Real Monstrosities

Cicada

2013-05-19T12:00:00.001+01:00

Take some earplugs and put them in your ears. Then get some earmuffs and put them over your ears. And then take your hands and cover your ears. You are now ready for a close encounter with a Cicada.

Noise! Loud, rasping, ear-splitting noise the kind of which one usually encounters when the guy next door is practising his washboard playing. That is the major contribution Cicadas have given the world. Noise is what they do to attract a mate and if you annoy one, it's also what they'll do to repel the enemy.

Image: Tony Willis
Chorus Cicada (Amphipsalta zelandica), so named for their synchronised singing

For the Cicada, all is noise in love and war.

There are over 2,500 species of Cicada in the Cicadidae family. It's one of those "every continent except Antarctica" deals, where pretty much every part of the world has at least one species of resident Cicada if not several hundred in the tropics.

Image: petrichor
The Double Drummer (Thopha saccata) is Australia's largest Cicada.
The wings alone are over 6 cm (4in) long!

It's in nice, humid areas that Cicadas reach their biggest size. Most of them are a mere 2 to 5 cm (an inch or two) long, but really big ones can reach more like 10 or 15 cm (4 to 6 in). None of these numbers are small when you're talking about insects! Cicadas are large, robust bugs with huge wings, wide heads and chunky bodies.

Image: Neil Skene
Green Grocer (Cyclochila australasiae) and its three ocelli

They're big enough that between the widely spaced compound eyes you can very clearly see the three ocelli. These are the simple, single lensed eyes that many insects use to tell light from dark. It's thought they are most useful for flying insects in their efforts to maintain stability and not roll around, turn upside down and then immediately lose all track of where they are. This is very important when flies are repeatedly smashing themselves against windows.

Image: Chaval Brasil
Weird face mask thing

Aside from the eyes you can also see that Cicadas have extremely thin, tiny antennae. Below that is what looks like a kind of stripy face-guard, the kind of thing that dominates Optimus Prime's face. It would be nice if all they had was a little mouth behind it. No such luck, I'm afraid.

Cicadas are members of the order Hemiptera, known as true bugs. Or just bugs if, like me, you don't commonly call all sorts of other things "bugs". Hemiptera includes lots of familiar beasties like Shield Bugs, Stink Bugs and Aphids... the kind of thing you'll often see lounging around on your plants drinking up their vital fluids.

Image: SidPix
Cicada drinking a tree

Cicadas are no different. The thing that unites the true bugs, the Hemipteran Membership Card if you will, is their needle-like mouthparts. Almost all true bugs are herbivores who plunge their needle-mouth into plant stems to drink the sap within. Basically they live on cold, watery, vegetable soup, which sounds like prison rations, but they seem to do quite well on it.

Also a bit like prison is all the faeces that gets thrown around. Tree sap is so full of water that Cicadas squirt out the excess with remarkable force, like one of those Super Soaker water guns. It's absolutely appalling behaviour. Don't try it at home! Or, alternatively, ONLY try it at home! It'll get you kicked out of most other places. And if it doesn't, you probably shouldn't be in places like that anyway.

Image: fancycwabs
The tree says "ouch"

So Cicadas drink plant soup through a straw. That's fine. The problem is... they sometimes make mistakes.

VULNERABILITY! It's a dirty word, ain't it? If you're a wolf, it happens when you're demonstrating your submission to the alpha wolf and you're on your back showing off your juicy, throbbing neck. One would like to think that humans don't do that so much, that we show vulnerability in loving relationships, when you feel completely comfortable or when you had a really cool accident.

It's unfortunate then that a comfortable Cicada may well bite you. If you find one relaxing on your arm and staying there for a long time, you might think that you're developing a trusting relationship with it. This illusion will be shattered when it decides that it's been sitting here unmolested for so long that you're probably a tree. Commence exploratory drilling!

Video: YTBulletTrain

Cicadas aren't keen on biting people. It doesn't seem to be a defence mechanism and the proboscis is so long for getting deep into plants that it looks too ungainly for a quick attack. But... you know. Perhaps one day a Cicada will get right through the skin and start slurping up blood and be like "this is really great sap! I love it!" That would be unfortunate for all of us.

Until that fateful development, the main thing a Cicada will do when captured by a predator is scream in outrage. "How DARE you! Do you know who I am?" That's probably a rough translation of the noise they make.

Cicadas don't stridulate like grasshoppers and crickets, stridulation being when one part of the body is rubbed against another, like part of a wing on part of a leg. Instead, they have little structures called tymbals.

Video: Ace Jackalope

It looks like a stripy membrane hidden away in the abdomen. The stripiness comes from the fact that parts of it are very thin while other parts are thickened. Muscles make this structure buckle upward and produce a click, then buckle down and produce another click. You can do a similar thing with a tin!

Male Cicadas have a lot of empty space in their abdomen to make the sound resonate. Not only does this allow some Cicadas to be amongst the loudest of all insects, it also enables them to attract a mate. Which is more to the point. Cicadas don't need adulation from the crowd, they just want a mate. Such wisdom!

Image: Stephen Begin
Try a triple-blade for an extra close shave

Having punctured trees to suck out their sap and effectively urinated all over them, the female now cuts little notches into the tree's twigs and lays her eggs in them. When they hatch, the youngsters fall to the ground, burrow into the earth and start sucking sap from the tree's roots. The poor old tree is attacked from top to bottom! Outrageous!

Cicadas, like all true bugs, belong to the superorder of insects known as Exopterygota. It means that the youngsters aren't maggots, grubs or caterpillars and instead look quite a lot like their parents.

Image: PittCaleb
Cicada nymph

They're called nymphs rather than larvae and have no wings...

Image: Camponotus Vagus
Cicada nymph's claw. Erk!

But Cicada nymphs have large forelegs for burrowing.

Image: Brian1442
Adult emerging from the final moult

They need to moult as they grow, breaking out of their old exoskeleton and developing a new, bigger one. Eventually, the nymphs break out of the ground, climb up a tree and go through their final moult. This is the one where a winged adult since unlike larvae, they don't have a pupal stage in a cocoon.

Image: J-Dill-Photography
Empty skin covered in soil

Famously, some Cicadas emerge in greater numbers than others.

While most Cicadas live for just a few years, there are a few with a lifespan of over a decade. These are the remarkable Periodical Cicadas of the wonderfully named genus Magicicada. There are seven species, all in eastern United States and four of them have a 13 year lifecycle, the other three a 17 year lifecycle. They spend almost the entirety of this time as a nymph underground.

Image: Blue Yonder

When their time comes, the young Cicadas emerge from the earth in their millions. They climb up every available tree trunk to break open their exoskeleton and step out into the world of sunlight, gentle breeze and the other side of the tree they've been munching on this whole time. Their old skins remain in place, clinging to the bark like legions of the undead.

This regular plague is thankfully not as devastating to plant life as it looks like it ought to be. It is however a massive feast for all sorts of hungry animals great and small. It seems that these Cicadas survive by providing a buffet so incredibly satisfying that even after all and sundry have had their fill, there are still millions of adults laying their eggs and laying the groundwork for next time.

Image: cotinis
Magicicada, recently emerged

It's also interesting that these generations are 13 and 17 years long, two, large prime numbers. It's thought that this ensures no predator can align their own lifecycle to take advantage of the regular glut. Alternatively, it may be to prevent hybridisation between different broods. There are some places where the 13 and 17 year cycles overlap but they can only coincide every 221 years!

Oddly enough, there is one who has managed to take full advantage of the Periodical Cicada and align itself to their cycles impeccably. It's a fungus called Massospora cicadina, and its spores are able to lie dormant in the ground for the required 13 or 17 years.

Image: tlindenbaum
Magicicada, ready for action

This stuff grows in the abdomen of the adult, eventually causing some of the rearmost segments to fall off and reveal the despicable cotton wool inside. The Cicada remains alive up its tree but now spores are released from its hind-quarters, infecting yet more of the millions of surrounding Cicadas. It's this second generation fungus that will produce the spores that will lie in wait for a decade.

It's grizzly stuff, but someone has to strike one back for the trees!

Ausubel's Mighty Claws Lobster

2013-05-17T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: WoRMS for SMEBD
Dinochelus ausubeli

The surgeon will see you now...

2007, and a trawler in the Philippine Sea descends to a depth of 250 metres (820 ft). It was part of the Census of Marine Life, a huge, multinational effort to learn more about the world's sea creatures.

It appears they disrupted... something...

Image: WoRMS for SMEBD

Rudely dredged from the foreboding darkness, a lobster emerged. A lobster with one terrible claw and one really terrible claw. Indeed, the claw is so terrible they called the lobster Dinochelus, which means "terrible claw".

Their body is mostly translucent white in colour, though splashes of pinkish red can be seen here and there, most notably on the antennae and claws. It looks quite bad, actually. Like there was much hacking and slashing and letting of blood. They even have well-developed eyes despite the darkness of their abode; it's like they really want to see the damage.

So what did those inquisitive scientists interfere with on that fateful day? What do we have here, exactly?

Is this Jack the Ripper? Does he prowl the cobblestone alleyways in search of lobsters so he can rip them open, cut out the hepatopancreas and steal it away into the night like a vicious monster?

Is he a surgeon? Does he install himself in a smart, modern building so he can rip open lobsters, cut out the hepatopancreas and replace it with a nice, new one like a miracle worker?

Is he a butcher? Does he spend his days hacking tiny fish to bits and selling them on to grateful patrons in his local village?

We may never know for sure. But with a length of just 3 cm (an inch), this lobster is perfect should you find yourself in need of a dentist. You just need to go quite far underwater, which is better than the alternative of illegal, black market tooth care on some dingy street corner.

Unless he turns out to be a Jack the Ripper type. Then you should've just gone to the dentist.

Moon-headed Sidegill Slug

2013-05-15T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: berniedup
Euselenops luniceps

It's a chocolate chip pancake with rolled, chocolate wafers in! Delicious! But what is it doing on the sea floor when I have a perfectly good plate right here?

If you go to warm, sandy, Indo-Pacific waters at night you'll have a chance of seeing this delicious-looking slug wandering around on the seabed. They reach about 3 to 7 cm (1 to 3 in) long, so it'll make for the perfect midnight snack if you happen to suffer from the same kind of bad habits I do.

Image: Nick Hobgood

It looks like they have a pair of chocolatey eyes on one end and a chocolatey tail on the other. In fact, the "eyes" are actually rhinophores, which smell and taste the water around them. The tail is really a siphon, which takes in oxygen-rich water and passes it over to the gills.

Image: wildsingapore
Fluffy, yellow gills

You can see the gills in between the large foot and the smaller mantle which sits on top. The Moon-headed Sidegill Slug is a member of the Pleurobranchidae family, which are known as Sidegill Slugs because they all have their gills on just the right hand side of their body.

Image: berniedup

This particular Sidegill Slug has a great, big crescent moon for a face. This huge flap of skin completely covers the mouth and is known as the veil. You might notice that it looks a little frayed at the edges; these are called papillae, little sticky-out bits which can taste the floor as they glide across it. It means the slug can taste things before deciding whether or not to put it in their mouth.

Sounds like a good idea to me. I wouldn't want to do something silly like bite into a slug because I thought it looked like a pancake. No, sirree...

Video: ScubaMauiDreams

Now the Moon-headed Sidegill Slug can roam around and munch on any little creatures unfortunate enough to find themselves on the wrong side of the veil.

But it isn't easy when you look as tasty and chocolatey as the Moon-headed Sidegill Slug. So they need a few tricks of their own.

One thing they can do is swim away. The foot is so big and so thin that a bit of flapping launches them up and away.

Image: PacificKlaus
Going down

But what they really like is to burrow into the fine sand beneath their foot. They can cover their entire body, leaving nothing but the rhinophores and the siphon poking out. The rhinophores act as a kind of smell-o-vision periscope, while the siphon is like a snorkel. The Moon-headed Sidegill Slug can stay there pretty well as long as it likes and still have an idea of what's going on around it!

Over, under, around... this pancake has options!

Seahorse

2013-05-12T12:00:00.001+01:00

Image: Nick Hobgood

Seahorses are fish who can barely swim and the males get pregnant. Seahorse, you're doing it wrong!

I've never really understood Seahorses. For me, they occupy a strange, ambivalent realm where they can appear charmingly eccentric or nightmarishly crippled depending on how I feel at the moment.

Image: prilfish
Thorny Seahorse (H. histrix)
Not good at being a fish

Most fish look pretty good as fish. They may be streamlined and limbless but they have everything they need to survive and do what they need to do.

Seahorses are different. I can't escape the feeling that they were meant to have arms. Their body is bent and broken out of shape and then covered in bony plates to make sure they stay that way. They are indeed close relatives of pipefish, except they look like they've spent too long bent double down a mine.

I weep!

Image: WoRMS for SMEBD
Maned Seahorse (H. guttulatus)
Go home, scary Seahorse. You're drunk.
On second thoughts... drown your sorrows, mate.

Their tiny mouth is at the end of a long snout and fused jaw so they can only suck tiny bits of food from the water which they spot with desperate eyes. These eyes can move independently of each other, which is pretty cool except that it mainly compensates for the horrible fact that the Seahorse can barely move anything else.

Image: PacificKlaus
White's Seahorse (H. whitei)
The googly eyes of a monster?

All in all, it's just like when Hannibal Lecter was wheeled out for the senator. Which makes me wonder what's going on in that malformed head of theirs...

"Take this THING back to Baltimore"

Image: Andrew Dunn
Hippocampus. Back when they ate liver

At least someone out there knows what's what - the 50 or so species of Seahorse belong to a genus called Hippocampus, which means "horse monster".

Unfortunately for them, Seahorses don't have half a dozen men in uniform to take them around the place. Instead, they must rely on a tiny dorsal fin which flutters pathetically in the water. Pectoral fins on either side of their head are used for steering, and they're so tiny and badly placed that they only really work because the Seahorse is so depressingly slow.

Image: San Diego Shooter
Dwarf Seahorse (H. zosterae)
World's Slowest Fish, 2009
At 5 cm (2 in) long, not the smallest

The Dwarf Seahorse has achieved the dubious award of World's Slowest Fish from the Guinness World Records. It swims at a speed of 1.5 metres (5 feet) per hour. There are starfish who can travel that far in a minute or two. Starfish! Yeah... "congratulations".

It's our old friend the Pygmy Seahorse! Some of them are just an inch long

Needless to say, Seahorses do what they can to avoid getting caught out and forced to swim like a fish. Because it's really difficult to do that when you're a mangled fish.

Image: richard ling
Big-belly Seahorse (H. abdominalis)
One of the biggest at 35 cm (13 in) long

So while they can be found across the world in tropical and temperate waters, they always stay near the coast in areas sheltered from the currents.

This is where the prehensile tail comes in. Other fish have a tail with a fin attached, and they use it to power through the water and do amazing things like go from one place to another place. Seahorse tails are completely different. They're curly-wurly and are wound around a branch of coral, a plant stem, or something else that doesn't go anywhere. This helps our woebegone Seahorse be in a place and not go to another place.

Image: Hans Hillewaert
Short-snouted Seahorse (H. hippocampus)
Surrounded by copepods/lunch

And there they stay, sucking up tiny crustaceans with their puny mouths and hopefully camouflaged because if they're not, there isn't much they can do about it. It's almost idyllic, in a way. Relaxing there in calm waters, plucking food as it drifts toward you, watching the world go by with your giant, freakish eyes... It's just a pity that you don't actually have a choice in the matter. And the only thing that can ruin paradise is not having the choice to leave.

Image: Andreas MÃ¤rz
Slender Seahorse (H. reidi)
Time to boogie

Is it any wonder that Seahorses seek solace in the... twirly tail (I can't say "embrace") of the opposite sex? It's nice that despite their multifarious impairments, Seahorses still find each other attractive. They accept each other for who they are even if I don't.

And so it's time... for The Forbidden Dance.

Video: Daragh Owens

Seahorses are famous for the elegance and grace of their courtship dance. They follow each other around, synchronising their movements, they hold tails (they can't hold hands) and whirl around each other, they grasp a bit of coral and spin around it (the kind of thing I think was mandatory in musicals whenever a happy couple passed a lamppost).

It's all thoroughly delightful! And it's pretty cool that the Seahorse is so rubbish at swimming around that they use the act of swimming around to demonstrate the profundity of their love. That's sacrifice!

You will also notice that carrying a little extra weight is no excuse when it comes to strutting your stuff. The male of the species has a brood pouch...

Video: nataquarium

Which he opens up to demonstrate the gaping emptiness within. This is, of course, utterly obscene, but it always is when you're on the outside looking in. Er... outside of the relationship, I mean.

Then again, this pouch is exactly where the female deposits her eggs once they've been fertilised. There may be anything from a hundred to a couple thousand eggs in there, all cosy in their father's swelling belly.

Image: OZinOH
Big-belly Seahorse demonstrates its name.
Some Seahorses get more pregnant than others

He now spends the next few weeks quietly feeding and nourishing the growing sprogs safe and secure within his body. His mate visits him each morning and they renew their relationship with a few minutes of ritualised dance. This ensures the male doesn't turn bozo and lose all her precious eggs and it also makes lifelong marriage sound quite easy. Just dance. You could even turn it into a morning exercise regime.

Thing is, not all Seahorses are as faithful as others. Some species may well mate for life, others only for a single season. There are some that breed in groups (a love polygon, I suppose) and at least one species, the Big-belly Seahorse, seems happy to flirt and court any male or female of its own species who happens to be around. Sort of like a nightclub.

Image: richard ling
Shame on you!

One guy who was sitting there watching them do it said "they really are indiscriminate and shameless creatures". Yeh, but... as I said, it always is when you're on the outside looking in. That's where "get a room" comes from.

After fooling around with every Tom, Dick and Harriet, even the most promiscuous of Seahorses will eventually produce or incubate a whole gut full of eggs.

Video: thedeephull

They hatch within the male's pouch and once they're ready to be released into the wild, their dad contracts his heaving belly with the kind of violence usually reserved for seasickness. The babies are rudely thrust into the sea like bubbles from a... thing you blow bubbles out of. A circle on a stick, or whatever you call it (I'm going somewhere with this).

And just like bubbles, almost all of them are destroyed (this is the Art of writing, dear reader. Honestly, it's a burden). Their father secures the eggs from predation but the vast majority of baby Seahorses still get eaten or whisked away on the currents, and it may be months before they reach adult size. And then they can STILL get whisked away on the currents. All of which is why the male Seahorse is soon ready for a whole new pouch of eggs.

Image: brian.gratwicke
Shortsnout Seahorse (H. breviceps)
Awwwwww!

Through luck and sheer numbers, a few tiny Seahorses will grow into the majestic, broken-backed, deformed, enfeebled, maimed and marred (I have more) semi-invalid fish we know and can't quite understand.

And I still think they would appreciate some extra limbs..

Myrianida pachycera

2013-05-10T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: Greg W. Rouse
Myrianida pachycera

It's a worm! A worm with a tail! A tail made of worms!

Polychaetes of the Syllidae family are noted for their impressive experimentation when it comes to procreation. Cloning is cool. Especially if, like me, you need the manpower for your mission to take over the world (you, my dear readers, shall be richly rewarded for your continued loyalty).

The male/female thing is also pretty nifty. Especially if, like me, you enjoy... actually, let's not go there... although there are some interesting possibilities with cloning technology...

Hmm...

Anyway. That'll have to wait. For now, we'll just see how a worm uses cloning AND sex for procreation, and yet somehow ends up not taking over the world. Such a waste...

It all starts with a worm. Just as you'd expect. It ends with a worm, too, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

This solitary worm reproduces asexually through a process called budding. From its back end, a whole new worm begins to form. And while it's doing so, yet another worm begins to form between the adult and its young. And then another. And another. Pretty soon we have a worm with a whole tail of worms attached to its behind, getting larger and larger as they reach the end.

Soon enough, the eldest youngster, the one at the very end of the tail, breaks off to start life on its own. One by one all the other tail-worms grow, detach and swim away. The parent worm remains, crawling around on sponges, but the youngsters have a job to do near the water's surface.

The thing is, each tail is either a row of male worms or a row of female worms. They swim up, release their eggs or sperm and die soon after. The eggs can now develop into worms who descend to the sponges like their grandparents before them, to feed and grow their glorious, sexy tails.

There is much we can learn from the Syllid worms. With the addition of weapons and military tactics, the world shall be MINE! I mean ours.

Wandering Legs

2013-05-08T12:00:00.000+01:00

We care for them, clean them and lovingly wrap them in linens to defend against the elements...

We walk them, break them and bend them to our merciless will, regardless of the pain, calluses or fungal growth...

But some day, all legs must fly the nest.

(Obviously they fly by walking)

It's pretty weird to have four pairs of legs. It's even weirder to have four pairs of legs and almost nothing else.

Video: Neptune Canada

So it is for this Sea Spider as it strides across the barren seascape like an anorexic colossus.

Sea Spiders aren't spiders. They aren't even arachnids. They are instead a whole other group of marine arthropods composed almost almost entirely of legs. Their abdomen is vestigial, while their scant thorax appears to be nothing more than a meeting point for spindly limbs.

Aside from the legs we can see four appendages that look just like legs, one set for carrying eggs, another for sniffing out their surroundings and seeking food. A proboscis about as long as the rest of the body is used as a kind of straw, sucking out the juices of soft-bodied creatures like sponges and sea anemones.

It's a kind of bogey-spider parents use to scare their spiderlings. We have Slender Man. Tarantulas have Sea Spider.

Twig-like Feather-legged Spider

2013-05-05T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: Pen Araneae

The trees have eyes!

Twig-like Feather-legged Spiders are members of a genus called Miagrammopes and they look a bit like twigs. Of all things!

Image: Pen Araneae

These spiders spend their time with their long, cigar-shaped body and long, slender legs stretched out to their full length.

Image: Frank Starmer

Their front legs are often longer than their entire body...

Image: spiderman (Frank)

But by assuming the proper position, and with the correct green or brown colouration, they easily disappear into the surrounding foliage. Or at the very least succeed in looking nothing like a spider. Which is quite an achievement for a spider! It can't be easy for something with eight legs to make itself look like it has no legs.

Image: Robert Whyte www.arachne.org.au

And if you take a very close look you may find your twig or stem staring right back at you! With four, shiny, black eyes... they probably think you look a bit odd, too.

Twig-like Feather-legged Spiders have a strange way of catching prey. It involves just ONE strand of silk!

Image: Pen Araneae
This is a spider web

One end of this strand is attached to a twig, while the spider grabs hold of the other end and pulls it taut. When a fly lands on the silk, the spider releases its grip and that single strand springs toward the twig on the other end, ensnaring the fly as it goes.

Video: Frank Starmer
Got to get that piece of string nice and tight!

Now the spider must go about immobilising their prey before they can tuck in. Here's the problem: Twig-like Feather-legged Spiders are in the family Uloboridae, the Hackled Orb Spiders. This means two, big things:

First, that one strand of silk used to catch the fly wasn't sticky, because Hackled Orb Spiders don't produce sticky silk. "Hackled" silk is sort of woolly and fuzzy, instead. It traps prey by snagging them, not sticking them.

Image: Robert Whyte www.arachne.org.au
Comb on the hind legs

This is where the Feather-legs come in. Spiders that produce this kind of silk use special spinnerets called a cribellum. It's a bit like a sieve covered in thousands of tiny holes. The silk comes out of these tiny holes and is then combed (or hackled) into strands by a kind of comb on the hind legs.

So when I said ONE strand of silk, I meant one strand of silk made up of THOUSANDS of tiny strands of silk.

Image: plj.johnny/潘立傑
Munching on a little something

The other thing about Uloborids is that they are non-venomous. They have NO venom and NO venom glands! And this time I really mean it. They don't have thousands of venom glands which all add up to nothing in some weird way.

So how will our Twig-like Feather-legged Spider eat her meal in peace? The answer is silk. Lots and lots of silk.

Video: sigma1920
She could've made herself a nice cardigan out of all that!

Uloborids spend a long time smothering their prey in huge amounts of silk. There are some who can spend an hour cocooning their prey in over 100 metres of silk! This means their prey is not only well and truly cocooned and entombed, but it's also suffocated and crushed.

Most spiders would now put on their napkin and inject digestive enzymes to prepare their meal. Uloborids don't do this, they simply slather and slobber those enzymes all over their squished up food parcel and then slurp up the nastiness. Turns out poison and injections are the polite way of doing things.

So much for death... what about life?

Image: Frank Starmer
A mating pair?

Aside from a twig, this looks like one, really long Miagrammopes. It actually seems to be two of them. The photographer, Frank Starmer, wonders if they are mating. And it would make a certain sort of sense if they were. The sort of sense that comes when you totally immerse yourself in the strange, alien logic. Like when I heard Neil deGrasse Tyson wonder why Batman can't fly even though he has a cape.

Image: 小工友
Mother and egg sac

And this appears to be a proud mother with her twig-like egg sac.

So it seeme Twig-like Feather-legged Spiders are twig-like at conception, twig-like in the egg and twig-like throughout life. The twig-likeness only stops when it's time to kill, which must be extremely annoying for all those insects that get killed and eaten. If only it could act like twig just this ONE MORE TIME! Oh, well.

Tomato Frog

2013-05-03T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: Frank.Vassen

Tomato Frogs are as red as a tomato and almost as spherical. They're a bit more poisonous, though!

There are four species in the genus Dyscophus which more or less resemble a mutant tomato with eyes, legs and an appetite for worms. Three live in Madagascar, while their long lost cousin D. philippensis comes from the Philippines.

Image: Frank.Vassen
Dyscophus antongilii

The most vibrantly red Tomato Frogs are big females of the species D. antongilii, who reach up to 10 cm (4 in) long. They achieve much acclaim for their fantastic impression of a gigantic tomato. It's a mixed blessing, as they require constant protection against sandwich-threats. And the red carpet treatment doesn't work so well because they prefer to stand out from the crowd.

Image: Silvain de Munck
Dyscophus antongilii

Males are a little smaller and drabber than females, while younger members of both sexes are more yellow in colour before they ripen.

Image: Sibylle Stofer
False Tomato Frog (D. guineti) eating its own skin
A drastic solution for want of a loofah

Nasty white stuff on tomatoes usually means mould. For Tomato Frogs, it's a little worse...

Image: Frank.Vassen
D. insularis is, aside from the Philippine one, the least well known of the genus

When threatened, Tomato Frogs puff themselves up to increase their size and look like a really massive tomato. If a predator quite likes the look of this massive tomato and attempts to eat it anyway, the Tomato Frog will secrete a kind of toxic glue from glands on its back. It's a great way of warding off predators like snakes, who end up with a mouthful of sticky horrors gumming up their mouth.

Replicate the experience at home by eating a delicious tomato sandwich with putrid mayonnaise! If you want to, for some reason.

Image: David d'O
Dyscophus antongilii

Tomato Frogs mate early in the year after heavy rains. The smaller male grabs hold of his lady friend to copulate, after which she lays several thousand eggs in a shallow pool.

They hatch in 36 hours and the tadpoles develop into small, yellow tomatoes within 45 days.

But we all know what small, yellow tomatoes grow into...

Sailfin Lizard

2013-05-01T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: OZinOH

Just because the dinosaurs died out doesn't mean reptiles of today can't benefit from some of those ancient ideas!

Oh, alright. You got me. I can't fool you, can I? Obviously a whole bunch of dinosaurs didn't die out at all; they became today's birds, instead. And the Sailfin Lizard is clearly borrowing from the Dimetrodon, which went extinct some 40 million years before the first dinosaur ever appeared. And it was a synapsid, which means it was more closely related to mammals than to any reptile.

Just don't tell the Sailfin Lizard that, OK?

Image: ell brown

And anyway, if the best we mammals can do is a camel's hump, we simply must open our warm-blooded arms for the Sailfin Lizard and his wonderful tail-sail.

There are three species of Sailfin Lizard, all belonging to the superbly named genus Hydrosaurus.

Image: Wilfried Berns
The Giant Indonesian Sailfin Lizard (H. amboinensis) reaches 3 or 4 ft long and comes from Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines

At a metre (3 feet) or more in length, Hydrosaurus amboinensis is slightly longer than the other Sailfins and is thus the biggest of all agamids. Agamidae is a family of lizards closely related to the iguanids, which is proabably why Sailfins look a bit like iguanas.

Image: Sylfred1977
Female Sailfins are a little smaller than the males and have a less prominent fin

Sailfins spend most of their time climbing around in trees. They're omnivorous, feeding on fruit, vegetation, insects, frogs and any other creatures they happen upon.

Image: Neil Saunders
The Philippine Sailfin Lizard (H. pustulatus) comes from the Philippines and is about as long as H. amboinensis, but slimmer.
This one is beautiful with those big, soft eyes. I hope it's a female...

Sailfins don't usually stray far from the damp embrace of a good river and, despite their impressive size, they are always ready to leap into the water at the first sign of trouble. They can even stay submerged for over 15 minutes! Hydrosaurus means "water lizard", after all.

Image: Wilfried Berns
Weber's Sailfin Lizard (H. weberi) is only 2 or 3 feet long and lives on a few islands in Indonesia

Sailfins are the proud owners of a whole host of adaptations for a good time swimming...

Image: OZinOH

The most obvious of which are the bright orange arm bands which ensure... Oh, wait. That's some kind of fin, right? A "sailfin", maybe. This thing can get up to 9 cm (3.6 in) tall in some males, which is probably a bit much just for swimming. I assume it's used for display. Weird, sticky-out bits on males are usually for display. Also there's no bone in there, unlike the massive frill on Dimetrodon.

More useful in water is the incredibly long, slightly flattened tail and long toes lined with extra flaps of skin.

Image: Superstringphysics

Big legs, long toes and flaps of skin obviously make it difficult to find good footwear, but it does allow Sailfins to power their through rivers. It also allows younger Sailfins to run across the water's surface for a bit! Bright orange arm bands really don't figure in this at all. I don't know what I was thinking.

Females lay a few eggs in a nest dug out in soil near water. They hatch in a couple months and the youngsters that emerge are active, energetic and can immediately run, swim and climb all over the place.

It's amazing the range of colours these lizards can acquire...

Image: Abi Skipp

Green!

Image: tigerhawkvok

Blue!

Image: smallislander

A whole bunch!

Maybe bright orange arm bands isn't such a ridiculous idea after all?

Chiton

2013-04-28T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: Nuytsia@Tas

Chitons! They look like... like... nothing else! I'm sure this style was in vogue a few hundred million years ago, but these days they're really going out on a limb. Not that they have a limb.

Chitons are almost 1,000 species of decidedly retro mollusc who reach anywhere between less than 1 cm (0.4 in) and over 30 cm (1 foot) long. They belong to a class called Polyplacophora, which means "bearer of many plates", or "look! It has a suit of armour!"

Image: dracophylla

Actually they bear precisely eight plates, also known as valves.

Image: igor_nz

The valves are made of a tough mineral called aragonite, the same stuff in most mollusc shells, and in most circumstances, that's all you'll see of a Chiton. They're not like snails, who have to poke their head out of their shell to get anywhere, let alone those fool-hardy slugs who throw all caution to the wind with their unabashed nudity. Chitons can stay completely covered at all times. They are masters of defence.

The key is in the flexibility of their shell. Each valve is a separate piece that slightly overlaps the next and there is articulation between each one. It means the Chiton can bend its body up and down as it wanders over uneven terrain and the platemail will follow suit.

Image: Malcolm Storey

They can even roll up into a ball!

Video: ewilliamsish

This flexibility is important because most Chitons live in rocky, coastal waters and intertidal zones. There are a few who live in the deepest of deep seas, but most use their armour and squished, floor-hugging body shape to bear the crashing and thrashing of waves. None live in freshwater or land.

Obviously it would be a bit rubbish if the valves were really, REALLY separate, because then they'd be falling off all over the place. This isn't great for normal clothes let alone armour. So all the parts are kept together with the girdle, which wraps around the edge of the animal and is itself strengthened with yet more aragonite.

Image: Bill & Mark Bell
Acanthopleura spinosa

Some Chitons express themselves with their girdles. This one seems to be saying stuff like "go away", "leave me alone" and "I will hurt you".

Image: Nuytsia@Tas
Snake-skin Chiton, Chiton pelliserpentis

Others appear to be wearing a snazzy, snakeskin girdle.

Image: C Wood
Black Katy Chiton, Katherina tunicata

Some have a huge girdle which covers most of their armour...

Image: Malcolm Carlaw
Lined Chiton, Tonicella lineata

While others want to show the world their amazing valves. This one seems to be communicating ideas like "party" and "disco".

Image: jkirkhart35
Gum Boot Chiton, Cryptochiton stelleri

And some oddities hide their valves beneath a girdle which covers their entire body. It's like wearing your suit of armour under some jogging bottoms.

Image: jkirkhart35
Underside, showing the foot. Gills can be seen in the mantle cavity

If you ever manage to pry a Chiton off the rocks, you'll get to see why you found it so difficult. They have a long, sticky foot, like a snail, which helps them clamp down and resist the waves. And the curiosity of others. You might also see the gills in the mantle cavity between the foot and the girdle. Chitons take in water through a hole near their mouth, pass it over their gills and release it via another hole toward the back end.

Image: WoRMS for SMEBD
Acanthochitona fascicularis

Within the mouth is their radula, a tough organ covered in teeth and used to rasp algae off the rocks. Unless it happens to be one of the few Chitons who smother unsuspecting prey with their enlarged girdle and let the slaughter commence. It's as they say, the best defence is to kill everyone.

Some Chitons have their teeth covered in a mineral called magnetite, which is an oxide of iron, the most magnetic mineral in the natural world and real, even though it sounds like a comic book invented it in the 50s.

Image: matt knoth
Lined Chiton, Tonicella lineata

Near the radula is another organ which basically tastes the floor to find food. Also there is an assortment of tiny eyes dotted about the shell that can only really tell light from dark and then nerve endings in their foot can at least tell sand from stone. And that's about it. They don't even have tentacles like a snail.

It's a simple world for the Chiton. Which works well because they don't have a brain. They scarcely have anything you could really call a head. I guess it would provide too much of a target for attackers; brains are a sign of weakness for the Chiton.

Video: Dofleini1
Chitons do it standing up

Reproduction is a simple affair, too. There are separate males and females and most will simply release their gametes into the sea, where larvae will hatch to drift and swim for a while before settling. In some species the female will keep the eggs in her mantle until they hatch, so at least some Chitons extend their defensive instincts to their progeny.

Image: Ryan Wick

In any case, Chitons have managed to cling to life as tenaciously as they cling to the shoreline. There's is an ancient lineage that dates back some 400 million years and never acquired such newfangled innovations as a brain, tentacles, a proper head or good vision. They just got their shell and ran with it.

They are, in fact, the complete opposite of an octopus. But then that's why molluscs are so cool!

Atlantid

2013-04-26T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: Roger R. Seapy

If you were expecting to see a technologically advanced human, mermaid or alien, I can only apologise. Atlantids are snails. Microscopic, swimming snails. So... I guess I don't apologise at all. You can see mermaids and aliens any time you want and when can't you see humans? Nah. Consider yourself lucky to see a microscopic, swimming snail for once.

We're looking at Heteropods again! Yaaaaay!

Image: Alvaro E. Migotto

It started with Sea Elephants, the weird, transparent, pelagic snails with their complete lack of a shell. Then there were Carinariids, the weird, transparent, pelagic snails with their tiny shells. Now it's time for Atlantids, weird, transparent, pelagic snails with large shells.

Image: Alvaro E. Migotto

After this, we will have seen all the Heteropods, also known as Pterotracheoids, also known as weird, pelagic snails with or without a shell of some description. As it happens, more than 60% of all known Heteropods are Atlantids, and there are only 20 or so species of Atlantid! Not like those mermaids and aliens... dime a dozen, right?

Image: Alvaro E. Migotto

As you would expect, Atlantids have much in common with the other Heteropods; they swim through the sea by waving a single fin to and fro, the fin being a modification of the sticky foot snails usually use to glide around and leave artistic trails of mucus all over the place.

Image: Roger R. Seapy

They have the large, lensed eyes for spotting prey, although this time they occupy a gigantic amount of space on their tiny head. Then they have a tentacle on either side of a proboscis which encloses the radula. The radula is like a tongue covered in teeth and the proboscis is like a snout.

So think of an anteater with teeth on its tongue, giant eyes and one flipper instead of four legs. Don't tell anyone about it, though. Unless you get paid to think up really weird monsters. Even then, it's probably best to go with mermaids. Meranteater?

In common with a few other Heteropods, Atlantids have a sucker on their fin but like the eyes, it's proportionally much larger than in other Heteropods. It's used to keep hold of prey as they tear strips out of soft flesh with their radula. Turns out their favourite food is Sea Butterfly, weird, pelagic snails who swim around on TWO fins. It's the Weird Pelagic Snail War.

Image: Roger R. Seapy

Also on the foot, next to the fin, is the opercular lobe with the operculum attached. "Operculum" is fancy speak for "little lid" and I guess "opercular lobe" means "thing with a little lid on". And this brings us to the shell.

Image: Roger R. Seapy
This shell is less than 2 mm across

The shell is what really distinguishes Atlantids from all the other Heteropods. It's huge! Absolutely gigantic! We're talking like, an ENTIRE centimetre! Sometimes. Only one or two species have a shell as large as 1 cm (0.2 in) across. Others are scarcely more than 1 mm (0.02 in), most are somewhere in between.

Image: Roger R. Seapy
Atlantid completely hidden in shell

The important thing for the tiny Atlantid is that her shell is big enough to contain her entire body if she wants it to. She can hide inside it, and then shut the door behind her with her fancy operculum.

She can't do that for too long, though. While Sea Elephants were neutrally buoyant and thus able to hover in the water by doing nothing at all, Atlantids do indeed sink due to that gargantuan shell. They have to swim all day, or else swim a little, allow themselves to sink a little, and then swim some more.

Image: Roger R. Seapy

This means they can't even retire into their shell at night when it's time to sleep. What will our tiny Atlantid do? It's time for technology. And yet again, nature shows us the incredible power of well-utilised mucus.

For us humans, extruding long strands of mucus commonly signals a day off work and a relaxing time in bed marred only by headaches and the extrusion of long strands of mucus. It's similar for Atlantids, but with an altogether higher class of mucus.

Come the night, our sleepy Atlantid releases long strands of mucus from her foot and goes to sleep. The strands can be up to 50 cm (20 in) long! So it's just... mucus. With a tiny snail hanging from it. The mucus is much more buoyant than the snail, so they need only remain attached to be sure they won't sink to the sea floor. It's like that sick nursery rhyme where a baby falls out of a tree. Hopefully mucus will prove more resilient than boughs.

Image: Roger R. Seapy
Tiny larval protoconch

Speaking of babies, larval Atlantids are ridiculously minute. They start off with a puny shell called a protoconch.

Image: Roger R. Seapy
Adult teleoconch, 4 mm across. Old protoconch in blue.

It grows and grows until it becomes the adult's teleoconch. Even then, you can still see the tiny protoconch in the middle, and a large keel develops to help with swimming.

Image: Alvaro E. Migotto

With a bit of food, and a lot of luck, our minute, larval Antlantid will grow into a weird, slightly less minute, adult Antlantid. And with their cosy shell, fancy door and floaty mucus you won't find them sinking to the bottom of the sea like those silly folks at Atlantis.

Elephant's Foot, Dioscorea elephantipes

2013-04-24T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: alijava
Dioscorea elephantipes

Yikes! If that's an elephant's foot, I have just one word to say: moisturise.

The Elephant's Foot is a big, bulky, brute of a plant. But it's not without a soft side.

Image: MeganEHansen

They come from South Africa, in dry, rocky areas where the summers are arid and the winters not much better. It's so bad that Elephant's Foots (Elephant's Feet? How does this work?) are dormant in the summer and grow in the winter.

Image: billy liar

They stand with their giant tuber half buried in the parched earth. This tuber grows very slowly, but after some years it can reach almost a metre (3.3 feet) tall, with a circumference of more than 3 metres (10 feet). And it's all covered in thick plates of cork.

They clearly have something to hide. Perhaps they went through a difficult separation from all the other elephant's feet and now they don't want anyone to see their soft, vulnerable inside.

You can eat an Elephant's Foot if you want, but it's only for the desperate due to the amount of work required to get rid of all the toxins in the flesh. It's also full of chemical compounds known as saponins, from which steroids can be made.

For a while people were hunting down these plants to get at those delicious seponins, but then easier, cheaper ways of making the stuff emerged. The Elephant's Foot could then return to it's proper place of being annoying and not worth the trouble.

Image: mizmak

But the Elephant's Foot is more than a just a massive potato on steroids...

Image: JasonUnbound

From the top of that clunking tuber sprout numerous stems and heart-shaped leaves. The Elephant's Foot is a climber, like ivy. It would probably be annoying and not worth the trouble, but you could try and use it to cover the walls of your top quality, fancy-dan university. You have to have something, right? Universities with clean walls always look like they could collapse at any moment.

Image: scott.zona

There are also dainty, little flowers. Each Elephant's Foot is either male or female, with purely male or female flowers.

Image: FarOutFlora

The Elephant's Foot is popular among horticulturists who want a weird looking plant. If you look after it and allow it to go dormant every year by withholding water, it could live for a good 70 years or so. 70 years of pointing at your weird and increasingly massive plant. That's totally worth it! And not too annoying, either.

Deep Scenes from Wiring the Abyss

2013-04-21T12:00:00.000+01:00

Here's a fantastic video from Ocean Networks Canada, featuring some highlights from their Wiring the Abyss expedition of 2012.

This Sea Cucumber is one of my favourites. What else would you expect to see if you opened Pandora's Box and unleashed all the evils of the world? A big, black cloud of noxious gas? A great, big dragon who lets out a big, black cloud of noxious gas every time he huffs and puffs? A pile of fortune cookies with stuff like "hate is cool" written inside?

Nope! Of course it's a Sea Cucumber! A small, translucent Sea Cucumber with weird little legs and weird little muck-plungers around its mouth. And a strange suggestion of devil wings on its back, as it floats in the darkness with ease, leisure and malevolence.

Let's cross our tentacles and hope they're not all quite so fiendish down there!

Video: Ocean Networks Canada

It's a cushion! A cushion with legs, quietly cruising through the sea. How comforting! It looks like a Big Red Jellyfish, which can reach 75 cm (2.5 ft) across and has been spotted all around the Pacific Ocean.

They're weird because they don't have tentacles. Those chubby leg things are oral arms. Most jellyfish have oral arms for digesting the prey they catch with their tentacles. This one has stubby arms and no tentacles at all, so it clearly can't cast a wide net. Which makes one wonder how it gets all the food it needs.

It keeps its cards close to its chest, because its arms are too short to do otherwise.

More frantic and hyperactive than our big, red cushion, this appears to be a small worm. It looks like a polychaete of some kind, with long, bristly, parapods on its sides being used like frenetic flippers. We've seen similar annelids like the Squidworm and Tomopteris in the past, but this looks like a different one. It's getting a good workout, whatever it is! I could never live like that.

It's that flipping crab again!

It's a Comb Jelly! Doing absolutely nothing at all! Well... actually it's doing quite a lot. Comb Jellies are the ones with 8 rows of tiny cilia on their body. Cilia are like teeny hairs, and they wave in the water like dominoes, falling in a line and then picking themselves up so they can fall all over again. Eugh! It's never ending! But at least the cilia sparkle in the light so it looks pretty.

From the body dangle the two, long tentacles that secrete a kind of glue for catching prey. That's one way we know this isn't a Bloodybelly, since Bloodybellies have their tentacles worming around the thick, muscular lip-type-things that surround their mouth.

A Grenadier eyes the new neighbours suspiciously. "What are they doing over there?"

Grenadiers are a whole bunch of deep sea fish that seem to have lost most of their tail. Their body just ends at a point. They don't even have a tail fin, the anal fin simply runs all the way to the end. I guess being intently curious about anything that isn't a flat patch of mud is one way this fish finds the food it needs to survive.

What's this? Is that a stocking? What are they doing over there?

I really have no clue what this is!

Sea Spider! Obviously it's not an actual spider. That would be absurd! They're a completely different group of exclusively marine arthropods that use their proboscis to suck up the juices of sponges and sea anemones.

They're hardly the most active of fellows; there's very little in the way of bursts of speed or lunging from the darkness. Were you to scream as a Sea Spider walked toward you, you would be screaming for a long time.

However, if you remember A to B in the Deep Sea, you'll know that some Sea Spiders can actually swim! For one, they can spread their legs and sort of paddle along. The Sea Spider in this video seems to really dislike where it was going, so it does the other swim style. It flings its legs back for a burst of speed and then paddles its small, non-leg appendages. And then it seems to sink because it isn't holding its legs out any more.

A long chain of Salps. They're a kind of tunicate, those weird chordates that shunned the mighty backbone and ended up looking completely different from anything that has a backbone.

Salps demonstrate the bitter truth, that we're all tubes with a load of stuff hanging off. Salps take water in one end and release it from the other, filtering out food and oxygen as it goes. They also use the release of water as a propulsion system. It's pure minimalism, cutting out all that "arms and organs" business as too much busy-work and complicated adornment.

It's different when they reproduce, though. Salps clone themselves to form those long chains of Salps. They start off as female and have a couple of eggs inside them. Then they mate, and the egg develops within her body via a kind of placenta. Then the youngster is released to form its own chain of Salps. Meanwhile, the mother uses up all her eggs and turns into a male.

Now he can go looking for a female. He can really empathise with the difficulties of pregnancy, because he really has gone through it all himself.

This is an utter tank! Just look at it! The power. The POWER! I want one. A GIANT one. So I can ride it to the supermarket and say "fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell cookies" until someone gives me cookies.

It's a crab, of course. But it has six walking legs. Six! Instead of eight! This means it's probably a King Crab of some kind. Which means it's not a "true crab", and is more closely related to Porcelain Crabs and Coconut Crabs. Also stuff I haven't written about yet, like Hermit Crabs. And I haven't written about King Crabs, either.

*sigh*

Why is the world so... BIG?

Ah! It's another Sea Cucumber! This one looks less like the Unexpected Face of All Evil and more like a stomach. Maybe a liver?

There it is, flexing its disgusting body to and fro. I don't think it's Enypniastes, the world's favourite swimming Sea Cucumber. This one doesn't look as well adapted to the active life, so the swimming appears much more laborious. Still, we all have to start somewhere and every time a bell rings, a Sea Cucumber gets its wings. So that's nice.

It's a Black Smoker! These are the hydrothermal vents, where poisonous, boiling hot, volcanic chemicals burst from the earth and form a kind of murderous camp fire. Like if a wish was granted by an evil genie. I knew big, black clouds of noxious gas would be in here, somewhere!

Hmm... not gas exactly, since the incredible pressure of the deep sea forces it to remain liquid. It's incredibly hot, incredibly acidic and incredibly poisonous, though. So that's good. On contact with the cold water, some of the chemicals are deposited to create these amazing chimneys and you end up with a hellish, ill-begotten architecture that few can survive.

There are, however, certain bacteria who feed and thrive on the poisonous chemicals, giving rise to an entire ecosystem of diverse organisms, like mountains of life rearing up from the rock and mud. Our version of it over here is called Glastonbury Festival.

A skate wanders lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er post-apocalyptic vales and bombed out hills.

These are amazing rocks! I love this stuff! I presume it's some strange, volcanic formation that happens with all the water and pressure and so on, but they look a lot like ruins. Some of the stones could even be pillars from some ancient temple...

Mermaids? Elder Things? Chaos monster and Mesopotamian goddess of the ocean, Tiamat? Perhaps we'll find out some day. Maybe on the Final Day.

Billions of tube worms. They remind me of the static I used to see on my television back when technology allowed such things. Ahhhh... static. I used to love early 90s static. I would watch it with my breakfast cereal, talk about it with all my friends at school and then run home to watch a few more hours of static. Memories...

These annelids are the complete opposite of the hyperactive ones we saw swimming all over the place; they select a rock or sediment as a home and then stay there forever. These look like Beard Worms of some kind, which are usually just a millimetre (0.04 in) across and up to 75 cm (2.5 ft) long. They secrete a tube for themselves out of chitin, but lack a mouth, anus and any guts in between. Apparently they just absorb their food from the water.

The Tube Worm Temple. This monument is a community of tube worms clinging to the craggy landscape around a black smoker. They look like the famous ones found only around the hydrothermal vents. They have red plumes full of a peculiar haemoglobin that absorbs oxygen and poisonous hydrogen sulphide without ill effect.

Oxygen is good for the worm, but the poisons go to a special internal organ where the worm hosts a huge colony of bacteria. The bacteria feast on the poison, producing sugars which are good eating for the worm. It's a bit like a cow with their gut full of fermenting bacteria who break down the cellulose for them. Although I think hydrogen sulphide is significantly less palatable than grass.

And through it all, an octopus lounges on and doesn't care. At all. Is he fast asleep? I swear he's fast asleep! Ah well. I guess all this deep sea life is all politics if you have to live with it day in, day out. Perhaps he's thinking about all those weird creatures you get on land. Like cows... and grass.

.....

OK. So that's quite a few words. And I didn't even mention the Cusk Eel, the Crinoid, Sea Pens, Snake Stars, the Venus Flytrap Sea Anemone, the mesmerising shrimp, the squid that REALLY wants to know what's going on around here, the bubbles, bones and I barely touched on the beautiful ugliness of all those treacherous rocks!

But now I'm going to make like an octopus, rest my head on my tentacles and relax.

Oh, For FLIPS Sake!

2013-04-19T12:00:00.000+01:00

"(unintelligible)"

"WOOOOOOWWW!"

"OHHHHH!"

"He just took a big header."

So it was the day the crab flipped.

It happened at Berkley Canyon, just off the west coast of Canada. It also happened under the watchful eye (and cameras. Also spotlights) of the folks at NEPTUNE Canada. Which is nice!

The crabs seem to be attracted to the bubbles of methane rising from the sea floor. I assume they're eating some kind of bacteria or something...

Beans, beans, good for the heart,

The more you eat, the more you fart.

Video: Neptune Canada
Swiftly leaves the scene

It really looks like one of the diners got a little gassy and instead of leaving the table to "powder her nose", simply let it all out. And then powdered her nose by falling head first into the sediment.

In reality, it's more likely that the methane froze on her body and made her buoyant. Then the gas floated away all sparkly and silvery as she embarked on her unintentional acrobatics.

Either way, it was greeted with the kind of breathless enthusiasm usually reserved for irresponsible whales. Charming!

Horned Guan

2013-04-17T12:00:00.001+01:00

Image: guppiecat
Oreophasis derbianus

Oh! OUCH! Someone's taken a terrific knock on the head. I'm surprised he can stay standing!

If you thought that maybe the Horned Guan was a guan with a horn, then I'm afraid you're incorrect. Not only is it not a real guan, but I find it quite difficult to call that red thing on its head a horn. Rhinos have horns. This thing has a lawsuit.

Image: Stormtrooper WB

The Horned Guan is a member of the cracidae family, which contains about two dozen guans, a dozen curassows and a dozen chachalacas. I haven't heard of any of them but... BOOM chachalacas!

The Horned Guan is all alone in its very own subfamily, having evolved for tens of millions of years in a lineage separate from all the other cracids. It's now the last representative of its part of the family tree. Judging by that lump on their noggin, they appear to fall head first from this tree on a regular basis.

Falling from trees isn't a great idea when you live on a mountain. Horned Guans come from the montane cloud forests of certain parts of Central America. They can be found at altitudes of up to 3,350 metres (11,000 ft), where they enjoy a diet of fruits, flowers and leaves along with the occasional insect snack.

Image: campylopterus

A lot is unknown about their lives in the wild. This is partly because their population is estimated to be just a couple thousand, and the living in thick forests on mountains can't help either. However, we do know that they breed during the first half of the year and it's thought that each male mates with 3 to 5 females. She goes on to lay just one or two eggs in a nest up a tree. With numbers like, it's clear their population won't be sky-rocketing any time soon.

Oh, and case you're wondering, both males and females have that extraordinary lump on their head. It isn't a weird thing the males use for courtship. It's just a weird thing.

Owlfly

2013-04-14T12:00:00.001+01:00

Image: ROCKYKSWONG

"Hey! Look at that tiny owl! Who knew owls could be so small? David Attenborough never said anything about this! Maybe it's a new species? Of owl."

"Oh. Actually, I think it might be some kind of insect. I will call it 'Owlfly'. Because it looks just like an owl. EXACTLY like an owl. Amazing!"

That probably never happened. But what about their young? Do they look more like owls?

Image: jeans_Photos
Larval Owlfly

Aaaah! Now that's more like it! Sure, it's not exactly the spitting image of an owl...

But it sure captures the atmosphere within the nest.

Alright, let's be honest: they do get their name from the adult.

Image: ROCKYKSWONG
Mostly eyes

We're looking at Owlflies, some 430 net-winged insects in the Ascalaphidae family and usually around 5 cm (2 in) long. Apparently, they get their name from the gigantic eyes that cover most of their head. No beak, no talons, no feathers (although it looks like they have a face full of downy fluff)... just big eyes. Big eyes like an owl. Big-eyefly!

Image: kadavoor

And of course, they have the ridiculously complicated wings that any net-winged insect has. They look a lot like a dragonfly (I guess we can't call them Dragonflyfly, can we?), but real dragonflies have teensy antennae that you can barely see at all. Owlflies have a huge, long things. With knobs on.

Image: Bernd Haynold

Some Owlflies seem to purposely mimic dragonflies. They're active during the day and hold out their wings in dragonfly fashion when at rest. This could be a good idea since dragonflies are powerful predators that most insects would want to avoid. Owlflies are predators too, they even hunt flying insects on the wing like a dragonfly, but they lack the dragon's raw strength and typically seek out prey that can't fight back.

Image: John Tann

Others spend much of the day with their butt in the air.

Image: Dan Irizarry

They're pretending to be a twig! These Owlflies tend to be crepuscular. That is, they're active during the twilight hours of sunrise and sunset. A bit like an owl, actually.

Erm... young Owlflies are a little different.

Image: jeans_Photos

They're... grotesque! They have eyes - lots of eyes - but they're tiny little things. They much prefer to devote their face-space to giant sickle-jaws of doom. And they're not too concerned about whether their prey can fight back or not. They probably find the struggle unto death quite fun. They look the type, anyway.

Video: t1043dow

So there's our young Owlfly, brandishing her jaws like a dual-wielding Grim Reaper. A poisonous, dual-wielding Grim Reaper, since those mighty tusks also inject a paralyzing venom so they can suck out the insides in peace, once all that squirming and struggling has grown tedious. And then you have to add the guerilla tactics, since many of these beasts are remarkably well camouflaged ambushers.

Image: smccann

In short: we have a "situation" on our hands.

Image: jeans_Photos
Fairly normal legs

And if it all looks rather familiar, then yes! This is EXACTLY what you dreamed about last night when you wet the bed for the first time in 25 years!

It also looks a lot like an Antlion and indeed, Antlions and Owlflies belong to the same superfamily. They're sisters! Sisters in ~~arms~~ big, massive, poisonous tusks!

They're not twins, though, so there are some differences.

Firstly, Owlflies lay their eggs on twigs and vegetation rather than sand. A good idea, since youngsters spend their time on trees and plants or in the undergrowth. They don't build those sand pit traps so many Antlions do, they just hang around waiting for prey to come close enough to pounce on.

This is probably why their legs look quite normal, compared to the odd menagerie Antlions use for burrowing and flicking sand.

Another curious distinction are the peculiar bits sticking out all around the edge of the Owlfly larva's body, like one of those fringe skirts in full swing. They have these things right from the egg, and they're all hairy and weird. I wonder if they help break up their outline to improve camouflage? Maybe they help keep their whole body flush with the trees or rocks they're standing on?

Image: smccann
Amazing camouflage.
Killed a roach about as big as itself.
Ants don't even know what's going on.

It is remarkable just how flat they can be! It looks like you'd have to peel them off!

However, peel themselves away all little larvae must. They will eventually create a silk cocoon for themselves hidden away in leaf litter.

Image: Sebaho

Soon enough, the adult emerges to embark on their new, rather less savage life. It's interesting that they look a lot like dragonflies while adult Antlions look a lot like damselflies. Then again, they are sisters.

Badger Bat?

2013-04-12T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: DeeAnn Reeder, Bucknell University
Niumbaha superba

Turns out the Wicked Witch of the West was way ahead of her time. On our long journey to achieve the technological holy grail known as "Flying Monkeys", mad scientists have recently announced their latest advance: a flying badger. It's also a munchkin, oddly enough.

Image: DeeAnn Reeder, Bucknell University

We're looking at Niumbaha superba, the Pied Bat. First discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1939, barely anyone in whole world has seen it since. Until now. It's an international celebrity, now

Veteran bat botherer DeeAnn Reeder from Bucknell University is a frequent visitor to South Sudan; she's been going over there with her bat nets and massive, bat-handling gloves since before South Sudan was South Sudan. Since South Sudan became independent in 2011, that's at least a few years. AT LEAST!

Image: DeeAnn Reeder, Bucknell University

She knew she was onto something when she caught this unusual bat with its evidently peculiar and striking black and white patterns. Very much unlike most bats. Quite different. Obviously.

However, DeeAnn Reeder is a professional, so she did a bunch of science by looking at the bat really, really carefully and consulting the scientifical literatum for mention of flying badgers.

Image: DeeAnn Reeder, Bucknell University

It turned out that her leathery mittens contained just the fifth reported sighting of a bat known as Glauconycteris superba, a member of the genus Glauconycteris, also known as butterfly bats. But DeeAnn Reeder knows her butterfly bats, and after looking really, really carefully she knew... this is no butterfly bat!

"Look at that curvy targus!", she howled.
"Look at that zygomatic breadth!", she bellowed.
"And don't even talk about the ratio between the lengths of the 2nd phalanx of the 3rd digit and the 1st phalanx of the 3rd digit!", she demanded.

Thus, a whole new genus was born: Niumbaha, named after the local Zande word for "rare".

Image: DeeAnn Reeder, Bucknell University
HMPH

And does the ungrateful beggar raise so much as a smile? Not a chance!

The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, US Edition

2013-04-11T12:00:00.000+01:00

A quick note to inform you all that The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary by Caspar Henderson is finally out in the United States.

You can get it from Amazon and wherever else. Also, yeah, I'm afraid that there is one of those affiliate links where I get tuppence (maybe even two!) for anything anyone buys after clicking on it. I think I get a percentage, so its a shame they don't sell houses or something on there.

Barring real estate, you could get The Book of Barely Imagined Beings! I wrote a little review when it came out in the UK. It's a great book! Taking us through the myths and legends inspired by animals through the ages, and the knowledge and inspiration that life at its weirdest can still hold for us.

It's full of wonderful examples of how boring, old, natural reality can be just as awe-inspiring as the most beautiful stories we can come up with.

I quite like that. Also Caspar Henderson seems to be ridiculously clever and well read. Just... stupendously so. He probably doesn't have a Facebook account or anything. Proper "book guy"!

You can check out his blog here, which includes the quote "we are monkeys with money and guns" from Tom Waits. Good stuff!

Venus Comb Murex

2013-04-10T12:00:00.001+01:00

Image: museoscienzesgt
Murex Pecten

Ow! Comb? You're calling that a comb? Your hair-dresser pulls that thing out and you're seriously suggesting that the combing of your hair is the first thing to pop in your mind? Really?

We've seen time and time again that this Venus lady really likes beautiful things. I'm not sure what I expected her comb to look like, but it wasn't this. I imagine she carries it in a violin case.

Image: Didier Descouens

"What's in the violin case?"

"Just my comb."

"Alright, lady."

*decapitation*

We're seeing a whole new side of her.

Image: CybersamX

It's the shell of a snail, more specifically a kind of Murex or Rock Snail. At 15 cm (6 in) long, this Indo-Pacific species is pretty big, although a lot of that length is taken up by an incredibly long siphonal canal.

Video: RAKUFUKU
It's a tank. A pointy tank.

The siphon is a long, hose pipe thing used to draw in water for respiration and it's also armed with chemosensory organs to sniff out food. It's a nose, basically. The siphonal canal is a bit of shell that protects the soft, fleshy siphon from attack. At rest, the snail buries itself just below the surface of the sandy sea floor, armoured siphon sticking up into the water.

When it smells something tasty, the Venus Comb Murex can emerge in all its spiky glory and manically shriek "I've come to comb your hair! Bwaaaahahahahaa!!" as it chases down molluscs to eat.

Fireworm, Chloeia

2013-04-07T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: mentalblock_DMD
Red-tipped Fireworm, Chloeia viridis

Fireworms! Because sometimes beauty causes a painful rash.

We've seen the Bearded Fireworm before but I thought it would be cool to see what some of their relatives get up to. Especially since it seems like the thing that guy fished up last time was in fact a Fireworm of the genus Chloeia.

Image: wildsingapore

There are about two dozen species in this Indo-Pacific genus and all the ones I've seen are quite lovely to look at, with all sorts of colours and patterns all over their fuzzy-wuzzy body. They're a lot like those caterpillars. You know the ones. The colourful, fuzzy ones everyone tells you not to touch because they'll sting and it'll hurt and you'll cry.

Fireworms are just like that. They're BRISTLING with painful, stinging... bristles. They're sharp and keen to embed themselves in skin. where they easily break off and stay there like a splinter, only more poisonous. Think of it more as a a conga line of aquatic wasps walking around being pretty.

Video: shachimaru1

And they really do walk. These are polychaetes, the ones with the fleshy bits on their sides that pretend to be legs. These have yet more bristles attached so the Fireworm can crawl around the place, looking like some weird half stinging caterpillar, half stinging centipede, half nest-of-stinging-wasps thing. That's THREE halves. All of which sting. So wear gloves. Or those massive foam hands. Or a collection of tiny ones.

Image: mentalblock_DMD
Diving into a burrow

It's evident that at least some of these Fireworms are able to burrow into the sand and I suppose they'll spend some of their time in there, but eventually they get hungry. You might not like them when they're hungry.

Video: ebikaniaquarium

It's not necessarily the strange, gaping mouth which seems to pop out from nowhere...

Image: mentalblock_DMD

It's the corpses.

Image: mentalblock_DMD

Fireworms aren't above a bit of scavenging...

Image: mentalblock_DMD

Quite lot of scavenging...

Image: mentalblock_DMD

Like hairy Hagfish.

Image: mentalblock_DMD

Or a bone-nest of wasp nests.

Isn't it always the way? You find someone beautiful to add a bit of colour to your life and then they sting you and munch on a fish-head. *sigh*.

Marine Spider

2013-04-05T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: _liana

Marine! Spider?

MARINE SPIDER?!

Have the world's oceans succumbed to the unstoppable march of the arachnids? Do they seek to take their rightful place as the first thing you think about when you hear the word "Octopod"? Are the so-called Sea Spiders quaking in their overly long boots as the Arachnid Army wage war to seize their title?

Image: _liana

Not really, no.

Unlike Sea Spiders, the Marine Spider really is a proper, actual spider. But it isn't really marine. It doesn't swim through the sea or walk on the ocean floor. It can just about scamper across the water's surface, but that's about it. At least when it comes to being active...

Marine Spiders are primarily nocturnal and do all their work at low tide. When the water level rises, they seek out a hidey-hole and use their silk to seal it up against the flood. Now they can relax, keep dry and breathe air. Hey, that's just like me! Once the water subsides, they can leave their hovel and start the killing. Hey, that's just like... no comment.

Image: budak
Desis martensi

Marine Spiders are a dozen or so species in the genus Desis. They can be found in parts of Africa, Asia and Australasia and are part of an entire family of intertidal spiders, but none seem to put quite so much effort into having really massive jaws.

Image: micamonkey

These are still really small spiders so their diet is comprised of tiny insects and shrimp. But one mustn't be complacent. They are quite literally testing the waters. The aquatic invasion soon comes...

The Majestic Spirit

2013-04-03T12:00:00.000+01:00

Aglow in the submersible lights...

A ghost slowly inches its way toward the camera.

The very picture of self-assured elegance, it progresses through the dark, snowy night with rhythmic undulations of its wing-like projections.

Between the suffocating pressure of an endless night and the ragged terrain of a broken ground, a majestic spirit ponders.

Video: NEPTUNE Canada

I don't know if this is an actual Pacific White Skate, but it is a skate in the depths of the Pacific Ocean. And it's very, very white.

The contrast is amazing - the darkness to the light, the rugged terrain to the smooth skin. It sticks out like a sore thumb. A silky smooth, lily-white, sore thumb.

Antlion

2013-03-31T12:00:00.000+01:00

Image: Larah McElroy

Grrrr! Snarl! It's the Antlion! An insect who's infamy is matched only by its own murderous ingenuity. Yet it's just a baby and, like some emotionally damaged child actor, no-one cares about them once they reach adulthood.

Antlions are some 2,000 species in the family Myrmeleontidae. Myrme-leon-tidae. Myrme comes from the Greek for "ant", leon the Greek for "lion" and idae is what these family names always end in. Also there's a "t" in there. There's always time for a tea.

Image: Biopix, N Sloth
Myrmeleon formicarius: Larva - Nasty, brutish and short

The term "Antlion" seems to go back thousands of years, with lots and lots of European countries translating "ant" and "lion" into their own language and putting them together. Others have completely different names for it, including the Koreans who call it something that translates to Ant Demon.

Image: Stanislav Krejčík
Myrmeleon formicarius: Adult - Flimsy, fragile and long

Contrast that with the adult. English doesn't really have a word for it. Others call it things like "ant-damselfly" or "thin-winged mayfly", but no-one seems to take the bull by the horns and calls it "pansy" to its delicate, little face.

Image: zxgirl
Hanging out with a Green Lacewing at a net-winged family reunion

It's with the adult that you can see that Antlions are members of the order Neuroptera, the net-winged insects. It just happens they look a lot like a damselfly with long, curly antennae. Some of them at least feed on small arthropods, but others prefer pollen and nectar from flowers. I bet pansies are a favourite. They're not even trying to hide it.

But back to the Antlion - the REAL Antlion - the fearsome larva . Being larvae, they're basically babies and toddlers. We all know babies look just like Winston Churchill on a bad day and temper tantrums bear a striking resemblance to demonic possession, but the Antlion adds to this a malignant intellect and a sinister patience.

Image: Innovation_School
Some day, all this will be mine...

It begins with the hatching of an egg previously laid in sand. The wind blows cold, the birds cease their song and a tiny beast emerges from the dust.

Image: Bill & Mark Bell

It is utterly grotesque. The body? Plump, rotund, hunchbacked and grotesque. The head? Square, low-slung, tiny-eyed and grotesque. In between is a thin, mobile neck which provides the head with great manoeuvrability. Because that's more grotesque than the alternative.

Image: Biopix, N Sloth
Underside, showing the strange legs

The overall effect is oddly comical. The Antlion appears clumsy and oafish despite its six long legs. It lumbers across the sand, dragging its ponderous body along and carving out a trail behind it.

It is for this trail that the Americans, ever the optimist, call them Doodlebugs. Such a whimsical appellation perhaps displays an undue confidence, or else merely the cheerful enthusiasm in the face of certain death which we, the thinking ape, are forever doomed to sustain.

Image: graftedno1
It hurts even from here

For this baby has jaws. The sickle-shaped jaws are as long as the Antlion's head and truly savage in appearance. They also bear within them a hollow channel through which venom flows to be injected by the sharp points. It is clear: something, somewhere doesn't stand a chance against the Antlion. Ants, maybe?

Some Antlions are simple ambush predators. They hide in nooks and crannies and pounce on anything that passes by. Others put a little more thought in their method of capture and have discovered a far more torturous way of seizing their quarry.

It's the Antlion's sand pit. By walking backwards, they use that hefty abdomen of theirs to plough through the arid sand. They then use those long legs to push the displaced sand onto their large, square head and then, with a smart flick of the neck, the sand is cast out from the area. Every grotesque body part is put to work. The end result is grotesque, naturally.

Image: Clearly Ambiguous

The Sand Pit of Doom. Or as the Japanese call it, "ant-hell". The fact that it sounds like "anthill" and is the complete opposite in every possible way is probably just a morbid irony.

Here's how Ant Hell works:

Ant wanders around looking for food to share with her sisters back at the socialist utopia/dystopia, depending on how you look at it.
Ant investigates every nook and cranny. Finds one of them is a little slippery.
Ant isn't one for mathematics. She doesn't realise that she has blundered onto a slope that's at the critical angle of repose - at the slightest touch from her little ant-feet, sand immediately begins to cascade down into a pit, taking her with it.
"Repose" actually means "rest". Ant doesn't want to rest. She struggles and fights to escape, but the very ground beneath her falls away.
From the bottom of the pit, yet more loose sand is flicked at her, ensuring she has no chance of gaining a secure grip.
A large pair of mandibles grip her, pierce her exoskeleton and inject her with paralytic venom.
Mandibles drag her beneath the sand and suck out her internal fluids.
Ant begins to rest.

Once sucked dry, the empty husk is flicked out and away like a headful of refuse sand. The Antlion can now repair the deathtrap in preparation for the next victim.

Image: smccann

It's a terrible way to go. The Antlion is a true ogre in our midst. An ogre without an anus. As it happens. Antlions can live as larvae for several years and they store up all their waste products for this entire time. That's dedication if nothing else. Oh, and disgusting. It's also disgusting.

But, all good things must come to an end. And some bad things, too. Eventually, the Antlion delves deeper into the sand and spins a silk cocoon. It finally uses the bathroom after several years of holding it in and after about a month, an adult Antlion emerges in all its pansy glory.

Image: Larah McElroy

It may have a wingspan of anything between 2 and 15 cm (1 to 6 in), but its always significantly larger than its monstrous previous life. This is partly due to its thin exoskeleton; adult Antlions are are just incredibly delicate, a mere slip of a thing compared to their powerful, brutish young.

They're not strong fliers, but they can at least fly through the night in search of a mate to ensure a new generation of Ant Demons will build their pits of Ant Hell and continue the slaughter. And at least they have an anus, by God.

Hairy Octopus

2013-03-29T12:00:00.000Z

You'll NEVER guess what a Hairy Octopus is! Go on, try!

Nope.

Nope.

No! Although Dr. Octopus: The Hippie Years sounds like a great idea to me.

Give up?

It's an octopus! And it's hairy! I bet you're kicking yourself, right?

This little fellow reaches just 2 to 5 cm (an inch or two) long and has been spotted around the coral reefs of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

Their whole body is covered in bits of skin to give it the hairy look. Sitting on a rock, it looks like a clump of algae and is easily overlooked.

They're very rare and apparently don't even have a scientific name yet. Also, they're something of a holy grail for divers. A hairy, eight armed holy grail, sitting on a rock, pulsating as it eyes you warily. Sounds unholy to me!

What I really want to see is the hairdressers the Hairy Octopus and the Orangutan Crab go. It's out there somewhere and someone shouldn't rest until they find it! And show me. Meanwhile I'll stay here, resting.

Hairy Sea Hare

2013-03-27T12:00:00.000Z

Image: DuPont, Anne
Bursatella leachii

Hares are usually hairy. But slugs?

The Hairy, Shaggy or Ragged Sea Hare is a unique Sea Hare that reaches more or less 10 cm (4 in) long and can be found in Indo-Pacific, Caribbean and Mediterranean waters.

Image: DuPont, Anne

Oh, and they're hairy! And shaggy. And ragged.

Image: mentalblock_DMD

Actually it isn't hair at all, it's all fleshy, sticky-out bits. Or branching papillae. Papillated Sea Hare!

It all provides great camouflage when they're among the kind of sea weed and algae they eat. Even out in the open they probably look like that thing when Bugs Bunny hides in a bush and walks around the place.

Image: [wj]

Hairy Sea Hares can't swim through the water like some others can. They have those wing-like parapodia on their sides, but they seem to be mostly fused together.

They have the rhinophores and oral tentacles for sniffing out their surroundings, they're just really difficult to discern from all the other bits and bobs sticking out all over the place.

They also have rows of blue spots along their body.

Image: wildsingapore

When disturbed, they'll fire off a load of ink to shoo you away.

Hairy Sea Hares in Love

When a mummy/daddy Hairy Sea Hare and a daddy/mummy Hairy Sea Hare love each other very much...

Image: mentalblock_DMD

Actually no...

Image: mentalblock_DMD

Hairy Sea Hares often get together in mountainous orgies of hairy, hermaphrodite love. The sheer quantity of love here is incredibly moving and brings a tear to the eye.

Image: mentalblock_DMD

Even if their egg ribbons look a lot like spaghetti. Which should be fine so long as the parents stay in the sea...

Image: wildsingapore

A Hairy Sea Hare out of water looks suspiciously akin to a meatball several months after its use-by date.