Thank You Dino for these Photos

The jumping spider Evarcha culicivora, which dwells near Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa, hungers after mosquitoes engorged with blood. Scientists have even found this 5-millimeter-long spider prefers hunting bloodsuckers infested with the deadly malaria parasite, suggesting these predators could help control the lethal disease.

In dining on bloodsuckers, the jumping spiders — so named because they can leap some 40 times their own body length, which for a 6-foot-tall human would mean 240 feet — are in a roundabout way feeding on blood. It now turns out this vampire-by-proxy diet is sexy for the arachnids.

“In the case of E. culicivora, it seems that the way to a spider’s heart is through the other spider’s stomach,” researcher Fiona Cross, a spider biologist at the University in Christchurch, New Zealand, told LiveScience.

Cross and her colleagues fed spiders of both sexes a variety of meals — blood-fed female mosquitoes, sugar-fed female mosquitoes, male mosquitoes that naturally feed on flower nectar and not blood, and lake flies. The female mosquitoes were fed blood from the researchers — “a tub of mosquitoes was applied to the skin around our tummy,” explained researcher Simon Pollard, a spider biologist at Canterbury Museum in Christchurch. (It was the first time the lab-bred mosquitoes had fed on blood, so the researchers didn’t run the risk of contracting malaria.)

Spiders that dined on blood-fed mosquitoes were sexier to members of the opposite sex — other spiders spent four times as much time closer to a vent carrying scent gently blown off them. When spiders on non-blood diets were switched to blood-fed mosquitoes, they became more attractive, and the opposite was true when spiders were changed to blood-free diets. The spiders displayed no interest in the scent of blood-fed members of the same sex.

“It’s what’s inside the prey that makes the spider more attractive,” Cross said. “It might be like if we all gave off an odor after eating chocolates. It would only be the people who ate the chocolates with particular centers who smelled particularly attractive. Weird.”

While these spiders don’t share blood-rich mosquitoes with others, Cross said, a potential mate perhaps “gets benefits that are more indirect, such as having offspring that inherit the ability to catch this unusual prey.”

It may be common for animal courtship routines to in part be rooted in the use of diet-based perfumes. There is evidence from research on salamanders and voles, for example, that suggest that the odor of feces from animals on high-quality diets is attractive to potential mates.

As may be the case in human relationships, “Resources often play an important role in whether an animal is accepted as a mate,” Cross said. They might reflect the quality of a potential mate’s territory, “or the quality of a nuptial gift, usually food, presented during courtship.”

Cross added that an important next step is to find out whether spiders on blood diets really are more successful at mating. It would also be interesting to see whether blood diets help lead to more viable eggs or sperm, whether the spiders experience health benefits, and whether there are specific compounds in the blood that are especially sexy.

“There’s an awful lot more to learn about this spider,” Cross said.

Cross, Pollard and their colleague Robert Jackson detailed their findings online Oct. 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Credit: Robert R. Jackson Via:livescience.com

Fair Isle & Isle of Lewis
MCS explained that this wasn’t an isolated case and mauve stingers have been spotted off other parts of the west coast of the UK. Most recently large numbers have washed ashore on Fair Isle and at Reef Beach on the Isle of Lewis. This is in fact the third consecutive year that the jellyfish has been sighted. The small but destructive mauve stinger can cause serious economic problems, affecting aquaculture and the tourism industry through beach closures and unsafe bathing water.

“We are urging the public to help us record these jellyfish swarms so we can warn relevant local interests, such as fish farms, about their arrival”, said Peter Richardson, Biodiversity Programme manager, “We encourage anyone who encounters a jellyfish to download our free identification guide and report the jellyfish to our online survey on the MCS website (www.mcsuk.org)”.

The species is similar to the lion’s mane and moon jellyfish, but unlike these common UK coastal species, Pelagia noctiluca is an oceanic species. As an oceanic species it has direct development rather than a polyp phase on the seabed. Therefore the populations can reproduce rapidly when their plankton food is in plentiful supply, as it can be in coastal seas, which tend to be more productive than oceanic waters.

Source: 1 , 2

While the fall foliage in North America and East Asia takes on a fiery red hue, perplexingly, autumn leaves in Europe are mostly yellow in color.

A team of researchers has a new idea as to why the autumnal colors differ between the continents, one that involved taking a step back 35 million years in time.

Pigment processes

The green color of leaves during the spring and summer is a result of the presence of the pigment chlorophyll, which allows plants to capture sunlight and produce energy by the process of photosynthesis.

When the weather begins to turn cool in the fall, chlorophyll, which is sensitive to the cold, stops being produced. As the green fades, yellow and orange pigments called carotenoids (also responsible for the orange color of carrots) take over. These pigments were always present in the background of the leaves’ color, but can finally shine through as the green diminishes.

While this process has long been known to scientists, the mechanism that results in red hues has proved trickier to understand, particularly because of the energy the tree must use to produce them at a time when the leaves are about to die anyway.

The red color comes from anthocyanins, which unlike carotenoids are produced only in the fall. These red pigments act as sunscreen for the trees by blocking out harmful radiation and preventing overexposure to light. They also act as an antifreeze, preventing leaf cells from freezing easily in the autumn chill.

Some scientists have even suggested that the red colors ward off pests that would munch on the leaves if they were a more appetizing-looking yellow. It’s from this premise that scientists figured out what might be going on.

Color evolution

Until 35 million years ago, the idea goes, large areas of the globe were covered with evergreen jungles or forests composed of tropical trees, say Simcha Lev-Yadun of the University of Haifa-Oranim in Israel and Jarmo Holopainen of the University of Kuopio in Finland. During this phase, a series of ice ages and dry spells transpired, and many tree species evolved to become deciduous, dropping their leaves for winter.

Many of these trees also began an evolutionary process of producing red deciduous leaves in order to ward off insects, the researchers say.

In North America, as in East Asia, north-to-south mountain chains enabled plant and animal ‘migration’ to the south or north with the advance and retreat of the ice according to the climatic fluctuations. And, of course, along with them migrated their insect ‘enemies’. Thus the war for survival continued there uninterrupted.

In Europe, on the other hand, the mountains – the Alps and their lateral branches – reach from east to west, and therefore no protected areas were created. Many tree species that did not survive the severe cold died, and with them the insects that depended on them for survival.

At the end of the repeated ice ages, most tree species that had survived in Europe had no need to cope with many of the insects that had become extinct, and therefore no longer had to expend efforts on producing red warning leaves.

To back up this theory, the researchers offer an example of the exception that proves the rule: Dwarf shrubs, which grow in Scandinavia, still color their leaves red in autumn.

Unlike trees, dwarf shrubs have managed to survive the ice ages under a layer of snow that covered them and protected them from the extreme conditions above. Under the blanket of snow, the insects that fed off the shrubs were also protected – so the battle with insects continued in these plants, making it necessary for them to color their leaves red, the thinking goes.

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If you like to drink wine don’t throw out the corks because you can make your house look like a work of art.

This one is a robo-carp you can observe at the London Aquarium. It’s a self-guided robot-fish who use artificial intelligence and sensors to avoid obstacles . It’s a 50cm long common carp, swimming with their living counterparts.

Deep-sea glass squid

A martian? No, it’s the glass squid. This odd looking creature is located in the southern hemisphere and is the prey of many deep sea fish (ex: goblin sharks), whales and oceanic seabirds.

Snaggletooth

Science experiment gone wrong? Sadly this is not the case. The Snaggletooth or Astronesthes slightly resembles the South American Payara without the charcoal finish and lack of scales. The Snaggletooth is a powerful predatory fish who resides in the deep waters between Australia and New Zealand.

Axolotl

You can learn more on this amphibian called axolotl on http://www.axolotl.org/ . This one is in the same family than the tiger salamander. The only place on earth you can find those one are at Lake Xochimilco in Mexico.

Mudskipper
The mudskipper are special kind of fish that live most of their life on land beside than into the water. They are located in the Indo-Pacific as well than in the Atlantic coast of Africa. Mudskippers are quite active when out of water.

Slander Lanternfish
The slender lanternfish are so abondant in the ocean that some people pretend they are the most common fish in the sea. Lanternfishes are recognised by their small light organs dotted along the undersides of their bodies.

Deep-sea stargazer
Stargazers are a family of muscular bulldog-like fishes that typically bury in the seafloor and ambush passing prey. Stargazers are the ultimate ambush predator, with the eye sets on top of the head allowing it to be almost completely hidden. This is combined with an electrical capability which can be used to stun its prey.

Giant Hatchetfish
The giant hatchetfish is found in deep tropical and subtropical waters of all oceans, except the north Pacific. Its length is between 8 and 12 cm. The giant hatchetfish is a deep-bodied species with large eyes that are directed upwards, enabling prey to be silhouetted against the faint light coming from the surface, and a large mouth also directed upwards.

Dumbo Octopus
The deep-sea “Dumbo” octopus got its nickname from the ear-like fins protruding from the top of their “heads” (actually bodies), resembling the ears of Walt Disney ’s flying elephant . They are benthic creatures, living at extreme depths, and are some of the rarest of the Octopoda species.

Eelpout
The eelpouts are a family of perciform ray-finned fish They are found in Arctic and Antarctic.

Black-lip Rattail
These sorts of rattails feed in the muddy seafloor by gliding along head down and tail up, powered by gentle undulations of a long fin under the tail. The triangular head has sensory cells underneath that help detect animals buried in the mud or sand. The common name comes from the black edges around the mouth.

Humpback Anglerfish
This black seadevil, of the size of a tennis ball, is one of the weirdest fish in the world. Female humpback anglers have an enormous head dominated by a cavernous mouth full of long slender teeth that can fold backwards when prey is being swallowed.

Coelacanth
They are the oldest kind of fish we know on earth. They were believed to be extinct before fisherman captured a couple of them in the 1930s.

Northern Seahorse
The seahorse is also one of the top weird sea creature. The male are carrying the egg in a special abdominal pouch, like you can see on the picture.

Longhorn Cowfish
The longhorn cowfish are found in the Indo-Pacific region. Their flesh is poisonous and would not make for a very good meal !

Leafy Sea Dragon
Sea Dragons are arguably the most spectacular and mysterious of all ocean fish. Leafy Sea Dragons are very interesting to watch– the leafy appendages are not used for movement. The body of a sea dragon scarcely appears to move at all.

Lumpfish
The longest lumpfish so far recorded from the American coast measured 23 inches, and weighed 13¼ pounds; the heaviest weighed 20 pounds but measured only 21½ inches (both from Orient, N. Y.), and the proportion of weight to length varies similarly in smaller fish.

Atlantic Wolffish
The Atlantic Wolffish is a large bottom-dwelling predatory marine fish. The species is widely distributed across the North Atlantic.

Lionfish
A distinguishing feature of the Lionfish is its large fan-like pectoral fins. They are potentially dangerous, not only to the smaller fish the prey upon, but to humans, as well. The spines on its dorsal fins contain a strong poison, which is perhaps one reason they are totally unafraid of divers.

Deep-Sea Lizardfish
The Deep-Sea Lizardfish, is a member of the Synodontidae family, it is found throughout the world in tropical and subtropical seas at depths of between 600 and 3,500 m. It is considered as an ambush predator hunting in the abyssal seafloor and devouring prey with its razor sharp barbed teeth.

Fangtooth Fish

The Fangtooth fish is found in midwater depths of about five kilometers (three miles). They are extremely muscular and their teeth are so long that when the jaw is shut, the lower pair must slide into special sheathes on either side of the fish’s brain to avoid impaling it.

Check out this vicious fish devour it’s prey.

Black Chimaera
Chimaeras are related to both sharks and rays. They are jawed fish with paired fins, paired nostrils, scales, two-chambered hearts, and skeletons made of cartilage rather than bone. Chimaeras grow up to two meters long, are found in the ocean floors and have a venomous spine which they use for defense purposes.

Clown Triggerfish
The Clown Triggerfish or Big-spotted Triggerfish is one of the most spectacular looking marine species. This species grows to 50 cm in length and is usually found in the warm parts of the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. Even though its appearance is quite innocent; this fish is an aggressive carnivore that primarily preys on shelled invertebrates.

Longlure Frogfish
The Longlure frogfish are found in tropical oceans and seas around the world. They are small fish with large odd looking heads. They are mostly bottom-dwelling fishes that are well camouflaged; they employ the first dorsal spine as a fishing lure to attract prey.

Prehistoric Frilled Shark

The Frill Shark can be recognised by its slender eel-like body, six pairs of gill slits, terminal mouth, three-pronged teeth, single dorsal fin, caudal fin without a lower lobe, and brown colour. This species grows to a maximum length of about 2 m.
Checkout the frilled shark that was caught off the coast of Japan!
Black Swallowe The black swallower (Chiasmodon niger) is a deep sea fish that has the ability to extend its stomach 3 times its size so that it can swallow fish that are bigger than itself. It can be found in deep seas up to 1,500 meters or in hot tropical waters. It creates its own light because of the darkness found in some parts of the Pelagic zone. The black swallower can grow up to 25 centimeters.

Mantis Shrimp
This highly intelligent hunter with claws can lash out at prey with the force of a gunshot. Larger varieties have been known to shatter glass or sever human fingers. Most are either “spearers” (with sharp, mantidlike claws) or “smashers” (with blunt, clublike claws for cracking hard-shelled prey). Rare among invertebrates are the monogamous mating habits that several species demonstrate. Mated pairs share a burrow, and the male hunts for both his mate and young.

Thanks to : Guillaume Bouchard (bountyfishing.com)

Suang Puangsri, a 38-year-old man from Thailand lives in perfect harmony with his 4,600 pet scorpions.

Scorpions, grasshoppers, locusts and other insects are considered delicacies in Thailand and Suang Puangsri has been eating them for the last 10 years. Suang has adapted his house to live with his unusual pets, about 4,600 scorpions, as part of his atonement after serving the creepy crawlies on the menu for the past decade.

He feeds them and take care of their every need and ultimately releases them in their natural habitat, in the forests of Uttaradit. As you can see in the images, he has no problem with his creepy pets crawling all over his body and even in his mouth.

Philippine Tarsier

The tarsiers are also considered to be known as Tarsiers syrichta in the biological world. They are known for their existence as the earliest beings in the biome. You can only find them in Philippines. These cute and innocent creatures have broad wide eyes with a delightful snooty nose. This is probably the reason they are so much eye-catching. You can easily hold them in your hands as their size is quite small. If you ever happen to embark on the journey of Philippines, you will find these tiny little creations whizzing on the islands of Samar, Leyte and Bohol.

The tarsiers are midget and they somehow resemble small monkeys. They feed on insects and bugs found in burnt wood or charcoal remains of the nature. The tarsier species are happened to be around 45 million years old. This fascinating fact came across worldwide when J. Petiver, a famous biologist mentioned it in his descriptions. Beside the popular assumptions made against tarsiers, they are not actually like the smallest monkeys. They might bear resemblance to primary species of monkeys as Lemurs and Bushbabies. Biologists taxonomically differentiate these species from apes although they have some of the attributes close to anthropoids. There are other various species of tarsiers such as Sumatra, Madagascar and Borneo. They are however, different from each other in size, shape and morphology.

Sleepy tarsier

A small Tarsier skull.

The Philippine tarsier is a highly active species and is interesting with its peculiar features. Though its body is covered with grey fur, its long 232 mm tail is nearly bare. From head to tail, it measures 118-149 mm and weighs 113-142 grams. What is very striking about a Philippine tarsier is its bulging eyes that seem uniquely out of place against its small body size. The eye sockets surpass the size of the brain case and the stomach of the tarsier.

Big eyes

Tarsiers Sanctuary, Bohol

Its hands and legs have fingers similar to human limbs that they use to clutch their perch and balance their body with the tail. You can at once detect the elongated middle finger of a tarsier and its very long anklebones that work as a shock absorber. This helps the tarsier to carry out its frog like leap from branches to branches with ease. The head of a tarsier is quite similar to that of an owl because of its shape and the special joint amidst the sine and skull base for rotating its head in 180-degrees arc. Tarsiers have unusually sharp teeth to facilitate preying on insects during their nocturnal ventures.

Protect the Endangered Philippine Tarsier

Tarsiers prefer to live on trees holes and roots of bamboo plants although you may find exceptions to these. Since the greater part of the tarsier activities is confined to nights, you can scarcely see them during daytime. The males and females of this species are found to live in groups, with the females taking care of the younger tarsiers. They emit a range of vocal sounds at various circumstances like challenge, breeding period, group assemblies etc. The epigastric glands of the male tarsiers facilitate scent marking while you may find them making meaningful facial gestures as well.

Tarsiers!!!

Tarsiers achieve sexual maturity when they become two years of age. The female undergoes a recurrent period of heat that lasts around 23 days and emits a special sound to communicate about her fertility. The pregnancy period of an average female tarsier lasts up to six months while the average life span of a healthy tarsier can extend from 12-20 years. The birth and growth of baby tarsiers is an amazingly fast-paced process and they are weaned after 60 days and move by themselves within 19 days of their birth.

hey, it’s Gizmo!

This wonderful species of Philippine tarsier is now facing threats of extinction due to the diminishing of its natural forest habitat. Years of slash-and-burn agriculture and illegal felling of trees are largely to be blamed for the current plight of tarsiers. Added to that is of course the cruel practice of killing and selling stuffed tarsiers to tourists. Now it has been declared a protected species but if the Philippine government does not take adequate measures to increase their numbers, you may not see tarsier any more in near future.

Almost the world’s smallest primates or so the tourist guides tell you. And they’re not monkeys.

Baby Yoda sleeping