Ecology & Zoology

For once! Check it out: the colossal squid gets pride of place as the first entry in the Daily Mail's "Monster mutant animals" photo gallery. This species is believed to be the largest in the squid family in terms of mass and its limbs are equipped with sharp hooks - some swiveling, others three-pointed. I actually didn't remember the swiveling hooks (how could I forget!?), so to assuage my doubt I went to check out Te Papa's incredible online colossal squid exhibition. Indeed, the anatomy page explains: Each tentacle hook sits on a short stalk, flush with the inner surface of the…

Papua New Guinea is a treasure trove of new species - 24 new species of frogs, 2 new mammals, and nearly a hundred new insects, just from expeditions to PNG's Nakanai and Muller mountain ranges. I really liked the tube-nosed fruit bat (Genus Nyctimene), which has yet to be formally documented as a new species, or even named. May I suggest Nyctimene falkoris?

The Museum of UnNatural History has a page about the Kraken, of course, a pleasant romp through the history of the mythological creature, but unfortunately it does its part to perpetrate a common misunderstanding about the giant squid: that this poor animal is actually capable of taking on a whale. Though giant squids are considerably less then a mile and a half across, some are thought to be large enough to wrestle with a whale. On at least three occasions in the 1930's they reportedly attacked a ship. While the squids got the worst of these encounters when they slid into the ship'…

Jessica Hilo writes in Miller-McCune, during an extensive analogy between bacteria and Mafia: Off land, the Vibrio family is a spritely bunch. They are one of few bacteria that can communicate through quorum sensing — a family summit, if you will. Through quorum sensing, the Vibrios enhance symbiotic relationships they have with bioluminescent marine animals — feeding off decayed organic matter on the animal while assisting in reproduction, metabolism and camouflage. Probably the most famous of these symbioses, of course, is that between Vibrio fischeri and the Hawaiian bobtail squid,…

Leopards have but tigers have stripes.  Why the difference?   British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling, author of "The Jungle Book" and other stories, suggested the difference was because the leopard moved to an environment "full of trees and bushes and stripy, speckly, patchy-blatchy shadows".   Was he right or was that a just-so story? Experimental psychologists (nee behavioral ecologists(!)) from the University of Bristol wanted to know and they investigated the flank markings of 35 species of wild cats to understand what drives the evolution of such variation. They captured…

I guess there is a new anime called Squid Girl? I guess Squid Girl's goal is to "subdue the human race and prevent them from polluting the ocean"? I can't decide whether or not this sounds like something I would make up, and if it does, I can't decide whether I should be proud or embarassed. In any case, I don't think anyone is learning any biology from Squid Girl. On the other hand, you'd think people ought to have learned a great deal of biology from the documentary Giant Squid: Inside Nature's Giants Special that aired a few days ago. But the two reviews I read are all muddled up! The…

A group of plants including from smallest to largest occupy a water body. If you introduce strange plant among the group of plants the plants will revolt silently and slowly die or wither. Like introduction of Australian babool or Prosopis juliflora resulted in wiping out of other plants due to its vigorous growth and multiplication. It almost obliterates other plants growth. Plants don’t like to keep such plants in their company. On the other hand other leguminous plants like pulses and other species of Prosopis like Prosopis cinneraria is welcome plant in all the farmers’ field in the arid…

The Squid Symposium ended on Friday, and on Saturday those of us who were still here in La Paz took a day trip to Isla Espiritu Santo, a gorgeous island where we snorkled in bath-warm seawater with sea lions, pufferfish, and other natural wonders. Various ideas from the conference spent the day fermenting in my brain (the hot sun helped) and now I'm going to take a stab at synthesizing some of them. Not too long ago, I wrote a post called Squid fisheries aren't instrinsically sustainable. There was an ellipsis after the statement, which softened it, but now I'd like to add a question mark. Is…

Here are the answers to yesterday's questions: 1. The two contenders for World's Smallest Baby Cephalopod are ommastrephid squid (the family that includes Humboldt squid) and argonaut octopuses. Both groups have paralarvae that hatch at less than one millimeter! 2. Mucus can actually be used for nutrition, by collecting particles of food. This method is well-studied in larvaceans and pteropods, and Dr. Erica Vidal, a Brazilian researcher, believes it may be used by ommastrephid squid as well. 3. According to Arminda Mejia-Rebollo, a Mexican graduate student, various features of a Humboldt…

Fun facts from the second day* of the Fifth International Symposium on Pacific Squids: 1. Which cephalopod has the smallest babies?2. Mucus is often used for protection, like the stuff in our noses, which collects bacteria and dust that would otherwise be hazardous to our health. When we get rid of the mucus, we get rid of the irritants. What completely opposite purpose can mucus serve?3. How much can you learn about a squid just by looking at its beak? Answers to come tomorrow! * Technically the second day was yesterday, but I wasn't able to get online to post these until this morning. Ah,…