Sepia pharaonis
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
The fugu is a famous fish, at least as a Japanese sushi dish containing a potentially lethal neurotoxin that was featured on an episode of The Simpsons. Fugu is a member of the pufferfish group, which have another claim to fame: an extremely small genome, roughly a tenth the size of that of other vertebrates. The genome of several species of pufferfish is being sequenced, and the latest issue of Nature announces the completion of a draft sequence for the green spotted pufferfish, Tetraodon nigroviridis, a small freshwater species.
Creationists are fond of the “it can’t happen” argument: they like to point to things like the complexity of the eye or intricate cell lineages and invent bogus rules like “irreducible complexity” so they can claim evolution is impossible. In particular, it’s easy for them to take any single organism in isolation and go oooh, aaah over its elaborate detail, and then segue into the argument from personal incredulity.
The Art of Science exhibition has many lovely pictures in the galleries, but I think my favorite is this image of Nodal expression in zebrafish.
Some days, I just have to get the cephalopod obsession out of my system with a quick purge of links from the mailbag.
Robot tentacles (via Amygdala)
Ancient octopus cartoon (via Holbo)
Lots of people have been sending me the link to the Vintage Octopus Pulp Covers site. It’s very cool.
It makes me wonder why so many people are infatuated with cephalopods, though. Weirdos.
Once upon a time, there was teeny-weeny adorable little fish called Paedocypris. Then, one day, a population of bulldozers invaded their habitat, and they couldn’t compete, and they died.
The good news, though, is that a new species of Paedocypris has been discovered.
Amirrudin said the new discovery was significant because it was the only undisturbed habitat of this species. “There are still thousands of the fish in that peat swamp. My worry is that this habitat will end up like the one in Bukit Merah, disturbed by the construction of a road that killed all the specimens,” he said.
Maybe we need to classify bulldozers as an invasive species, one that can be dismantled on sight.
(via Marcus)
I never heard of this before: there exists a rare, giant, albino earthworm in the scrub prairies of the Palouse. It grows to be 3 feet long, and smells like lilies.
I scarcely believed it myself—that’s also Sasquatch country out there, you know—so I had to look it up. The Giant Palouse Earthworm (Driloleirus americanus) is real. They’re so rare, though, that one hasn’t been spotted in almost 20 years…until last year. A new specimen was found, and unfortunately, fixed in formaldehyde right away. I thought this quote was a little sad.
Unlike the celebration touched off by last year’s sighting in Arkansas of the ivory-billed woodpecker—a bird not seen in 60 years and thought to be extinct—the giant earthworm Sanchez-de Leon found last year already has been consigned to a jar of formaldehyde.
“Realistically, the giant Palouse earthworm is a lot less charismatic than a giant woodpecker,” said James “Ding” Johnson, head of the University of Idaho’s Department of Plant, Soil and Entomology Sciences.
My apologies to GrrlScientist, but I’d much rather see a giant white worm than some boring old bird.
