Feb 27 2012

Mary’s Monday Metazoan: Cutest baby animals ever

Categories:

Organisms

by PZ Myers

(via NatGeo)

(Also on Sb)

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25 comments

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1

Josh, Official SpokesGay

27 February 2012 at 10:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Bleeech.
2

Glen Davidson

27 February 2012 at 10:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I’ve always wanted to hear the slither-slather of little pinks in the house.

Glen Davidson
3

F

27 February 2012 at 10:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Get those mother******* caecilians off the mother******* plane NOW!
4

Happiestsadist

27 February 2012 at 10:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Awww! Lookit them all little and pink and awwww.
5

Therrin

27 February 2012 at 10:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

That would be awesome to stick in a vending machine. Kid puts in a quarter, turns the knob, surprise!
6

Markita Lynda--Happy Darwin's Birthday!

27 February 2012 at 10:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Blind, legless amphibians. I saw one from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) when I was in university–something like a fat earthworm but dryer. They have their own order and this is a new family (in the taxonomic sense).

My cats would love them: strings that pull themselves.
7

Sili

27 February 2012 at 11:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

How do they taste?
8

theophontes, Hexanitroisowurtzitanverwendendes_Bärtierchen

27 February 2012 at 11:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Awww, they are all pink and cuddly like itty bitty baby kittehz!
9

llewelly

28 February 2012 at 12:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It is a remarkable example of rough parallels in evolution – they look like vermiform invertebrates, but they’re tetrapods. (Also, while most caecillians can barely distinguish light from dark, I seem to recall a few do have well-developed eyes, and that was probably the ancestral condition.)
10

JohnnieCanuck

28 February 2012 at 12:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Interestingly, as one of the NatGeo slide captions points out; they emerge from the eggs in adult form with no tadpole stage. Another thing that makes these unusual amphibians.
11

Aratina Cage

28 February 2012 at 12:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Bleeech.

Seconded!
12

scrawnykayaker

28 February 2012 at 1:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Well, someone’s lost their marbles.
13

AshPlant

28 February 2012 at 3:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Gleeaagh! Something about that pushes the ‘wrong!’ button deep in my soul. I think it’s related to my fear of tentacles. They look like they’re coiled with massive potential energy, ready to strike like glutinous springs. Yuk.
14

catdog

28 February 2012 at 5:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

> I think it’s related to my fear of tentacles.

I read that as testicles. *facepalm*

That said, bleeuurrgh.
15

matthewschnetter

28 February 2012 at 6:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Those things are gross, tell them I hate them.
16

unbound

28 February 2012 at 6:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Like every other animal, they look all cute and cuddly now, but wait until they grow up and start eating you out of house and home…
17

AshPlant

28 February 2012 at 6:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I read that as testicles.

I have gradually come to terms with my testicles.
18

w00dview

28 February 2012 at 8:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

These are really unusual amphibians in many ways: blind; legless; no tadpole stage and most species live entirely underground. They seem to be good parents also as the mother grows a layer of skin rich in fats that the young can feed off of. They have small hooked teeth which they use to tear off bits of skin which the mother grows back in three days.

Attenborough covered this strange behaviour here:
19

David Marjanović

28 February 2012 at 8:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Look at their gills! :-)

How do they taste?

I don’t know, like frog?

These are really unusual amphibians in many ways: blind; legless; no tadpole stage and most species live entirely underground. They seem to be good parents also as the mother grows a layer of skin rich in fats that the young can feed off of. They have small hooked teeth which they use to tear off bits of skin which the mother grows back in three days.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That’s one species, and not the one shown in the post. There are also species that don’t even lay eggs, but the young grow up in the oviduct and eat the oviduct lining; and there are other species that lay eggs which hatch into unspectacular aquatic larvae that later undergo unspectacular metamorphosis.

There are about 200 known species of caecilians.
20

pyttank

28 February 2012 at 8:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Caecilians!
I’ve dissected a few and they are truly fascinating.
21

David Utidjian

28 February 2012 at 10:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

They look like they might taste like bacon if prepared properly. Yummy.
22

Tualha

28 February 2012 at 11:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Great lines from an SF novel, Wyrm:

“So, what looks like a worm and acts like a worm, but isn’t a worm?”

“A caecilian!”

“No ethnic slurs, please.”
23

ericpaulsen

28 February 2012 at 11:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Wow. I have never seen a picture of baby Slinkys™ before. Thanks PZ.
24

w00dview

28 February 2012 at 1:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@ David Marjanović
Fair enough. I should have checked to see if that behaviour was more widespread or not. Making sweeping generalisations about any group of organisms is a risky move as nature will often prove you wrong. I work with fish for goodness sakes so I should not fall into this trap!
25

tim rowledge, Ersatz Haderach

28 February 2012 at 6:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Who’s a cute widdle baby Chthulhu den – cutey-wutey. You is! Dat’s who!