Clipmarks | JohnWaterman's 'zoology' clips

The Complete Works of Charles Darwin

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 10:20:09 GMT

This site contains Darwin's complete publications, thousands of handwritten manuscripts and the largest Darwin bibliography and manuscript catalogue ever published; also hundreds of supplementary works: biographies, obituaries, reviews, reference works and more.

Almost all is online only here: such as 1st editions of Voyage of the Beagle, Zoology, Descent of man, all editions of Origin of species (1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th & 6th); important manuscripts: Beagle diary & field notebooks, Journal, transmutation notebooks and Autobiography.

Forthcoming: more editions, translations, introductions & manuscripts.

Tags: darwin, evolution, manuscripts, autobiography

Skeletons: evolution laid bare

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 14:16:07 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Strip any creature of its flesh, and the process of evolution is laid bare. These photographs by Patrick Gries from his book with Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu, Evolution in Action, celebrate the stories told and the beauty revealed by skeletons.

The snowy albatross is one of a happy breed that, given its vast span, can soar for hours without a wing beat

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

he white-cheeked gibbon, native to China and Vietnam, has an ancestor in common with the South American spider monkey, but has evolved differently

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

The lampris guttatus, or moonfish, swims by flapping its pectoral fins and has no teeth - it eats other fish using its mouth as a suction cap

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

rattlesnake demonstrates the proliferation of ribs and a flexible spine

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Examination of skeletons can lead to the identification of previously unnoticed similarities. The Japanese giant salamander in life bears little resemblance to the antelope, but their skeletal structures tell a different story.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

rhinoceros hornbill

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

African elephant

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

hippopotamus

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Tags: science, zoology, biology, evolution, skeletons, images

Weird little primate sees colour at night

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 10:27:40 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Don't feed it after midnight

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Aye-ayes do not respond well to light, and you must never, ever feed them after midnight.

According to a new study conducted by Brian Verrelli a researcher at the Biodesign Institute, aye-ayes, a rare primate found only in Madagascar have the genes to see in color, even though they are completely nocturnal and have been for millenia. Why is this so significant? Verrelli and his...

colleagues study three genes in particular called opsins which are responsible for color vision in humans. Aye-ayes come from an ancient mammal strain, one that split away from monkeys and humans over 60 million years ago, and they are completely nocturnal.

In Madagascar, aye-ayes are notorious for sneaking into cottages at night and stealing human babies...just kidding.

[Video]

Tags: zoology, primates

Fainting Goats

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:29:00 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Domestication has enabled many a bizarre mutation to endure that almost certainly would have led to doom in the wild. The fainting goat must be high up on this list. This entire breed of domestic goat suffers from myotonia congenita, which causes the animals' muscles to freeze when excited for approximately 10 seconds. This usually results in the goats collapsing or standing motionless, but can also lead to a stiff legged hop.

[Video]

Also called Tennessee (Meat) Goats, Nervous Goats, Stiff-leg Goats, Wooden-leg Goats, and Tennessee Scare Goats, the animals were brought to Tennessee in the 1800s by a reclusive farmer from Nova Scotia. Little is known about their origins prior to this time. I can only imagine how much amusement backwoods 19th Century moonshined farmers got out of these creatures...

Scientists do not believe that the goats suffer any sort of pain from this condition, so no need to feel guilty about enjoying this great clip

Tags: goats, zoology, farming, animals, myotonia congenita

Strange Fish Uses its Chin Like a Metal Detector

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:04:05 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Peter's elephantnose fish has long been a laughing stock of scientists.

the hilarious looking creature's reputation might improve due to an astonishing attribute

Peters' elephantnose fish

use weak electrical fields emitted out of their chins to scan the floor of the water and do so with amazing accuracy

can sense the difference between a wide array of different materials and dead and living organisms

Mutated muscle cells pulse electricity 80 times a second into the fish's surroundings and then the fish measures the electrical fields with sensors in its skin. The field is distorted by surrounding objects, allowing the fish to create an "image" of the surrounding terrain by sensing these distortions

[Video]

All of this is probably possible because of the large brains these fish possess, even larger proportionately to their bodies than human beings. Hopefully they are not smart enough to figure out that everyone is laughing at them.

Tags: science, zoology, fish, senses

Yangtze river dolphin driven to extinction

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:46:18 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

· Intensive survey reveals disappearance of species
· Scientists blame shipping, hunting and fishing

The freshwater marine mammal, which could grow to eight feet long and weigh up to a quarter of a tonne, is the first large vertebrate forced to extinction by human activity in 50 years, and only the fourth time an entire evolutionary line of mammals has vanished from the face of the Earth since the year 1500.

Conservationists described the extinction as a "shocking tragedy" yesterday, caused not by active persecution but accidentally and carelessly through a combination of factors including unsustainable fishing and mass shipping.

Dr Turvey said conservation organisations had been quick to call for action to protect the river dolphin, but many were too cautious to take meaningful action.

The loss of such a unique and charismatic species is a shocking tragedy.

This extinction represents the disappearance of a complete branch of the evolutionary tree of life," Dr Turvey added

Tags: extinction, dolphins, zoology, environment

Fisherman catches 'living fossil'

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:45:11 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

An extremely rare "living fossil" caught by a fisherman in Indonesia is being examined by scientists

The 1.3m-long (4.3ft), 50kg (110lb) coelacanth is only the second ever to have been captured in Asia and has been described as a "significant find".

Coelacanths provide researchers with a window into the past; their fossil record dates back 350 million years.

These fish are odd in appearance, looking almost as if they have legs because of their large-lobed fins - they are sometimes dubbed "old four legs". The blue fish can also perform headstands, hovering with their head just over the sea floor, possibly to detect food.

Scientists previously thought the fish group had died out about 70 million years ago, but were shocked when in 1938 a species was caught in a fishing net off the east coast of Africa.

"The fact that another specimen has been found is significant; it confirms that this is a genuine location for another coelacanth's population."

Tags: science, biology, zoology, coelacanth, evolution

What you'll see just before he eats you

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:30:14 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Friday Cephalopod: What you'll see just before he eats you

Category: Cephalopods
Posted on: July 27, 2007 6:00 AM, by PZ Myers

Dosidicus gigas, the Humboldt Squid

This is a still from a movie by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (31MB Quicktime). I've also edited down a slightly more bandwidth-friendly 4.6MB version that shows just the action at the time of the strike.

Tags: squid, biology, zoology, humbolt, creatures, science

Knight's extinct echidna still with us.

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 01:17:01 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

New hope over 'extinct' echidna

A species of egg-laying mammal, named after TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough, is not extinct as was previously thought, say scientists.

The species is only known to biologists through a specimen from 1961, which is housed in a museum in the Netherlands.

Jonathan Baillie, ZSL's Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (Edge) programme manager, said: "We hope that Sir David Attenborough will be delighted to hear that his namesake species is still surviving in the wilds of the Papaun jungle."

The creature had not been recorded since a Dutch botanist collected the only known specimen in the cloud forest of the Cyclops Mountains in 1961.

As a result, it was widely assumed that the shoe box-sized species (Zaglossus attenboroughi) was extinct.

Very little is known about the animal's ecology. It is thought that it is nocturnal, foraging for earthworms among the forest litter, then spending the day resting in shallow burrows or hollow logs.

Tags: biology, zoology, echidna, extinct, extinction, mammals

Full-size blue whale on your desktop

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:08:29 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Follow the link for one huge image

Clip Source: www.theregister.co.uk

Charity offers 'life size' virtual whale on web

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WCDS), "the global voice for the protection of whales, dolphins and their environment", has launched a "life size blue whale interactive banner", which can be seen here.

According to the WCDS, this is "possibly the last chance [for people] to experience a life-size blue whale...in the comfort of their own home".

Tags: whale, blue whale, image conservation, mammals, biology, zoology

Squid light show video

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:52:26 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: go to the site to view video - only The Royal Society innit.

Clip Source: www.royalsoc.ac.uk

Observations of wild hunting behaviour and bioluminescence of a large deep-sea, eight-armed squid

Observations of wild hunting behavior and bioluminescence of a large deep-sea, eight-armed squid, Taningia danae by Tsunemi Kubodera, Yasuhiro Koyama and Kyoichi Mori (doi:10.1098/rspb.2006.0236)

The scientists' newly developed underwater video camera system took the first live images of the deep-sea large squid, Taningia danae, between 240-940 m deep off Ogasawara Islands, western North Pacific in 2005.

The video footage includes attacking and bioluminescence behaviors and reveals that T. danae is far from the sluggish neutrally buoyant squid previously suspected. They emitted short bright light flashes from their large arm-tip photophores before final assault, which might act as a blinding flash for prey as well as a means of measuring target distance in a dark deep-sea environment. They may also use bioluminescence for attempts at communication.

The paper, which has been published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B is available for free access on the Proc. R. Soc. B website.

Tags: squid, science, biology, zoology, video