Spider Food

I came back home from the hospital (with new baby boy and happy mommy in tow), only to find my inbox deluged with links to one of the most horrifying pictures I've had to post.

You're looking at a Golden Orb Weaver dining on a snared chestnut-breasted mannikin, near Atherton, west of Cairns, Australia. The photo is real, that bird is spider food, and that spider is now a permanent resident (demi-lord) in my ever growing nightmare-scape.

Golden Orb Weavers don't typically eat birds, but that's small consolation to the erstwhile mannikin.

Thanks for the article, Betsy, Tracy, Theodosia, Alex, Miro, Carrie, Lee Ann, Laura, Tanya,
Christiaan, Peter, Ida, and Liz.

And, here's another photo of it...

Lack of Posts

I apologize for the lack of posts. My wife just gave birth a couple of days ago to our son (the clan keeps growing!), and life has gotten crazy. I was going to keep up on the posts, but we came home from the hospital only to find that my wireless router was dead. I've hijacked my in-laws' computer for a few minutes to send out this quick update.

More uglies will be rolling out here shortly. I need something to counter balance all of the cuteness at home.

The Bee Ball

Many of you (myself included) were disturbed by my post on Giant Japanese Wasps, and the utter destruction they can visit upon unsuspecting honey bees (killing every single worker bee before absconding with the bee larvae). One thought I had was, why aren't the bees defending themselves?

Turns out bee stingers aren't strong enough to pierce the chitinous hides of the wasp. But native Japanese bees have developed a very effective response to the wasp attack. The Bee Ball.





















The tactic: when a wasp is first spotted, about 100 worker bees hang out by the hive opening and keep it open, thereby luring the wasp inside. Once the wasp has entered, 500 bees, who were lying in wait, swarm the wasp and latch onto it in a bee ball as seen above. The bees then begin to buzz and flap their wings, raising the temperature inside the ball to 47 degrees celsius. The bees can tolerate the temperature just fine, but the wasp has already reached its fatal limit at 45 degrees. The bees literally cook the invader to death.

Honey bees FTW. One more reason to keep a special place in your heart for the little honey makers. And one more reason to steer clear of group hugs.

Thanks for the link, omgwtf.

Clever Little Icefish

Anarctic icefish are the subject of study in the war against a host of bone diseases. It turns out that these fish, who live their entire lives in southern waters whose surface doesn't go above freezing, have some interesting traits. They have no red blood cells--a liability in freezing temps. And, they've largely shed their skeletal system. Their native frigid waters are energy poor, and since bone is dense, not having much in the way of bone allows them to use less energy to maintain their bouyancy. Clever little icefish.

Photo source: The Antarctic Sun


















So, why do humans care? Because if we can pinpoint exactly how and where the icefish developed this lack of mineralizing of their skeletons, we'll be better able to understand our own mineral deficiencies, as seen in diseases such as osteopenia and osteoporosis. And knowledge is half the battle. Give up your secrets, ice fish. Clever or not, we'll make you talk.

Line of Inquiry

Hunters come in all sorts of packages, ranging from the sleek jaguar of the Amazon to the wolf packs of North America to the...the velvet worm.

The velvet worm is neither velvet nor a worm. These small hunters (ranging from 1 inch to 1 foot in length) belong to their own little phylum of Onychophora. They move like caterpillars (similar speed too), but their 'feet' (which again, aren't feet--they're called lobopods) move through hydrostatic pressure, since these critters have no skeleton and little in the way of musculature.
























Q: So, what do they hunt?
A: Invertebrates.

Q: Ah, but how do they hunt?
A: When they spot prey, they spray a sticky substance at it, at a distance of over a foot and a half if needed. The goop quickly congeals and cements its prey to the ground, giving the velvet worm the opportunity to eat at its leisure. The velvet worm undulates up, bites the prey with its mandibles, and injects its own blend of digestive juices, which liquefies the innards of the prey. The velvet worm then slurps up the invert-gut-gruel.

Q: But how does it access the gruel?
A: By rasping its prey with its tongue that is covered with sharp teeth.

I'll stop asking questions now. I don't like where this line of inquiry is going.

Thanks for the photos, Jelo.

Conch Eyes

Stare into the squirrelly eyes of the conch. There are oodles of different types of this marine mollusk, some of which are true conchs, some of which have elaborate shells that lend themselves to use as horns by youths trapped on an island inhabited by pigs, and some of which have the crazy eyes you see below. I think Jim Hensen used these as inspiration for a lot of his creations.

Thanks for the photo, linty.

Photo source: WildSingapore.com.sg

Covered with Barnacles

Neil photographed this meta-crustacean on the beach at Cayucos, CA. It's a purple shore crab (Hemigrapsus nudus), covered with barnacles.

Did you know that barnacles are crustaceans? I didn't, until Neil told me. Turns out there are 1,800 or so species of the sessile suspension feeders. I agree with Neil's assessment that the barnacles didn't pick a very good place to settle. They'll be cast aside when the crab molts. When will barnacles ever learn?

Thanks for the crab, Neil.





















Here's a picture of my own hand holding what might just be a purple shore crab. But since there are a variety of small crabs that inhabit the western shores of North America (from British Columbia to Baja California), I can't be certain. The little crab was cast back into the tidal pool from whence it came.

Earthquake Harbinger

Taiwanese fishermen caught a 3.5 meter fish off Taiwan's east coast. The fish is a Regalecus glesne, also known as the King of Herrings (it's good to be king, but of herrings?). Considered to be the largest of the bony fish, it lives at depths of up to 1000 meters.

So why were fishermen able to catch it? We don't know -- but the fishermen have an idea. They think the fact that the fish came toward the surface means that an earthquake is imminent. Well, only time will tell. Still, though; don't the fishermen know that you don't kill the messenger?

Thanks for the video, Marshall.