Ecology & Zoology

I live in an academic bubble into which very little pop culture penetrates. I guess a few years ago there was a movie called The Squid and the Whale? I have just learned of its existence. Disappointingly, it features no marine animals or underwater scenes (so obviously, I haven't actually watched it, and probably never will).

"Televison Without Pity" explains the problem:

We realize that the title is meant to refer to Jeff Daniels and Laura
Linney, who play intellectual parents whose relationship is
deteriorating. Locked in a constant struggle with each other for the

A couple of years ago, Dr. Kubodera, who has a remarkable talent for filming large, unusual squid underwater, got some footage of Taningia danae. This octopoteuthid squid is notable for a) being large, b) lacking tentacles as an adult, d) having big, bright photophores on the tips of two of its arms and c) swimming with fins rather than jet propulsion.

Addressing points a)-c), we have a 2007 article from National Geographic:

Female water striders don't like the bad boys and they don't even have to reach the age of 30 before they wise up about choices in males.

Water striders are those insects commonly seen skittering hurriedly across the surface of streams but when it comes to romance, male water striders who played it cool mated with more females than did groups of aggressive males, according to a study led by Omar Tonsi Eldakar of the University of Arizona's Arizona Research Laboratories.

Biologists say they have found a population of tropical butterflies that may be on its way to a split into two distinct species. The cause of this particular break-up? A shift in wing color and mate preference.

In a paper published this week in the journal Science, the researchers describe the relationship between diverging color patterns in Heliconius butterflies and the long-term divergence of populations into new and distinct species.

But you wouldn't know that from reading this article in the Winnipeg Free Press. It's like the definition of irresponsible journalism: repeating rumor as fact, failing to interview experts, and just flat-out making things up.

For example, did you know that "dime-sized suction cups on the tentacles of squid are lined with sharp teeth that leave permanent scars if they contact human skin?" No, you didn't, because it's not true. I've been scratched by these "teeth" countless times, and nope, no scars.

In 1960, Frank Drake did something extremely clever. At least it was something the people in my lab would consider clever. He wrote down an equation that would define how frequent detectable, intelligent life is in the galaxy, if only we knew the values of the variables.

The Drake Equation (simple form, there are a lot of variations and adjustments):
,where:

You're toxic, I'm slipping under . . .

The music video for Britney Spears' hit Toxic would have been so much better with truly toxic creatures in starring roles. Can you imagine the pop star serving drinks to newts, dancing with a pufferfish, and finally, of course, succumbing to the deadly embrace of a blue-ringed octopus?

Charles Darwin described a canid on the Falkland Islands, off the east coast of Argentina, but it has long been extinct.  Darwin called it Canis antarcticus, placing it in the same genus as the domestic dog, wolf and coyote

Since then, biologists have also puzzled over the Falklands wolf's ancestry, with suggestions that they were related to domestic dogs, North American coyotes, or South American foxes. The wolves were the size of a coyote, but much stockier, with fur the color of a red fox. They had short muzzles, just like gray wolves, and thick, wooly fur. 

Yay! "Squid Says: What's For Dinner?" made it into the finalists^*. To celebrate, here is one of my all-time favorite cephalopod pix.

I know, I know, it's a not a squid! But isn't it the cutest? The picture is by James Wood, who was the first to ever witness mating and hatching in this species--a deep-sea octopus named Bathypolypus arcticus. This pleasantly informative Latin name translates to "Arctic deep-water octopus."

In honor of the impending holiday, the LA Times offers up a selection of thirteen "Nightmares from the animal kingdom".

No costumed ghouls, ghosts or goblins that may ring your doorbell this Oct. 31 can compare with the all-too-real, creepy-crawly, slimy and all-around bizarre critters conjured up by
Mother Nature. They're weird, they're wild and they're ready to invade your nightmares.