babies. It is always interesting to watch the reactions of visitors to this curious fact. Adult men, for instance, sometimes seem unsettled by the thought of male pregnancy, but the reproductive reversal among the fish is often seen as kinda cute ("How sweet. A fishy dad taking care of his kids!"). As shown by a study by Kimberly Paczolt and Adam Jones published this week in Nature, however, there can be…
grrlscientist | March 10, 2010tags: evolution, evolutionary biology, ancient DNA, aDNA, molecular biology, molecular ecology, archaeology, paleontology, fossil eggshell, extinct birds, giant moa, Dinornis robustus, elephant birds, Aepyornis maximus, Mullerornis, Thunderbirds, Genyornis, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper, journal club
Elephant bird, Aepyornis maximus, egg
compared to a human hand with a hummingbird egg balanced on a fingertip.
To conduct my avian research, I've isolated and sequenced DNA from a variety of specimens, such as blood, muscle, skin and a variety of internal…
laelaps | February 10, 2010As the snow continues to pile up outside, I can't help but think of polar predators. There are animals that live and hunt in the conditions that are keeping me inside today, and one of my favorites is the leopard seal. An apex predator in its Antarctic home, the leopard seal is an enormous pinniped that specializes in hunting penguins and other seals. Getting into the water with one is not something to be done on a whim, but as described by photographer Paul Nicklen, particularly friendly predators can be among the most frightening:
laelaps | February 2, 2010
A grizzly bear (the black dot in the middle of the photo) walking near the treeline in Yellowstone's Hayden Valley.
The quiet of my evening wildlife watching was suddenly broken by a thick Boston accent. "Oh my gawd! Look! It's a grizz! That's the last animal I needed to see! It's a grizz!"
He was right. Lumbering across the valley was a big dark shape that could only be a bear. It was not very close, being little more than a dot moving along the distant treeline, but through the zoom lens of my camera it was just possible to make out the hump that distinguishes black bears from grizzly…
grrlscientist | February 1, 2010tags: evolutionary biology, paleontology, fossils, fossilization, fossil forensics, Taphonomy, taxonomy, zoology, deep time, paleoceanography, amphioxus, Branchiostoma lanceolatum, lamprey, Lampetra fluviatilis, chordates, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper
Three rotting Amphioxus heads.
A sequence of images showing how the characteristic features of the body of amphioxus, a close living relative of vertebrates, change during decay. Colours are caused by interference between the experimental equipment and the light illuminating the specimens.
Image: Mark…
grrlscientist | January 30, 2010tags: evolutionary biology, convergent evolution, paleontology, taxonomy, zoology, basal birds, theropods, dinosaurs, ornithology, birds, Alvarezsauroidea, Haplocheirus sollers, Maniraptora, Archaeopteryx, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper
A Newly Discovered Basal Alvarezsauroid Theropod from the Early Late Jurassic.
Artwork: Portia Sloan [larger view]
DOI: 10.1126/science.1182143
A long-standing scientific debate focuses on the origins of birds: did they evolve from reptiles or dinosaurs? Currently, most scientists think that birds are modern dinosaurs,…
grrlscientist | January 28, 2010tags: evolutionary biology, fossils, feathers, plumage color, color, dinosaurs, theropods, Sinosauropteryx, Sinornithosaurus, birds, Confuciusornis, melanosomes, phaeomelanosomes, eumelanosomes, keratinocytes, SEM, scanning electron microscopy, 10.1038/nature08740, researchblogging.org, peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper
Reconstruction of two Sinosauropteryx, sporting their orange and white striped tails.
Artwork by Chuang Zhao and Lida Xing [larger view]
DOI: 10.1038/nature08740
While looking at museum dioramas that feature dinosaurs, I often overhear people asking "How do they…
laelaps | January 20, 2010
A ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
Who doesn't love lemurs? The strepsirrhine primates, or wet-nosed cousins of ours, are favorite documentary subjects and extremely popular zoo attractions. And, in one of those bits of zoological trivia that everyone knows, lemurs only live on the island of Madagascar off Africa's southeastern coast. The question is how they got there.
Documenting the paths of animals during geological history is not an easy task. In the days before scientists understood plate tectonics, land bridges, now sunk beneath the ocean, were often…