Ecology & Zoology

Cephalopod Tea Party is having a cephalopod pin give-away. To be entered in the drawing you must write a cephalopod-themed haiku! Although I probably have more than enough cephalopod tchotchkes, I couldn't resist the writing challenge. Last year I wrote a squid fishing haiku. How to top that? I've just been reading (in Wendy Williams' Kraken, which I have cracked now that I'm done with Mieville's--maybe I'll do a joint review?) about ammonites. These famously abundant ancestral cephalopods went extinct along with the dinosaurs at end of the Cretaceous, in what's known as the K-T mass…

Then you really should consider attending Euroceph, a new meeting this year with the tagline:Cephalopod Biology Research in the 21st Century - A European Perspective. We would like to remind all of you that the meeting is aimed to review current cephalopod research from a European perspective and specifically examine the potential of cephalopods as ‘model animals’ to address a range of research questions from molecular neuroscience to ecology.The timing of this meeting is prompted by the revision to EU Directive 86/609 which will bring all cephalopods (adults and immature forms) within the…

I know, I know, I won't shut up about squid fishing. But the Salinas Californian has a neat human-interest article about the closure of the market squid fishery, bringing the message home to Homo sapiens: Third-generation Monterey fishermen Frank Mineo and his older brother, Sal, hope that they will be able to make it to the end of their working lives in the family business. Whether there will be another generation of Mineo men fishing on Monterey Bay remains to be seen. There you have it. That's fishing. And not just squid fishing, either. In other news, if you've been hankering after a…

So I guess squid are doing really well this year. It's estimated that around-the-world squid in mass outweighs the human population. . . . Along the coast of California, the squid season has been abundant . . . Certain squid are booming thanks to a slight warming of sea temperatures, in places like Alaska and Siberia . . . There's also been a boom in Humboldt squid along the Pacific coastline ranging from California to Peru. Not! Argentine fisheries' production of squid this year is at risk after crews found the stock already low outside the country's exclusive economic zone. Low yields of…

Very cool new research on feeding in ancient ammonites! (Thanks to R. Olley for the link.) Ammonites, though not the direct ancestors of modern-day cephalopods, are their ancient cousins--and they were the most successful cephalopods of all time, in terms of diversity and sheer abundance. Ammonites from Ernst Haeckel's 1904 Kunstformen der Natur (Artforms of Nature).What made them so successful? Well, maybe they were able to eat anything that got in their way. Modern cephalopods are successful generalist predators, so it could make sense to assume that ancient cephalopods were the same. But…

If you're not from a part of the U.S.A. that read the "Li'l Abner" comics by Al Capp, you may not know Sadie Hawkins Day - but butterflies do.   Sadie Hawkins, as comic strip aficionados know, was 'the homeliest gal in the hills' so her prominent father, worried about her never finding a husband, invented a day where women could chase men and marriage was the result.   The strip debuted in November of 1937 and was wildly popular, resulting in Sadie Hawkins dances all over the country for decades since. The cool days of November aren't lucky for just bachelor men.  Butterflies…

It's not a cartoon, an ancient flightless bird was actually able to use its wings like a flail - or nunchaku, if your perspective is more Asian. Paleontologists have discovered that Xenicibis, a member of the ibis family found only in Jamaica and that lived about ten thousand years ago used its specialized wings like a flail, swinging its upper arm and striking its enemies with its thick hand bones. "No animal has ever evolved anything quite like this," said Nicholas Longrich of Yale, who led the research. "We don't know of any other species that uses its body like a flail. It's the most…

One of the more commonly known facts about squid is that they squirt ink. When I ask kids, "Why do you think they do that?" the answer is usually "to escape predators" or something similar. This simple truth masks a myriad of wonders. Ink can help squid escape predators in so many different ways! Visually, it can serve as a smokescreen or a decoy; chemically, it can disgust or delight. Cephalove just wrote up a great post about a whole different dimension of ink: one squid's warning to its fellow squid that there's reason to be alarmed. When one squid in a shoal inks (“inking” being the…

Strange but true! Oil supertankers cool themselves by pumping water from the ocean through their overheated innards, but as it turns out, there's more than just water in the ocean. Market squid have been clogging the saltwater cooling pumps of these mammoth ships, causing overheating and interfering with the transfer of oil from the ships to the shoreline. So sportfishing boats saved the day by anchored near the supertankers with even brighter lights, attracting the squid away from the pumps into the relative safely of . . . the sportfishing boats. Yup.

Aravalli hills are around 600 km long and cover very rich diversity due to their peculiar location . However unlike temperate hills this hill range passes through hostile climate of Rajasthan and Gujrat on one side and somewhat friendly climate on its other side as it divides Rajasthan in two zones. Mining activity , population growth and greed of the man has denunded the Aravallis and biodiverstiy is being lost each day due to man made activity. Plants do not know the rules and regulations they simply die if their society is dead. Plants also live in society or groups and if the big trees…