tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3655368011301539112024-03-12T16:09:58.181-07:00I am not an animalRhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-23245853698570095722010-02-16T21:02:00.000-08:002010-02-17T02:21:34.502-08:00Stuck on You<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ95dyGUh8BO85AReGL2XP4Vxl5C7mlxXaKiRPyZhbbHJfEvnkrdWfvQGF2iXmFwKMy-73QxZ43404ssTmR75h4XD1oJLVy2FD_rP7Sed7XsEFMFZZwDKqqG3d2BVjizc3oHJS-Gc67Ts/s1600-h/limpets.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 231px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ95dyGUh8BO85AReGL2XP4Vxl5C7mlxXaKiRPyZhbbHJfEvnkrdWfvQGF2iXmFwKMy-73QxZ43404ssTmR75h4XD1oJLVy2FD_rP7Sed7XsEFMFZZwDKqqG3d2BVjizc3oHJS-Gc67Ts/s320/limpets.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439087411116598338" border="0" /></a><br />I've just come back from a marine zoology camp, where I've spent a week working on a group project about competition between two species of limpet. This didn't mean we were racing the limpets. We were looking at competition for a common food source - in this case, delicious microscopic algae that grows on rocks.<br /><br />Below is a picture of a boulder covered in limpets. You can see why I didn't end up taking many photos on camp.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqRrOVMF8qNLqTQH_auB9hbKUj1BX8-4gSPCtHiHDvwndhAX8TzP5PeGaPQ3sfn4LjLpWZtsFhMmbJF5MuxdfqwQtMHezjOYAp9G2A2UAOOPPcc608e6etfbHmc3j3MXCv1FZCAnQTqLc/s1600-h/P2080335.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqRrOVMF8qNLqTQH_auB9hbKUj1BX8-4gSPCtHiHDvwndhAX8TzP5PeGaPQ3sfn4LjLpWZtsFhMmbJF5MuxdfqwQtMHezjOYAp9G2A2UAOOPPcc608e6etfbHmc3j3MXCv1FZCAnQTqLc/s320/P2080335.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439087272269809218" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Our project involved lifting limpets off the rocks with a bread knife and relocating them to produce areas of higher than natural population densities. Then we waited to see if they would exhibit a behavioural response to being in a high density area. Having a shell is a bit like wearing a burqa - it makes it difficult for others to read one's non verbal cues - but I'm sure that the limpets' little faces were contorted with effort as some of them practically galloped away from the higher density areas at speeds of more than 4 cm per hour.<br /><br />You can think of the intertidal rock pools as being like a great savannah full of grazing beasts. The herbivorous limpets are the gazelles and antelope. The predatory whelks, who drill through the limpets' shells and suck their flesh out, are like the big cats. Check out this vicious killer, <span style="font-style: italic;">Dicathais orbita</span>:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjvkmiaBE_PEoLc8DJcPCMKblgk1pKeKIWHjUUYvxvaCS_kS5pHZRi_8PmjPeIfI-xjPBtoFErEzHZSC1nF-UNydQmCTcmNINaVXQUDY8MhfxhtIalEpjCwwF7SNhYY-tS0bvZ2sG3dVU/s1600-h/whelk.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjvkmiaBE_PEoLc8DJcPCMKblgk1pKeKIWHjUUYvxvaCS_kS5pHZRi_8PmjPeIfI-xjPBtoFErEzHZSC1nF-UNydQmCTcmNINaVXQUDY8MhfxhtIalEpjCwwF7SNhYY-tS0bvZ2sG3dVU/s200/whelk.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439085936529290770" border="0" /></a><br />And this glorious creature would be the elephant:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZJ0Ff8v2WspG4Kly4Xzb1duEZ3-5YmhYT0wSOneJp6Uk2Qor_4Q2nTJ1nAIEnvcpK3LVssmDdQ2sivgNIHClVUyAmKdLJcfJ7gtznVC4bh2X2HiWwP4YRdI-f5WJo6Uu3ks4HLROVWp8/s1600-h/P2120336.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZJ0Ff8v2WspG4Kly4Xzb1duEZ3-5YmhYT0wSOneJp6Uk2Qor_4Q2nTJ1nAIEnvcpK3LVssmDdQ2sivgNIHClVUyAmKdLJcfJ7gtznVC4bh2X2HiWwP4YRdI-f5WJo6Uu3ks4HLROVWp8/s400/P2120336.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439085613213563346" border="0" /></a><br />Elephant Snails <span style="font-style: italic;">(Scutus antipodes) </span>are the giants of the intertidal rock pools. Their distinctively shaped shell is usually hidden under thin flaps of skin. When they feel threatened, the skin retracts and the shell is revealed. Having so much juicy flesh can be a liability, so these snails are typically found under ledges at the edge of pools. They come out to graze at night, when there are fewer predators around.<br /><br />This Elephant Snail was part of a group which we were responsible for relocating at the end of the camp. They had been used in another group's project, in which they were tested for their responses to both a native and an invasive predatory starfish. It was a bit like the witness relocation program. Maybe, in time, these Elephant Snails will be able to come to terms with horrors they witnessed in our laboratory tanks.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNIyXrDtRVIReuYL_-JFN9Olqpc0bQHqBKtrA7O8xqPxDCabsoMwwQIcPdQx1garQAQrRvlAW4-vgZTXIvc1-In04zv5mlnlJjjxe5U-IQmlCMA3GCaQO4p3aqeTbfNLr5h9SyXaS7_6Y/s1600-h/P2120337.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNIyXrDtRVIReuYL_-JFN9Olqpc0bQHqBKtrA7O8xqPxDCabsoMwwQIcPdQx1garQAQrRvlAW4-vgZTXIvc1-In04zv5mlnlJjjxe5U-IQmlCMA3GCaQO4p3aqeTbfNLr5h9SyXaS7_6Y/s320/P2120337.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439083621271725714" border="0" /></a>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-14811552419799261282010-02-01T00:43:00.000-08:002010-02-17T16:44:22.765-08:00Viral media<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdOg2Yk5wzDSakIpmzUtzhe3IYyvKf_G23UFsv2OCOmsCkWSoVjfcLE00zKu8lFeoA64HdkehNbKSBi6cmGfJ2rPoHlqEWAlZGGqP_M8DNDg5JsfZG1fCCQYNPc1Dra-EZQZbIh6izZkI/s1600-h/crocodile-2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdOg2Yk5wzDSakIpmzUtzhe3IYyvKf_G23UFsv2OCOmsCkWSoVjfcLE00zKu8lFeoA64HdkehNbKSBi6cmGfJ2rPoHlqEWAlZGGqP_M8DNDg5JsfZG1fCCQYNPc1Dra-EZQZbIh6izZkI/s200/crocodile-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433450285379543362" border="0" /></a>When I told my Grandma I was going on a camp to study bats, she listened politely for a few moments, then said "Yes, but really, what's the point of bats?". This was a new addition to her repertoire, which usually goes along the lines of: "I don't know why they bother having crocodiles. They're ugly, they eat people...why don't they just shoot them?" Grandma grew up in England, where over a millenia or so, people have done exactly that to their larger wild animals. The English have also replaced most of their wilderness with gardens and fields. In Grandma's opinion, this looks 'much prettier,' and is a great improvement on our ugly Australian bush.<br /><br />I found it difficult to come up with an impromptu justification of the existence of bats. I didn't have the option of claiming that bats are God's creatures. After discussing mortality with her doctor, Grandma has decided that she's an agnostic. I ended up resorting to the slightly feeble argument that a) bats are cute, and b) they eat insects, which is a good thing if you hate insects. I was betting this argument on the fact that Grandma <span style="font-style: italic;">would</span> hate insects, which, after all, are ugly and eat people. But she claimed to liked them. I'll have to remember this fact for possible point scoring the next time we have a sophisticated discussion about ecology.<br /><br />I suppose I've always assumed that living organisms have an intrinsic value, not to mention their ecological significance. Even bacteria have their virtues. What they lack in personality, they make up for in useful nutrient recycling activities, or helpful gut-flora action.<br /><br />However, I feel tempted to draw the line at viruses. These are entities - they can't even be called living things - that don't even bother to have their own cells. They lie around as inert capsules of DNA or RNA, only springing into action when they infect a cellular organism and hijack its cellular machinery to produce more virus genes. These genes get packaged in a protein coat and released into the world as more dormant viruses, which wait around to infect the next organism. A virus is the ultimate example of someone who needs to get a life of their own. Even parasites stoop to excreting and reproducing for themselves.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2j5cxNmbZiyk1Oads-9WuYfdA7GKdewy4FsLDysxVqrpbQDEZ4J0fYS0CRFN_jC_AYXFupuihpohEOm8ElSc9OmeiG5n9g-N_7pT4RVOOhRvxBLCwlEb1QL9BEHTm9aT47ZGPRDPPQYQ/s1600-h/virus-701941.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 196px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2j5cxNmbZiyk1Oads-9WuYfdA7GKdewy4FsLDysxVqrpbQDEZ4J0fYS0CRFN_jC_AYXFupuihpohEOm8ElSc9OmeiG5n9g-N_7pT4RVOOhRvxBLCwlEb1QL9BEHTm9aT47ZGPRDPPQYQ/s200/virus-701941.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433450144804423298" border="0" /></a><br />Maybe Richard Dawkins would understand the simple needs of the virus. The title of Dawkins' book <span style="font-style: italic;">The Selfish Gene </span> refers not so much to the genetically determined selfish behaviour of organisms, but to the selfishness of the gene itself. This is because all the gene wants to do (not consciously, of course) is to produce more copies of itself. According to Dawkins, the carrier is merely the vessel of the gene. Evolution, and the variety of differently shaped bodies it has produced, represents increasingly sophisticated attempts by genes to package themselves in order to ensure their reproduction.<br /><br />Judged on these terms, viruses are nature's car poolers, house sitters and refusers of plastic bags. They say no to unnecessary packaging. They don't waste valuable resources growing their own cells when there are plenty of other people's cells to go around.<br /><br />But, as with a sanctimonious hippy, I just can't warm to them. When it comes to genes, I prefer the ones that have as much ornate gift wrapping as possible. The more colours and accessories the better.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSWYj9tTvhYx7SIGUMGdVJUBGhdH2Mt9hBKhv9nplobWgLmOtlvd-B6BaBn2BE8zaKqAU35sW8WXBcYjL6HY_8ZJFBn6d-XO9SoAX_BRXYB4yw1mZUnJIoysAJrIcf17uONRiANXPHe94/s1600-h/465-1705~Colourful-Crinoids-and-Solt-Corals-at-Hanging-Gardens-Sipadan-Island-Sabah-Malaysia-Posters.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSWYj9tTvhYx7SIGUMGdVJUBGhdH2Mt9hBKhv9nplobWgLmOtlvd-B6BaBn2BE8zaKqAU35sW8WXBcYjL6HY_8ZJFBn6d-XO9SoAX_BRXYB4yw1mZUnJIoysAJrIcf17uONRiANXPHe94/s200/465-1705~Colourful-Crinoids-and-Solt-Corals-at-Hanging-Gardens-Sipadan-Island-Sabah-Malaysia-Posters.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433449844581516386" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvB6GxW230fcTAYyo-kjqvcfhzeimeFkLJNw8dpsqJ40fkveJWJ7jZLfTsHwmCTzMqkS72lZk4b0wkZvwzCGbEik5aWUWlIU3mycHjFDawNuROyJCPmQLe8kVAgrWMrBX5HTWAxsPTC80/s1600-h/parrot-0016.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 183px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvB6GxW230fcTAYyo-kjqvcfhzeimeFkLJNw8dpsqJ40fkveJWJ7jZLfTsHwmCTzMqkS72lZk4b0wkZvwzCGbEik5aWUWlIU3mycHjFDawNuROyJCPmQLe8kVAgrWMrBX5HTWAxsPTC80/s200/parrot-0016.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433449625184439890" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaQ1efN4JVQ41baQZ3771EPhgvJ3t02LYi0b6R40udEnWxiIFx6n6jPdj45Pr0afknTs0LZWhmvQgtDKXObQnLuvQIIRG34uwhCwHSYyf1XRdTVyfTOutllt6sSQAAcBYteIIlU6mTmTU/s1600-h/f_frog.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 128px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaQ1efN4JVQ41baQZ3771EPhgvJ3t02LYi0b6R40udEnWxiIFx6n6jPdj45Pr0afknTs0LZWhmvQgtDKXObQnLuvQIIRG34uwhCwHSYyf1XRdTVyfTOutllt6sSQAAcBYteIIlU6mTmTU/s200/f_frog.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433449499781768658" border="0" /></a>Call me a sucker for a cheap gimmick, but these genes glow in the dark!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxd-cANgKIt_7esachvFm1AB-ECxA1mYo7W_LsR-I99tlbI3g32FP1FHQYi2zmmuMPX8KhrbFXcktaT_b-0w2kVlbbWsJMovYqs5ctAkIhve49RGF9pgzSf0-VQvvS6qtb-LeKmEMfsQk/s1600-h/Jellyfish.jpeg.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxd-cANgKIt_7esachvFm1AB-ECxA1mYo7W_LsR-I99tlbI3g32FP1FHQYi2zmmuMPX8KhrbFXcktaT_b-0w2kVlbbWsJMovYqs5ctAkIhve49RGF9pgzSf0-VQvvS6qtb-LeKmEMfsQk/s200/Jellyfish.jpeg.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433449253713637266" border="0" /></a>It's not just a visual aesthetic that counts against viruses. There's also a lack of narrative drama. Sure, swine flu got a lot of media coverage, but how did this make the virus <span style="font-style: italic;">feel</span>? What does a pathogen really get out of life when it's incapable of conscious thought, unconscious thought, movement, sensory perception, feeding and mating? What is the point of viruses?<br /><br />The elephant in the room, of course, is that viruses make a mockery of our limbs, brains, emotions, genitalia and rational thoughts. If we're just doing in a more elaborate way exactly the same thing they're doing with a few sticks of non-sentient genetic material and a protein coat, - that is, replicating our DNA ad infinitun - then we have to ask the question: what is the point of us? Which, in my books, is all the more reason to despise them. Essentially, I'm saying that I hate viruses because they are irreconcilably different to us, yet at the same time remind us of ourselves. Because this means I have to identify with something I hate, I only hate them more. Of course, Fascism is not always a good thing, but let's just say there's a time and a place.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP8yw19x2J_CP2-3e-oKGdgNFShYalQ-mRQAGWMfWUF4vMSylHVCJmufILdBK9ygln-EpQGizN_o75vw465N3-adZh_c3tCJ4zzo13YE_wkWpWd0csXVHnNA_6s3_RIitn1qwceBsaJAo/s1600-h/060104_hiv_virus_02.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP8yw19x2J_CP2-3e-oKGdgNFShYalQ-mRQAGWMfWUF4vMSylHVCJmufILdBK9ygln-EpQGizN_o75vw465N3-adZh_c3tCJ4zzo13YE_wkWpWd0csXVHnNA_6s3_RIitn1qwceBsaJAo/s200/060104_hiv_virus_02.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433448835684433538" border="0" /></a>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-54666152602677060382009-12-05T07:47:00.000-08:002010-02-01T14:47:44.887-08:00Foure Footed Beastes<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSizjqoSDVFApOmh4e7MoWC4pwsVGgvElH92KICmV1R_sgo1dPeMbPpi-Mpwey-HVHJsVact4sOCpLgJ_Xf5mItOCGfiKt2e9MZwXvvcOSNLL9wD9QPWD_oehqsVKp9YSi1wCMoBaZ-Q0/s1600/IMG_0001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 252px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSizjqoSDVFApOmh4e7MoWC4pwsVGgvElH92KICmV1R_sgo1dPeMbPpi-Mpwey-HVHJsVact4sOCpLgJ_Xf5mItOCGfiKt2e9MZwXvvcOSNLL9wD9QPWD_oehqsVKp9YSi1wCMoBaZ-Q0/s400/IMG_0001.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406729196021744082" border="0" /></a>This illustration was made in 1230 AD. The tusked animals are elephants. The top panel shows soldiers riding an elephant into battle, while the bottom panel shows an ailing elephant being supported by the rest of its herd. It's obvious from the animals' fur, pig-like heads, and dog-like limbs that the artist has never seen a real elephant. The images are true to a verbal description of an elephant, as a large animal with tusks, large ears and a long trunk. But a lot has been lost, and gained, in the translation from words to image.<br /><br />I find these sorts of images compelling, although it's difficult to explain exactly why this is so. On a basic level, these illustrations are funny because to modern eyes, they are so obviously wrong. More than words, an image seems to lay an authoritative claim to the truth, and when it is so transparently inaccurate, there's a cheap thrill in catching the artist out in the act of fabrication. There's also the charming naivete of this image, and the mental acrobatics of trying to put myself in the mind of someone in whose world the elephant is still a quasi-fictional beast.<br /><br />In a similar vein is this image of a hyena, which appeared in Edward Topsell's book <span style="font-style: italic;">Foure Footed Beasts, </span>in 1607. Below is a photograph of a real hyena for comparison.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO3ey24A4hJ1zFeiDHiagGFEjj7ykWLASiFV8RVaFT7MZcu9cQ1L7ftBEw0t5tvTsJ-kFZ2GPtM608N5LW5qUfL_qLSSekKE7XH-Y4GUHhhyphenhyphenFS2ssfiY4FEVFtz2p9PVOPheJ1lkW43Ew/s1600/IMG_0009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 375px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO3ey24A4hJ1zFeiDHiagGFEjj7ykWLASiFV8RVaFT7MZcu9cQ1L7ftBEw0t5tvTsJ-kFZ2GPtM608N5LW5qUfL_qLSSekKE7XH-Y4GUHhhyphenhyphenFS2ssfiY4FEVFtz2p9PVOPheJ1lkW43Ew/s400/IMG_0009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406728312864174498" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8B_NOkM8EPyo-K-5C6eGQwZEwBPfIEkpcvwS4NT816AZwWKg1IiEDc0maOr_-x6jfmd-jtyksV-kXUr2BB2v2VyOKaZmM4FgCYU0fxUvGvirO_Hcs65KTYk3OsNeQbxauLtS-LvdmM94/s1600/hyena1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 293px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8B_NOkM8EPyo-K-5C6eGQwZEwBPfIEkpcvwS4NT816AZwWKg1IiEDc0maOr_-x6jfmd-jtyksV-kXUr2BB2v2VyOKaZmM4FgCYU0fxUvGvirO_Hcs65KTYk3OsNeQbxauLtS-LvdmM94/s400/hyena1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406728033483280706" border="0" /></a>The text below the illustration reads:<br /><br />'This beast aboundeth near <span style="font-style: italic;">Caesarea </span><span>(?)</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>in quantity resembling a Fox, but in wit and disposition a Wolf; the fashion is, being gathered together, for one of them to go before the flock singing, or howling, and all the rest, answering him with correspondent tune: In hair, it resembleth a Fox...'<br /><br />Below are depictions of a sloth (1573), and a crocodile (c. 1170), which is devouring a water serpent. As with the elephant illustrations, the crocodile's claws, long tail, and spiky backbone are all accurate features of the animal, but their translation from words into an image leaves a lot to be desired.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIho3EPq_52VnAk9zw0dm3pID0zfo0b9pAz9EAhVTvxmJRtIz196SuxtdS54fppFc24kdOF6jdzZ3AXNv6Yp-Hm41GmLd3-7UqSej98FOg2PDXz-gsGpU9NJZ7xPtIguH6PodM016Vgaw/s1600/IMG_0014.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 370px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIho3EPq_52VnAk9zw0dm3pID0zfo0b9pAz9EAhVTvxmJRtIz196SuxtdS54fppFc24kdOF6jdzZ3AXNv6Yp-Hm41GmLd3-7UqSej98FOg2PDXz-gsGpU9NJZ7xPtIguH6PodM016Vgaw/s400/IMG_0014.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406727871364454098" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPZqtsAUDUMzHGdy5eJBL1P-aZm9Jjc8XRgIwJyjiZ4j2j8bLJ52j4VEID0nmL5cC9f3GMvNcHRPdGjurkWAyfDR7Tb49qT3DJLZsrLZ1fRLGQHaqBcT65HbsE3igjJFKEv_R_PIOb8LU/s1600/crocodile.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 275px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPZqtsAUDUMzHGdy5eJBL1P-aZm9Jjc8XRgIwJyjiZ4j2j8bLJ52j4VEID0nmL5cC9f3GMvNcHRPdGjurkWAyfDR7Tb49qT3DJLZsrLZ1fRLGQHaqBcT65HbsE3igjJFKEv_R_PIOb8LU/s400/crocodile.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406723866916704914" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The crocodile image comes from a type of Medieval book known as a bestiary, which was essentially a compendium of animals. Each animal in a bestiary was the subject of a story, the purpose of which was to illustrate an aspect of Christianity. The story accompanying this image is that the water-serpent allowed itself to be eaten by the crocodile, but would then devour the crocodile's innards and escape. The crocodile symbolised Hell, while the hydra represented God.<br /><br />The animals in bestiaries often speak, or perform miraculous acts. It's difficult to say whether the people reading these stories interpreted them as allegories or scientific fact, partly because the medieval mind had no concept of science as a way of thinking. Areas of knowledge that today would fall under the auspices of science were mixed up with religion and myth, with no distinctions made between these ways of explaining the world. Scientific knowledge has shaped the modern worldview to the extent that we take the scientific method for granted. So I suppose another part of the appeal of these images is the unsettling thrill of trying to imagine a world in which it wasn't yet possible to think in this way. I think the scientific method is a wonderful thing, but maybe part of me enjoys the iconoclasm of trying to recreate a Medieval concept of nature. There's something comforting about the thought that no one had to study for biology exams in the days before biology was invented.<br /><br />The image below is a woodblock print of a rhinoceros, which was made by the artist Albrecht Durer in 1515. A chapter in <span style="font-style: italic;">Science</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Medicine and History</span> (ed. B.A. Underwood) charts the history of this image, which became the European world's defining image of a rhinoceros for the next 250 years.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Un5o42KJDKiXRsZ3l1-t9yYzEIauniQXnF9GHfW_oRbB411E0UPeLax2hABQcjnk0rEQ78x4-zPSw5m9AV5za-BuJloK2_b1Pi_tKSr5Qqon4lDNwHsXjb29v0heKoiZobLCfNGyfaY/s1600/D%C3%BCrer-rhino.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 332px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Un5o42KJDKiXRsZ3l1-t9yYzEIauniQXnF9GHfW_oRbB411E0UPeLax2hABQcjnk0rEQ78x4-zPSw5m9AV5za-BuJloK2_b1Pi_tKSr5Qqon4lDNwHsXjb29v0heKoiZobLCfNGyfaY/s400/D%C3%BCrer-rhino.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406723552313493074" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSpQJiAZ2cbGoGt587Trwl6o_6NUHr7D4BaxFfCtkuQYYAFUHZ3p4KsdggPQhG8Jewc8JCmqvhR5Tl5uak66xhHVSw5yd5BLsV_Jw80GCNWbUQXvEDoTk31Hm5DVtxy0CCkCc2XDlgRao/s1600/Indian_rhinoceros.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 253px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSpQJiAZ2cbGoGt587Trwl6o_6NUHr7D4BaxFfCtkuQYYAFUHZ3p4KsdggPQhG8Jewc8JCmqvhR5Tl5uak66xhHVSw5yd5BLsV_Jw80GCNWbUQXvEDoTk31Hm5DVtxy0CCkCc2XDlgRao/s400/Indian_rhinoceros.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406723188084848418" border="0" /></a>Compared to a real rhinoceros, the print is strikingly accurate in some respects. But the plicae, or skin folds, of the real rhino have been depicted as elaborate plates that resemble Medieval armor, and the animal has a completely fanciful horn between its shoulder blades.<br /><br />Durer never saw a rhinoceros. He made the print from descriptions of the animal and from a sketch made by another artist of an Indian rhino that was a gift to the Pope. It's believed that Durer may have heard about the two-horned species of African Rhino (pictured below), which had been described in classical texts. Even though the species he was drawing has only one horn, he may have tried to make his image more believable by adding a second horn, not on the nose as in the real-life African species, but on the animal's back.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtOf3hxx9aMDFu2R3B82JzDFVfg7Z1wvUGDvOjfi83-NRnrh4_BD-M3ZRjtQC6VyYP7CdAqBzJJhCiRl7O1m11-9RzOpN8ldjrU_8Qj3dhkX5G3wWlf4wBTdBCH0q9M7xbEVqh0SYjlvg/s1600/African_rhino.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 160px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtOf3hxx9aMDFu2R3B82JzDFVfg7Z1wvUGDvOjfi83-NRnrh4_BD-M3ZRjtQC6VyYP7CdAqBzJJhCiRl7O1m11-9RzOpN8ldjrU_8Qj3dhkX5G3wWlf4wBTdBCH0q9M7xbEVqh0SYjlvg/s400/African_rhino.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406722994825096914" border="0" /></a><br />Over the next few centuries, Durer's image became the defining image of the rhinoceros, and was reproduced and plagiarised, complete with its embellishments, in numerous scientific texts. Later images became even more fanciful, exaggerating the morphology of the armor plates and size of the second horn. The drawing below was claimed to show several newly discovered species of rhino, but the mark of Durer's image is obvious.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYa-sQPwr1rqiGFOi-v7TC3-EnChwg9YSU79J6mWx-VOTuY0hgUxjYaDNae4eMJN6Y8VQX1UQ5B9Y3ryMNw3bsKIMF6UnG-ZW0x6W0zGHzo7ithr4wKVErlQIos3h0a67KWkzLrM6uZas/s1600/IMG_0011.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 208px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYa-sQPwr1rqiGFOi-v7TC3-EnChwg9YSU79J6mWx-VOTuY0hgUxjYaDNae4eMJN6Y8VQX1UQ5B9Y3ryMNw3bsKIMF6UnG-ZW0x6W0zGHzo7ithr4wKVErlQIos3h0a67KWkzLrM6uZas/s400/IMG_0011.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406722476083657682" border="0" /></a><br />Durer's rhino and its fictitious dorsal horn even found it way into this early C17th coat of arms, of the Society of Apothecaries.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdbfQ0Nt5ixe6U_xXedsDlpVt3kZLNPlfnEfKHAjEfGpslj9O-6lM5_Hkarzxq9AA_BW787FtQSCpVbq6NctG6kFJy66YW8tJQOxR5DimjfwTIe7Pi-74lBUSpvpWUy-1R7iu9rspYIs/s1600/IMG_0008.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 318px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdbfQ0Nt5ixe6U_xXedsDlpVt3kZLNPlfnEfKHAjEfGpslj9O-6lM5_Hkarzxq9AA_BW787FtQSCpVbq6NctG6kFJy66YW8tJQOxR5DimjfwTIe7Pi-74lBUSpvpWUy-1R7iu9rspYIs/s320/IMG_0008.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406721765048402770" border="0" /></a><br />In the eighteenth century, a traveler to Africa quoted local (presumably European) hunters as saying they often saw <span style="font-style: italic;">three</span> horned rhinos, with the third horn being positioned in the location of Durer's fictitious horn. Apparently, only male animals carried the third, dorsal horn. Continual reproductions had made Durer's image so persuasive that it had influenced people's observations of the real animal.<br /><br />The saga of Durer's rhinoceros can be read as a cautionary tale about the hazards of observer bias, not to mention the pitfalls of plagiarism. The modern scientific method stipulates that results must be able to be replicated by another party. This means modern science largely avoids the problems of falsification and bias that seemed so rampant in the middle of the last millennium. But these images are a reminder of the enduring possibility of human fallibility, and of truth being in the eye of the beholder.<br /><br />My favourite historical scientific image is this drawing, made by Nicolas Hartsoeker in 1694.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNw6aYYjkN9VfGcuYbatxRrzaDYzATp1EURvmHfUcbjXHsAKIYpkpPwgkS5ri2W8L2aDQJRw8b4jtAeTun2OHxqwNQUCANvDkMZ1KbFl7PgGE0yxZeUQ5lNjJCO8iz1wmIYmAsGhDIrj0/s1600/homunculus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 159px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNw6aYYjkN9VfGcuYbatxRrzaDYzATp1EURvmHfUcbjXHsAKIYpkpPwgkS5ri2W8L2aDQJRw8b4jtAeTun2OHxqwNQUCANvDkMZ1KbFl7PgGE0yxZeUQ5lNjJCO8iz1wmIYmAsGhDIrj0/s400/homunculus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406721325729856034" border="0" /></a><br />This is a human sperm cell, or spermatazoon. Spermatozoa were discovered by the Dutch microscopist Anton van Leeuwenhoek in 1677. At the time this drawing was made, one school of thought on the origins of human life held that an entire miniature person was carried in the head of the sperm. The only contribution of the mother was to nourish and protect the baby. This theory was known as 'spermism'. As you can see, this drawing shows a tiny person curled up inside the cell. Since male babies would, in turn, carry their own offspring in miniature, the generations of humanity could be imagined to be like a set of Babushka dolls, which had originally all been contained in the testicles of Adam. And since a whole person was contained inside the cell, some people concluded that sperm cells had souls. This idea was used to support the argument that masturbation was a sin.<br /><div><br />I had trouble researching this image because many sources gave conflicting information. Some sources claim that Hartsoeker, and sometimes also van Leeuwenhoek, claimed to have actually seen the little person, or 'homunculus', sitting in the head of the sperm. According to other sources, no such claims were made. Although the artist had seen sperm cells under the microscope, and believed in spermism, he would not have been able to see through the cell membrane to determine whether the homunculus was present. It's possible that in creating the image, he was merely representing a concept, as opposed to drawing from life what he thought, with his biased vision, he was seeing.<br /><br />Somehow, the second scenario is much less appealing than that of a seventeenth century scientist gazing through a lens and thinking he could make out a little person in his own sperm, in the same way that children think they can see a face in the moon. Perhaps the first scenario has gained traction because it has much more comic potential, and seems to fit better with our ideas about the ignorant dark ages of science. If this is the case, maybe our modern minds are not so far above biased interpretation as we like to believe.<br /><br /></div>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-38985352670411915452009-11-19T01:55:00.000-08:002009-11-19T15:43:32.782-08:00Batting average<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUmMGf9RGa5-endOLBjiwZSN2JSwVKbCuSoRr2KYuRkPL2qv0poa5Y60HdSMTnsK4MQB3Pjvp0r1Y32ArY60lxOdP25jhbHw9p0Y5aHvdmcbRfHQIn5rCnW8iq5BzVVQaip_ec8-LEx_w/s1600/P1000332.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUmMGf9RGa5-endOLBjiwZSN2JSwVKbCuSoRr2KYuRkPL2qv0poa5Y60HdSMTnsK4MQB3Pjvp0r1Y32ArY60lxOdP25jhbHw9p0Y5aHvdmcbRfHQIn5rCnW8iq5BzVVQaip_ec8-LEx_w/s400/P1000332.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405958094256676786" border="0" /></a>Here are some photos from a field biology camp I went on in September. It was held in the Strathbogie Ranges, in northern Victoria. I was in the bat group. Our project was to work out whether higher temperatures resulted in more insect activity and therefore more bat activity. We trapped the bats using a harp trap, which looks like this. The frame is strung with fishing line, which the bat flies into. It bounces off the trap and into the canvas bag below.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBS5WvUfST2fZIg1dNK2fyvI4QwxeLF95O63CKeUuQ7QyiOzO62YUTc8vfqECpqZtbLHHdqCjZlcawg8EhE4GWD8jEBkwfDyTwytk_MdlvbI__lHF6PZE4gjdyPLTbBQawci3Y4Gs4N_k/s1600/P9280229.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBS5WvUfST2fZIg1dNK2fyvI4QwxeLF95O63CKeUuQ7QyiOzO62YUTc8vfqECpqZtbLHHdqCjZlcawg8EhE4GWD8jEBkwfDyTwytk_MdlvbI__lHF6PZE4gjdyPLTbBQawci3Y4Gs4N_k/s400/P9280229.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405957316392150658" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRO4TjKYbmOlMgKL3sM_As2V7j2m913j7065B6Ggr8gxCOUvj-CuUdeIyt263WXhlIYH8wRNo1biAriguXl7tXwze_7VjoeZ-NyzkZlwiY-ar1OSoZaS3RuyMpNd-TT8zhld7ZcB6OkCg/s1600/DSCF1434.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRO4TjKYbmOlMgKL3sM_As2V7j2m913j7065B6Ggr8gxCOUvj-CuUdeIyt263WXhlIYH8wRNo1biAriguXl7tXwze_7VjoeZ-NyzkZlwiY-ar1OSoZaS3RuyMpNd-TT8zhld7ZcB6OkCg/s400/DSCF1434.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405956834078094738" border="0" /></a><br />The first two nights of the camp were very cold (down to zero degrees), so we spent a lot of time walking around in the bush late at night but catching nothing. This was great preparation for a major part of real field work: dealing with frustration and disappointment. Then it warmed up, and we woke up one morning to this miraculous sight.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBAu_zYFIYL4liy8O-OHYXkSkP_CxWgdp6q-_OM3bY3ChwbQqxlFAg_APYNd7rbstRDqy0UnDl0j_EU2jrz83k2CsSMrAVX1rjN4b1-gB0fist3jbX5gLvkn7dfwv2sxg2YqtYnejIm8E/s1600/PA010263.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBAu_zYFIYL4liy8O-OHYXkSkP_CxWgdp6q-_OM3bY3ChwbQqxlFAg_APYNd7rbstRDqy0UnDl0j_EU2jrz83k2CsSMrAVX1rjN4b1-gB0fist3jbX5gLvkn7dfwv2sxg2YqtYnejIm8E/s400/PA010263.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405956526494685858" border="0" /></a><br />We caught two species of microbat: the Southern Forest Bat and the Little Forest Bat. It's difficult to tell which is which from the photos, because the two species look very similar, and are distinguished by (among other features) subtle differences in their fur and the morphology of the tips of their penises.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglvD_ihpen0tbnzNCRv9myfCcriKIUXSSg3uGDHJ1YEwjhESyMVbwQZpNUtH3zUSVk7g8PdPuUi4jDTLP2i-zeo2qJrwZjiarFQ-OTqVavJKoVHBwrNjzp5u2juyrhyphenhyphen6NJkdvsUoYKRuU/s1600/PA010265.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglvD_ihpen0tbnzNCRv9myfCcriKIUXSSg3uGDHJ1YEwjhESyMVbwQZpNUtH3zUSVk7g8PdPuUi4jDTLP2i-zeo2qJrwZjiarFQ-OTqVavJKoVHBwrNjzp5u2juyrhyphenhyphen6NJkdvsUoYKRuU/s400/PA010265.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405956064254385282" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY9QWsPuYf4hVoQNH9gprdwsMMo_RzjOTktbttnW_q_hsfqR5Hz2Im71w4TyHy0p0xtITf_VybOqz6U68xjbG8VB40kbg1BsIU-eBL4AVeEzEluPqq525_oMkLiGwL_k3xoSCk1OYiRFM/s1600/P1000390.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY9QWsPuYf4hVoQNH9gprdwsMMo_RzjOTktbttnW_q_hsfqR5Hz2Im71w4TyHy0p0xtITf_VybOqz6U68xjbG8VB40kbg1BsIU-eBL4AVeEzEluPqq525_oMkLiGwL_k3xoSCk1OYiRFM/s400/P1000390.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405955715644455890" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTO1rxlJjknxB2S1jYR7setWv8HtowAMdz_x51IpOCEPLYmdhazmHUZQyK80yUt0s6KAmEIByW3-ZKpZby-Pa7v_CFzNz69PzQI0uyT9Jr3ca7aGdX76js1RMQhnihVUf9alLE_jUh_aA/s1600/P1000391.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTO1rxlJjknxB2S1jYR7setWv8HtowAMdz_x51IpOCEPLYmdhazmHUZQyK80yUt0s6KAmEIByW3-ZKpZby-Pa7v_CFzNz69PzQI0uyT9Jr3ca7aGdX76js1RMQhnihVUf9alLE_jUh_aA/s400/P1000391.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405955382211477506" border="0" /></a>Here's an echidna I ran into one day. I took a video (pasted at the end of this entry) because echidnas' rolling gait always makes me laugh. Echidnas are mammals, because they produce milk, but unlike most mammals, they lay eggs. This is not their only reptilian feature. They also have a reptilian-style pelvis, which explains why they walk with their legs splaying out to the side, like a lizard. However, their archaic physiology shouldn't be taken as a sign of low intelligence. According to our lecturer, Kath, laboratory tests have shown that echidnas have the intellect of a domestic cat. I probably wouldn't want to stroke one on my knee, though.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpwqbQkR_53lQBV71vX768uZy4QfEehREQSrFWcRmDWIp_lr9c9_2B8GiwTppyeEHNjp5XEME7aR_QhfuJtSmyxK2i5wihVy4vUUf90qbPuctgV4jqmwgbVXlmD5SRvElSRxGAeL29zQ/s1600/DSCF1482.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpwqbQkR_53lQBV71vX768uZy4QfEehREQSrFWcRmDWIp_lr9c9_2B8GiwTppyeEHNjp5XEME7aR_QhfuJtSmyxK2i5wihVy4vUUf90qbPuctgV4jqmwgbVXlmD5SRvElSRxGAeL29zQ/s400/DSCF1482.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405954655262007682" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8lHJWJisMl1bywPDWc6jV_2zaWcDhQVkOuKLMij-zQzT_ZkVYOif0CkLV3RjGYcbK4r3Sz1FOf-zmpinr8EphwDMkqcProopHNCQJJvjIBUp9p1ecNRQR9w2cYU5blJVcYMnBuWVHV0/s1600/DSCF1478.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8lHJWJisMl1bywPDWc6jV_2zaWcDhQVkOuKLMij-zQzT_ZkVYOif0CkLV3RjGYcbK4r3Sz1FOf-zmpinr8EphwDMkqcProopHNCQJJvjIBUp9p1ecNRQR9w2cYU5blJVcYMnBuWVHV0/s400/DSCF1478.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405954391277582866" border="0" /></a><br />However, I suspect that Kath might. Here she is demonstrating how to capture an echidna bare-handed. Understandably, the echidna was not happy. Being an intelligent creature, it communicated its disgust in a way it was sure humans could understand: by pooing all over Kath's pants. This was fortunate because one of the groups was collecting mammalian faecal samples, and was able to scrape the poo into a zip lock bag.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT0FXbpPvE0utkSA-EZKJT_06e2IC7fWRc9KKtS0gpjf8mRaJrAjDZc_aD7r9fvmtM-pas1Np0Zocm5tK_yT6tiAwKXuZjuwdt2ccbWlseVgieR7efTUyvDi_RPbznsqFDIKI0896A2V4/s1600/P9300255.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT0FXbpPvE0utkSA-EZKJT_06e2IC7fWRc9KKtS0gpjf8mRaJrAjDZc_aD7r9fvmtM-pas1Np0Zocm5tK_yT6tiAwKXuZjuwdt2ccbWlseVgieR7efTUyvDi_RPbznsqFDIKI0896A2V4/s400/P9300255.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405951767286445490" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkC_QNJTzzQPfptMRonzArCjO9gY3JQFvVcE1xi7flTApZVmSP8XBCmDKYMOyUVWcQjr81F60o3ByGQPStLWIdepMHlTVRkMyKWyqGDDM_edijBZ8ErrT5ad8RqfdLyQf9eRh-knlmaWA/s1600/P9300257.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkC_QNJTzzQPfptMRonzArCjO9gY3JQFvVcE1xi7flTApZVmSP8XBCmDKYMOyUVWcQjr81F60o3ByGQPStLWIdepMHlTVRkMyKWyqGDDM_edijBZ8ErrT5ad8RqfdLyQf9eRh-knlmaWA/s400/P9300257.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405951402905474066" border="0" /></a><br />Here's a Mountain Brushtail possum, or bobuck, who is being measured and having his details recorded. The possum looks a bit dopey because he has just been sedated. This possum would later wake up to find that while he was out of it, he had gotten a tattoo. Fortunately, it wasn't a dolphin, or text from Kabbalah. Possums aren't that stupid. The tattoo was an identification number so he can be included in a long term population study of bobucks in the Strathbogies.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDK5LlQ0SsS4XVXKxMnVv-AjsSEb_1vUR0dyBMRcL-w0cTbnHp4m09Yx9tSo_PfB8Tx9juK-BbVoXaQ5Ilt0nU47q7Ilxpyi0BaOyXOiSJUxVHFZUgEQHIcc96OpX1Yn1cRHe3UgiNcVY/s1600/DSCF1470.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDK5LlQ0SsS4XVXKxMnVv-AjsSEb_1vUR0dyBMRcL-w0cTbnHp4m09Yx9tSo_PfB8Tx9juK-BbVoXaQ5Ilt0nU47q7Ilxpyi0BaOyXOiSJUxVHFZUgEQHIcc96OpX1Yn1cRHe3UgiNcVY/s400/DSCF1470.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405950904923892466" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp9eBPxUSB3DqtHC5c13alnp6WC7PbU0B_zXPZ510ZR74-clss9YEVpGdqIExTcjrgAnFfmnsHC1IhpmnpnxgRSBL4Rgd2IZW8qHbyY-51T2ftL6Zlbl0mX5kqWIK8MdTJ4Q_Qj3LeDW4/s1600/DSCF1462.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp9eBPxUSB3DqtHC5c13alnp6WC7PbU0B_zXPZ510ZR74-clss9YEVpGdqIExTcjrgAnFfmnsHC1IhpmnpnxgRSBL4Rgd2IZW8qHbyY-51T2ftL6Zlbl0mX5kqWIK8MdTJ4Q_Qj3LeDW4/s400/DSCF1462.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405950607508888130" border="0" /></a><br />Here's a male Superb Fairy Wren in breeding plumage. Another group was capturing these birds with a fine net strung between trees, and fitting them with leg bands. This was so individual birds could be identified, in order to give an idea of their social structure. I've seen groups of fairy wrens around and always assumed that they consisted of one colourful male and his harem of brown females. But in fact each group consists of just one breeding pair. The other brown individuals are subordinate males, often offspring from previous years, who stick around to help the breeding pair raise their young. Other females are chased out the territory.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRmAp3H_rK4aHk_-THe1_Y3hSSDaf08RQp3KqBta8ZLTwG-Vx3aHZdxi47i7Ok3dpi56P1FkRZQNhlXrIb7eBg9ELWihShQ9JTZJfBUpL-xExzHoPEuPhDZb_wF3J4plZjJQzVqaKkVdI/s1600/P1000410.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRmAp3H_rK4aHk_-THe1_Y3hSSDaf08RQp3KqBta8ZLTwG-Vx3aHZdxi47i7Ok3dpi56P1FkRZQNhlXrIb7eBg9ELWihShQ9JTZJfBUpL-xExzHoPEuPhDZb_wF3J4plZjJQzVqaKkVdI/s400/P1000410.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405950224493625762" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYaWePWX_ZCfAp_ixEjhe_MPTvKCzloMiVxy6a6wWqdZmhcQ16_TI2TF_fiw7z0mD8csNSFzyHiut6R5X6D2jKGA99sYfwH7qi2QVo1batu-I83YA-nNNSe3PSOOX2IHB_eNLDdpLvG1s/s1600/PA010276.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYaWePWX_ZCfAp_ixEjhe_MPTvKCzloMiVxy6a6wWqdZmhcQ16_TI2TF_fiw7z0mD8csNSFzyHiut6R5X6D2jKGA99sYfwH7qi2QVo1batu-I83YA-nNNSe3PSOOX2IHB_eNLDdpLvG1s/s400/PA010276.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405949802632057250" border="0" /></a>Continuing the theme of previous blogs about promiscuous birds, fairy wrens have one of the highest proportions of illegitimate young of any birds - about 70 per cent of offspring come from extra pair matings. Male fairy wrens have been observed picking up yellow flowers in their beaks and offering them to females in other territories in the hope of gaining matings. This kind of behaviour is known as the 'sneaky fucker' strategy, which is the official biological term. So many words in biology have complicated Greek or Latin roots. I'm all for this kind of simplification.<br /><br />Here's a small-eyed snake, the bite of which will cause kidney failure. Luckily, this was only a baby.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2LZv1HZUlEPKji4qox2MIWxwZtL7Yb97lYuyocS1KMSRh1_ukBJ_VLEXB-KW81EQ1cBwFsPPBt42rgF9aQv5a8urqKoeNaYcMUK_XsKicAGUnyD9Jd9gNGyG_kqWQGRsFKQPUA-yys1k/s1600/P9290232.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2LZv1HZUlEPKji4qox2MIWxwZtL7Yb97lYuyocS1KMSRh1_ukBJ_VLEXB-KW81EQ1cBwFsPPBt42rgF9aQv5a8urqKoeNaYcMUK_XsKicAGUnyD9Jd9gNGyG_kqWQGRsFKQPUA-yys1k/s400/P9290232.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405784214610766546" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrzOGN8fp9P55s07Ro6y8l_jyfQttuDAZ-oQ1MP7RfohpHsXnfWyzuLLwPvsxR8OfcbE34H_Nr4vIQ61mXZBE-xe4qpaDujjsTt8qLZk4RyQON29C3j5XuUXB4q7awS2ZE2_RPbT8eFUQ/s1600/DSCF1426.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrzOGN8fp9P55s07Ro6y8l_jyfQttuDAZ-oQ1MP7RfohpHsXnfWyzuLLwPvsxR8OfcbE34H_Nr4vIQ61mXZBE-xe4qpaDujjsTt8qLZk4RyQON29C3j5XuUXB4q7awS2ZE2_RPbT8eFUQ/s400/DSCF1426.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405783810275260210" border="0" /></a><br />I saw my first wombat on camp. It had a bad case of mange and was caught in the headlights for a few seconds as we drove between bat study sites. However, wombats were active around our camp, as this great photo shows. This picture, along with a lot of the better shots in this blog, were taken by my fellow bat-person, Stan.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJPlH9E982hXMlcySTkrIwMa9-7XGHdAb32pfRgEn4sPDlYQC_0nV_i16WuxmoSZ0O-KonDT3LojNpe9EPsVZTGSi59CSap3fjvG2oO7s-8L6EXdSrT3SO4yaCIM5ElDbAb8a0-5PzVQ/s1600/P1000366.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJPlH9E982hXMlcySTkrIwMa9-7XGHdAb32pfRgEn4sPDlYQC_0nV_i16WuxmoSZ0O-KonDT3LojNpe9EPsVZTGSi59CSap3fjvG2oO7s-8L6EXdSrT3SO4yaCIM5ElDbAb8a0-5PzVQ/s400/P1000366.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405783553494061570" border="0" /></a><br />I'll leave you with this message (the first video), spoken in bat by one of our subjects. The clicking sound is a sonar hunting call made by the bat. Bats use echolocation to 'see' insects in the dark. The call would not usually be audible to humans, but we can hear it through the Anabat sonar detector sitting on the table. It translates the sound into an audible pitch. Unfortunately, the detector does not, as my Mum suggested, translate into English. I'll let you decide what this bat is saying.<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyxI_45vaHWMVsn-BLAz5142cDIupKHRrr1zCAGDIJJAkJ7axTZ8YPLkmX8Vq31JSrD6GwN5NHRg-gQ60cL2w' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxSQz-EXyJPzi3191c7dc7Odrs5GI_OirItQjyyw4Mg1c_n8OsBp7GcbiD4EOQ5ftauTTSqah2LhfDmjxqo0g' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-89073283298091314892009-08-13T01:16:00.000-07:002009-08-14T04:14:17.346-07:00It's just not natural<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I find it funny when conservative politicians and religious leaders attempt to categorise human sexual preferences, gender roles, relationships or parenting arrangements as 'natural' or 'unnatural'. Anyone who appeals to the natural world to justify their own position on human morality clearly doesn't know much about nature.</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">It's likely that when such people think of nature, they form a mental image that looks something like this picture:</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWSaRBDPuWtP-MI26cZ7h31ghFzthWULZuHo1mq1ZzkI0QX_iiOA3SiuGVcwCqxUC-gBul308mRD_DdHRG_V9DHMv7GFtLF49mVUpiUs2YuFb3W_0sbSCfVY9DILL5EiTyKTpMjYqcYzo/s1600-h/black-swans-new.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 205px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWSaRBDPuWtP-MI26cZ7h31ghFzthWULZuHo1mq1ZzkI0QX_iiOA3SiuGVcwCqxUC-gBul308mRD_DdHRG_V9DHMv7GFtLF49mVUpiUs2YuFb3W_0sbSCfVY9DILL5EiTyKTpMjYqcYzo/s320/black-swans-new.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369765285531144562" border="0" /></a><br />Look at this wholesome, monogamous, nuclear swan family. Mum and dad swan form a lifelong pair bond, stake out a territory, and raise a brood of cygnets every breeding season. Admittedly, these are black swans, which might be off-putting for some conservative politicians, but you have to admit that all in all, it's a lovely sight.<br /><br />Unfortunately, there are some animals in our community who don't share these good, solid swan values. I hope this isn't too shocking, but I'm about to show you a picture of some filthy, dirty sex.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd9dSGYPubO07-bSXiHhUZPq153QEF8lM_xylHABbYO1YHW49VMKP_iOVIilyAWGa9-Yq6qbgWwT_p6zlTZgBbvqU8ZbXz81Rp7-iUW4siAZ_FUfceVLPu95sdJPj0IJbyriPkXPuTUYs/s1600-h/Mating_earthworms.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd9dSGYPubO07-bSXiHhUZPq153QEF8lM_xylHABbYO1YHW49VMKP_iOVIilyAWGa9-Yq6qbgWwT_p6zlTZgBbvqU8ZbXz81Rp7-iUW4siAZ_FUfceVLPu95sdJPj0IJbyriPkXPuTUYs/s320/Mating_earthworms.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369763724290494690" border="0" /></a><br />Of course, if you're an earthworm, life in the humus layer means everything you do is filthy and dirty. But, as you can see, the two mating worms are joined at two points. This is because earthworms are hermaphrodites. They mate by matching their male and female organs in a complementary fashion. It's thought that the evolutionary reason for this is that producing both sperm and eggs allows the worms to maximise their reproductive output in an environment in which it might be difficult to meet other worms. After mating, the worms move on and will probably never see each other again. Put simply, worms are promiscuous lady-boys who like it both ways because this gets them twice the amount of sex. And, being hermaphrodites, they become both single mothers and absent fathers at the same time.<br /><br />You might think it's ridiculous to expect invertebrates to stick to good old fashioned values like monogamy. But some invertebrates manage it. <span style="font-style: italic;">Bonellia viridis</span> is a marine invertebrate from a relatively obscure phylum known as Echiura. Members of this species are either male or female, and form lasting, monogamous pairings. If simple marine creatures can manage this, why is it so difficult for a complex primate like a human being? If only we could become more like <span style="font-style: italic;">Bonellia</span>, the world would be a better place.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiHOQ4mDpbBYm0vJo2nfsU5xD6f7jT53eIKFS9X-TF_d47OghimvtzikgB5Ph1rz1qQXMrkVLAvg3dq4NWHN_xbr1m5eDEU6vHJAeMsG774zgPE5G6fxzLMIwZDNsJGazS6NlyFk6tdfI/s1600-h/bonellia.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiHOQ4mDpbBYm0vJo2nfsU5xD6f7jT53eIKFS9X-TF_d47OghimvtzikgB5Ph1rz1qQXMrkVLAvg3dq4NWHN_xbr1m5eDEU6vHJAeMsG774zgPE5G6fxzLMIwZDNsJGazS6NlyFk6tdfI/s320/bonellia.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369763563836471586" border="0" /></a><br />Yes, if we were more like <span style="font-style: italic;">Bonellia</span>, a woman of marriagable age would lie in wait until a baby boy drifted her way. Then she would swallow him and imprison him in her reproductive tract, feeding him off her bodily fluids until he matured and began to pump out sperm on tap. This what happens in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Bonellia </span>world. The female lies on the ocean floor until she meets with a tiny free-swimming larva. The larva is then sucked inside the female's feeding tube and remains as a parasite in her genital sac, with the sole purpose of sperm production, for the rest of his life. Yes, folks, there's no such thing as divorce in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Bonellia </span>world. Those guys really know how to make a relationship last. What a great example to set for their larvae!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt8RBQtJpiaurYqP8mMb5r-0d9LNJC8yfagx-cmBlCxNc_KeHRmPio2eGorW21H0LFA0UCNhZlNXBBwvGwV-Cpf-v5hlenr7H4_QamcFTh7RLSUOJ3KKULQjelMVGfDUyOCE5pmIPISxs/s1600-h/whiptail+lizard.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 166px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt8RBQtJpiaurYqP8mMb5r-0d9LNJC8yfagx-cmBlCxNc_KeHRmPio2eGorW21H0LFA0UCNhZlNXBBwvGwV-Cpf-v5hlenr7H4_QamcFTh7RLSUOJ3KKULQjelMVGfDUyOCE5pmIPISxs/s320/whiptail+lizard.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369763368732208562" border="0" /></a><br />Some young animals are not so lucky. This lizard has two mummies. The desert-dwelling whiptail lizard (<span style="font-style: italic;">Cnemidophorus </span>uniparens) is a species in which, as in a prison or boarding school, the entire population is female. This may seem like a sure way to go extinct. But, along with a few species of reptiles, fish and insects, these lizards have a special feature that allows them to survive. Whiptail lizards can reproduce by parthenogenesis, which means that they can lay eggs that hatch into young without being fertilised. While these lizards can become single parents, the chances of a female ovulating increase if she engages in ritual courtship behaviour with another female. This behaviour resembles that of related, non-parthenogenic lizards, and may include mounting. Then, after a female has laid her eggs, changes in her hormone levels cause her to behave like a male, and court another lizard who is pre-ovulatory.<br /><br />With creatures like this in the world, it's nice to see that there are still animals like the Sand Tiger Shark (also known as the Grey Nurse Shark), who do it the old-fashioned way. No funny business there. Boy shark meets girl shark, then here come the little nippers! Just a normal family - Mum, Dad and a couple of extremely sharp-toothed embryos who devour each other in the womb. Ultimately, just one of the offspring is born, having grown big and strong on the flesh of his siblings.<br /><object height="331" width="540"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZrqgPjZ07Ts&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&showsearch=0&showsearch=0&showsearch=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZrqgPjZ07Ts&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&showsearch=0&showsearch=0&showsearch=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="331" width="540"></embed></object><br />via <a href="http://www.videosift.com/video/Shark-eats-siblings-in-womb" title="Shark eats siblings in womb!">videosift.com</a><br /><br />One reason the natural world is a useless place to look for moral guidance is that animal behaviour is a result of evolution. The evolutionary process has no moral dimension, and represents only the triumph of superior function. And, on a more obvious level, virtually every human behaviour, from cooperation and maternal love to rape, infanticide, and cannibalism, are all technically natural to the extent that they have parallels in nature. American sex researcher James Weinreich has said that 'If animals do something we like, we call it natural. If they do what we don't like, we call it animalistic'.<br /><br />But enough talk, because here comes our young swan family again. The cygnets will soon be growing adult plumage, finding mates, and raising young of their own. But what's this? Maybe only a mother would know, but one of the cygnets doesn't look at all like papa swan. Junior does, however, bear a striking resemblance to that handsome male swan from the couple in the next nest...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8eZRQdHtYQFE_El9qYcglWtjhv6jxl7xAUKgXBjqdTTRnS1emE-LlX-HBJUhtPKDmh-Hx4SuJvcWpdyw1wV60wqND1TaPR6ooIdoY4062wRir4zlvUMT7F5ibfuBj3_edqsvlbdLbBg8/s1600-h/BlackSwansCygnets.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 184px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8eZRQdHtYQFE_El9qYcglWtjhv6jxl7xAUKgXBjqdTTRnS1emE-LlX-HBJUhtPKDmh-Hx4SuJvcWpdyw1wV60wqND1TaPR6ooIdoY4062wRir4zlvUMT7F5ibfuBj3_edqsvlbdLbBg8/s320/BlackSwansCygnets.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369762636124376642" border="0" /></a><br />In the last few decades, advances in DNA sequencing have blown apart previous assumptions about bird mating systems. Now that the paternity of the offspring can be analysed, it has been shown that extra-pair matings are common in many species. One of my lecturers, who has a particular interest in adulterous birds, conducted a study and found that on average, 15% of cygnets in a black swan population were fathered by a male other than their mother's mate. An average of 38% of broods contained at least one illegitimate cygnet. It appears that the swans are putting up a veneer of respectability, while secretly acting just as they please. Which, if you're a conservative politician or religious leader, is probably something that comes very naturally indeed.Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-15383882441077794982009-07-24T11:17:00.000-07:002009-07-24T23:44:22.958-07:00Foot fetish<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1XT0EHnsXkNFNVydU9fpDUhllF-vcChRSdVkPa24QvYvRPrzhWMcbLkZw6q3u8ryn0apRA-JY-fNwmaWZW_3nE2kBUC-NGAg_1NrskpG1KMWxW6_UnZu63e7a90z9-qKq8FwlLSu0FYk/s1600-h/gecko.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1XT0EHnsXkNFNVydU9fpDUhllF-vcChRSdVkPa24QvYvRPrzhWMcbLkZw6q3u8ryn0apRA-JY-fNwmaWZW_3nE2kBUC-NGAg_1NrskpG1KMWxW6_UnZu63e7a90z9-qKq8FwlLSu0FYk/s320/gecko.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362275756751094498" border="0" /></a>I could stay on the internet all day looking at pictures of geckos. Geckos are the fluffy kittens of the reptile world.<br /><br />The house I grew up in was inhabited by these native robust velvet geckos (below). The term 'robust' is appropriate. From time to time, two geckos fighting on our ceiling would lose their footholds and fall onto the floorboards with a loud smack. Fortunately, it takes a lot of force to burst a gecko. Usually they would merely sit looking stunned for a few seconds, then run up the nearest wall.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGPerFYg-A1XxgnPYvqxyj43DS6FtNRgnuGgRz-Nt8mLpu444MQD8Y83_sPwR1ysTn7dzVyUN2X15WSiwpIWUACtA0aTQIXojdFglpK0uaENm1-riigbABUzfmdsWpvjVQ6A8vLi-cEkg/s1600-h/robust2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 232px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGPerFYg-A1XxgnPYvqxyj43DS6FtNRgnuGgRz-Nt8mLpu444MQD8Y83_sPwR1ysTn7dzVyUN2X15WSiwpIWUACtA0aTQIXojdFglpK0uaENm1-riigbABUzfmdsWpvjVQ6A8vLi-cEkg/s320/robust2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362275653861115170" border="0" /></a><br />At the time I never thought about what might allow them to walk on our ceiling in the first place. It's easy to see how an animal might stick to a smooth surface like glass using vacuum suction, or to many surfaces using a sticky substance like mucus. But it's more difficult to understand how it would walk on a dry, comparatively rough surface like a ceiling.<br /><br />The answer is that geckos' feet are able to 'share' electrons with the surface they are walking on. Chemistry is not my strong point, so please bear with me as I try to explain this.<br /><br />Here are some pictures of the undersides of geckos' feet. Note the distinctive ridged patterns.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC_gcwqAhFhZBHLYDFtGW4ArAoEpbmWRX6lwhmuFUlYm3S0Tl4TR7T9KTIs93K9L4YaNRMyLAw4xunFS0yucIP4Y1hAU8AiDCYbRGvCGL11A_jdTpeikdqZQSDWnqfSQAnm-9X0HkBSGE/s1600-h/gecko-foot.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC_gcwqAhFhZBHLYDFtGW4ArAoEpbmWRX6lwhmuFUlYm3S0Tl4TR7T9KTIs93K9L4YaNRMyLAw4xunFS0yucIP4Y1hAU8AiDCYbRGvCGL11A_jdTpeikdqZQSDWnqfSQAnm-9X0HkBSGE/s200/gecko-foot.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362275488583037730" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX0OHVLsbd6RfT-NDWWO8dk0laF5mY7VF8bgreX5RQQuTJwrj_tYs-O-I63mMQ5ayhY1BXLXhxBYBUwqMln3AeoIvrBi9UhUOMx74wEFZ_KNwxWRlscZPwHtCESOfTM2SjAjbYinz1eC0/s1600-h/gecko+feet.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX0OHVLsbd6RfT-NDWWO8dk0laF5mY7VF8bgreX5RQQuTJwrj_tYs-O-I63mMQ5ayhY1BXLXhxBYBUwqMln3AeoIvrBi9UhUOMx74wEFZ_KNwxWRlscZPwHtCESOfTM2SjAjbYinz1eC0/s200/gecko+feet.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362275383227979138" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPAsRl3uzRMho8mafkDakEENrSfoTe6ym7nIlhfaqrr7K3GDPLbi1v7VrCcDxd9h5px0Aeyn1PhvvQgL3izLO815BseDEmOi9RAbPybOmYtVVE-oB7eSHywyg7C75skvbGuThlbpEoflQ/s1600-h/gecko+foot+2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 168px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPAsRl3uzRMho8mafkDakEENrSfoTe6ym7nIlhfaqrr7K3GDPLbi1v7VrCcDxd9h5px0Aeyn1PhvvQgL3izLO815BseDEmOi9RAbPybOmYtVVE-oB7eSHywyg7C75skvbGuThlbpEoflQ/s200/gecko+foot+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362275299682194274" border="0" /></a>Traditionally, having hairy palms is meant to be a sign of madness. In the case of geckos, it's a sign of awesomeness. At a higher magnification, it's possible to see that the ridges are composed of extremely fine hairs. Each hair is split at the end into hundreds or thousands of smaller branches.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyD9PoikgoLaxA6K6YBYnXAkLlSAATLBj1Kq-GCOCIfWc1quzA0r4xCNOqON5yrraQJsSn2oLyea2I9lh2CgZJCXYR7bD8Qkok6qqTNFwl9fRgqAlpoDZMmluYGWyolqEPGSdqOB_3YEc/s1600-h/gecko-foot-close.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyD9PoikgoLaxA6K6YBYnXAkLlSAATLBj1Kq-GCOCIfWc1quzA0r4xCNOqON5yrraQJsSn2oLyea2I9lh2CgZJCXYR7bD8Qkok6qqTNFwl9fRgqAlpoDZMmluYGWyolqEPGSdqOB_3YEc/s200/gecko-foot-close.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362275147424533858" border="0" /></a><br />Like all matter, the hairs on the underside of a gecko's foot are made up of atoms. Here's a diagram of an atom. It probably looks familiar from high school. As you can see, the atom is made up of three kinds of smaller particles. In the centre are the positively charged protons, and the neutrons, which do not carry a charge. The electrons, which are negatively charged, orbit the other particles, like the planets orbiting the sun. The number of electrons (which, in a typical atom, is the same as the number of protons) determines what kind of element the atom is. For example, a hydrogen atom has one electron, while an atom of gold has seventy-nine. The foot of a gecko is made up of many different kinds of atoms, including carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpBe70sk008kmuBA0SygfpHx1T3-4VwtuL3JyC8NV18lZGC35NmIlg8z7dM36PonRfebIwBG9I6ZdZLWUWesnW8KHbBNKskZx2-HNrIG2s8kH6xQ4Wb6Sx1qp_CI78pFoFS1-bNxlOsYU/s1600-h/atom.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpBe70sk008kmuBA0SygfpHx1T3-4VwtuL3JyC8NV18lZGC35NmIlg8z7dM36PonRfebIwBG9I6ZdZLWUWesnW8KHbBNKskZx2-HNrIG2s8kH6xQ4Wb6Sx1qp_CI78pFoFS1-bNxlOsYU/s320/atom.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362274984673150338" border="0" /></a><br />If you think of one of these atoms, it's possible to imagine the electrons moving around in orbit. At certain times in the orbit, there are likely to be more electrons in certain areas of the atom than in others. This gives one end of the atom a slight negative charge, and the other end a slight positive charge. One end of a gecko's foot hair atom might be negatively charged, and be adjacent to the end of a ceiling atom that has a positive charge. This results in an attractive force, like that between magnets.<br /><br />Obviously, because the electrons are in constant orbit, the attraction between the two atoms will be fleeting. However, as the electrons circle around, the charges on the two electrons swap. The previously negative end of the foot atom now has a positive charge, and vice versa in the ceiling atom. The attraction is therefore maintained.<br /><br />As far as I can tell (again, this is not really my subject area), these kinds of attractive forces must exist between all kinds of matter. Perhaps, at this very moment, there are attractive forces occurring between you and your chair. I spend most mornings trying to overcome the attractive forces between myself and my bed. But if you can imagine the entire surface area of a gecko's foot hairs spread flat, it's possible to appreciate the large number of potential attractions that are compressed in the relatively small area of the foot. It's thought that the geometry of the foot, rather than any properties of the substances in it, is responsible for its remarkable adhesive power.<br /><br />Geckos now have their imitators. Some scientists from the University of California have invented what they describe as a 'hard plastic gecko-inspired synthetic adhesive'. They believe this product may be useful for medical products, sporting goods and 'climbing robots where a controllable and reusable adhesive is needed'. Imagine! In the future, we could all be living in houses inhabited by hard plastic, gecko-inspired robotic <span style="font-style: italic;">geckos</span>. I'm looking forward to the time when my evenings are interrupted by two pimped up gecko-bots blasting each other off the ceiling in a tiny ball of flames.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRlLV7zlxL4GQbRjzJP30-xfiNZIf-n7TbGSIqqVBsEhs4qn2vsCz6sVdbakBzVXn8eVyIQsyDmGtbfv3rDV7-6eJc9wN7i_Fqm-wn9ex22xQNUoo7bhAl-atA2So3hkTQBjz-0QHZfL0/s1600-h/gecko+face.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 168px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRlLV7zlxL4GQbRjzJP30-xfiNZIf-n7TbGSIqqVBsEhs4qn2vsCz6sVdbakBzVXn8eVyIQsyDmGtbfv3rDV7-6eJc9wN7i_Fqm-wn9ex22xQNUoo7bhAl-atA2So3hkTQBjz-0QHZfL0/s200/gecko+face.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362274831223642194" border="0" /></a>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-71591370323815158072009-07-16T01:01:00.001-07:002009-07-16T04:13:58.981-07:00Not quite Attenborough<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQqC06IcyImdGIVQagAZeyW-lSVsI_Br1xZN_blHLp5wCsS1kph3fU8TtLO2tfDugRKZSHrNtAy2FS8zRfdv67MEooG3QgUEOGVPf1mYtOfrCtvcZ5HLJR7tD7tQiVwS8OvbSM2nQOKq0/s1600-h/P7090111.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQqC06IcyImdGIVQagAZeyW-lSVsI_Br1xZN_blHLp5wCsS1kph3fU8TtLO2tfDugRKZSHrNtAy2FS8zRfdv67MEooG3QgUEOGVPf1mYtOfrCtvcZ5HLJR7tD7tQiVwS8OvbSM2nQOKq0/s400/P7090111.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358980788045730786" border="0" /></a>I've just spent a few weeks at my parents' house in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. I spent some time in the bush, getting all David Attenborough in the hope of a blog-worthy sighting. Unfortunately I didn't see very much, despite sitting at a water hole (the one in the photo below) for two hours in the hope that something interesting would come along. Perhaps the cold weather was responsible for the lack of animal activity. Alternatively, as I realised some time into my stake-out, the oversized, bright red puffy parker I was wearing wasn't exactly subtle camouflage gear.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggocwkdW5kGjfPFi34MFsP2UfbbWtfaQ7dZJaHyQEY5cwHQ-q37qufAv59ugcIruBNEn2w5tHar5xxw8oqbGpuXPk3nkIqRknfaP7YP41kQWY97-0OD0VSeKTkVcL09Fq8ckcYEKAfTtM/s1600-h/P7090122.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggocwkdW5kGjfPFi34MFsP2UfbbWtfaQ7dZJaHyQEY5cwHQ-q37qufAv59ugcIruBNEn2w5tHar5xxw8oqbGpuXPk3nkIqRknfaP7YP41kQWY97-0OD0VSeKTkVcL09Fq8ckcYEKAfTtM/s400/P7090122.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358980375089861282" border="0" /></a><br />I did see, and take a bad photo of, an agitated scrub turkey. If you're from Queensland, you already know that scrub turkeys are not a particularly noteworthy sighting. But they do have some interesting habits. And in the absence of, say a Richmond Birdwing butterfly, let's talk about scrub turkeys.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbBMHa3CRf4AtMIykJI0Un75ay01ccsTzvp_3U5HsUeDUgqzyNe9EIrxsevXI9TyDUk4WUViKEm7a171TYUCfx4NX6JIQiaZJLXRAHf7yqzsbXct-mdfkjMqTLEXzyW3WbUVGA0cJg3IY/s1600-h/P7090109.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbBMHa3CRf4AtMIykJI0Un75ay01ccsTzvp_3U5HsUeDUgqzyNe9EIrxsevXI9TyDUk4WUViKEm7a171TYUCfx4NX6JIQiaZJLXRAHf7yqzsbXct-mdfkjMqTLEXzyW3WbUVGA0cJg3IY/s400/P7090109.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358979452813527426" border="0" /></a>Here's a picture my dad took of a scrub turkey nest further further along the same river. The male turkey constructs a mound of rotting vegetation, which is typically a metre or so high and several metres across. Unlike many other birds, scrub turkeys are not monogamous. The male waits until a female comes along and decides to lay an egg in his nest. Obviously, the male turkey is not the father of the egg, but he isn't completely cuckolded. In exchange for providing the nest, he is allowed to mate with the female, in the hope that his genetic offspring will be incubated by the male in whose nest the egg is laid. Several different females may lay eggs in the nest of a single male.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgntjaJm56RYacmB_uh3JXe3RD_cGmFatY4E5irKfeUr-ofm3qNpH73g_RrV_-TRA-fzASE-tRt3d_FVeckpjkqKtSLwb8iUhAciuJTbOG1AVBb-XLLGsUhI7cXRHhGKznM5CQ-vuIkXsw/s1600-h/P1050837.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgntjaJm56RYacmB_uh3JXe3RD_cGmFatY4E5irKfeUr-ofm3qNpH73g_RrV_-TRA-fzASE-tRt3d_FVeckpjkqKtSLwb8iUhAciuJTbOG1AVBb-XLLGsUhI7cXRHhGKznM5CQ-vuIkXsw/s400/P1050837.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358979062040910226" border="0" /></a>The male turkey doesn't need to sit on the egg, because the heat given off by the rotting vegetation is enough to incubate it. He can measure the temperature of the mound with his beak, and adds or removes leaves with his large feet in order to keep the temperature constant. When the young hatch, they scratch their way out of the mound, and run off into the rainforest. Their father (who is most likely not their biological father) provides no parental care, and their mother is long gone, probably off the rainforest attempting to mate with with as many different males as possible. Scrub turkeys are truly the bogans of the bird world, hence their diminutive name of <span style="font-style: italic;">scrubbers</span>.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWN44yZWJxmT4c2yuGn1JXtrWAszTBpRDKW7ZcbeN6pt5sJJ2DW_RIb-ONzcMQCFIaNkD2z2zRtOkdt92wEP5d2k0LuyXaqC2ayahH0AnEuXKNuHhNFQmOs7j03VZ12ca1a_Ai_xCLkJw/s1600-h/P7080098.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWN44yZWJxmT4c2yuGn1JXtrWAszTBpRDKW7ZcbeN6pt5sJJ2DW_RIb-ONzcMQCFIaNkD2z2zRtOkdt92wEP5d2k0LuyXaqC2ayahH0AnEuXKNuHhNFQmOs7j03VZ12ca1a_Ai_xCLkJw/s400/P7080098.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358978779719880866" border="0" /></a><br />My other exciting sighting was up at the dam (above). Admittedly, a cane toad is not really an interesting find. But this cane toad was dead, lying on its back, and appeared to have had its abdominal skin torn open and its organs and forearm muscles removed. One of the reasons for the rapid spread and population growth of cane toads is that most parts of their bodies are highly toxic, and so they have very few native predators. However, in the last decade, there have been reports of crows and magpies learning to eat cane toads by flipping them onto their backs, thereby avoiding the poison glands. They then eat the internal organs, which are not poisonous. This could have been the fate of this toad. I promise this is the last gory toad picture for this blog.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFsP8Rei_5ACu_-QFlFie5sygxJGV3vbfb3vFTYYJCkvhF0I7XQ65OVORPqmmxlt_cQi4CaQxy8OaynhWupGQ2nCg2jm5iiK35METXZZWCbYs9R_NAEvLgJ1SOA9iaC3etsi4VvJ1HeU/s1600-h/P7080095.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFsP8Rei_5ACu_-QFlFie5sygxJGV3vbfb3vFTYYJCkvhF0I7XQ65OVORPqmmxlt_cQi4CaQxy8OaynhWupGQ2nCg2jm5iiK35METXZZWCbYs9R_NAEvLgJ1SOA9iaC3etsi4VvJ1HeU/s400/P7080095.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358978336060822546" border="0" /></a><br />I also came across some intriguing insect larvae, which were too small to photograph, and which I haven't yet had the chance to identify. I have to admit, apologetically, that David Attenborough would have done it better. Perhaps I'll do another stake-out in Summer, when the heat drives more animals towards to the water, and puffy red parkers are unnecessary.Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-34537612724906199812009-06-12T23:49:00.000-07:002009-06-13T22:41:35.807-07:00Planet for lease<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpsGfvg-sUZLp3_rjelPbeKupwQvafEGN00lvvFc9D8nNqRsmB5U0QkgKH318CK7OERMYc17bYPQUiVLr0_7ZfWMSd30wxuxwYSUKfm7E2T73R_Y3q4qH6p-vc-7vS9UHTG6x37hIGR_g/s1600-h/28.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 317px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpsGfvg-sUZLp3_rjelPbeKupwQvafEGN00lvvFc9D8nNqRsmB5U0QkgKH318CK7OERMYc17bYPQUiVLr0_7ZfWMSd30wxuxwYSUKfm7E2T73R_Y3q4qH6p-vc-7vS9UHTG6x37hIGR_g/s400/28.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347044266594393314" border="0" /></a><br />Feeling nostalgic? Here's a timeline showing some of the important events on planet Earth since it formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. My personal favourite would have to be the Cambrian explosion of 500 million years ago (see 'First Hard-shelled Animals'). This was not literally an explosion, but a relatively short time period in which the major groups of modern invertebrates evolved. And I suppose anyone's 'best of' list would also have to include that classic moment, the evolution of life, which happened roughly 3.5 billion years ago.<br /><br />One thing I find striking about this sort of diagram is the 1 billion years between the formation of our planet and the appearance of anyone on it. For a little less that a quarter of the Earth's history, there was nobody here. I find this concept very calming to think about, particularly while using public transport during peak hour. Thinking about the empty earth is the biologist's equivalent of the Zen Buddhist puzzle about whether a tree falling in a forest still makes a sound if no one is around to hear it. A more scientifically minded version of the question would be: If a bubble of volcanic gas erupted on the primeval Earth, and no biotic molecule had evolved yet to inhale the vapour, would it still smell like methane?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggK58hOB6TLSwTO-OJQ29gXgElFD1_njgu-73-jj3no1m2Wtr7hmA-clERk-_av_Mq1avDseAjqpfpERbEwTmVHSrvoKnmtE3m64bhiIoYX6XppDBGRwYoLXLqZa5Kgp88V77uUmyd2vw/s1600-h/I09-01-Earthevo3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 263px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggK58hOB6TLSwTO-OJQ29gXgElFD1_njgu-73-jj3no1m2Wtr7hmA-clERk-_av_Mq1avDseAjqpfpERbEwTmVHSrvoKnmtE3m64bhiIoYX6XppDBGRwYoLXLqZa5Kgp88V77uUmyd2vw/s320/I09-01-Earthevo3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347044177163073794" border="0" /></a>In the period before life formed, there was constant volcanic activity. This produced an atmosphere of hydrogen and ammonia gases, water vapour, methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. The oxygen rich atmosphere we enjoy today had not yet formed. It took roughly half a billion for the Earth's crust to solidify.<br /><br />The planet was constantly struck by lightning and bombarded by meteorites. The atmosphere was easily penetrated by ultraviolet radiation, which may have been especially strong because it radiated from a young sun.<br /><br />In short, Earth before life evolved was characterised by a series of natural disasters. Yet, in the absence of any life forms to suffer the outcome of all this chaos, even the most catastrophic events are reduced to inconsequential sound, colour and movement. Or they would would be, if anyone had been around to hear, see or feel them. For one billion years, there was complete peace on Earth.<br /><br />Conditions on the young Earth seem extremely hostile to life, but it was probably these very conditions that allowed life to form. In 1953, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey used a large glass flask to recreate this environment. The flask was filled with water, representing the ocean, while the 'atmosphere' was composed of the gases listed above. Electrical sparks were discharged to simulate lightning. The aparatus was left to sit as a self-contained system. This experiment was something very like scientists playing God.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5JmgDLeVK_ygb1i8-0KZ6wrS1GjtPxveS0dF9pU-F-ub2BY5n86Kqd_kuTL6xVFDt0fz1-UCWmVgPOKHNnB6mf7aI7LDh1hxejaW2mMRmrPK5dbdQv4VXsYsxdxT7OyF48LiUA2tHKS0/s1600-h/mu_apparatus1234406029.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 216px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5JmgDLeVK_ygb1i8-0KZ6wrS1GjtPxveS0dF9pU-F-ub2BY5n86Kqd_kuTL6xVFDt0fz1-UCWmVgPOKHNnB6mf7aI7LDh1hxejaW2mMRmrPK5dbdQv4VXsYsxdxT7OyF48LiUA2tHKS0/s320/mu_apparatus1234406029.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347044003714718658" border="0" /></a><br />And, amazingly, Miller and Urey managed to replicate God's data. Within a week, the flask contained amino acids. These molecules are the building blocks for proteins, which in turn form most of the structural components of animals. Further lab recreations of the primitive Earth have produced all 20 of the amino acids found in living organisms, as well as sugars, lipids, and the bases for DNA: in short, the building blocks necessary for life.<br /><br />The atoms needed to make these molecules are present in the atomospheric gases. It is thought that energy provided by the lightning, and perhaps by UV radiation, enabled the breaking and reforming of chemical bonds. Our modern, oxygen rich atmosphere prevents the formation of new bonds, but on a low-oxygen planet, this process would have been possible.<br /><br />In order for life to form, the tiny molecules had to join together to form larger molecules. In laboratory experiments, organic molecules have been joined together by a process that involves diluting them in water and dripping them onto hot rocks, sand or clay. It is thought that the many organic molecules dissolved in seawater may have been carried by waves onto hot rocks or larva, forming proteins, before being washed back into the ocean.<br /><br />Also under laboratory conditions, these larger molecules have been shown to form what are known as 'protobionts': aggregations of molecules that are not considered living, but have some of the properties of living things. Protobionts have been observed to form an outer layer of lipids that resembles a cell membrane, and to show signs of primitive metabolism and electrical excitability, the latter of which is necessary for the development of a nervous system. These observations do not prove that life evolved in this way, but they do show that this course of events would have been possible.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcKz5kvlSOT_gyeL0_9rBpIAjteKjWJ866AUucJmlnAPAfxhRLpFzD-OEIG2LRCqTBX_yTyxEJYZkBP2hCdS927CQ_DwPOWkXGebG2FEU_kJvqRiY2GH6Hu45wlKpddPjxGWdfvV21LkI/s1600-h/P2090243.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcKz5kvlSOT_gyeL0_9rBpIAjteKjWJ866AUucJmlnAPAfxhRLpFzD-OEIG2LRCqTBX_yTyxEJYZkBP2hCdS927CQ_DwPOWkXGebG2FEU_kJvqRiY2GH6Hu45wlKpddPjxGWdfvV21LkI/s320/P2090243.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5347043849368726914" border="0" /></a>On a planet crowded with the protobionts' possible descendants, perhaps the only places where the relative peace of the primeval Earth still exists is in space. But then again, maybe not. Meteorites hitting the Earth in the modern era have been found to carry amino acids. If the idea that we had our origins in the action of waves on hot rocks is difficult to comprehend, this evidence makes the picture even stanger. Some scientists believe that we had at least some of our origins in space, and that our precursor molecules were brought to Earth by meteorites and comets. If amino acids could form on other planets, there is also a possibilty that life has formed on planets other than Earth. If we have company, the universe could be even noiser than we imagined.Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-73871309628099831092009-05-22T04:48:00.000-07:002009-05-23T01:49:04.042-07:00Basic instincts<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMWuiRrJfGZ8teFLFSx6DQ64H1CUEhyphenhyphen0UVs_5X32rkrHWkP_HKvk_WqRAFpvvqrE6ae80ixv2xYWlJcJ3fKiIRYFXh86ycrA6r1r1T9aNJtePVTZWTksYSFqSztST3Sf06ajG8W2X2hd0/s1600-h/P5120014.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMWuiRrJfGZ8teFLFSx6DQ64H1CUEhyphenhyphen0UVs_5X32rkrHWkP_HKvk_WqRAFpvvqrE6ae80ixv2xYWlJcJ3fKiIRYFXh86ycrA6r1r1T9aNJtePVTZWTksYSFqSztST3Sf06ajG8W2X2hd0/s320/P5120014.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338920728511792770" border="0" /></a><br />This is my housemate's cat, Larry. Larry has had a few bad experiences with cars, so he has to be an indoor cat. At least once a day, he attempts to mate with this knitted patchwork blanket. Given the opportunity, he also likes an encounter with a jumper or scarf (pure wool only, he won't stoop to synthetic fibres).<br /><br />After servicing the females in his territory, he likes to go hunting. His prey is a length of leopard-spotted synthetic fur with a bunch of feathers attached to the end.<br /><br />All of Larry's natural impulses and behaviours have to be played out in a completely simulated environment. Sometimes characteristics of household objects (eg. hairy, moving) provide bevhavioural cues, even when, in other ways, that object bears little resemblance to anything a cat would encounter in the wild. It could be said that Larry's blanket-humping is a desparate measure from a domesticated animal. But even wild animals have been known to misread environmental cues.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjNfQHO6wiJfkb3UA1SZCCk_DI-yuMZJrHnuKZm7HWMBcI2UWbq_lWVtLhMDnNiCdh_D0cduZEuhgIPaxpERVYwIg_2CzSfOQaBB0h1YC-3LlMIm1DDQ1I-DXKyOWbgCpbaXttjystqRc/s1600-h/Beetle.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 315px; height: 155px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjNfQHO6wiJfkb3UA1SZCCk_DI-yuMZJrHnuKZm7HWMBcI2UWbq_lWVtLhMDnNiCdh_D0cduZEuhgIPaxpERVYwIg_2CzSfOQaBB0h1YC-3LlMIm1DDQ1I-DXKyOWbgCpbaXttjystqRc/s320/Beetle.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338920347453367778" border="0" /></a><br />In the early 1980s, biologists discovered something unusual about the Australian jewel beetle. I could paraphrase these findings, but I think they are best conveyed in the charming deadpan of a scientific paper. Here is an abbreviated version of Dr Trevor J. Hawkeswood's article on the species <span style="font-style: italic;">Julodimorpha bakewelli:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">...The males are known to mistake the ends of discarded 'stubby' bottles for females and attempt to mate with them. The first published indication of this phenomenon was Douglas (1984), who published a photograph of a male </span>J. bakewelli <span style="font-style: italic;">attempting to copulate with a 370mL beer bottle in Western Australia.<br /><br />The 'stubbies' were apparently acting as 'supernormal releasers' for male copulation attempts in that they resembled large females; the shiny brown colour of the glass is similar to the shiny yellow-brown elytra of the female </span>J. bakewelli. <span style="font-style: italic;">On two occasions, a flying male was observed to descend onto a stubby and attempt copulation, and a search yielded two other stubbies with male beetles, with genitalia everted and attempting to insert the aedagus.<br /><br />A discarded wine bottle of a different colour brown held no attraction; in addition, rows of regularly spaced, small tubercules around the base of the bottle reflect the light in a similar way to punctuations on the elytra of the beetle; these along with the colour and shape of the bottle may well enhance their resemblance to females.<br /><br /></span><span>One of the reasons I find animals interesting is the mystery of what it's like to view the world through their minds. Although I have to take a scientific approach, part of me wants to believe that in some important ways, the minds of animals are not very different from our own. I find it exciting when Larry reads human social cues, or opens doors with his paws, </span><span>because this behviour seems like evidence of a highly evolved intelligence. But at other times, his actions, like those of the bottle-copulating beetles, seem to be</span> automatic reactions to narrow environmental cues, and not the actions of a thinking being.<br /><br />The philosopher and mathemetician Rene Descartes thought that animals were 'automata': mere machines whose behaviour was a robotic response to their environment. Sadly, it seems like this view is sometimes correct.<br /><br />But perhaps this is not the evidence of a vast gulf between human and animal consciousness that it appears to be. Larry's hunting of faux fur and insemination of our woollens may seem like absurd behaviour, and evidence of his lower powers of thought. But what is this animal doing living in our house in the first place? He does no work, contributes no rent, and his food is paid for by humans. By biological definitions, Larry is a parasite, yet we willingly allow him to exploit us.<br /><br />Modern, urban humans also live in an environment which bears very little resemblance to the environmental conditions under which we evolved. It seems like we too can misdirect our reproductive instincts. Don't worry, this is not a reference to bestiality. I'm referring to zoologist Konrad Lorenz's famous theory on the appeal of domestic pets. Lorenz observed in the 1940s that most pets have large eyes and heads, and shortened noses, all features in common with human infants. He suggesting that these infantile features were responsible for triggering a nurturing response in adults. In the absence of the litter-loads of spawn we would have produced in our wild state, Larry's big eyes, soft fur, and button nose trick us into thinking we are caring for our own baby. Although, if my human child starting doing that to our jumpers, I'd probably put it in a bag and drown it in the creek.Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-42027797677168159382009-05-09T15:10:00.000-07:002009-05-09T23:21:52.132-07:00Brittle Star Photos<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju2ek-q88DCsUauFz3TFoXlG4fwf6VkD6Fc7TwEJ7EFe1twZhSIkxXPL6ibodAyPh5HywpWPt7Cd-fxkK1kfdqryBIiRwB6ztKj1Dmiages7QsiiYSfI_mGFGkOWSghqsO9ixDplrrNFI/s1600-h/P2090231.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju2ek-q88DCsUauFz3TFoXlG4fwf6VkD6Fc7TwEJ7EFe1twZhSIkxXPL6ibodAyPh5HywpWPt7Cd-fxkK1kfdqryBIiRwB6ztKj1Dmiages7QsiiYSfI_mGFGkOWSghqsO9ixDplrrNFI/s320/P2090231.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333668560143648450" border="0" /></a>Here are some pictures of a brittle star, which were taken by a classmate in my marine zoology subject. Brittle stars are echinoderms, and are related to starfish.<br /><br />I think this one was about three cm across. These photos were taken by pointing the camera down the microscope lens. The photos down the bottom show the underside of the animal, with its star-shaped mouth visible.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQAq-4p15VxyHe3jo3FF8Yo8QDkwPQc0Dx5Q2SmpAT3v8mC-qxHuUNlk34QgqlpyQ47igRrrK0ucxJIeACwNbT5xwrM2AzeOXa84lvQHK0ROLRrevGE4ApS5MDdEC6f6vjO59QfXEugIc/s1600-h/P2090227.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQAq-4p15VxyHe3jo3FF8Yo8QDkwPQc0Dx5Q2SmpAT3v8mC-qxHuUNlk34QgqlpyQ47igRrrK0ucxJIeACwNbT5xwrM2AzeOXa84lvQHK0ROLRrevGE4ApS5MDdEC6f6vjO59QfXEugIc/s320/P2090227.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333668212406623538" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPHPatcnYOr7yAwGWyO-i3eoB1P5y2gJPHtVKKMJtHXuuj0JuaWcarqIZrHApFeImX0x4zktmpCrqEJcJn13-P_lW-sazZNgeOsOKElpeiwPFh2pCPS4ODScoOHfw1-6Wg0HncJQqXUSc/s1600-h/P2090232.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPHPatcnYOr7yAwGWyO-i3eoB1P5y2gJPHtVKKMJtHXuuj0JuaWcarqIZrHApFeImX0x4zktmpCrqEJcJn13-P_lW-sazZNgeOsOKElpeiwPFh2pCPS4ODScoOHfw1-6Wg0HncJQqXUSc/s320/P2090232.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333667841503120082" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaj6MoEdVzhzjwYHG8lR2jq8Z_PgkD38WXTkjgZlaOI02SZ8x6q_rhkWUAQRHhfUHwZK2o0k49dM_-LnFDhfrd2BUV2uCcXH0lVj6AFHMdNZ5qko48HWlawvWMLR8nDM8-8_AsuQc4lF8/s1600-h/P2090236.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaj6MoEdVzhzjwYHG8lR2jq8Z_PgkD38WXTkjgZlaOI02SZ8x6q_rhkWUAQRHhfUHwZK2o0k49dM_-LnFDhfrd2BUV2uCcXH0lVj6AFHMdNZ5qko48HWlawvWMLR8nDM8-8_AsuQc4lF8/s320/P2090236.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333667492022568818" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsM3f8CoXCjacN_ZjQbVc__B-9PB9gS967ylhYoOTL0WSbabUUTbcNqsnnkS0Lrj9kyV7kHEQXcwtJ_Y-ttDuJsoPIjGOwaUo9oIIPF2wZ3FVqtsegeMxbNM8HxJkCmWDaG2G2Ghk9L9Q/s1600-h/P2090237.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsM3f8CoXCjacN_ZjQbVc__B-9PB9gS967ylhYoOTL0WSbabUUTbcNqsnnkS0Lrj9kyV7kHEQXcwtJ_Y-ttDuJsoPIjGOwaUo9oIIPF2wZ3FVqtsegeMxbNM8HxJkCmWDaG2G2Ghk9L9Q/s320/P2090237.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333667108059646850" border="0" /></a>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-21079320159771169172009-05-07T21:10:00.000-07:002009-05-07T04:20:13.083-07:00A Kick up the Blastopore<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoT_Vm1KkdLpaRzcmok17NBodGj2CwHuk-qYl7hCMkls0eKePVEEck8jngCtMx1DXwgEw-i0YbemSDNSqe8GTPB0ohhyB2nf0hWL_Z5KFt6MFn7EK_gM4_BXtJlX8RTJdtoC6apH0GjVA/s1600-h/evolution.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 147px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoT_Vm1KkdLpaRzcmok17NBodGj2CwHuk-qYl7hCMkls0eKePVEEck8jngCtMx1DXwgEw-i0YbemSDNSqe8GTPB0ohhyB2nf0hWL_Z5KFt6MFn7EK_gM4_BXtJlX8RTJdtoC6apH0GjVA/s320/evolution.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333033920793786722" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">"When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which have lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled." </span><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />-Charles Darwin,</span> <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Origin of Species</span></span><br /><br /><br />In the popular imagination, evolution is an ape with incrementally improving posture. Human beings came from monkeys. Before that, we crawled out of the ocean. But both these primal ancestors are relatively recent arrivals on the earth. Vertebrates are only 400 to 500 million years old. But our ancestors have been around since life first evolved. What did they look like before they developed bony skeletons?<br /><br />If you trace the evolutionary line back far enough, we are descended from invertebrate animals. So far, I haven't come across any theories on what our invertebrate forebears looked like. Perhaps this is because no one knows. Invertebrates make poor fossils because of their soft, fragile body parts. However, human beings are more closely related to some groups living invertebrates than to others. Perhaps this offers clues as to what our invertebrate ancestors looked like. Try to guess who our closest invertebrate relatives are. Do see any familiar faces below?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFsWh-GcMe9FvgqQEtpGY8oUSHK9h19LqF_8WvUBJd9dE3uZubYs96IjEPGcaIBKhKGCOQcbzV0Bp1mAadvmdLNTEigJWbi8Sodrx89LVK95PgkYRABEyQeZfVSJpvxHTfKsefvBROofQ/s1600-h/416242-6-small-snail-3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 194px; height: 197px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFsWh-GcMe9FvgqQEtpGY8oUSHK9h19LqF_8WvUBJd9dE3uZubYs96IjEPGcaIBKhKGCOQcbzV0Bp1mAadvmdLNTEigJWbi8Sodrx89LVK95PgkYRABEyQeZfVSJpvxHTfKsefvBROofQ/s200/416242-6-small-snail-3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333033763030304274" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPETPC5LEtrt_4JGlEpWnh9JgdLMFzC6FU1-vncSWYBdd0Cx_ihZodsPKpe1DB9IP-gZvYqMo1q7WHUuYS84xofuq7Te3RJEdjILT5cCaGtHHwxp8qTJXQQI-lxIHZ4Ymj1TnpcpxQG4Y/s1600-h/BlueRingedOctopus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 152px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPETPC5LEtrt_4JGlEpWnh9JgdLMFzC6FU1-vncSWYBdd0Cx_ihZodsPKpe1DB9IP-gZvYqMo1q7WHUuYS84xofuq7Te3RJEdjILT5cCaGtHHwxp8qTJXQQI-lxIHZ4Ymj1TnpcpxQG4Y/s200/BlueRingedOctopus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333033683725290914" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXspAeUbapUJdIeXPUENsUBO_aJWzc9GjDTUC4m7wvVpnT5hyphenhyphenfFF7B9SD2jrkyP2LGnG1mMwvyw-WXSYPG2-xxdnZ8lXaJN5vwlloWqNhIzlmDgP3tQ_45rnyT9oSdvFZH4P_ZH_oAf6g/s1600-h/BIVALVE.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 122px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXspAeUbapUJdIeXPUENsUBO_aJWzc9GjDTUC4m7wvVpnT5hyphenhyphenfFF7B9SD2jrkyP2LGnG1mMwvyw-WXSYPG2-xxdnZ8lXaJN5vwlloWqNhIzlmDgP3tQ_45rnyT9oSdvFZH4P_ZH_oAf6g/s200/BIVALVE.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333033613726065650" border="0" /></a>What about the molluscs? I hear a lot of stories around the zoology department about octopi in laboratories who wait until their researchers go home, then climb out of their tanks and switch off all the lights in the lab. I'm not sure if these stories are true (perhaps this can be the subject of future blogs), but look at that big brain! Surely the octopus is kin. I'm not too sure about the bivalve, though.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDbH1sKGBUcoVM-LNe_jLu4hkslWZcGG0IOd4dqV7K6PWUz415w0TPugTtBWcFybnHyd46nivPzNQG_lZeWeQ5B3Un3nVfQO6ailx20BZRxi4J2mGL-FnQn9gCX5FbHO868RnLyvqRdyc/s1600-h/TapewormImg_1395.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDbH1sKGBUcoVM-LNe_jLu4hkslWZcGG0IOd4dqV7K6PWUz415w0TPugTtBWcFybnHyd46nivPzNQG_lZeWeQ5B3Un3nVfQO6ailx20BZRxi4J2mGL-FnQn9gCX5FbHO868RnLyvqRdyc/s200/TapewormImg_1395.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333033424207096770" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizxma_U5aG6yaLHe64XreGhyphenhyphenr21uMt6f221a0EY49tRYAMoooX-h63givw3H0fnNIbC93JRmFYHNWrDtv4dRcphq93l1rySF9OSefuNp015vZVQYn14nZjZ5LMap9BICjsDOPbUlr47QU/s1600-h/Mammal+tapeworm+by+D.+Kunkel.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizxma_U5aG6yaLHe64XreGhyphenhyphenr21uMt6f221a0EY49tRYAMoooX-h63givw3H0fnNIbC93JRmFYHNWrDtv4dRcphq93l1rySF9OSefuNp015vZVQYn14nZjZ5LMap9BICjsDOPbUlr47QU/s200/Mammal+tapeworm+by+D.+Kunkel.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333033312341098818" border="0" /></a>Or what about the platyhelminths? No one really wants to be closely related to a tapeworm, but they can't be discounted.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipTWsrkfL4luDAVCK0sgA2fJaBNUrkxvT3byGCiC07sahtsebC2XrBpryT3C_1y2cOwYsJBaZvxb1RAPaBj7DIILc_xUCaep6Q3MMuFwl34sFw_hlyzcPyJ88oKRHjQD8jtJTAlqmTjPg/s1600-h/nematode+mouth.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 147px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipTWsrkfL4luDAVCK0sgA2fJaBNUrkxvT3byGCiC07sahtsebC2XrBpryT3C_1y2cOwYsJBaZvxb1RAPaBj7DIILc_xUCaep6Q3MMuFwl34sFw_hlyzcPyJ88oKRHjQD8jtJTAlqmTjPg/s200/nematode+mouth.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333033190615093938" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLy9uYSH5sGIBVId-cS9zJeMoDtkF0U9gmFD-DU0zfK3k08rOEawld6KxWlHAMy5o1CXqoOekTCMAkW_nqKiGaRARq3MKk9Lvhmqrto_d6uMFxmv_6Mtjxc0Y6KT10pGUoLQz-sUqvbBI/s1600-h/nematode.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 131px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLy9uYSH5sGIBVId-cS9zJeMoDtkF0U9gmFD-DU0zfK3k08rOEawld6KxWlHAMy5o1CXqoOekTCMAkW_nqKiGaRARq3MKk9Lvhmqrto_d6uMFxmv_6Mtjxc0Y6KT10pGUoLQz-sUqvbBI/s200/nematode.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333033097751319106" border="0" /></a>How about the nematodes? Is that primate-level intelligence brewing behind those unassuming piercing mouthparts?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxUYvj0KYVXi8KHR0vd2eY_CrJMIy3y1HVrdm9EKe_ab-wMwza7CAAIZ9NnCszuzv4RnKXRfBYh-sPSil3JXFzexhv-U4Lr5oORA1gLXGjyjKRfmbRaX3Bv_yu8i154X6q9J9JIm0Wq5I/s1600-h/Purple-sea-urchin.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxUYvj0KYVXi8KHR0vd2eY_CrJMIy3y1HVrdm9EKe_ab-wMwza7CAAIZ9NnCszuzv4RnKXRfBYh-sPSil3JXFzexhv-U4Lr5oORA1gLXGjyjKRfmbRaX3Bv_yu8i154X6q9J9JIm0Wq5I/s200/Purple-sea-urchin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333032949331943234" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh72Bholeod98e7JPV6eHtHiTYloDFEasaboOQi7Zg65B3r0TuaZOtQvTaUeNd_tm9jHLMbBuhM2qNDThEJ_TbJ67oXNp1JXRybDmKyfyOBpUcrikkneIIGhV4qjsV2VwlmIhtNV0_IuSI/s1600-h/sea+cucumber.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh72Bholeod98e7JPV6eHtHiTYloDFEasaboOQi7Zg65B3r0TuaZOtQvTaUeNd_tm9jHLMbBuhM2qNDThEJ_TbJ67oXNp1JXRybDmKyfyOBpUcrikkneIIGhV4qjsV2VwlmIhtNV0_IuSI/s200/sea+cucumber.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333032861849983570" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5XG2PbNRbI8QJWtoMAiNK9JmvpR3bkNlWNjXYQCepXauKv53qsO4K5L6INYOGIATCbBzfvJTF7CsoLRZMnZ6CXOldqREmxXzotdZB0zIHFkmhyphenhyphenoRqdJfKNSsLTp5sC9lKBoKZt43Iaq0/s1600-h/starfish.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 138px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5XG2PbNRbI8QJWtoMAiNK9JmvpR3bkNlWNjXYQCepXauKv53qsO4K5L6INYOGIATCbBzfvJTF7CsoLRZMnZ6CXOldqREmxXzotdZB0zIHFkmhyphenhyphenoRqdJfKNSsLTp5sC9lKBoKZt43Iaq0/s200/starfish.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333032781538222322" border="0" /></a><br />Or the echinoderms? Sea cucumbers certainly look like a certain part of the primate anatomy, but is this evidence of family ties?<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtM2feQGaOP5Q7FZdwSedJwfkn_L02f-ZClNU5uFJOaS_bX-Z_ggo9p7G0s9O6yUOQNQUpIQeT3ccDfp57UNLMbIdgYNozJAMPiV_skehVDmUKqRSBpo9d6Z6tu1M0tC3xI0Wjc9zw1kI/s1600-h/jellyfish.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtM2feQGaOP5Q7FZdwSedJwfkn_L02f-ZClNU5uFJOaS_bX-Z_ggo9p7G0s9O6yUOQNQUpIQeT3ccDfp57UNLMbIdgYNozJAMPiV_skehVDmUKqRSBpo9d6Z6tu1M0tC3xI0Wjc9zw1kI/s200/jellyfish.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333032661215928018" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8VemJPR65YJqBV6UF8Lv-Pzvuy6Ydz0KNT1RNoSO9IOuxnpLERJHl4iWt7g_W0QLSsaGTG3txyjWAZkMGrtB-Pw7iM9m4qj7dBAxbTgdxPdAAcVRsl8WkmNrIhGdQCnJapPIc_LlTZ0k/s1600-h/bonaire-flower-coral.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8VemJPR65YJqBV6UF8Lv-Pzvuy6Ydz0KNT1RNoSO9IOuxnpLERJHl4iWt7g_W0QLSsaGTG3txyjWAZkMGrtB-Pw7iM9m4qj7dBAxbTgdxPdAAcVRsl8WkmNrIhGdQCnJapPIc_LlTZ0k/s200/bonaire-flower-coral.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333032555093284754" border="0" /></a>How about the cnidarians, with their very economical use of the same orifice for multiple bodily functions? (see a previous blog). Surely they're not our nearest invertebrate cousins?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjefURzquqEOinb7-e6JK2Qe4Q51joJUPcBhQ69hwz0mc07nKSmfj5Tnndm6_D1LwZBgzVivBzlLW4gf7_EoQF37u6AYVZdPPS0ipmZqse8k86jw51AEpT2-XCq9MTQPog3fwg7bgOSL5o/s1600-h/earthworm.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 151px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjefURzquqEOinb7-e6JK2Qe4Q51joJUPcBhQ69hwz0mc07nKSmfj5Tnndm6_D1LwZBgzVivBzlLW4gf7_EoQF37u6AYVZdPPS0ipmZqse8k86jw51AEpT2-XCq9MTQPog3fwg7bgOSL5o/s200/earthworm.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333032438289444018" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkzKkZ2Xen2rIsT8gdsczSJLKKybiEbrzmNLKWAP_P4L7pEPpx2QX2ABLVf6t1awIW4i0TfqNXTr7xJY5vwOrkI1v6gv29HxzKVkB2NQAeUlajCrcPM-SWhB8wmNAKPMZsrpxpOKMnTJo/s1600-h/leech.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 194px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkzKkZ2Xen2rIsT8gdsczSJLKKybiEbrzmNLKWAP_P4L7pEPpx2QX2ABLVf6t1awIW4i0TfqNXTr7xJY5vwOrkI1v6gv29HxzKVkB2NQAeUlajCrcPM-SWhB8wmNAKPMZsrpxpOKMnTJo/s200/leech.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333032326942169458" border="0" /></a>The annelids are also contenders. Do you have an inner bloodsucking leech?<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd_DOCFDiV2WGtjCvhne_X76xklX8URLg9ZTeItk7BV1H65Xyj3fjDG4U1zwnkHsSbfr6RjC_3zwFwGJCPfczcAUG1D4Gu3xn1wWg5oEIZ0WbWj9m5BzDU5Xr8tDzaGa28AQ5Td2GqsoQ/s1600-h/insect-dorsal.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 152px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd_DOCFDiV2WGtjCvhne_X76xklX8URLg9ZTeItk7BV1H65Xyj3fjDG4U1zwnkHsSbfr6RjC_3zwFwGJCPfczcAUG1D4Gu3xn1wWg5oEIZ0WbWj9m5BzDU5Xr8tDzaGa28AQ5Td2GqsoQ/s200/insect-dorsal.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333032160310244514" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfqe7OftnVCbd3R524EVupuvhl9L2SVFqFgNXQBzQ1Fiawl_DlgfHeldaLWKHMRy4O8iuRurAvj8lfC5Z5_OwfcRRZEuvd-wRnNvfZ7durxAg_MxCsszq8hyphenhyphen8cAQEzUclernNuq-7Yu_I/s1600-h/crab.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfqe7OftnVCbd3R524EVupuvhl9L2SVFqFgNXQBzQ1Fiawl_DlgfHeldaLWKHMRy4O8iuRurAvj8lfC5Z5_OwfcRRZEuvd-wRnNvfZ7durxAg_MxCsszq8hyphenhyphen8cAQEzUclernNuq-7Yu_I/s200/crab.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333032064779114466" border="0" /></a><br />My personal favourite would have been the arthropods. There is something familiar about insect faces. You can at least look them in their two eyes, which are located above a mouth, and see something not too different from a basic vertebrate face. Or less different than a blind tube sporting a bunch of piercing hooks, anyway.<br /><br />But the answer is surprising.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJxfdstGQXzSsnwFi2mfwzKMQIYUIXuLVmvT1wsBK4-G0uqkQI8iJCVF2aOeK0AoTsyIH_FKq7yofDMPpjTXM_9XmAWRhLjmLU0Tagi5le0PWU7zC40q5rwo5B1D_smw0iSTs6TMViTSg/s1600-h/starfish.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 276px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJxfdstGQXzSsnwFi2mfwzKMQIYUIXuLVmvT1wsBK4-G0uqkQI8iJCVF2aOeK0AoTsyIH_FKq7yofDMPpjTXM_9XmAWRhLjmLU0Tagi5le0PWU7zC40q5rwo5B1D_smw0iSTs6TMViTSg/s400/starfish.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333030861808471538" border="0" /></a>The winner is: ECHINODERMS. Starfish, sea cucumbers, anemones and their ilk are our nearest invertebrate relatives. This does not necessarily mean that our invertebrate ancestors looked like starfish (although part of me really wants to believe they did), but that echinoderms and vertebrates had a more recent common ancestor than vertebrates and any other invertebrate group.<br /><br />One important piece of evidence for this relationship is as follows. At a very early stage in our lives, all of us (you, me, echinoderms, tapeworms) looked a bit like this:<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDgxgqAzYYJOo3GljpI6t6I5SlTe2VoQrAceQEjLJZ9ucx8HNH-fDjukdsamHMAMOON5FnxJQAYdS_6px7RHuRzR_2ENvpfLzawf54F8tDCL1ZMqA7h3n7ymAABwMTbqr0UbVAj2kp2cM/s1600-h/blastocyst.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 163px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDgxgqAzYYJOo3GljpI6t6I5SlTe2VoQrAceQEjLJZ9ucx8HNH-fDjukdsamHMAMOON5FnxJQAYdS_6px7RHuRzR_2ENvpfLzawf54F8tDCL1ZMqA7h3n7ymAABwMTbqr0UbVAj2kp2cM/s200/blastocyst.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333030713888128786" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br />Before our body plans formed, we were all big, fat, amorphous balls of cells. Those were the days! Our balls of cells each had a little hole called a blastopore in them. In all other groups of animals, the blastopore developed into the mouth of the animal. In vertebrates and echinoderms, it formed the anus. Our guts run in reverse. The thing that sets vertebrates and echinoderms apart is that, compared to other animals, we are all talking out of our arses.<br /></div><br /><br /><div><br /></div>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-37840759115192846392009-01-24T02:22:00.000-08:002009-01-24T02:55:35.632-08:00Prac book drawings<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix7DzPVIjrFiRHseOrHCtsNM757jouAbDlDC5jyDeLKcJgz2BFTmg6bZa3NSq6Ipf4AYWXTDiw7nwlcrLoumXqYws07ddUSWqd0wdJc5z3cAjpfD0l8EB2pckJec7etsBOBanlmCQezVo/s1600-h/scan0003.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 254px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix7DzPVIjrFiRHseOrHCtsNM757jouAbDlDC5jyDeLKcJgz2BFTmg6bZa3NSq6Ipf4AYWXTDiw7nwlcrLoumXqYws07ddUSWqd0wdJc5z3cAjpfD0l8EB2pckJec7etsBOBanlmCQezVo/s320/scan0003.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294806769428538530" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I spent a lot of last year drawing bones, mostly skulls, with a foray into forelimbs. Here are some of the highlights. I had to memorise the names and locations of all these bones for my exam. I managed it okay, but the day after the exam, I couldn't remember them any more. Luckily I have my sketchbook to reminisce over. I think you can make these pictures bigger by clicking on them.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ-BCJqK2qHVIEEVu5fcZHwZXKhVu6GRz2dBCftgKxV3FNsHdwzc9gFD6dzxX4fEuf-qY6tLB6dAKi39y6Y3OPhxadnXWeZ9YDg_l1nL2_GGZfGzQexBzvjPaIeTPEJK33R9pYYr-ZGP8/s1600-h/scan0002.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 256px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ-BCJqK2qHVIEEVu5fcZHwZXKhVu6GRz2dBCftgKxV3FNsHdwzc9gFD6dzxX4fEuf-qY6tLB6dAKi39y6Y3OPhxadnXWeZ9YDg_l1nL2_GGZfGzQexBzvjPaIeTPEJK33R9pYYr-ZGP8/s320/scan0002.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294806559785497554" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1-byZvSH8Cwwhq3IpPGxptGw9jSlq5uLmnHPnkDj4b7mEeeOHmgEFo2_jZDaa62d2jcjcomcooAwjUIUXjExoROdEGu_4ObgGre9e9R1QHLk7mBjb7d6Amevq-ndz-YppTCDlCCOg-9U/s1600-h/sheep+skull0002.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 254px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1-byZvSH8Cwwhq3IpPGxptGw9jSlq5uLmnHPnkDj4b7mEeeOHmgEFo2_jZDaa62d2jcjcomcooAwjUIUXjExoROdEGu_4ObgGre9e9R1QHLk7mBjb7d6Amevq-ndz-YppTCDlCCOg-9U/s320/sheep+skull0002.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294806246424008690" border="0" /></a><br />In the picture below, 'TS' stands for transverse section, which is a paper-thin slice of an animal that has been preserved on a microscope slide. Preparing the specimen like this shows where all the bones, organs and muscles are located in that part of the body. I think I've labelled the vertebrae wrongly, but you get the idea. The little spots on either side of the specimen are feathers. As well as the chicken embryo, I've had to draw transverse sections of a baby turtle, a rat embryo and a tadpole. It was like a petting zoo, only all the baby animals were inside out.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidspz2WaK0uyr2YbIflzCwmIBi9Ncsa6n8Un_Mn1pCMcCXvrl2V2TV48wTS-HGtQEKllAiixvDojFiIPmE5PJ0oi2vDoLizwzk23YTr4gM9OLiq5W-_QvQTM7oVri5a9mEC29Pa-ENLhE/s1600-h/fowl+TS0001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 254px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidspz2WaK0uyr2YbIflzCwmIBi9Ncsa6n8Un_Mn1pCMcCXvrl2V2TV48wTS-HGtQEKllAiixvDojFiIPmE5PJ0oi2vDoLizwzk23YTr4gM9OLiq5W-_QvQTM7oVri5a9mEC29Pa-ENLhE/s320/fowl+TS0001.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294804946023342146" border="0" /></a>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-10479760366719095772009-01-20T22:31:00.000-08:002009-01-21T00:21:01.653-08:00Fish out of water<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis7Gr4VpnMmER4XyBRhLoyzAAa_op1hZWd4vSlhqDgjMrprdD6t6PZaezekU33csTvWHLGq7Q-CWIVSTX_n9A6xQfAwyjqXIq_pXs0jaeAxwOtKQ4DDL3w8_t1rcnbHB8eQ63jGeoK20o/s1600-h/forelimb+bones.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 229px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis7Gr4VpnMmER4XyBRhLoyzAAa_op1hZWd4vSlhqDgjMrprdD6t6PZaezekU33csTvWHLGq7Q-CWIVSTX_n9A6xQfAwyjqXIq_pXs0jaeAxwOtKQ4DDL3w8_t1rcnbHB8eQ63jGeoK20o/s400/forelimb+bones.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293632793407557778" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><br />My mother is a fish. </span><br /> </span>-William Faulkner, <span style="font-style: italic;">As I Lay Dying.</span><br /><br />A staple illustration of biology texts is the diagram of vertebrate forelimbs. The bones, for all their different shapes and sizes, are the same bones. The same basic structures have been used to make legs, flippers and wings.<br /> The beginnings of these later-evolved bones can be found in the fins of the modern-day lungfish and the coelocanth (both pictured below), which are believed to be living fossils from the time fish began to take to land. The structures that became our arms and legs were originally made for moving through water. Our bodies have been bequeathed to us by fish.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfttXjQOWMhFCIfTNekzbbuxybZNFLVOY5AiPp0Wlt68UKBC9Vv8EPFatKVXxudvTks9cFf3_W1PgT-Y_iGFPEs1412TRWQJdMGvXM5O0CmyuFM2kKMvFeNSQYFxgNWLwReJw_Z-8InPA/s1600-h/lungfish.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfttXjQOWMhFCIfTNekzbbuxybZNFLVOY5AiPp0Wlt68UKBC9Vv8EPFatKVXxudvTks9cFf3_W1PgT-Y_iGFPEs1412TRWQJdMGvXM5O0CmyuFM2kKMvFeNSQYFxgNWLwReJw_Z-8InPA/s200/lungfish.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293632502106829186" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9j2CsuTDqCcL5qVS2LeOwUnLUE6ElAbMPSQUdUGMFj39me-n-mC5-_U88AwgDt7Kwoys_t7uFxfq5fWVokcQMvP3NrYyA0uh8degE5DtMPk3w8UfBpVpvZWALXbNCG6tVOLSOy4vrtnY/s1600-h/coelacanth.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 140px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9j2CsuTDqCcL5qVS2LeOwUnLUE6ElAbMPSQUdUGMFj39me-n-mC5-_U88AwgDt7Kwoys_t7uFxfq5fWVokcQMvP3NrYyA0uh8degE5DtMPk3w8UfBpVpvZWALXbNCG6tVOLSOy4vrtnY/s200/coelacanth.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293632405320651602" border="0" /></a><br />But it’s not only our arms and legs they have left us. The earliest fish were jawless animals who sucked, tore and filtered their prey from the water. One theory says that the lower jaw evolved from a bone that was originally an arch to support the gills. The structure that, in human beings, allowed the development of speech, with all the implications of that revolution, might have started out as a bony strut that helped fish to breathe oxygen from water. Maybe the only response to a revelation like this is to let your mouth hang open, and gape wordlessly like a stunned mullet.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcNlJEKBUI0q7cnvrmnSY9THti2DHMEZo4EUUR3ZBfQ4PSwYdH4JDk0FQ0zUjZ-M8E-DYQ9RmSL2kcPe7TO7f3clCS56puU-Ln8MI4RUDJchYSgbL_R_Xzo6j0iM_sAcnx9rf2wpQ0oA/s1600-h/PC190082.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcNlJEKBUI0q7cnvrmnSY9THti2DHMEZo4EUUR3ZBfQ4PSwYdH4JDk0FQ0zUjZ-M8E-DYQ9RmSL2kcPe7TO7f3clCS56puU-Ln8MI4RUDJchYSgbL_R_Xzo6j0iM_sAcnx9rf2wpQ0oA/s400/PC190082.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293631846239704498" border="0" /></a>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-68849082954763961202008-10-18T13:28:00.000-07:002008-10-18T20:00:48.945-07:00Toad dissection<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFbTqoktpwV8jsHSHWQUvFTSRSZfwF6f16bNu4EKGQOHqMpenSPSdIkArea6qYcaWstkJ6xDfcgwbNYezRZzBI01fRgskZe0TXqLANy5Ebjfr8GHtADsDDaxGhyuZw6TdvmPOd3HeiueE/s1600-h/PA160057.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFbTqoktpwV8jsHSHWQUvFTSRSZfwF6f16bNu4EKGQOHqMpenSPSdIkArea6qYcaWstkJ6xDfcgwbNYezRZzBI01fRgskZe0TXqLANy5Ebjfr8GHtADsDDaxGhyuZw6TdvmPOd3HeiueE/s400/PA160057.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258691733958494690" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I decided to photograph and talk about a toad dissection I did this week. Some people (Lorelei?) might not want to see these pictures. A few of the Queenslanders amongst you are likely to have done a toad dissection at school. I wish I could preface this entry with some illuminating comment on the ethics of dissection, but in order to do this sort of thing I try not to think too hard about the morals of what I'm doing. Sometimes I feel a sympathetic pain in the same body part as the part of the animal I'm cutting. I am a hypocrite. But enough of my moral flabbiness, and on with the toad.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq7wRXOj7D85SVljhmkPdB4-ZkwlID9aDN-6rwMpb-fpX_a-0AfzrlLhwbihJFja1U1iTRerrR3JWjoDAgngFuyD2K1ig0u1qcLnZbD5eF2AhDjfKpItkWT4c9A74-1Ukk3KGceuywGvM/s1600-h/PA160056.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq7wRXOj7D85SVljhmkPdB4-ZkwlID9aDN-6rwMpb-fpX_a-0AfzrlLhwbihJFja1U1iTRerrR3JWjoDAgngFuyD2K1ig0u1qcLnZbD5eF2AhDjfKpItkWT4c9A74-1Ukk3KGceuywGvM/s400/PA160056.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258691353501590226" border="0" /></a><br />Here's my toad. I picked it out of the other toads in the tub because it was a very pretty shade of pale yellow. It's illegal to breed cane toads, so the toads we used were captured in Northern Queensland and crated down.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi95t3rsYeO2nFb-8v7xatVGE2mckVSdLlgYZ_6WzkvOAsa71FrMaXPZRFrP9C1OtqYxDFAsUs0DS0wleUJpfYuk6Zs4fWmDFo6ihIldMBtQB29-nK0os3GQDvOYtLJwXC_wsNPcWzjizo/s1600-h/PA160058.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi95t3rsYeO2nFb-8v7xatVGE2mckVSdLlgYZ_6WzkvOAsa71FrMaXPZRFrP9C1OtqYxDFAsUs0DS0wleUJpfYuk6Zs4fWmDFo6ihIldMBtQB29-nK0os3GQDvOYtLJwXC_wsNPcWzjizo/s400/PA160058.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258690905297237138" border="0" /></a><br />This is always the saddest part of the dissection.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhsEPFYGhGNMkDvTW3RNqAphQu9wrW4JKzx9zY5qNZU5NxnbDXgtEydCXv91hgnGhFCVsUSXUn5mMzObOsh78rGVSj5BQ-GVFA8R_UEQpw_KtUTEUm0kxgtsLV5pGix6hiEqPXnkrFwng/s1600-h/PA160060.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhsEPFYGhGNMkDvTW3RNqAphQu9wrW4JKzx9zY5qNZU5NxnbDXgtEydCXv91hgnGhFCVsUSXUn5mMzObOsh78rGVSj5BQ-GVFA8R_UEQpw_KtUTEUm0kxgtsLV5pGix6hiEqPXnkrFwng/s400/PA160060.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258690544875568850" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimflRgviAyG_uARUhDvwm3FwbDeRTqbjeiCFFBwZy3KWEF0BsAOvxBrEN3hC3BIk6x5tSmjfz1umdoEOU3RVksGCULX0did7-_IIfs0oM_J3KVB80KNp19ZvxghJDpOSkRoS_7OnNJhDk/s1600-h/PA160061.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimflRgviAyG_uARUhDvwm3FwbDeRTqbjeiCFFBwZy3KWEF0BsAOvxBrEN3hC3BIk6x5tSmjfz1umdoEOU3RVksGCULX0did7-_IIfs0oM_J3KVB80KNp19ZvxghJDpOSkRoS_7OnNJhDk/s400/PA160061.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258690077946263842" border="0" /></a><br />Once I've made the first cut it's easier to think of the toad as a specimen, and not an animal. Here (above) I've cut through the skin to reveal the abdominal muscles. Toads have no external genitalia (both sexes have a multi-purpose cloaca), so it's only once you get inside that you can tell what sex it is. This is a male toad, because it has a vocal sac. You can see the vocal sac in the photo immediately above. It's the black-and-white flecked section of skin beneath the lower jaw.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsTouN-jRi-nB1yqowGb9WGfpGucZB39NCsX4x9uDb7rbYVOagNqH9kD7DWnonKzIM438wn-Gw89S0LaA21LS41HACxJVomZQ6OpG5E3uGkgzQrD1D6t0Zqog6WZUMQbdk9DuYFeADvDY/s1600-h/PA160062.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsTouN-jRi-nB1yqowGb9WGfpGucZB39NCsX4x9uDb7rbYVOagNqH9kD7DWnonKzIM438wn-Gw89S0LaA21LS41HACxJVomZQ6OpG5E3uGkgzQrD1D6t0Zqog6WZUMQbdk9DuYFeADvDY/s400/PA160062.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258689651187534050" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Hr0uK1sWaXoeK9TDZSbJz8kiDoBL6FbFY0NflPgvvu09LZ776S0dxQ-bZP4loCbA1Nx-8-HFlf97Xml_8pjHi0gN-STp1_q5LfmUcDAcSC93_6AyhChvIbjL8MjcUeWtIRr-PtOqldI/s1600-h/PA160064.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Hr0uK1sWaXoeK9TDZSbJz8kiDoBL6FbFY0NflPgvvu09LZ776S0dxQ-bZP4loCbA1Nx-8-HFlf97Xml_8pjHi0gN-STp1_q5LfmUcDAcSC93_6AyhChvIbjL8MjcUeWtIRr-PtOqldI/s400/PA160064.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258689289788074162" border="0" /></a><br />These pictures were taken after I cut through the muscle layer. The internal organs are known collectively as the viscera. In the above picture, where the chest muscles and vocal sac have been severed, you can see the white roof of the toad's mouth.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbWrrJubVYVXMxanTM-uKi-gBVjmmVZIoDLPlZ2_oj2c0ggTJHYWgkODqqwG7yE3VLx2Pl_3BItyo-HLaAe-HqDKXS-hb9bs3FAET0IbH9bImL9QVz1tVw2VDRqXF8du_Iup96g7hnlEc/s1600-h/PA160063.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbWrrJubVYVXMxanTM-uKi-gBVjmmVZIoDLPlZ2_oj2c0ggTJHYWgkODqqwG7yE3VLx2Pl_3BItyo-HLaAe-HqDKXS-hb9bs3FAET0IbH9bImL9QVz1tVw2VDRqXF8du_Iup96g7hnlEc/s400/PA160063.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5258688901152079698" border="0" /></a><br />Here's a close-up of the viscera. The following organs are visible:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lungs</span>: the pale yellow, honey-comb sacs on either side of the body. As well as breathing with their lungs, toads can breathe and absorb water through their skin.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Heart</span>: dark red, in the centre of the chest.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Stomach</span>: pale pink tube on the lower right hand side of the photo. It is attached the small intestine, which is the thinner, coiled tube.<br /><br />As it turned out, there was something wrong with my toad. The large grey ball in the middle of the viscera is the gall bladder, which is abnormally enlarged. Normally the toad's liver would be dark brown-red and cover a large portion of the viscera. However, this toad's liver is visible as the two shrunken, pale brown masses on either side of the gall bladder. Humans with poor liver function can have a yellow complection. Maybe the yellow colouring I initially took to be the sign of a particularly beautiful toad was actually a result of liver disease. The demonstrator told me that if my toad was a human, it would be an alcoholic.<br /><br />At this point my camera ran out out of batteries, so I can't show you the toad's kidneys, which were located under the rest of the viscera, or its internal testes, which are small yellow things that sit above the kidneys. Neither can I show you inside its heart, which I had to remove, slice through and put in a petri dish. Underneath the viscera I could see the toad's backbone sitting against its skin. I ran out of time to draw the nervous system, so I wanted to take the toad home in my lunchbox to finish the prac, but the demonstrator wouldn't let me.<br /><br />Next week I'm doing a pigeon.Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-69096460521849909282008-10-13T22:30:00.000-07:002008-10-13T22:52:22.504-07:00To Pea or not to Pea<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgErA2rITUnNTARZpCbOr89MTgPW17HzCToIxpgRLr1WH7SmNe0HUAIO-Socd7OnnXJh2cTsW1zRdrKg9eEmR-Rze5MT6RkuSastVAKEotYz6zgCq_VrATx7RCvHvHaZOLM94bDY2i4YqY/s1600-h/dry+sclerophyll.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 255px; height: 307px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgErA2rITUnNTARZpCbOr89MTgPW17HzCToIxpgRLr1WH7SmNe0HUAIO-Socd7OnnXJh2cTsW1zRdrKg9eEmR-Rze5MT6RkuSastVAKEotYz6zgCq_VrATx7RCvHvHaZOLM94bDY2i4YqY/s400/dry+sclerophyll.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256878570750270002" border="0" /></a><br />Here are the names of some plants we had to identify on our ecology excursion. I like a good latin name, but sometimes you can't beat a common name for whimsy.<br /><br />screw fern<br />pithy sword sedge<br />wire rapier sedge<br />red beaks<br />milky beauty-heads<br />common billy-buttons<br />creeping cudweed<br />button everlasting<br />honey-pots<br />twin-flower beard-heath<br />common raspwort<br />slender dodder-laurel<br />coarse dodder-laurel<br />love creeper<br />horny conebush<br /><br />It's nice to know, though, that even scientific names are not above being a wee bit twee. Note the obtuse angles in the leaves of this plant, the common flat-pea. The plant's scientific name is <span style="font-style: italic;">Platylobium obtusangulum. </span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrCDOJ6eMcWlLP8raBwcGb2sJ9bxXWZFdVuDHjCn7dGqV2hc68yXE1LWdGJ29r_Fvh5yJPBtcK3pfWP1hAn-o9ODqhM0AFyBWeVBNUZ10trPAWMuSB18ii8jeQqNPyDqF0hgMfv4LYPls/s1600-h/platylobium-obtusangulum.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 346px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrCDOJ6eMcWlLP8raBwcGb2sJ9bxXWZFdVuDHjCn7dGqV2hc68yXE1LWdGJ29r_Fvh5yJPBtcK3pfWP1hAn-o9ODqhM0AFyBWeVBNUZ10trPAWMuSB18ii8jeQqNPyDqF0hgMfv4LYPls/s400/platylobium-obtusangulum.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256878438202943122" border="0" /></a>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-26713905685844725422008-09-25T11:50:00.000-07:002008-09-24T18:49:58.466-07:00Having the Slime of my Life: defensive reflexes in Myxiniformes<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHnDbhu46Z3-T4UFZ_XiFC6hK5KhuFvamALdLfC9D9w_b7L0GOuASjYR0HQdbZ-4mkzqBT4ragLYgo2lTK24-KuAphw-AUX3m3B3I4T0mIu7GB8Q88KOtUnVdcvt9SZQFkXTIksq_9CuY/s1600-h/Dik-dik_AfricanAntelope-FaceCloseup.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 179px; height: 204px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHnDbhu46Z3-T4UFZ_XiFC6hK5KhuFvamALdLfC9D9w_b7L0GOuASjYR0HQdbZ-4mkzqBT4ragLYgo2lTK24-KuAphw-AUX3m3B3I4T0mIu7GB8Q88KOtUnVdcvt9SZQFkXTIksq_9CuY/s200/Dik-dik_AfricanAntelope-FaceCloseup.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243612969802637586" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Some animals have unfortunate names.<br /><br />The dik dik, for example.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYcIP6rTddd_F42yQYz8v_NpGdstG-mLPVllKBpJAo_YGwAarRiBeGqVZU_bwvU7jPQ7fLsHUO8azOWjXHHx5rlCxnSkAcP5vLNRTGzSmKmYuwEoRYCD_Y3Gy3kZfxsioRg8ul_kyVIXM/s1600-h/Nudibranch+3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYcIP6rTddd_F42yQYz8v_NpGdstG-mLPVllKBpJAo_YGwAarRiBeGqVZU_bwvU7jPQ7fLsHUO8azOWjXHHx5rlCxnSkAcP5vLNRTGzSmKmYuwEoRYCD_Y3Gy3kZfxsioRg8ul_kyVIXM/s200/Nudibranch+3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243612679080001410" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Or the nudibranch.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF2iWRSbfT_bHhD0_Z_qmbm8OntjGJSpY5oYrV_s1REvQE5kryeHgfLgr4zeMHF0gAWrCD8GzaWA-B4zQRnF-5B5pCfsH5rmbD2o5l8NNAmnURwFn7NrfmBT_6-TCWMZDlpo4CtGch7zc/s1600-h/molerat.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF2iWRSbfT_bHhD0_Z_qmbm8OntjGJSpY5oYrV_s1REvQE5kryeHgfLgr4zeMHF0gAWrCD8GzaWA-B4zQRnF-5B5pCfsH5rmbD2o5l8NNAmnURwFn7NrfmBT_6-TCWMZDlpo4CtGch7zc/s200/molerat.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243612282130239218" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Other animals not only have a funny name, but remind us that nature is not always beautiful. The naked mole rat springs to mind.<br /></div><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI4i0JJQMH-Vp7XgGXOQEuCA02zyJXwDMqMVAE8yGTpWYkiwKKg1rdVNwiiXbvG6KlYRWFIKKNiUhlUhfKiHZykffpBC3j5IBGzlzjaWXrIwE4kV60AqE2pnxAza4JVKVA-zdjDbA4NOk/s1600-h/Ha+gfish.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI4i0JJQMH-Vp7XgGXOQEuCA02zyJXwDMqMVAE8yGTpWYkiwKKg1rdVNwiiXbvG6KlYRWFIKKNiUhlUhfKiHZykffpBC3j5IBGzlzjaWXrIwE4kV60AqE2pnxAza4JVKVA-zdjDbA4NOk/s200/Ha+gfish.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243612018501954738" border="0" /></a><br /><br />But my favourite animal in the aforementioned category is the hagfish. Hagfish resemble the earliest fish in that they have no lower jaw. Instead, they tear pieces off polychaete worms and dead fish. I am not sure whether it's their gummy, left-my false-teeth-out style of eating that gives them the name 'hags', but it seems appropriate.<br /><br />Hagfish are also known, charmingly, as slime hags, due to their numerous mucus glands. This is what my textbook has to say about hagfish:<br /><br /> "A disturbed hagfish can produce enormous volumes of protective mucus; once released from the body, the mucus expands very rapidly and can completely fill a bucket containing the hagfish within minutes."<br /><br />Disappointingly, it seems that there is no such creature as a fagfish, with whom these slimy, disturbed hags would presumably form a symbiotic relationship.Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-36088503882915491442008-09-15T04:53:00.000-07:002008-09-15T05:05:57.103-07:00Rhesus monkey skeletons, Melbourne Uni zoology museum<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIKKv6F3GdL5c02LxGHvGRdbzQGY6IoOe2hbXUz6Z7J23xPdQdW9rUlcauEeUoJRteNXREPAJTrhmukFcifqE7z2BO1-N-Qch5eKRyrWUdocrXL1hYINbzi7Z4VjUOA7RPlVSGsLHR6kI/s1600-h/P9150010.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIKKv6F3GdL5c02LxGHvGRdbzQGY6IoOe2hbXUz6Z7J23xPdQdW9rUlcauEeUoJRteNXREPAJTrhmukFcifqE7z2BO1-N-Qch5eKRyrWUdocrXL1hYINbzi7Z4VjUOA7RPlVSGsLHR6kI/s400/P9150010.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246217888250672050" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbRUQ1ZTaMaZFgsOXeaxuKU65-ZNrHXNgDHnmHrSsBeRYcKPuxHCHxLVAwkMyjs85k3eNvfMhHIAbbmyUVGrpeUIyI642kBevhnt6mypdDwMgAHAhVO3lU8hsSyECfWozgGADODrGdrUU/s1600-h/P9150016.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbRUQ1ZTaMaZFgsOXeaxuKU65-ZNrHXNgDHnmHrSsBeRYcKPuxHCHxLVAwkMyjs85k3eNvfMhHIAbbmyUVGrpeUIyI642kBevhnt6mypdDwMgAHAhVO3lU8hsSyECfWozgGADODrGdrUU/s400/P9150016.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246217483055429618" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJiCXJUQRMYM8KX0-TjtWk-MtwqVSEu0e_n0Fwu3g7raUHMQjFiIq9VjLJ484bBM67BODjQLf1ss-ohi-36oZmk6QNvmo8Ep-E0wAHtTKF4-VAoxOjZBP_zq32jbbryExbS8meBxlqAo/s1600-h/P9150011.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJiCXJUQRMYM8KX0-TjtWk-MtwqVSEu0e_n0Fwu3g7raUHMQjFiIq9VjLJ484bBM67BODjQLf1ss-ohi-36oZmk6QNvmo8Ep-E0wAHtTKF4-VAoxOjZBP_zq32jbbryExbS8meBxlqAo/s400/P9150011.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246216875503764066" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghmKmvytbFD_JK45WnhurOCjQyni5knLMj2SbmBxl2IIT5VXdC01UyOeQF6yoNJjSqIOKgI65iL3nFuSTIDqRfSezj7qmo_2IM9fIMmDdqwy5lyW9sYmguOZayXy2IlSQS7ZhU-84h8ZQ/s1600-h/P9150016.JPG"><br /></a>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-29937916801378350052008-09-08T03:02:00.000-07:002008-09-12T20:26:49.882-07:00Fish fingers: Acanthostega and tetrapod evolution<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTUK7kJgEHRQwj2arF4YQt7-4wVxs95uAFxU-tGcWH65r97pRJx5Ogg3_DZjKKH_LOebi9dklHNqRdYGQOwehlXB4FbDs2O_rJTPJX0YY5bCtt9epTP-8sBIzLBq5QYK8r4mR0BAsETwo/s1600-h/Acanthostega2_ZICA.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTUK7kJgEHRQwj2arF4YQt7-4wVxs95uAFxU-tGcWH65r97pRJx5Ogg3_DZjKKH_LOebi9dklHNqRdYGQOwehlXB4FbDs2O_rJTPJX0YY5bCtt9epTP-8sBIzLBq5QYK8r4mR0BAsETwo/s320/Acanthostega2_ZICA.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243590115083303778" border="0" /></a>This handsome devil is <span style="font-style: italic;">Acanthostega</span>. One of my lecturers refers to him as 'friend <span style="font-style: italic;">Acanthostega</span>', and, for reasons I will explain, I have come to think of Acanthostega as a friend.<br />There are no photos to show you, because <span style="font-style: italic;">Acanthostega</span> has been dead for approximately 365 million years.<br /><br />A cultural theory enthusiast might say that <span style="font-style: italic;">Acanthostega </span>inhabited the liminal zone. A normal person might say that he was a half-fish, half reptile who lived in a swamp. When you hear about creatures crawling out of the primeval soup, it's <span style="font-style: italic;">Acanthostega</span> who did the crawling.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBSsl7e_ynI2UPhk1Fz-izM_7-cNZearNjy1MhbcjSnu7efj5Rh9SjMGTuhoFWR_-Xy-ngGwJl1XWHdA-P1fbt96sc3abpzjyt9s5cYCHAjHB2zpYAZGzWXyy3rSunHhI4OYrILxHTZ7g/s1600-h/acanthostega3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBSsl7e_ynI2UPhk1Fz-izM_7-cNZearNjy1MhbcjSnu7efj5Rh9SjMGTuhoFWR_-Xy-ngGwJl1XWHdA-P1fbt96sc3abpzjyt9s5cYCHAjHB2zpYAZGzWXyy3rSunHhI4OYrILxHTZ7g/s200/acanthostega3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243589916317808418" border="0" /></a><br />As you can see, <span style="font-style: italic;">Acanthostega</span>'s limbs sit a little awkwardly on his body. This is because limbs have only just been invented.<span style="font-style: italic;"> Acanthostega</span>'s predecessors were fish with fins. He was probably not mobile on land, but could use his legs to brace himself against aquatic plants, and push up out of the mud.<br /><br />Early limb-bearing creatures like <span style="font-style: italic;">Acanthostega</span> usually had six to eight digits on each hand. It was only later in evolutionary history that most animals settled on five digits as the optimal number.<br /><br />Of all the species that have ever existed, it is estimated that 99% are extinct. It's sad to think of the last <span style="font-style: italic;">Acanthostega</span> sinking lifelessly into the Upper Devonian mud. However, there is a happy ending. Limbs proved to be a very successful evolutionary strategy. <span style="font-style: italic;">Acanthostega</span> is not just a friend, but a relative. It seems (my textbook is not explicit on this) that his descendants include ourselves!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm4N90fBAxqfg76s-3gGcpGlaHDzPYkFONy2RccSwKjLW1bnD4rPOWTEr6JOqo8UkKy9nX_SXjrmADRupc_diEM-04-pTSbFPaoKu3v9ljDWR23E0JLS1VH3-zHbXBEYoKUC9VFSr8e2U/s1600-h/foss_acanthostega.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm4N90fBAxqfg76s-3gGcpGlaHDzPYkFONy2RccSwKjLW1bnD4rPOWTEr6JOqo8UkKy9nX_SXjrmADRupc_diEM-04-pTSbFPaoKu3v9ljDWR23E0JLS1VH3-zHbXBEYoKUC9VFSr8e2U/s320/foss_acanthostega.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243589643958373634" border="0" /></a>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-76437774189855416652008-08-17T00:16:00.000-07:002008-09-07T02:17:03.688-07:00If an animal mates with another species of animal, is it still bestiality?: Onychophorans and outbreeding depression.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-6dKr8vgygtu14x4wjmdVD_CCimF8qkbGHLe096-Xr01jwA0aG5A1HPfJHfPby-Ed-py6lsb7P8VvcYDidh0eN1Qpa2BmuDWtcpwBh6Jg2JqfmhzFPA9_hR0K_tDeFCEIYlbkVFS6SAY/s1600-h/peripatus.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-6dKr8vgygtu14x4wjmdVD_CCimF8qkbGHLe096-Xr01jwA0aG5A1HPfJHfPby-Ed-py6lsb7P8VvcYDidh0eN1Qpa2BmuDWtcpwBh6Jg2JqfmhzFPA9_hR0K_tDeFCEIYlbkVFS6SAY/s320/peripatus.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243202935613297762" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcYyjomfIbQNzqZ4Kq-UFOZKfRH6zkRmY_vHPt33LG3kJ7kCIYzD1wYGE2NeCsXD7vlbmGME0-1b_bbfI6xQBuaDTtAJqwwKGvc4Hmq8hwbd8sStVW3lZyJI4mj6Atm-WELIz6m3lMxUM/s1600-h/velvetworm.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"></a></span><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /></div><div>I promised more obscure invertebrates, so here is an onychophoran. Onychophorans are forest leaf litter dwellers. I have never seen one, but I live in hope. Their common-or-garden name, velvet worms, seems to suggest that holding one would feel like being stroked with a piece of velvet. As a presumptive scientist, I have qualms about using a word like 'cute', but look at those little antennae. I'm only human!</div><div><br /></div><div>Onychophorans are also wonderful because they are freaks. I have a soft spot for animals who exist in distant, unclassifiable, evolutionary backwaters. Onychophorans appear to be related to both insects and annelid worms, but cannot be classified as either. They exist in a phylum all of their own. To put this in perspective, human beings are in the phylum Chordata, along with (more or less) everything else that has a backbone. The phylum Onychophora contains only onychophorans. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><img style="text-decoration: underline;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcYyjomfIbQNzqZ4Kq-UFOZKfRH6zkRmY_vHPt33LG3kJ7kCIYzD1wYGE2NeCsXD7vlbmGME0-1b_bbfI6xQBuaDTtAJqwwKGvc4Hmq8hwbd8sStVW3lZyJI4mj6Atm-WELIz6m3lMxUM/s320/velvetworm.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243202760762188162" /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Germaine Greer reputedly remarked the other day that she was an animal. Perhaps Germaine should consider becoming an invertebrate. In the tradition of female-dominated ant, bee and termite societies, and female praying mantises who devour their mates after sex, some onychophorans live under a rigid matriarchal hierarchy. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Australian species <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Euperipatoides rowelli</span> commonly lives in a social group of up to 15 females, males and young. They hunt as a pack, immobilising their prey with a sticky secretion of mucus. The group observes a strict hierarchy in the order in which they feed. The dominant female feeds first, followed by other females, then the males and young. According to biologists who made this discovery, 'hierarchy within the group is established by aggressive-dominant and passive-subordinate behaviours'. At least there are no passive-aggressive onychophorans. </div><div><br /></div><div>Aggressive behaviour consists of kicking, biting, chasing and climbing on other individuals. Passive behaviour involves running away or allowing oneself to be climbed on. Females are commonly larger than males, and this may explain their higher status. Onychophorans of this species have been observed running their antennae over others' backs, perhaps to estimate their size and social status. </div><div><br /></div><div>However, while it's a dog-eat-dog world inside the onychophoran pack, they close ranks against outsiders. To quote the aforementioned biologists, '<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">E. rowelli</span> from different groups, ie. from different logs, are met with intense agression'. Perhaps Germaine is right. It seems all too easy to draw parallels with the human condition. Personally, when I see someone from a different log, I can barely contain myself. But first I run my antennae over their back, just in case. </div><div><br />Unfortunately for onychophorans, fragmentation of their habitat means it's sometimes difficult to find a mate, so they resort not to inbreeding, but to outbreeding. To explain by way of analogy, onychophorans are not like the hillbilly who marries his cousin, but the hillbilly who marries his goat. Unable to find a mate of the same species, they will breed with a different species of onychophoran. As with many cross-species matings, the resulting offspring often have fertility problems, as well as unusual numbers of legs. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkgN6KO7ZWNfEDeJYf5U4vKvg5PNY3vkN_TtD51-D7yBbqve1xh22CjCZFRjAOqy6iI3lU1a4dYms_lJVKkDHHXQzxlzAciQRrgcQC_ICTS9XVeXzXCk3950a_wMdVvEDUNCx9PGeu9OM/s320/velvet+worm.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243202580448670866" /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-90510592651119614612008-08-12T04:49:00.001-07:002008-08-13T00:31:52.187-07:00God scribbled a penis on the ocean floor: the discovery of Riftia pachyptilaInvertebrates are animals that have no backbone. (Actually, to be technically correct, they have no dorsal notochord, but I want this blog to be intellectually light weight, so let's say the first definition is okay.)<br /><br />Some invertebrates have captured the popular imagination. There are childrens' films featuring ants and bees. There are no childrens' films that feature cute, talking digenean flukes. You might dress your kid in a T-shirt with a picture of a butterfly. You would not dress her in a shirt with a picture of a tapeworm. Or, for that matter, a nematode, a nemertean, or a nudibranch.<br /><br />Pycogonids are related to spiders, but Incy Wincy pycogonid never climbed up the water spout. A vestimentiferan never flew away home to find her children missing and her house on fire.<br /><br />Maybe this is because having your house on fire is a pretty normal state of affairs for vestimentiferans. These animals live around hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. At great depths, molten rock released below the earth's surface causes hot water to flow up into the ocean.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Ju1XMcswfOYM_1Z9oBgmKzTO7BQqjMaTC4ySjdToaDA8snK2d5FQgwmlG1NpO2950mz8RMfs4Z88DmfBgLhlgzwLyWSb40vhUx2T-U2pP-dtnRCUho5G5pptXQdd00encbyYMxsKWNU/s1600-h/vestiment+2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Ju1XMcswfOYM_1Z9oBgmKzTO7BQqjMaTC4ySjdToaDA8snK2d5FQgwmlG1NpO2950mz8RMfs4Z88DmfBgLhlgzwLyWSb40vhUx2T-U2pP-dtnRCUho5G5pptXQdd00encbyYMxsKWNU/s320/vestiment+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233599191624959570" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Before 1977, no one knew vestimentiferans existed. Scientists who were conducting an oceanographic survey from a navy submarine unexpectedly discovered unfamiliar worm-like creatures living around vents at a depth of 2500 metres.<br /><br />Vestimentiferans live inside a hard tube. They have no mouth or gut. Instead, they are filled with bacteria. The hydrothermal vents release sulphur, which the bacteria digest to produce energy. (This is highly unusual, as most living things have to obtain energy either from eating someone else or from photosynthesis.) The vestimentiferan can then digest the bacteria.<br /><br />In the words of our normally serious and world-weary lecturer, they are 'easy to remember for the exam because they're the ones that look like a giant penis'. Giant is the right word. Vestimentiferans grow to be 2.5 metres long.<br /><br />More deeply unpopular invertebrate friends to come!<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnMMO80nk0zYR52xlThFt6J4S4V2Dzhp7wJ2zEKoevwHienhyphenhyphenzCrmekDA-gbKtZTslkly0CYDrghG_x3coDh_jOguStFeyaGoYZp1Sx8EDP9LSMl3OfLmzBaHm8Rx7Y0x0Xdkoo4g6ooM/s1600-h/vestment++small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnMMO80nk0zYR52xlThFt6J4S4V2Dzhp7wJ2zEKoevwHienhyphenhyphenzCrmekDA-gbKtZTslkly0CYDrghG_x3coDh_jOguStFeyaGoYZp1Sx8EDP9LSMl3OfLmzBaHm8Rx7Y0x0Xdkoo4g6ooM/s320/vestment++small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233599344134218434" border="0" /></a>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-12427763090919173322008-07-26T01:14:00.000-07:002008-08-04T03:46:35.887-07:00You're an Ugly Mole: the cryptic lifestyle of Notoryctes typhlops<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv9uIHDMPI65M_vQRFH_pQIcWk7mnoMW4FzlMNp2cpsnPta8cLpeS_UeHQKI9CEFELlxq5ZNovCRq6U-MAEm92oFQoTZHfUTaeoMtcclBSd_5DTgH-Hr2xBd9mbsptGSi-_9SFk8ovg9M/s1600-h/MarsupialMole.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv9uIHDMPI65M_vQRFH_pQIcWk7mnoMW4FzlMNp2cpsnPta8cLpeS_UeHQKI9CEFELlxq5ZNovCRq6U-MAEm92oFQoTZHfUTaeoMtcclBSd_5DTgH-Hr2xBd9mbsptGSi-_9SFk8ovg9M/s320/MarsupialMole.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5227236605705239330" border="0" /></a><br /><div>As we all know, Australian mammals are shameless media tarts. But not marsupial moles. Marsupial moles live in the central Australian desert. Because they are rare and live underground, almost nothing is known about their behaviour or life cycles. <div><br /></div><div>As you can see from the pictures, they look just like Mr. Mole from <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Wind in the Willows, </span>if he was an albino with a backwards-facing pouch and no eyeballs. </div><div><div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLAI4JU-sIACJSEmCm4EilYgZQdJWxPx_9Vj5gvmAhMdsAZ8r0DDAwSNVE3hJqsRzuzVAxlzsFPisOzXNQ3iwp6monFSlMRJ6p3M1KHWwqPBn4Yz9xGdpuJsrKadmKn6OQkC6_WTzA2Rc/s1600-h/mole+with+gecko.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLAI4JU-sIACJSEmCm4EilYgZQdJWxPx_9Vj5gvmAhMdsAZ8r0DDAwSNVE3hJqsRzuzVAxlzsFPisOzXNQ3iwp6monFSlMRJ6p3M1KHWwqPBn4Yz9xGdpuJsrKadmKn6OQkC6_WTzA2Rc/s320/mole+with+gecko.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5227236439687509090" border="0" /></a><div><br /></div><div>Marsupial moles' underground lifestyles have made sight unnecessary, so over many generations their eyes have degenerated. They have small lenses left in their skin where their eyes would originally have been. They also have no external ears. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyone who has ever worn a pair of girls' togs to the beach would know about that annoying pocket-like bit in the groin that seems especially designed to fill up with sand. Marsupial moles don't have this problem. The entrance to a marsupial moles' pouch faces backwards so that when the mole burrows through sand, its pouch is not filled up with grit. </div><div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ZtW4S5-vR_ed7uU3q8pTPMUgq-iCBOFgrRXnb6iFwLA1_DEFt-vRuAL63wnmxf6s6FC1Z4DWnj6Qj-hvnbpbB1XK1dnNvMQJAaNC0dLMRF6isN6qSW-WVbcg-XpgDDQq3srdJ-0ggOc/s1600-h/mole+photo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ZtW4S5-vR_ed7uU3q8pTPMUgq-iCBOFgrRXnb6iFwLA1_DEFt-vRuAL63wnmxf6s6FC1Z4DWnj6Qj-hvnbpbB1XK1dnNvMQJAaNC0dLMRF6isN6qSW-WVbcg-XpgDDQq3srdJ-0ggOc/s320/mole+photo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5227234327036890338" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-34338281900185607662008-07-25T03:03:00.000-07:002008-07-28T04:22:47.598-07:00Stop, or my Epitoke Will Shoot!: Polychaete Reproduction<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgOmFD3fckloZ8oOeWZW0a9IJFmVHafKNwZZfiUqk4gWGgrDL8Kw9u3Z9CehVt3Lr-AYAFneTRzxJ97azdh6USzJyZg-x_dGB43DVlMCfka5YiAq8snMiAp-gDsDebQ4HhLb4alQCFldo/s1600-h/nur01508.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgOmFD3fckloZ8oOeWZW0a9IJFmVHafKNwZZfiUqk4gWGgrDL8Kw9u3Z9CehVt3Lr-AYAFneTRzxJ97azdh6USzJyZg-x_dGB43DVlMCfka5YiAq8snMiAp-gDsDebQ4HhLb4alQCFldo/s200/nur01508.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226900072918517858" border="0" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Sexual reproduction can be a bitch. The medical expenses, the ballooning uterus, the risk of disease. When it comes to reproduction without the hazards, polychaete worms have it made. </span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Polychaetes (pronounced poly-keets) are a type of annelid, and so are related to earthworms and leeches. They live in the ocean, and often have spectacular facial tentacles. Some are free-living, while others live in tubes and have fan-like tentacles to catch food. Ancestral earthworms probably resembled free-living polychaetes, but they lost their tentacles when they moved onto land and started burrowing underground.</span><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbZpab-BueoBv2RladELKlKk5CeXoimuUK41I7QeSu_BvOvB4N3gFKBC383UgnscP-P4seH2grT28316iICRovP2g9P0Kh2Wnv9dJIWufOzChPpBN54qBFv25scPrkr555NY8FH9KMtHw/s1600-h/polychaete_300.jpg"><span><span></span></span><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbZpab-BueoBv2RladELKlKk5CeXoimuUK41I7QeSu_BvOvB4N3gFKBC383UgnscP-P4seH2grT28316iICRovP2g9P0Kh2Wnv9dJIWufOzChPpBN54qBFv25scPrkr555NY8FH9KMtHw/s320/polychaete_300.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226897305277488178" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipkUefzvOHzs9prnoNVO4lu1w-_eyaRxOkTfp0MR2LEDNE6Rlkim5ymV4-D7ruDlIygLsuS6syPHf_ZvaWdp9aw3HHp7T55UReNwdIpckmg_d-0-qRh_ndgyrXSRj4ylGsj8b4cwf5nuc/s1600-h/nereis.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipkUefzvOHzs9prnoNVO4lu1w-_eyaRxOkTfp0MR2LEDNE6Rlkim5ymV4-D7ruDlIygLsuS6syPHf_ZvaWdp9aw3HHp7T55UReNwdIpckmg_d-0-qRh_ndgyrXSRj4ylGsj8b4cwf5nuc/s320/nereis.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226896648908335250" border="0" /></a><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">If you were one of a few peculiar species of polychaete, having a baby would be a breeze. The hard work would be done for you by a specially adapted clone. At a certain point in your adulthood, you would notice a small version of yourself sprouting from your rear end. This individual would be your 'epitoke'. You would referred to as the 'atoke'. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">You may have several epitokes joined in a line behind you. They would be genetically identical to you, but have features that would make them better suited to sexual reproduction. Polychaete epitokes have specialised structures for swimming. Their guts degenerate to make room for vast quantities of eggs or sperm. In human terms, your epitoke would be just like you, but with perkier breasts, a larger penis, wittier conversation and a better car. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">When they were large enough, your epitokes would break off from your body and swim up into the ocean. They would brave predation from other animals (or the humiliations of the speed dating scene) in order to release what are genetically your sperm or eggs into the water. You could stay at home watching television and making cups of tea, knowing that a superior version of yourself was out doing all the hard work. With any luck, the ocean would soon be filled with your larvae, even though you had no hand in producing them directly. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">And if your epitoke was eaten by a fish (or limped home emotionally crippled from a failed marriage to someone who turned out to be a lady-boy) you could always sprout another one. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Polychaetes are not the only animals to bud off a clone of themselves for sexual reproduction. In some classes of jellyfish, the jellies you see floating in the ocean are only half the story. They have budded off a body form known as a polyp, which is attached to the bottom of the ocean. The floating form of the jellyfish is called a medusa. It's the sexy one. Like the epitoke, it goes around releasing sperm and eggs into the water. Polyps prefer to stay in. </span></div><div><br /></div><div>If you want to make this interactive, perhaps we can all take a moment to ask ourselves: in the great ocean of life, am I an atoke or an epitoke? Actually, maybe not. I enjoy anthropomorphism as much as the next person, but sometimes biology hits a little too close to home. </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:13;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:13;"><br /></span></div>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-49132584223930862242008-07-24T21:13:00.000-07:002008-07-24T21:54:49.746-07:00My Cousin is a Slime Mould OR Phylogenetic Relationships With Particular Attention to Homo Sapiens<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBlHHu4ZLZkor7hZYY5MQGtG_VEV6AVfJb6NPAXJOQVeAEKSq2ZLRvRv0vADYMNPBD7_YKkFJjXHVJGqIRRxP4tt9MU-PESSW7nA3Xo7Z2HcqVLKpfPr7EQcQ_GZ3eBWNhG6VJ0JgguEI/s1600-h/mammal3.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBlHHu4ZLZkor7hZYY5MQGtG_VEV6AVfJb6NPAXJOQVeAEKSq2ZLRvRv0vADYMNPBD7_YKkFJjXHVJGqIRRxP4tt9MU-PESSW7nA3Xo7Z2HcqVLKpfPr7EQcQ_GZ3eBWNhG6VJ0JgguEI/s400/mammal3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226800871873332914" /></a><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The most exciting thing about biology is discovering who you are related to. My human ancestors are a supremely undistinguished bunch of agricultural labourers. My animal, plant, fungal and protistan relatives are a lot more exciting. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Knowing who your relatives are is useful for serious scientific endeavours like working out how closely you are related to your pet. For example, Romy is more closely related to Coalface (a rabbit) than I am to Gerald (a llama). </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">It's also possible to work out how closely you are related to your meal. Obviously, I am more related to the cheese I ate for lunch (derived from a cow, a fellow mammal), than to the tuna I ate yesterday. I am less related to the mushrooms I will eat tomorrow, but more closely related to them than I am to the seaweed I ate in a noodle soup the other week. I am probably more closely related to the seaweed than to the broccoli I ate the other day. I am only distantly related to the bacteria in yoghurt, which makes me think that moving onto a a high-bacteria diet is the only way to end all this disgusting cannibalism. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I'd like to show how we are related to everything, but I'll start close to home. Here's a picture of all the mammals (or maybe not, I can't seem to get pictures to stay up). You can read the tree like you would a human family tree, with the branches representing divergence from a common ancestor. The closer we are on the tree, the more closely we are related. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Humans are over with the apes and monkeys in PRIMATES. As you can see, our closest relatives are not clever elephants, graceful antelope, or generous organ-donating pigs, but TREE SHREWS. There is a tree shrew in the Melbourne museum. It looks like a rat. Our next closest cousins are bats and gliding lemurs. Thankfully, primates are only distantly related to the CETACEA (whales and dolphins). You already know how I feel about those guys. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:10px;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-4796909595765197692008-03-07T22:22:00.000-08:002008-03-07T22:54:43.362-08:00When your mouth is your anus is your vagina: reproduction in phylum PoriferaOrifices are sophisticated inventions. Having a hole for every function is the mark of a recently-evolved animal. More ancient animals like birds and reptiles have a cloaca, which is an opening used for both defecation and reproduction. <div><br /></div><div>Even having a digestive tract with two ends is a complicated arrangement. Animals like jellyfish, corals and sponges, who were the earliest evolved animals, have a large body cavity with just one opening leading to the outside environment. They eat, shit and have sex using the one hole. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sponges reproduce sexually by shooting their sperm into the water. (Copulation is a land animal invention, developed to cope with the lack of a hospitable, moist environment and free transport provided by the ocean. In light of this, a uterus can be thought of as a mini, internal, ocean substitute.) Each sponge hopes (metaphorically, sponges have no brain) that its drifting sperm will be 'eaten' by another sponge. If one's vagina doubles as one's mouth, there is a danger that the sperm will not be used to make baby sponges, and instead be digested as a nutritious food source. Happily, sponge cells are capable of telling the difference between food and the sperm of other sponges. </div>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365536801130153911.post-23754696522973501462008-03-02T19:16:00.000-08:002008-03-02T20:06:20.054-08:00Why Anna Should Probably Not Sleep With Her Brother OR Consanguinous Matings and Darwinian Fitness<img src="webkit-fake-url://5C821E6C-4EC1-4718-8818-1B036734B3AE/image.tiff" /><div><br /></div><div>I've always assumed jokes about inbred, two headed, Tasmanian congenital idiots were exaggerations. Apparently not. The statistics on inbreeding are quite frightening. </div><div><br /></div><div>Amongst live births resulting from incest, 6/18 children die in infancy or childhood, and 3/18 have intellectual disabilities. </div><div><br /></div><div>Here are some statistics on the offspring of first cousins, compared to the children of unrelated parents: </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Trait<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Unrelated<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>1st cousins</span><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153); "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">stillbirth and neonatal death*</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">4%</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">11%</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">major congenital malformation</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">1%</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">1.7%</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">genetic abnormality</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">7.9%</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">18.8%<br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">mental deficiency</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">1.3%</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">5.5%</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>recessive muscular dystrophy<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>0.0034%<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>0.051%<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> <br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">*</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">1941 figures</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div>So perhaps it's wise to think twice before taking a plunge into the shallow end of the gene pool. Your sibling may be intelligent and attractive, but chances are your resulting daughter-niece or son-nephew will not be.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>Rhianna Boylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820831825856740774noreply@blogger.com3