And I Think to Myself...What A Wonderful World.

Creature Feature: Lumpsucker.

2013-06-16T23:25:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day! After yesterday's news, it's time for something positive about dads...right?

Unfortunately, in much of the animal world, dads are dicks. I'm not even going to sugar-coat that. They mate, knock up a female, then move on. The vast majority of the time, babies are given no paternal care - and before you say "that's only reptiles blah blah blah," one, both parents leave after the eggs hatch in reptiles, and two, mammals tend to mate and run just as fast.

That said, there are some great animal dads, like this fellow:

Along with being awesome dads, lumpsuckers probably win the award for "weirdest fish you never heard of." There are 27 species of "lumpsucker, but the titular fish is Cyclopterus lumpus- yes, "lumpus" is apparently a Latin word, now. C. lumpus can be found in the colder, rockier parts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans. (Worth noting: the Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker is extremely popular, and merits its own entry.) Their closest relatives are lionfish, which almost everybody who has ever been to an aquarium or exotic pet store has probably seen at least once, and perch, which are a pretty common fish. They look nothing like the scaleless ping-pong balls called lumpsuckers.

Yet, surprisingly, these little weirdos make relatively good dads by fish standards. In lumpsuckers, the male almost does more work than the female. The male makes the nest, for example. After eggs are laid, he guards the brood. Considering lumpsuckers make cheap caviar, it's a good thing someone's guarding those eggs. It helps that his pelvic fin has evolved into a suction cup, leading to the rather amusing image here:

From Wikipedia. Too cute!

Now, here's why they're called "lumpsuckers." They look like little lumps and have pelvic disc suckers. Yes, lumpsuckers, like some weird Pokemon GameFreak never came up with, have suction cups on the bottom. This thing looks terrifying when seen from beneath, but also makes for some of the cutest fish images on the entire internet. It's similar to the suction that remoras have, but is used for the less badass purpose of clinging to anything that happens to be around while it munches slow-swimming, bottom-dwelling stuff. This thing has evolved the laziness adaptation nerds never could.

Also, guess what? They actually eat that! Apparently lumpfish is not only popular as caviar, but as meat as well. Iceland loves it so much that whole fisheries have been founded on lumpfish.Then again, considering their habit of preserving fish in horrible, maddening ways...we'll let lumpfish slide. We cool, Iceland?

Newsflash: Fatty Diets Lead to Obese Children.

2013-06-15T23:48:00.000-07:00

In literature, there is a trope called "Lamarck Was Right." This trope originates from the idea that Jean-Baptistse Lamarck, a predecessor of Darwin, believed that traits animals acquired during their lifetimes could be passed on to their offspring. The classic example is Lamarck's giraffe: giraffes grew longer and longer necks after stretching to get their food. No Mendelian inheritance involved, nope.

Well, it turns out Lamarck might have been onto something. A new lab study done on mice found that dads who were fed a high-fat diet were more likely to have obese children. While this might seem like a no-brainer, it means that some changes in an animal's lifetime can be passed on to their offspring. More below:

"Male mice who were fed a high-fat diet and became obese were more likely to father offspring who also had higher levels of body fat, a new Ohio University study finds.

The effect was observed primarily in male offspring, despite their consumption of a low-fat diet, scientists reported today at the annual meeting of The Endocrine Society in San Francisco, Calif.
"We've identified a number of traits that may affect metabolism and behavior of offspring dependent on the pre-conception diet of the father," said Felicia Nowak, an associate professor of biomedical sciences in Ohio University's Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine who is lead author on the study.

The researchers point to epigenetics -- the way genes are expressed, as opposed to mutations in DNA that are "hard-wired into the genes" -- as a possible cause of these inherited traits. Because gene expression is impacted by environmental and lifestyle factors, this finding suggests that individuals with obese fathers may be able to proactively address health concerns.

The effect of parents' diet and weight on children has been well-established in humans, Nowak explained, but scientists have been studying the issue in mice to learn more about the biological mechanisms behind the phenomenon. The Ohio University team studied the impact of the high-fat diet only with male mice parents, as most of the previous research had focused on female mice parents.

To conduct the study, the researchers fed male mice a high-fat diet for 13 weeks before mating. (The female mates were fed a matched low-fat diet.) Male and female offspring were fed a standard low-fat diet and studied at 20 days, six weeks and at six and 12 months.

Compared with offspring from control mice (who were fed the low-fat diet), the male offspring of paternal mice with diet-induced obesity had higher body weight at six weeks of age. They also were more obese at the six- and 12-month study markers. In addition, the male offspring of obese fathers had different patterns of body fat composition -- a marker for health and propensity for disease -- than the control mice." Source with more.

On the plus side, these same obese mice babies were actually more active than the average mouse. Quite a twist! So, a question for the readers: was Lamarck really right?

Creature Feature: Fishing Cat.

2013-06-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

Most pet-owners in the world are either cat people or dog people. Me, I'm a cat person, and there are some really fascinating cats out there. Whether they are domesticated or not is of only mild relevance. Here's a cat I'd love to take home if red tape were not involved:

This is a fishing cat. It is one of roughly four species in Prionailurus, a group of small, spotted wildcats found in Asia. The fisher cat has spotty distribution in India and Southeast Asia and is endangered due to human activity. It is primarily found in wetlands and near running water, fishing for, well, fish. Rumor has it, however, that their very varied diet may also include certain carnivores- including dogs. Reminder: this is a small cat.

Doubtless, some cat lovers have noticed that cats like fish, but hate getting their paws wet. The fisher cat has its fish and eats it, too. They first lure fish with a tap of the paw upon the water, then scoop up the unwary little fishy before it knows what hit it. The fishing cat can also swim, sporting waterproof fur and a tail like a rudder. They can also dive for fish if need be. In summary, the fishing cat really loves water, unlike most cats who flinch at getting wet.

Now, here's one major difference between cat and dog people: dog people generally see inbreeding to create insane dog breeds as OK, but frown upon outcrossing with wolves and coyotes; cat people, on the other hand, will outcross with other small cats like crazy in order to create new breeds. The difference is in part genetic; dogs have 39 pairs of chromosomes, leading to an extremely versatile genome and a surprising amount of relatively stable dog breeds. Cats have a smaller genome, with only 19 pairs of chromosomes. (For the curious, humans have 23 pairs, meaning that chromosome count means jack in regards to intelligence.) What this means is that dog breeders have had a very extensive genetic palette to create living artwork over millennia, while the cat people simply do not have that range of genetic color. Cat people have gotten around that by breeding domestic cats to wild felines.

From here.

I recall someone once trying to equate comparing dogs with wolves to comparing cats with lions. This is BS for so many reasons, and the argument really deserves a sucker-punch to the gut, but the rule of thumb is that domestic cats can mate with a lot of small cats - including the fisher cat. The resulting hybrid cat is called a "jambi," and it's apparently brand new. Will these fishing cat hybrids be as hydrophilic as their wild counterparts? Who knows.

"They Actually Eat That:" Hummus.

2013-06-14T01:04:00.001-07:00

Just to prove that I don't play favorites, the U.S. has some pretty gross foods, too. The crowning achievement, as of late, has to be Dunkin's newest breakfast sandwich. It consists of bacon and egg...on a glazed doughnut. Original, yet sickening.

Luckily, some of us have realized that foreign diets are pretty much unanimously better than the American "diet." Mediterranean food, from Greek yogurt to gyros, has always been pretty popular and is only getting more so as time goes on. One of the newer things from that area to hit the scene is hummus, which is unfortunately also greasy. Not as nasty as some of the things on this blog, but certainly messy and interesting.

Biggest hummus dish EVER.

So, what is hummus, anyways? In short, it's a chickpea dip. Nobody knows when it started, but it has been around in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Egypt since time immemorial. The first recorded instance of hummus as we know it comes from 13th century Cairo. The dip consists of lemon, mashed chickpeas, olive oil, salt, garlic, and something called tahini (sesame paste). It is also usually served with pita chips, so chips n' dip go back farther than you might think!

Hummus is one of the healthiest foods ever. It makes something called a "complete protein" with bread, making it ideal for vegetarian and vegan diets. This is even better if one happens to be allergic to tree nuts. There are several commercial brands available in the States. Strange as it may be, it's actually good that it's getting popularized.

You can also get creative with hummus!

Now, some people like the taste of hummus. That's fine. It does not change that it's still a greasy mess to clean, not to mention adds the scent of garlic to one's breath for the rest of the day. (This one's from personal experience.) So long as you don't have any important events to go to, enjoy your hummus. It's one of the few dips that's actually good for you.

Gone Viral: Bluetongue Disease.

2013-06-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

My apologies to the shepherds in Africa. The disease covered in the entry is really no laughing matter, yet I have the hardest time taking it seriously. I mean no offense to anybody, but when the name of a potentially-lethal disease is reminiscent of the effect of blue raspberry candy in one's mouth, it's a little hard to not giggle.

Source.

This sheep has been affected with bluetongue disease, a Reovirus that pretty much goes wherever sheep happen to be. It started in Africa, then spread to Europe, the U.S., Australia, and other places with sheep. It's also called catarrhal fever. The disease affects mostly sheep, but can also hit cattle, deer, goats, and almost any other ruminant. It does not affect humans at all. Still, upon finding it, it was too weird not to write something about.

Bluetongue disease is carried by a small insect called a midge (Culicoides). This means that BTV season coincides with midge season, which is usually summer/fall. This also means that it's not really transmitted from sheep to sheep; kill the bugs and it won't happen. Since it is very, very hard to eradicate every midge in the area, it's advised that sheep be kept indoors around dusk, when the bugs are most active.

The main symptoms of this thing are fever, swelling of the face, excessive salivation, and, sometimes, a blue tongue (called "cyanosis" if you want to be really technical). Some cases also involve foot lesions, giving it the nickname "dancing disease." Mind, the virus does not turn sheep tongues bright blue. The effect of cyanosis is more like a bruise-blue than any artificial blue one can think of, making the whole thing less attractive. It also happens that not every case involves a blue tongue anyways.

As one can probably imagine, there are cures for this disease. Many sheep die within a week of getting it; others can be treated with vaccines from local strains. Recovery takes months. Regardless, this is one blue tongue that is not so fun to have. Please stick to blue raspberry things, and do not give them to sheep.

Bio-Art: Roachbots.

2013-06-10T23:27:00.000-07:00

I'm going to let the video do the introducing this time:

Now, WTF was that? A company called "Backyard Brains" has released a series of kits related to neurology and cockroaches. Some of them just feature moving cockroach legs with a few wires. The more impressive kits allow one to brainwash cockroaches. No, you do not need a degree of any kind to do this; that's the whole point.

As the site itself puts it, "Backyard Brains enables anyone to be a neuroscientist." The site has a series of experiments, all of which can be dome with their kits and a few things found in most households. Another famous invention of theirs is the "SpikerBox," which amplifies the sound of neurons to an audible level. It's all pretty cool, and a lot of it will be fuel for future entries.

The "RoboRoach" involves stimulating the antenna nerves of cockroaches so that one can have a brainwashed roach puppet for a few minutes. The whole thing is done via a "backpack" that fills the antennae with fine wire, which in turn tells the cockroach where to move via nerve pulses. You can only tell it to do things like move left and right, but that's still pretty nifty. Same basic idea as RatBot, only less precise and using an icky roach instead of a cute rat.

It's not that this idea has not been touched on before. There was an old cartoon involving robot roaches. One also appeared on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but do note that these RoboRoaches will not become the roachinator above. Roachbot is not a real cockroach; it still works just as good as RoboRoach for freaking out your friends. Have fun messing with household pests!

Shark Week: Goblin Shark.

2013-06-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

OK, let's be honest: I haven't shown off any particularly strange sharks. Sure, it's kinda neat that the nurse shark can sleep and sucks stuff up from the sea bottom, but that's not too odd unless you're a real fish nerd. Hongeohoe? That's a skate, not a shark. Allow me to compensate:

If you thought regular sharks looked nasty, the goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) could win almost any "ugly shark" contest if such a thing existed. It has been around and gone nearly unchanged since Cretaceous, i.e. 125 million years ago. Go figure, it's an abyss-dweller. Unlike the orange roughy, however, these sharks are rarely caught. We presume Dagon would not want us to catch this particular Lovecraftian nightmare regardless.

The goblin shark gets its name because of its funny "nose," which greatly resembles the crowlike noses of Japanese goblins ("tengu"). Much like the bill of a platypus and the hammerhead's titular head, this nose has "ampullae of Lorenzini," which allow the shark to sense electromagnetic waves from the bodies of animals hiding near the bottom. Aesthetically, it just contributes to our fears that something very nasty must be lurking at the bottom of the sea.

Aside from the snout, the goblin shark has one other really bizarre feature: its jaws. Like something out of Alien, the goblin shark can extend its jaws almost to the end of its snout. Words cannot justify how strange this looks. Here's a video instead:

Luckily, this freak is probably one of the laziest sharks on the planet. It's believed to be sluggish, snagging crustaceans, fish, and other deep sea crunchies with its massive alien jaws instead of swimming after them with its stubby fins. It avoids human contact, most of the time, in part because it lives in the dark abyss. You may have noticed that there's a lot of "data deficient" spots on this entry; this is why.

Did I mention that these sharks can get as long as a car? No? Have fun sleeping.

Shark Week/Newsflash: A Real-Life Jaws?!

2013-06-08T23:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, things just click into place. This is one of those times; the perfect, Jaws-related tidbit of news came to light during Shark Week. This was too good not to use:

"BOSTON (Reuters) - A 13-foot great white shark off the coast of Cape Cod prompted Massachusetts officials on Friday to warn beachgoers to be aware of their surroundings and to use common sense when swimming.

State biologists located the shark, which had been tagged with an acoustic transmitter, near Cape Cod island of Monomoy on May 28. White shark sightings have been on the rise off the Massachusetts coast, the setting for the 1970s shark movie, "Jaws".

The Department of Marine Fisheries advised people to avoid swimming at dawn and dusk, to stay close to the shore and to avoid areas where seals congregate.

Massachusetts has been compiling data on great white sharks since 1987. Experts have said the sharks are attracted to that coast by a growing population of gray seals.

There have been eight recorded shark attacks in Massachusetts, two of which were fatal, according to Shark Attack File, which compiles data on shark attacks worldwide." - Source and more.

For the record, great whites and other sharks usually do not see humans as dinner. If you happen to be stupid and punch the shark in the face or something, that gives the shark an excuse to eat you. Likewise, swimming with cuts is never a good idea. The ocean's full of sharks; not all of them are lethal.

Shark Week: Pet Sharks?

2013-06-07T22:13:00.000-07:00

Some people like menageries. They love having exotic animals that nobody else on the street has, and they happen to show off a lot of them.

So what if one of those animals happens to be a shark?

It's hard to find a shark that will not get at least ten feet long. You're looking at a whole room's worth of an aquarium. Oh, and you should have handled saltwater tanks before; the best sharks are in the oceans, and for regular fish, saltwater tanks are hard enough to maintain. How about feeding a shark? They aren't going to take fish flakes. In other words, for pretty much any shark, you're looking at a millionaire's investment.

So, let's say you do have the insane funds to provide for a shark. What types of sharks are good for relative beginners, seeing as some undoubtedly make better pets than others?

Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that there's no "ball python" to the nurse shark's "Burmese." In English: there is no pet shark that the average person can keep on a whim. There are freshwater fish called "sharks," but those are not true sharks. The good news is that there are some sharks that make better pets than others. Don't start with a great white, now.

This handy little site has some details on the best types of "starter" sharks. I'm going to save you all some research and post a little bit more on its recommendations...with pics.

Source. This image is amazing.

Wobbegongs: I want to say that this blog has already done an entry on wobbegong sharks. To my great surprise, these oddball sharks from the waters of the Pacific and Indonesia are some of the best pet sharks for the average, research-loving schmuck. Some wobbegong sharks get only 4.1 feet long, and they have slow metabolisms, needing only to be fed twice a week. Not a bad deal if you want to say you own a shark, but still requires some aquarium knowledge. The tasseled wobbegong (Eucrossorhinus dasypogon) above is one of the better wobbegongs, if a shark suits your fancy. Alas, it looks more like a bunch of seaweed than an actual shark.

Bamboo sharks: Again, these are bottom-dwelling sharks from the Indo-Pacific like wobbegongs, except they look a lot more like miniature sharks. They can "walk" on the bottom of the sea, or your tank, with their surprisingly dextrous fins. The largest species is roughly 4 feet in length. FYI, the shark the wobbegong is eating is a bamboo shark, but here's a better pic of the thing while it's alive.

Epaulette sharks: THESE are so worth their own entry in the future! I'm just looking at a video and being totally charmed by it. The ocelli (big black "eye" spots) above the pectoral fins make these sharks very pleasing to the eye. These are, again, Indo-Pacific bottom-feeders. They can be fed raw shrimp, which is fairly easy to acquire and handle. They are not as small as wobbegongs and Bamboo sharks, however, so please make sure you can handle these slender sharks before taking one home!

"They Actually Eat That:" Hongeohoe.

2013-06-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

You thought this week would be out of shark-related stuff because I did hakarl last week, didn't you? The good news is you were half-right; I had originally intended to do shark liver oil, then found something grosser, yet still slightly shark-related. The bad news? It is grosser than liver oil, and almost as nasty as hakarl. Oh, and you'll have to learn something, too.

The pink stuff may look like regular fish, but looks are deceiving. Hongeohoe is a Korean dish consisting of fermented Korean skate, which -

Wait. What's a "skate" in this context?

Skates, like stingrays, are related to sharks. They usually dwell in deep waters and can actually taste quite good if prepared correctly. Being cartilaginous fish (i.e. not having real bones), sharks, rays, and skates are all related. (Deepsea chimeras also fall here, but are so distantly related that they are usually given their own family.) Basically, if you imagine a stingray with a sturdier tail and less wing, you've got a skate.

Like hakarl, hongeohoe involves a fermented fish. In this case, the raw skate is wrapped in rice stalks and dung, then allowed to rot for several weeks. It supposedly came about by accident when Korean sailors let the fish rot and found it was still edible, possessing a "stinging" flavor. Yeah, that already sounds pleasant, doesn't it?

Hongeohoe tastes very much like hakarl - or, rather, like ammonia. Sharks urinate through their skin, apparently, so when a shark dies, the urine becomrs ammonia.Ammonia is found in most households as a cleaning fluid and is a frequent by-product of many biological reactions. If you want to try some, please don't try too much. As with hakarl, hongeohoe is very much an acquired taste and is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

So, how bad is it? Andrew Zimmern was only able to stomach one piece. Some lucky people have been able to eat three. A wash with rice wine is recommended afterwards. Yes, hongeohoe is indeed the Asian answer to hakarl, even if a shark is not technically involved. Some things remain constant within humanity; apparently fermenting shark/skate is one of those things. (And yes, I know other cultures see cheese as rotten milk.)

Shark Week: Nurse Shark.

2013-06-04T09:45:00.000-07:00

This is a weird shark week. That means we'll be going off the beaten path, looking at sharks you never knew existed. Not every shark can be Jaws, so how about we switch to something more docile, yes?

This is a nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum). Nurse sharks are fond of shallow, warm waters in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. They aren't dangerous to humans unless you disturb them, in which case prepare for a nasty bite from thousands of needle teeth. Small stuff on the bottom, be it fish, crustacean, or mollusc, is not so lucky. Their barbs function much like the whiskers on a catfish, meaning that stuff beneath the sand is not safe.

Nobody really knows why these sharks are called nurse sharks. They don't take particularly good care of their (!live) babies. The name could come from the shark's docile nature or how it "nurses" the sea bottom with its mouth, but the most likely explanation is the Old English "hurse," meaning this particular type of bottom-dwelling sea shark. In other words, name change via spell check. We've all been there.

Now, here's a puzzle: How do bottom-dwelling sharks, well, stay on the bottom? Most sharks need to swim constantly to circulate water across their gills.Nurse sharks circulate water by pumping it through their mouths. These sharks do rest a lot, sometimes on top of each other. They can be seen sleeping in masses of up to 30-40 members in one spot, meaning that these are relatively social sharks. How far removed is that from a terrifying great white?

In many ways, nurse sharks are the "Burmese pythons" of the saltwater aquarium trade. People see a cute juvenile, don't think it'll get very big, then wind up with a 10+ foot shark that no tank will hold. Good luck finding a home for a shark; most aquariums will not take them. Please do your homework before taking home any animal, especially a shark!

Shark Week/Bio-Art: Neat Shark Stuff.

2013-06-03T21:51:00.000-07:00

Now that summer's here, or should be, some of you will probably be going on vacation. That means you'll see touristy crap, and one of the most touristy things at most beach spots are these shark tooth necklaces:

And y'know what? Aside from sharks being in the water and therefore on beaches, shark tooth necklaces have a reason for being,

Sharks are majorly important in many island cultures. Shark teeth are used for arrowheads, cutting tools, and decor. Sharks are so significant that these island cultures have a number of shark deities, some of whom have stories that would be fun to play with if a certain movie shark needs a reboot. When fishing for sharks, some Polynesian tribes use human flesh because darnit, sharks love mana, and human bodies are full of it. In other words, Jaws was onto something.

The good news is that sharks shed their pointy teeth all the time. By buying a shark tooth, you aren't hurting a darn thing unless the people making them are exceptionally cruel to the sharks. The teeth grow back throughout the shark's lifetime. A shark tooth is pretty much the most badass accessory you can get without actually harming an animal.

Award for "The Biggest Shark Tooth" naturally goes to Megalodon, one of the biggest sharks to ever live. Its name means "big teeth." Cheap Megalodon teeth can be as low as 15 dollars - perfect for starting a fossil collection. More hardcore collectors may pay over 2000 USD for a well-preserved tooth in the front of the mouth. Think carefully before buying the tooth. It could take a bite out of your wallet if you don't know your stuff.

Whole rows of fossilized teeth have also been used for bling. Fossilized shark teeth were believed to have come from dragons, and were called "tongue stones." The teeth were believed to be petrified snake/dragon tongues, which sounds a little stupid just to talk about; soft tissue does not fossilize well. Chalk up another "dragons are fish" point for Asia.

Now. esotericism aside? Let's look at some cool sharks.

Creature Feature: Basking Shark.

2013-06-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

So, wait a tic. Is hakarl made of basking shark or Greenland shark? Actually, this is where the video got something wrong: basking sharks aren't poisonous. They can still be used for hakarl, but the curing does little more than make the meat extra-pungent. What is a basking shark, anyways, because the image of a shark basking sounds like something off of a cheap beach souvenir?

Source.

This is what a basking shark looks like. It is native to all the seven seas, presumably following the plankton by smell. Being large, slow-moving, and calm, it has been a fishery staple for quite some time. It is the second largest fish in the world after the whale shark.

These sharks are big. You thought 23 feet was big? Nah, the basking shark can get up to 40 feet long. To reuse a bad joke, that's a lotta fish; it makes sense that some Vikings would want to preserve that. Numbers like that have not been seen for a while, but remember that the basking shark is kind of like a whale shark. Yes, it is similar to something with whale in is name for so many reasons.

Source: BBC, but sharks aren't mammals, silly network.

The basking shark, like the whale shark, is a filter-feeding shark. It eats whatever small things it swims through. That means it is only a threat to the tiny little creatures (zooplankton) that get caught in the basking shark's super-large mouth. Even though it may look a lot like a great white, it's not going to bite you. I would not, however, suggest going up to random large sharks and testing this.

Alas, this is another one of those creatures that is at risk of going extinct. Shark fin soup can come from these sharks, too. Shark liver oil was once popular, and Japan uses parts of this shark as an aphrodisiac. Basking sharks were once so common that they were thought pests. Now some areas ban catching them while others seem to have lost them entirely. If you see one of those sea monsters, look on at it in awe; unless you live at sea, they're an uncommon sight.

Maybe it's about time I did my own version of Shark Week...hmm...

Newsflash: Animal Planet and Mermaids.

2013-06-01T21:14:00.000-07:00

A while back, I saw a small blurb about Animal Planet's change of logo. The writer argued that the tagline "Surprisingly Human" would affect the content on Animal Planet negatively. Specifically, there were arguments about misrepresenting nature, likely by overanthropomorphizing. I wish I could find that article again; it would seem that this argument has reached its peak.

Recently, Animal Planet did a pseudo-documentary on mermaids. A friend of mine insists that I see it, which I will. I loved the thing they did on dragons aside from a few nitpicks. The mermaid thing will probably be fun as well.

Some of us are not amused. Yahoo! News reports:

Animal Planet has raised quite a furor over its airing of the "speculative" documentary "Mermaids: The New Evidence." Capping its annual Monster Week, a network once known for safari shows and puppy bowls is turning over increasing amounts of its broadcast time to cryptozoology shows like "Lost Tapes," "Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real," and "Finding Bigfoot".

In fact, "Finding Bigfoot" was at the center of another, similar, controversy reported last year by Entertainment Weekly as TV critics turned skeptics, forced Animal Planet president Marjorie Kaplan to offer a vague defense of the show as "an exploration of the secret corners of the planet," since it lacks anything approaching hard evidence.

Should They Have Aired It?

Animal Planet has 3.6 million reasons (as in viewers!) why they should've.
There's really nothing wrong with using actors to re-enact scenes for a documentary. But where is the line? "Unsolved Mysteries" gives a framework for its actors to pretend they were criminals, but actors on "Mermaids" pretend they're scientists with nothing but a tiny caveat in the credits to suggest it's anything but 100% fact.

Animal Planet's first "Mermaids" installment, "Mermaids: The Body Found," garnered 3.4 million views during its U.S. telecast premiere on Sunday, May 27, 2012. After the airing, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had to release an official statement putting it, in unequivocal terms, "No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found." Marine biologist David Shiffman wrote an article for Slate explaining why we should stop worrying about mythical sea life and focus on the damage being done to the sea life we know exists. He talks about fisheries where up to 90 percent of a catch is made up of unintended victims. Not the commercial fish, but "endangered sea turtles and sea birds as well as marine mammals."- Source with more.

I have no objection to things like "Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real" or this new mermaid documentary. Pseudo-documentaries like this are fun, creative uses of art and science. The documentary itself causes no harm, with the mild exception of some people believing it to be real at first glance. Hint-hint: I know a friend.

So, here's the real problem: Animal Planet used to be about facts. It used to have educational programming. The mermaid documentary is akin to Avatar in that it looks at a fictional creature in a realistic ecology. It's fine if you make something like this and other things on cryptids, but at this point, you aren't talking about real animals anymore. Make that its own pseudo-science channel, perhaps? I'd watch it; I'd also watch Animal Planet. The old Animal Planet.

"They Actually Eat That:" Hakarl.

2013-05-31T23:56:00.000-07:00

I think some of my faith in humanity just died. Why? Because people actually eat toxic, 23-foot-long shark, and it's popular.

No, really. There are people who eat poisonous, polar bear-eating shark. In Iceland, there is a dish called hakarl frequently eaten in winter. It happens to be the national food of Iceland, and is made entirely of Greenland shark. There are different varieties depending on where it comes from. It still comes from the same shark that is about the size of Jaws and eats Christmas mascots as a snack.

How do they do it? By making the shark rot. They bury it in a pit for a month or five, using heavy rocks to add pressure onto the dead shark. Bacteria take out the toxins in the shark's flesh during that time, making it fit for human consumption. It is then hung up to dry. Note how "delicious" does not come up in that description. Just "fit for human consumption." It's edible, but by no means delicious.

Hakarl is definitely an acquired taste. Most first-timers are advised to hold their noses; like many fermented foods, hakarl tastes (slightly) better than it smells. But don't take my word for it; the video below has testimonials detailing exactly how bad hakarl is. Chef Ramsey himself could not stomach it. No wonder brennivin is consumed afterwards.

To be fair, we can see how someone would want to eat the shark. Traditional Icelandic stuff is made with shark teeth. Just about the only thing they weren't using was the meat. It's still a freaky way to use it; "hey, let's get this bad-tasting shark to decay, and hope the poison's out while the shark's still reeking from bacteria." Yep, great logic.

After Earth would never happen. Humans would decimate every habitat so much that nature would bounce back in strange, unpredictable ways, using exactly none of the cute, fuzzy animals in that movie. The future bat in Primeval is more realistic than that.

Creature Feature: Greenland Shark.

2013-05-29T23:48:00.000-07:00

Want an animal that could still be around 10,000 years after humanity? Sharks. Sharks are badasses that ate dinosaurs. If we haven't dehydrated the planet, sharks will live, and they will always be associated with Jaws music in the back of our minds.

Enter the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus). True to the name, it is native to the area around Greenland and Iceland. They are the largest species of dogfish and northernmost species of shark. Unlike most sharks that the general populace is aware of, these guys are probably primarily scavengers, picking on whatever carrion they can get. They also have live babies, just like boas and several other species of shark.

First of all, these sharks are huge. Jaws huge. They can grow up to 23 feet from head to tail and live around 200 years. Luckily for us, they swim only 1.6 miles per hour; a human can easily outdo that. If they did not have such derpy little mouths, we might be inclined to take them more seriously. Huge? Yes. Threatening? Hardly.

From: Fishindex.blogspot.com.

These sharks will eat any meat that fits in their goofy-looking mouths. Along with things that one might assume like seals and fish, Greenland sharks can eat reindeer and polar bears. Read that again: Reindeer and polar bears are on this thing's menu. Dear Hallmark: start marketing this thing on Christmas cards, because it's eating your mascots.

Did we mention that its flesh was poisonous? No? It is. The Greenland shark has an extremely high trimethyline oxide content in its skin. Sled dogs who eat the flesh won't die, but are unable to stand from the poison. In humans, the meat causes symptoms akin to high drunkenness. It tastes so much like piss that the folklore around the shark usually involves urine.

Wait a minute...what? Did I just say they actually ate that?

Creature Feature: Bongo.

2013-05-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

Actually, those antelope in the trailer were kind of cool-looking. What were they, anyways?

Source: Allposters.com

Well, you're going to laugh. It's called a "bongo." Yes, like the drums. If you can't look at that without cracking up, its scientific name is Tragelaphus eurycerus. It is a nocturnal browser native to many parts of Africa, including Congo, Ghana, and Kenya. Kenya has a very small, unique subspecies of bongo that will come up again later.

Two things stand out about the bongo immediately: that coat and those horns. As in most animals with attractive pelts, the stripes are camouflage. The red pigment rubs off easily - so easily, it is said, that rain running off a bongo's back is stained red. Certainly a neat image, even if it is not true.

The horns are perhaps the bongo's most outstanding feature. Although looking somewhat similar to those of the eland, bongo horns twist only once and take on a sort of lyre shape. The bongo is actually one of the few species of antelope in which both sexes have rather decorative, spiraling horns. They are still larger in the male, but awesome nonetheless. Better yet, they are both functional and fashionable; a bongo's horns keep it from being caught in vegetation while running.

Oddly, there seems to be a lot of convergent evolution with the okapi going on. Both the okapi and bongo love salt licks. They also have long tongues to handle those licks. On a visual level, they are both red-brown with stripes. There was even an odd delay in discovery by Westerners. They aren't related - okapi are the only extant relatives of the giraffe while antelope are closer to cattle - but they sure evolved a lot of things in common.

As one might expect, some populations of bongo are endangered. The more common, western/lowland bongo is listed as near-threatened. Only the Eastern/mountain bongo from Kenya is in critical condition, with possibly fewer than 100 left in the wild. The usual suspects - poaching and eating - are at work. As if to put salt on the wound, bongo also have a high risk of goitre, i.e. they die from malfunctioning thyroid. Habitat destruction is another big factor in almost every endangered species. This one is no exception. Although an interesting species of antelope,bonoshould probably be avoided in post-apocalyptic scenarios.

Potential Bio-Art: After Earth.

2013-05-27T22:57:00.000-07:00

Or, "Ecology: You're Doing It Wrong."

The movie After Earth features Will Smith and his son on Earth...millennia after humanity has left it. My immediate worry was that this new Earth would be like the book Fragment. Earth has probably evolved into a whole planet of super-preds, each one deadlier than the last. Most likely, they will all exhibit "Hollywood Predator Syndrome," making them have moves that no real predator would have, like relentless pursuit of prey. (Ambush tactics are more effective on humans for a number of reasons.) Good idea, but will probably be flushed down the toilet.

The problem? Unless the ecology has become so cutthroat that everything is as intelligent as a human being, it does not have any reason to be as lethal to humans as the trailer proposes. Humans have been gone for quite a long time. In theory, we can demolish everything because it can't take us after lack of exposure. We've wrecked nature; we can do it again.

Let me put it this way: Humans are nature's nightmare. Intelligence solves most of the issues that keep other apex predators limited. We can eat anything. We have no reproductive season, allowing for a reproductive rate on par with rodents. Where humans go, environmental destruction follows. Let's not even get into the flora and fauna we absolutely must have everywhere.

Does this mean that a species could not possibly adapt to humans enough to be a formidable predator? No, not at all. Humans have some exploitable weaknesses.

For starters, we are really visual animals, enough so that hearing and smell have suffered in favor of things like color vision. We depend a ton on sight for things like body language, too. Unfortunately, we are still not as visual as eagles, leaving humanity with a very odd sensory spread. Sufficient camouflage or light diffusion would already give a predator a serious edge. Throw in a better reproductive cycle than most preds and you have something that could likely trim the human population down. Let me restate that: not demolish, but trim it down, eliminating the weak and sick like predators are supposed to do.

Another tip for anyone trying something like this: small things matter. It's easier to kill one large predator than it is to stomp out a lot of small ones. Humans are good at strength in numbers; some researchers think we learned this from wolves. When the numbers are even, the fight is suddenly a lot more terrifying. It's even more threatening when humans are outnumbered. Cloverfield actually did this aspect really well; the parasites on Clover were small, yet vicious, and perhaps even more threatening than the giant monster in New York City. The raptors in Jurassic Park were another stunning example of big not always being better. This trailer uses baboons of some sort; IMO, not a smart move.

Also, for a post-human scenario to work, something had to evolve to cripple technology. Sensing electromagnetic waves on land might actually help species survive; you can avoid/detect humans easily now that everybody's carrying a Blackberry or iPhone. Just out of spite, someone should sic electricity-sensing rodents on Facebook HQ and see what happens. I doubt After Earth will consider this, though.

Once I looked it up? Oh, wow. This looks to be as bad as The Room if the sheer amount of personal investment Will Smith put into it and Shaymalan as director are any indication. Nice try, Hollywood. I'll wait for Rotten Tomatoes to deliver you justice.

Creature Feature: Leatherback Sea Turtle.

2013-05-26T23:30:00.000-07:00

So, what is a leatherback, anyways? We gathered from the news video that it was an endangered sea turtle. How endangered? Are they really that rare? Let's find out!

Leatherback sea turtles are unique sea turtles in the genus Dermochelys. They are found worldwide, including around Japan. There are several subpopulations, but are all the same species as far as we know. Finding one in Japan would be unusual, but not unheard of. It's Japan we're talking about; all manner of odd spawns from those islands.

What's in a name? The main thing that sets a leatherback apart from other sea turtles: its lack of a carapace. Leatherbacks are effectively shell-less turtles. They have protrusions called osteoderms and ridges, but do not have a distinct, bony shell. Their scales also lack beta keratin, which makes them unique among reptiles, and also lack true teeth.In other words, they're almost more torpedo than turtle. Make that a Pokemon: Tortpedo, Water/Steel, high speed for a turtle.

Leatherbacks are such oddball turtles that they are almost living fossils. The other members of this family evolved during the Late Cretaceous - AKA "that time with all the cool dinosaurs." Leatherbacks are the only extant members of their family; the rest of the carapace-less turtles are now extinct. They are also the largest extant turtles, getting up to 7 feet (roughly 2 meters) long. They are large, aerodynamic relics from the days of the dinosaurs. Enjoy.

Unfortunately, the news was right: Leatherbacks are indeed endangered. A fair amount of adults are caught by fishing. Although banned by CITES, some leatherbacks are indeed caught and traded (with some hopefully going to research projects - sorry, needed to point that out). A few are caught for meat, but generally, leatherbacks are not good turtle soup. The eggs are treated as a delicacy in Asia, however, which hits populations pretty hard. The only time the turtles are really vulnerable is when they're young, but they get hit hard and fast at that stage in life.

Y'know what? Despite being endangered, these turtles are not pandas. We actually have a very good reason to keep leatherback turtles alive. These things eat jellyfish. A lot of jellyfish. If I did not cover the jellyfish invasion in a previous entry, I should have. Our oceans are being overrun with jellyfish. We need sea turtles before the jellyfish take over the world.

Newsflash: Young Leatherback Caught in Japan.

2013-05-25T23:42:00.000-07:00

Either scripts and active content are not permitted to run or Adobe Flash Player version10.0.0 or greater is not installed.

Expect this to get a full-blown entry tomorrow. Giant turtles are cool enough to merit full entries.

Creature Feature: Loosejaw Stoplight Fish.

2013-05-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

Ah, back to the deepsea abyss. Regardless of how many people treat space as the final frontier, we have yet to truly know our own planet. Even taking deep sea trawling into account and having orange roughy constantly in classy restaurants, the abyss is almost as unknown as the rainforest. How similar can things down there be to life on land when it evolved without sunlight? The Sumerians believed that their embodiment of the ocean, Tiamat, birthed unholy monstrosities; they were right.

RAWR.

Check out this thing: the stoplight loosejaw (Malacosteus niger). It is a denizen of the deepsea abyss, eating anything large enough to catch in its teeth. It is not a very big fish by any means - only 25 cm long. A lot of abyssal fish are shown with the lens zoomed in; even the largest anglerfish can easily fit in the palm of one's hand. Just because it's easy cat food doesn't mean it isn't neat.

The stoplight fish gets its name from a single unique trait: it can produce not one, but two different colors of bioluminescence. It makes red and blue-green light - just like a traffic signal. Blue-green light passes well in the ocean depths; nine out of ten times, things will give off blue light if they glow in the depths. Red light is like its private hunting and communication signal; it also means that red-colored things are not safe from this fish's extending head.

Source.

Yes, the "loosejaw" part comes from a very loose jaw indeed. In fact, it can dislocate its entire head to snap up edibles. The only other thing that does that is a dragonfly nymph - an invertebrate. That's how creepy-cool abyssal stuff is: it can all but behead itself on a regular basis and be fine. C'mon, Hollywood- make a monster out of this. Swallowing things like that is a talent.

Don't be fooled by Ariel. The bottom of the ocean is not a place full of happy sea creatures singing about how great life is. It's a place of psychedelic darkness trying to kill you with pretty lights and jaws out of nowhere.

They Actually Eat That: Space Food.

2013-05-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

Hey, speaking of space, ever wonder what they eat in space? Wonder no more! "They Actually Eat That" will cover what they eat, how they do it, and where you can find some here on Earth. Disclaimer: no aliens were harmed in the making of this cuisine.

First off, imagine how difficult it must be to eat in space. We take gravity for granted. It is very difficult to assemble, say, a salad or hamburger without gravity helping you. In space, there is no gravity; that means food needs to be very, very different. Luckily, since swallowing is all muscle movement, gravity is no issue once the food is actually in your body. It's just assembling the food making sure it's, well, food that's the hard part.

The logic that goes into space food is much the same as that of TV dinners: quick, tasty, most likely dehydrated food that keeps well. There are several foods that meet these criteria by themselves - nuts, cookies, and nutrition bars are fine examples. Even a Chewy bar is a welcome replacement for, well, this:

When the space race first started, space food sucked. One Russian journal described it as "toothpaste." The U.S, and other nations had similar reactions. Everybody agreed that it tasted awful and could barely be called food.

Recent efforts and a lot of money have gone into making delectable dishes space-worthy. By no means are we talking actual gourmet banquets; Russian space flights have over 300 options when it comes to food, but fresh food needs to be eaten almost immediately. Anything that leaves crumbs is also right out (careful, they're ruffled!). I don't know how granola bars work with that, but they must have gotten better about crumbs over the years.

Specifically, something called the "retort process" makes many things more viable in space. The idea is similar to canning in that the food inside is cooked at a temperature so high that almost all microbes are eliminated. Camping and military rations use this process as well. We use retort pouches in things like Capri Sun and easy-cook rice. They are not hard to find if you know what to look for.

So what about things like "astronaut ice cream?" Yes, in theory, that is space food. Only Apollo 7 actually took ice cream into space. It's still worth a try if you want a taste of what dehydrated food is like. That is part of the astronaut diet, after all.

Creature Feature: Spitting Spider.

2013-05-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

There seem to be a lot of misconceptions about spiders. For instance, most spiders are not dangerous, and are not malicious arachnids aiming to wipe out humanity. Another, less-crippling misconception is that spiders spit their silk. No- it comes out the other end.

There are, however, a few exceptions to this rule. There is a group of spiders called spitting spiders. The family of spitting spiders, Scytodes, do just that: spit silk. Oh, and the silk's coated in venom, too. Screw webs - this spider manages to snag prey and envenomate it all at once. The family is found worldwide. At least Spider-Man only shot gunk.

Spitting spiders have silk glands at their head. These are right next to the venom glands, thus allowing for poisonous string. The silk then shoots out of the fangs and onto whatever the spider sees as dinner. Suddenly, Twilight's venom fangs don't seem so implausible.

These spiders are also evil masterminds at what they do. They plot out the trajectory of their spit. Then, like the world's sickest icing, they drizzle the venomous filament over their target by zig-zagging. This lets the spider take down prey much larger than itself, including other spiders!

(Another one caught a brown recluse- one of the few spiders I'll kill on sight. Praise it. PRAAAAIIISE IIIIT!)

Spitting spiders are also surprisingly social. Families will dine on one corpse, live in the same web (which is not used to catch flies), and overall have a fun time together. Some even look after their little spiderlings. On the flipside, however, these spiders are also cannibalistic.

Science Art: A Real-Life Space Jam + Opening a Soda Can On the Ocean Floor.

2013-05-20T23:15:00.000-07:00

Space. The final frontier. Nearly every sci-fi thing involves space in some way, shape, or form, in part because aliens are cool and One day, after our planet is destroyed, we may have colonies on the moon. For now, we have one guy playing a guitar.

Yes, that video was edited. Commander Chris Hadfield still went up in space, filmed himself playing the guitar, and probably lipsynched just to get the song absolutely right. He had a glider scholarship since 15 years of age. In short, he is a solid badass who does more awesome things than you...and puts them on YouTube for your convenience.

Or how about crying in space?

Basically, anything mundane that you have ever thought of doing in space? This guy's done it. Then he put it up on YouTube to sate your nerdy curiosity. Who would ask about nail clipping in outer space? I don't know, but you're probably looking it up on YouTube right now. You're welcome.

The fun does not stop in space. Commander Hadfield has also been to the bottom of the ocean, where he opened a soda can.

Yeah, you'll never see soda the same way again. Or Atlantis, for that matter.

Creature Feature: Lambeosaurus.

2013-05-19T23:17:00.000-07:00

It seems that filmmakers have decided on a "set" of dinosaurs that must always make it into every dinosaur movie ever. T-Rex is pretty much a given. Triceratops is also popular. If there is a pterosaur, and there usually is, it's either a Pteranodon or some bastardization thereof. Miscellaneous herbivores include Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus, with Brachiosaurus being almost too distinct to be generic. They also usually include this one:

For those of you wondering what this bizarre-looking creature is, it's called a Parasaurolophus and is one of the many duck-billed dinosaurs (hadrosaurs) out there. It seems to have become the "default" duckbill. I'm not quite sure what "modern parallel" people see in Parasaurolophus and other hadrosaurs (ancient water buffalo?), but I digress. Point is, as with pterosaurs, there's always that one hadrosaur that popular culture falls back on.

Maybe it's about time we looked at some of the other hadrosaurs on this blog, yes?

Lambeosaurus probably should be the strange duckbill everybody knows. It has a very good fossil record from Canada, Montana, and Baja California. There is some debate over exactly how many species there are in the genus, but specimens are nonetheless plentiful. It is named for the guy who discovered the first few fossils, Lawrence Lambe. Like most of the cool dinosaurs, it is from the Late Cretaceous. It is also the largest hadrosaur, getting up to 50 feet long from head to tail.

As with many hadrosaurs, the most distinguishing feature about Lambeosaurus was its crest. This crest was hatchet-shaped, making the dinosaur look like a cassowary and a unicorn at the same time. It's hard to get more awesome than that, yet here hadrosaurs are stuck with the goofy Parasaurolophus as their representative. Kinda sad, really.

Nobody is 100% sure what these crests were for. Snorkels and salt glands are also on the table. Maybe they could even make noise; again, people love shilling Parasaurolophus for this ("it's a dinosaur with a built-in trumpet!"). There is adequate evidence that hearing and sight were a Lambeosaurus's strongest senses, so all of the above are possible. We've never seen hadrosaurs in action, or in color, for that matter, so the purpose(s) of these crests will remain a mystery until we invent time machines.

I cold get into more about what makes a hadrosaur a hadrosaur, but that is best saved for another time. Hell, I should just make a "Hadrosaur Week." They're really rather interesting, albeit not my favorite dinosaurs.