Unusual Worm Locomotion

Click on the picture above (or here) to see a video of this worm and its very unusual form of locomotion. There is no positive identification of the species, although it is possibly a boot-lace or ribbon worm.

One Year in Two Minutes

Below is a neat video of images taken from the same spot throughout one year*:



* This is the HD version. If it does not play smoothly on your computer, click on it to go to the original YouTube page and click "watch in normal quality."

Top 10 New Organisms of 2008

The following is from this list of just a few of the species revealed to the world in 2008:

Stiphrornis pyrrholaeumus, also known as the olive-backed forest robin, was found during a biodiversity expedition in Gabon. Scientists know little more about S. pyrrholaeumus other than it exists:



Leptotyphlops carlae was found in a patch of forest on the eastern side of Barbados. Thin as a spaghetti noodle and small enough to curl up on a quarter, it's believed to embody the evolutionary limits of snake smallness:



Only three specimens of Martialis heureka have been found, all outside the Amazon jungle city of Manaus — but that's all scientists needed to trace a direct evolutionary lineage to the last known ancestor of all living ants, a subterranean creature that lived 120 million years ago:



The first new elephant shrew in 126 years, the 18-ounce Rhynchocyon udzungwensis — also called the grey-faced sengi — is a giant in its family (which, technically, are not shrews, though they are distantly related to elephants):



Undiscovered parasites are relatively common, but Myrmeconema neotropicum does something no other parasite can: mimic fruit. The abdomens of infected ants swell and turn bright red, making them easy targets for berry-hungry birds who then spread M. neotropicum's eggs in their droppings:



Carpomys melanurus, or the greater dwarf cloud rat, was first observed 112 years ago, and never seen again. Until it was found again in the rain-forest treetops of the Philippines, scientists thought it was extinct:



Tridacna costata is the first giant clam species found in two decades, and not a moment too soon: Fossil evidence suggests it once made up 80 percent of Red Sea giant clams, and now accounts for just 1 percent:



A new catfish, Rhinodoras gallagheri:



When biologists in New Zealand compared modern yellow-eyed penguins to centuries-old museum specimens, they realized that the birds were not the same species. Megadyptes waitaha is a brand-new species that's already extinct:



With only 8,000 of an estimated 3 million bacterial species identified, new bugs aren't hard to find. But unlike Chryseobacterium greenlandensis, they don't usually date from the late Pleistocene. Unthawed from ice recovered two miles below the surface of a 120,000-year-old Greenland glacier, C. greenlandensis appears unchanged by its time in deep-freeze. Its discoverers aren't sure whether it shut down or just slowed down its metabolism:

Just.... a little bit further... almost there...

Life on Earth Not Getting Much Bigger

According to scientists, the scale of life on Earth won't likely expand beyond its present limits.

Analysis of the fossil record shows that life has undergone two profound jumps in size — from bacteria to eukaryotic cells, and from single-celled to multi-celled organisms.

In each case, possible body size increased by a factor of one to two million. After the second jump, say comparative zoologists, bodies hit the limits of Earthly possibility. Both of these jumps coincided with massive increases in atmospheric oxygen, and another such increase in geochemical nutrients is unlikely.

Today's blue whale is about ten times larger than any other animal. If there were a species whose individuals were a million times the mass of a blue whale, their nutrient demands would be so large that you couldn't have many species like that on the planet. Potentially you could have just one, according to the researchers.



Original article here.

Octupuses Prefer HDTV

Researchers recently discovered that octopuses can watch television and understand at least some of what they see. However, they only enjoy high-definition programs.

The discovery was made while resolving a long scientific debate about whether octupuses, despite their intelligence, have individual personalities (read more about the personality findings in the source article).

During the experiment, 32 common Sydney, or gloomy, octopuses from Chowder Bay, near Mosman, Australia, were showed a series of three-minute videos screened on a monitor in front of their tank.

One video featured a crab, an octopus delicacy. A second starred another octopus, while a third had a "novel object" they would not have seen: a plastic bottle swinging on a string.

When the crab movie was screened "they jetted straight over to the monitor and tried to attack it", the researcher said, adding that was strong evidence they knew they were watching food.

When the octopus movie was screened some became aggressive while others changed their skin camouflage or "would go and hide in a corner, moving as far away as possible".

On viewing the swinging bottle, some puffed themselves up, just in case the object was a threat, while others paid no attention.

The researcher suspected previous efforts to show movies to octopuses failed because their sophisticated eyes were too fast for the 24-frame per second format of standard-definition video. They would have seen it as a series of still pictures. The high-definition format operates at 50 frames per second.

Original article here.

Mekong Delta "Treasure Trove" of New Species

A rat believed to be extinct for 11 million years, a spider with a foot-long legspan, and a hot pink cyanide-producing "dragon millipede" are among the thousand newly discovered species in the largely unexplored Mekong Delta region.

The region, including parts of Vietnam and five other countries, is home to 1,068 species found between 1997 and 2007, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The organization's report "First Contact in the Greater Mekong" (PDF) says 519 plants, 279 fish, 88 frogs, 88 spiders, 46 lizards, 22 snakes, 15 mammals, four birds, four turtles, two salamanders and a toad were found.

Some of the creatures were not lurking in fertile floodplains or tropical foliage. A scientist visiting an outdoor restaurant was startled to see a Laotian rock rat among the nearby wildlife. The hairy, nocturnal, thick-tailed rat, which resembles a squirrel, had been thought for centuries to be extinct.

Perhaps a more startling discovery than the rat was a bright green pit viper scientists spotted slithering through the rafters of a restaurant in Khao Yai National Park in Thailand.

Below are several pictures of the creatures taken from this CNN photo gallery. See also this video from CNN discussing the discoveries. At the top of the post is a Youtube video from the WWF introducing the discoveries.

World's Oldest Spider Web

The world's oldest spider web has been found in a piece of amber on the south coast of England, scientists announced recently.

Until the new find, the oldest known amber containing ancient animals dated to the Middle Cretaceous period, about 120 million years ago. But the new find has pushed back the "amber window" to 140 million years ago, during the heyday of the dinosaurs.

Video of Molecules Moving in Living Cells

A new microscopic imaging technique has provided what may be the most realistic real-time video yet of molecules moving in living cells.

Called Stimulated Raman Scattering, it uses laser beams to hit molecules, causing them to vibrate. Tracking the vibrations produces a sequence of point-by-point molecular maps.

Examples of practical applications include companies making skin care products who can use the SRS technique to see how different ingredients of their formulations distribute and diffuse in skin, or the food industry mapping distributions of fats, proteins and sugars in food products. It will eventually be used for tumor diagnostics in hospital as well.

The video shows fat molecules (bright yellow perimeter) at different depths in mouse skin.

Original article here.

Frog with Green Blood and Turquoise Bones

A frog with green blood and turquoise bones has been discovered in Cambodia's remote Cardamom Mountains, international conservation organization Fauna & Flora International announced.

The Samkos bush frog (Chiromantis samkosensis) is thought to be extremely rare. Its strange colored bones and blood are caused by the pigment biliverdin, a waste product usually processed in the liver.

In this species, the biliverdin is passed back into the blood giving it a green color; a phenomenon also seen in some lizards. The green biliverdin is visible through the frog's thin, translucent skin, making it even better camouflaged and possibly even causing it to taste unpalatable to predators.

Original article here.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Squirrel

...or "Kung Fu Squirrels" if you prefer. Funny pictures taken from this article.

Dolphins use sponges to catch fish

A new study found that some bottlenose dolphins gather up sea sponges in their jaws and use them to uncover fish hidden under the sand – but the behaviour is largely restricted to females for unknown reasons. This is the first and only clear case of tool-use in a wild dolphin or a whale.

In animal species that use tools – such as the chimpanzee – usually all individuals in a population use the tools. But in one population of dolphins, in Shark Bay, Western Australia, only 41 dolphins, in a population of thousands, are known to use sponges.

The scientists found that the "spongers" would slowly swim along the sand of the sea floor, intermittently disturbing it with the sponge in order to find small burrowing fish such as the spothead grubfish (Parapercips clathrata). Their survey also revealed that spongers are nearly all female and the behavioral trait is often passed from mothers to daughters.

Because there is a wide variety of prey available to bottlenose dolphins, but each prey species is highly adapted to escape predators, individual dolphins specialize in different hunting techniques.

Original article here.

Assassin Spiders

Researchers working in Madagascar discovered nine species of "assassin spiders" — a family of arachnids that feast on other eight-leggers — during a four-year survey of the island nation's forests. They have a fearsome appearance, poisonous bite, and deadly hunting skills.

The spiders stab their prey with their giant jaws, which are barbed at the ends with venomous fangs. To be able to lift their outsized jaws, the assassins evolved elongated necks, giving the spiders a unique ability to strike from a distance. The assassin spiders are only an eighth of an inch long and are harmless to humans.

Original article here.

World's oldest living animal discovered

A recently discovered photograph has helped mark Jonathan the Tortoise as the oldenst animal on the planet.

He is believed to be 176-years-old and was about 70 at the time the black and white picture was taken. It was taken on the South Atlantic island of St. Helena, where Jonathan still lives today, along with five other tortoises David, Speedy, Emma, Fredricka and Myrtle, in a plantation.

Despite his old age, locals say he still has the energy to regularly mate with the three younger females. Officials say that Jonathan is the sole survivor of three tortoises that arrived on St Helena Island in 1882. He was already mature and at least 50 years old upon arrival. His minimum age therefore is 176-years-old.

St. Helena's greatest claim to fame came when Napoleon was exiled there in 1815. He was held prisoner there until his death in 1821 and is buried there.

Original article here.

UPDATE 12/29/2008:

According to this article, there is some debate arising as to whether Jonathan is really the world's oldest living being. A local businessman and amateur historian has said he strongly suspects the creature in the old picture above actually died 90 years ago. The possible confusion may have arisen because of a curious tradition among islanders of passing on nicknames from father to son. In this case, the islanders may have just renamed the next largest tortoise Jonathan after the original passed away.

Otto the Troublemaking Octopus

Staff at an aquarium in Germany believe that an octopus called Otto had been annoyed by the bright light shining into his aquarium and had discovered he could short-circuit it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction.

Otto has been bored as the aquarium is closed for the winter, and is constantly craving attention while coming up with new stunts. Once staffers saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank, while another time he threw stones against the glass damaging it. And from time to time he completely re-arranges his tank to make it suit his own taste better to the distress of his fellow tank inhabitants.

Alien-like Magnapinna Squid Caught on Film

A mile and a half underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, a remote control submersible's camera captured an eerie surprise: a rarely-seen, alien-like, long-armed, and "elbowed" Magnapinna squid.

Magnapinna, or "big fin," squid remain largely a mystery to science. Based on analysis of similar videos, scientists know that the adult Magnapinna observed to date range from 5 to 23 feet long. By contrast, the largest known giant squid measured about 52 feet long.

And whereas giant squid and other cephalopods have eight short arms and two long tentacles, Magnapinna has ten indistinguishable appendages that all appear to be the same length.

For a video an in-depth article on the Magnapinnna, see here. For additional photographs, see here.

Thousands of New Species Discovered on Tiny Island

During the Santo 2006 biodiversity survey in Vanuatu, scientists from 20 countries fanned out across the remote South Pacific island of Espiritu Santo, examining mountains, forests, caves, reefs, and water for all living organisms. In five months, they collected 10,000 species. Some 2,000 of these may be new to science. About 600 of these were crab species.

Below are several examples of the new species that were found. More pictures and information can be found here and here.


Squat lobster:



Pink limpet snails:



Another squat lobster:




Feather star crab:


Sundial snail (already known to science, but interesting):

Sea animals navigate with magnetic maps

Scientists may have solved one of the most intriguing puzzles in marine biology - how sea creatures navigate across thousands of miles of ocean with pinpoint accuracy. They have found evidence that sea turtles and salmon can read the “magnetic map” of their native area and imprint it into their memories. They do this by reading and remembering variations in the earth's magnetic field.

In some ocenaic regions rocks rich in magnetic minerals produce local magnetic anomalies, according to scientists. These have often been viewed as potential problems for magnetically sensitive species but an interesting possibility is that anomalies might also serve as useful markers.

You can read more about this disovery here.

Northern Saw-Whet Owl Found in Alabama

Contrary to its name and generations of record-keeping, it turns out that the Northern saw-whet owl (see here and here) has been spending some secret time in the South, including Alabama.

The saw-whet owl has had the birding world fooled since the beginning of American records, which show that the bird can be found only in the northern United States and Canada. It was known to migrate over other parts of the continent, but never as far south as Alabama -- until Bob and Martha Sargent caught nine of the owls at their Clay, Alabama home.

The Sargents use some technology that wasn't available to past bird-watchers, including an MP3 player to call the owl. Using nets, amplifiers and an MP3 player calling the bird in, the Sargents finally got nine owls on their third year of trying.

The saw-whet is named for its frightened shriek that sounds like a saw sharpening.



Original article here.

Foxfire (or Glow-In-The-Dark Fungus)

Foxfire is a natural phenomenon sometimes visible at night in forests. It's caused by bioluminescent fungi in special conditions - usually on rotting bark. Foxfire is caused by a range of different species of fungi, though Armillaria mellea appears to be the most common source. The bluish-green glow is similar to glow-in-the-dark toys. Below are several example pictures taken from this photo gallery of foxfire in Japan:

Chicken Head Tracking

An interesting video showing how chickens "track" with their heads.

Aye-aye!

The Aye-aye is a "near threatened" primate native to Madagascar that combines very strange looks with rodent-like teeth and a long, thin middle finger. It is the world's largest nocturnal primate, and is characterized by its unusual method of finding food: it taps on trees to find grubs, then gnaws holes in the wood and inserts its elongated middle finger to pull the grubs out. Below are some pictures of the Aye-Aye taken from this gallery: