Wishes for the coming year

We love ugly animals, but still, even we think they should stay where they belong. Here's hoping you don't get any vampire squid on your head in the New Year.

-Lilly and Wombat (No Relation)

Holiday baking inspiration... or not

Distracted by my urge to post pictures of my pugs in Christmas outfits, I was finding it a bit of a challenge to come up with a respectable idea for a holiday-themed post about ugly animals.

But then I realized - of course! For many people, the holiday season is all about baking those Christmas cookies, so why not the cookie cutter shark?

The cookie cutter shark uses the impressive teeth in that picture to gouge nice round pieces out of the flesh of large prey. And in fact, there's some recent cookie-cutter-shark news that I neglected to report on: in November, a paper was published documenting the first recorded attack of a cookie cutter shark on a HUMAN. The critter took a chunk out of the leg of a guy who was attempting a long-distance swim from Hawaii and Maui.

This was actually fairly widely reported, but for the first hand account, check out this interview at Deep Sea News. It's complete with a clear photo of the actual wound which may spoil your appetite for those Christmas cookies for a while.

-Wombat (No Relation)

Up close and personal with ugly creatures

According to The Telegraph, "Senior invertebrate keeper Evan Armstrong is adorned in various species of stick insects to celebrate the opening of the Bugs Garden habitat at Wild Life Sydney." Do YOU love ugly animals that much?

And while I've got your attention: a shark-themed gift guide from our friends at Southern Fried Science.

-Wombat (No Relation)

Be careful what you ask for

A commentor on the Hagfish Day post lamented that the photos of this animal never did it justice. I think we may have finally gotten one, don't you agree?

That photo accompanied the announcement of some research out of New Zealand: researchers have filmed for the first time how the hagfish uses its slime to defend itself. You can see how the attacking shark's mouth is filled with a cloud of slime almost instantaneously, and it leaves in disgust:


Other footage gathered by the scientists showed that hagfish, usually thought of as scavengers, are pretty nasty predators too. Yes, as we've noted before, they swim inside of carcasses and eat their way out, actually absorbing nutrients through their skin. But they also hunt, using those retracting dental plates in the photo to grab and start swallowing prey, then waiting for it to die before they finish. They might use their slime to suffocate it to hurry the process along, too.

The researchers also found that hunting technique also explains another curious hagfish ability: it can tie itself in a knot. One thing this behavior does is help give the hagfish leverage when pulling prey from a burrow. (Check out the pictures here.)

Join me in saluting the brave souls who can spend enough time with hagfish to discover all those astonishingly repulsive facts.

-Wombat (No Relation)

Happy Hagfish Day!

It's tough to keep up with all the ugly animal holidays this week, but we can't let Hagfish Day go without notice. At Whale Times, you can celebrate with a variety of craft activities, including (I am not making this up) a Hagfish Bouquet and Make Your Own Slime. Or if you're more the literary type, why not write your own Hagfish Haiku?

By the way, that's a photo of a whole bagfull o' hagfish dripping slime by Flickr user dirtsailor2003.

Inside-Out Sea Life

We've seen the hagfish - also called the slime eel - before on this blog, and how could we not? It fits right in here, and not just for its gray, limp, featureless, basically gross appearance.

The names used for this species can be misleading. It's definitely not an eel, and it might not even be a fish, because it's got no spine and its skeleton is made entirely of cartilage. (Note to hagfish: if you want to be classfied as a type of vertebrate, you need to have vertebrae. Sorry.)

But the "slime" part is right on the mark, and this is their revolting glory: when disturbed or threatened, they ooze out unbelievable amounts of disgusting goop.

You can see a lovely video demonstration of this ability here, but actually, the inspiration for today's post is an entirely different ugly fact about the hagfish.

These guys have rather repulsive eating habits: they're scavengers, and they will swim inside a dead carcass and eat their way out. (Using the lovely mouthparts in the photo above, which you can see a enlarged version of here, if you're sure you want to.)

And now, a researcher has discovered that they don't do this just to get at the tasty inner parts first. They immerse themselves in their meal of rotting food because they eat through their skin. Seriously: their skin actually absorbs nutrients faster than their intestines.

Some animals have adaptations that we envy. Who wouldn't like to fly, or see in the dark, or - my favorite - sleep through the winter? But you know what, hagfish? That's ok - you can keep yours.

-Thanks anyway,
Wombat (No Relation)

Thanks to the award winning blog Not Exactly Rocket Science, perfect for all your science needs.

The power of Ugly

Get the holiday season off to an ugly start by checking out this video of an electric eel that supplies the power for a Christmas tree at an aquarium in Japan.

The Marine Life Census

Earlier this year, scientists wrapped up a massive, ten-year survey of aquatic life. This survey revealed a large number of new species. As anyone who visits here regularly knows, quite a few of them are not on the attractive side. We start with one that confused the researchers so much on what to call it, that they finally settled on the simple squidworm:

Next up is Venus flytrap anemone. Unlike its counterparts on land, it has stinging tentacles which it uses to trap its prey.

Now, we have a jellyfish, Atolla wyvillei, which has an interesting way of defending from predators. When attacked, the jellyfish lights up to attract a larger creature to eat its attacker.

Today we also have a sea slug, Phyllidia ocellata. As you might guess from the coloration, this guy's poisonous, and probably not a good meal for anyone passing by.

To wrap up the day, here's a newly hatched anglerfish. At this stage in his life, all he can really do is drift around with the plankton.

That wraps up this todays installment from the census. There's plenty more where they came from, and I can probably stretch a few more posts out of it for you.

Pictures courtesy of National Geographic.

Fish that want to be left alone

This time, I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I think the fishes' expressions say enough.

First off is the Oyster Toadfish. While he's strong enough to crush shells in his mouth, he's actually quite a good parent, watching over the nest until a few weeks after hatching.

Next up is the Reef Stonefish. I definitely think he wants left alone, and I think that's the best idea. His spines contain one of the most toxic fish venoms anywhere.

Last up is the Stargazer. A nice, lovely fish with the ability to produce 50 volt electric shocks. Oh, did I mention he's venomous too?

I definitely think that when someone looking like this wants left alone, the best choice is probably to let them.

Pictures courtesy of National Geographic

Jeremy Wade Is More Manly Than Me

It's therapeutic for me to post on men who are much more manly than me. It shows that I'm at least big enough to be able to tout their accomplishments without feeling that they're overshadowing my own (which, of course, they are).

One such man is Jeremy Wade, a British biologist, TV host, and angler. He is one of the few men ever to haul in a goliath tigerfish (Hydrocynus goliath). To do so, he had to navigate uncharted stretches of the Congo river, wait patiently for eight days, and then snag the beast with a large catfish as bait and a 200lbs rod and line.

And what did he catch? The goliath tigerfish is one of the world's most dangerous fish. This specimen was five feet long. They come equipped stock with 32 teeth, each one razor sharp and about the size of great white shark teeth. They are amazingly aggressive (their reflex is to attack any sudden motion). They can remove human limbs with a single bite, are known to eat creatures the same size as them, and commonly take bites out of crocodiles.

And Jeremy Wade held a live one in his arms before releasing back in the wild.

I'm going to head upstairs now and sleep in my cozy bed in my cozy suburban neighborhood where the most dangerous thing I'll hold today is my two-year-old son who has a head cold.

Thanks for the link, Alan.

Fish with Teeth!

First fish with feet, now fish with human teeth! What's going on?

Nothing, actually, except that this fish was in a place that it shouldn't be. Caught by a man in South Carolina, this is a pacu, a relative of the piranha, and it's native to the Amazon. But they're sold in the pet trade, and when they get too big, irresponsible people let them go in local waters. Then, periodically, a fisherman catches one and there's a big kerfuffle of "baffled wildlife experts" - or at least baffled local journalists - until someone says, oh yeah, that's just another pacu.

Here's an even better picture of the teeth:

That's from National Geographic, and don't click on that link unless you want to see a picture of a fish with much scarier dentition. I'll take a fish with human teeth over a fish with two inch fangs any day.

Keeping my fingers out of the water either way,
-Wombat (No Relation)

Shark! Oh, wait...

It seems like there was a lot of news about shark attacks - or at least the fear of them - this past summer. But most sharks have more to fear from us than we have to fear from them, and this couldn't be more true of the basking shark, which lately got a federal designation of "Species of Concern." (That means that we don't know whether they're endangered but they might be.)

These animals are huge - 30 feet or more long - but unless one sits on you, it's unlikely to do you much damage. They're filter feeders, which is nice work if you can get it. They don't have to chase anything down and fight it to the death - they just open that huge mouth and basically sift plankton out of the water.

They do have teeth, but not so's it matters. As biologist Heidi Dewar at NOAA told National Public Radio, "If you took a grain of rice and cut it in half, that's what the teeth of a basking shark look like."

Biologist Dewar is obviously a person after our own hearts here at Ugly Overload. She also said of the basking shark, "They're just really cool and amazing-looking and beautiful."

Toothlessly,
Wombat (No Relation)


Thanks for the heads-up to the always interesting Cryptozoology Online.

Shark Tagging

Typically, when you see a great white shark and humans in the water at the same time, you wonder what the shark is doing to the humans. But not here. What in the world has given these blokes such huge smiles? They've successfully tagged the shark and are preparing to release it back into the wild.

First they hook a shark, then they haul it into a metal cradle. Once it's secured, they lift it out of the water and affix it with a satellite tag. All the while water seawater is pumped into its mouth and gills and it is injected with a hearty blend of drugs and vitamins to help it recover.

Of course, you've got to marvel at the folks who pioneered this technique. So much can go wrong just with the ocean. But adding great white sharks to the mix? I'm just glad there are people out there smarter and braver than me (not difficult to accomplish, really). The shark does too, even if he doesn't know it.

Thanks for the link, Rusty.

Photo source: Linda Staverees/Wildlife Conservation Society via Mother Nature Network

Fish with Feet!

This walking anglerfish was photographed on a deep-sea expedition in the waters off Indonesia. Scientists predict they'll find at least 50 new species in the thousands of photos and many hours of video taken by a robotic vehicle.

I would have said that fish was both ugly and unnatural, but just to show you how much I know, apparently finding out that fish can walk is not one of the big discoveries of that expedition. Take a look at this:

Turns out there's a whole family of fish that everyone but me already knew about, called "handfish," that maybe ought to be called "feetfish," that do the same walking-along-the-sea-bottom-instead-of-swimming thing. That pink guy is one of nine new species of handfish that were reported to be discovered earlier this year.

Read more about the Indonesia expedition here.

Anglerfish photo via the Daily Mail.

Strolling along,
-Wombat (No Relation)

Just because you're little doesn't mean you don't have AWESOME teeth

This deep-sea dragonfish from the waters around Australia, one of the creatures surveyed as part of the Census of Marine Life, even has teeth on its tongue. As so neatly put by our friends at The Guardian, "It would be a terrifying animal if it was not the size of a banana."

Crunchily,
Wombat (No Relation)

Deepwater Shark Diet Consists of - OMG LOOK at that thing!

The folks over at Discovery News headlined their story "Deepwater Shark Diet Includes Other Sharks." I clicked thinking this might be an item for my other blog, but it turns out that the real story is, have you ever SEEN such a thing?


Its creepy skin and having its eyes where its nostrils should be might be impressively ugly enough, if that weren't overshadowed by the fact that its eyes are totally the wrong size and in fact seem to come from some other animal entirely.

This amazing creature appears to be a kitefin shark. I determined this via the exhaustive research technique of Googling the species names mentioned and looking at the pictures, which definitely beats what the scientists in the article had to do: they collected the semi-digested stomach contents of sharks for DNA analysis.

Another scientist working in this ugly corner of science told Discovery News that this technique is an important breakthrough:

He hopes future DNA research might shed light on mysterious "lumps of blubber" that are "scooped from living cetaceans" by sharks, or "scavenged from dead ones."

Oh, yum!

-Your queasy friend,
Wombat (No Relation)

If the outsides of animals aren't ugly enough for you...

It's happened to all of us. You're looking at an animal, and sure, it's great, but somehow, something is missing. You think to yourself, wouldn't it be so much better if only I could see this animal's guts?

Well, here you go: meet Peniagone Diaphana:



Peniagone - let's call her (him? it?) Penny for short - is a holothurian from the benthic zone. Scientists snapped this glamour shot via remotely operated deep-sea vehicle on an expedition to the mid-Atlantic ridge as part of the Census of Marine Life.

Check out a slideshow of Penny and her more and less ugly pals at
The Guardian.

- Wombat, who has a weird craving for some nice raw shellfish right now...

Lift a glass to the ugly

Pull up a chair and welcome to my ugly beer party!


OK, actually those bottles are empty. They're part of my collection of beers with ugly animals on the label. I'm sorry to report that apparently you can no longer buy this wonderful homage to the elephant seal:



But despair not. We've got a warthog, and if you're not a drinker, you can buy a t-shirt of this one instead:


The very best, though, has to be this fantastic wolf eel:

(You can get a t-shirt of that one too, but it's a different, colorful version.)

Doing research for this post, I stumbled across another one that I don't have that I really need: Ugly Pug Black Lager! If anyone happens to see this in the Washington, DC area, please drop me a line.

Cheers,
Wombat

Ugly Stars

When I think about starfish, I imagine pretty little things. They even come in nice decorative colors:
(From Flickr user nugunslinger)

Not much fodder there for lovers of the ugly, you'd think. But as we've seen previously with the slime star, not all starfish are so disappointing. And I was pleased to discover that the situation is even better for their relatives the brittle stars. Check out these guys: spiny, mushy-looking, bumpy, stringy and not quite symmetrical, they've really got it all:



What's even more encouraging is that these species were only discovered a few years ago.

Imagine that: not only haven't we blogged about all the ugly in nature, there's probably still more out there that hasn't even been discovered yet! If that's not a thought to get you through till the weekend, I don't know what is.

Cheering you on,
-Wombat

Oil spill affects lovable uglies too

When news reports of the Gulf oil spill talk about the effects on wildlife, they tend to concentrate on majestic birds and cuddly mammals. Unfortunately, environmental damage is one of the few things that doesn't discriminate against the ugly. Consider the Louisiana pancake batfish:









This batfish is a little guy, about as big as when you make a circle with your thumb and forefinger. It's not just weird to look at but has some unusual behavior as well: it hops around on fins that are almost like feet. The ichthyologist who discovered it told CNN:

"They're not like a flounder; they are much more mobile, more like a pancake with feet."

People are knitting washclothes to help oil-covered birds, but don't bother sending them to help the batfish - it lives on the seabed, a thousand feet or more deep, so getting covered by the surface oil is not its problem. Probably the biggest issue is the effect of the spill on the invertebrates at the bottom of the food chain that make up its diet.

Let's hope this species pulls through. A pancake with feet! I think we at Ugly Overload can agree that the world needs that just as much as it needs pelicans.

Your humble servant,
Wombat