Tag Archives: biology

On Pig Orgasms, Praying Mantis Porno, and Pedantry

by

I love the Internet. I love the Internet so much that I try not to remember the world before we had constant access to information at our literal fingertips, because as much as I love libraries, before the Internet it was quite difficult to find an answer to a question like “do pigs have half-hour orgasms?” in under thirty seconds, and I feel like we ought to be justifiably proud in our achievements in this area. The bizarre reproductive systems of animals should be information we can access in the blink of an eye, by god!

Unfortunately, this glorious system has its downsides, particularly if you’re on Facebook or if you have a gullible relative who sees fit to forward you any email which has clearly already been forwarded at least twenty times. Because our ability to share information at lightning speeds means we also have the ability to disseminate completely false information with equal rapidity. Sometimes even with greater rapidity, because what’s easier than hitting the “share” button and watching all those “likes” roll in? (It’s sort of like playing with Monopoly money, except you can’t even buy imaginary assets with it.) Why would anyone complicate this process by Googling to find out whether what you’re sharing is accurate?

This is on my mind in particular this morning because of a chain message that’s been making the rounds on Facebook which has been making my inner fact-checker twitch, and since my Googling didn’t turn up any handy collection of clarifications on these points, I thought instead of a featured creature this week, I’d run down this list for my own satisfaction. Because I kind of can’t help myself. So, here’s the entire text that’s going around Facebook, and then we’ll address each point one at a time. Doesn’t that sound like a fun learning experience? I thought so too.

A pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes. (O.M.G.!!!) A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. (Creepy. I’m still not over the pig.) The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male’s head off. (Honey, I’m home . What the…?) The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It’s like a human jumping the length of a football field. (30 minutes. Lucky pig! Can you imagine?) The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?) Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (I still can’t believe that pig …quality over quantity.) Butterflies taste with their feet. (Something I always wanted to know.) Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump. (Okay, so that would be a good thing.) A cat’s urine glows under a black light. (I wonder how much the government paid to figure that out.) An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that.) Starfish have no brains. (I know some people like that, too.) Polar bears are left-handed. (Talk about a southpaw.) Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (What about that pig? Do the dolphins know about the pig?)” – Unknown

So, there it is. I expect that many of these will turn out to be partially true, and I know some are not really correct at all, but we’ll see what we can find, and we’ll certainly all be better informed at the end of the process.

Awwwww yes, this is how we do it in Denmark. Girl, I’mma inseminate you so good.

A pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
As far as I can discern, this item is possibly true but somewhat disingenuous. I can’t really find any research that indicates 30 minutes as average rather than the absolute upper range of time for pig sex, but also because it implies that both parties are having a similarly good time, like pigs are having amazing tantric sex or something. We can assume that this 30-minutes idea is based on a boar’s ejaculation, which really can go on at great length (5-10 minutes seems to be an average, though 30 minutes would certainly seem possible with multiple ejaculations) and can produce a staggering half-litre of fluid. Good lord, pigs. In her TED Talk “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Orgasm,” Mary Roach discusses an interesting fact on why we ought to also be concerned with more than just the boar’s pleasure: pig farms in Denmark have found that when artificially inseminating sows, they can prompt the sows to produce more offspring by sexually stimulating the sows while they’re being inseminated. (The five-point stimulation plan for sows is seriously hilarious. Just watch the TED Talk, it is so worth it, I am not even kidding.) It’s not all bad for the sow, at least; while it’s fair to assume that she probably doesn’t enjoy the sex act with quite the vigor that the boar does, she at least gets something out of the deal, since her clitoris is in fact located inside her vagina, and thus she does get to experience an orgasm herself, which is more than many poor women of our own species can say. So I’m going to call this item partially true, but exaggerated; the sex lives of pigs are undoubtedly fascinating, but a half-hour orgasm seems to be more of a remarkable feat than a regular event.

A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death.
True, but this factoid underestimates the ability of cockroaches to keep creeping us out even after being decapitated, because nine days is nothing. They can, in fact, continue to live for weeks after losing their heads. They don’t breathe through their heads, nor do they bleed out the way mammals do, nor do they need to have a brain for the body to continue functioning. Starvation would eventually spell the end for a headless cockroach, but if they’ve had a good meal recently, pre-decapitation, the body can keep on for quite some time, moving around and reacting to touch. And if that wasn’t creepy enough, the decapitated head can go on about its business for some hours, too.

Here we have a male praying mantis, enjoying himself some copulation, with his head still attached. Whether he managed the dismount without being eaten is not noted. (Photo by Zwentibold, used under Creative Commons license from WikiCommons.)

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male’s head off.
Totally not true. While female praying mantises do  sometimes cannibalize their mates, it certainly isn’t the case that mating isn’t possible without decapitation. The origins of this misconception are most likely a series of old studies in which scientists observed female mantises devouring their mating partners, but later studies didn’t offer up the same results; in fact, it’s likely that the females in the original study were stressed by laboratory conditions or were not fed enough. How frequently the males perish when mating naturally in the wild is difficult to say, because the disturbance of being observed seems to have a serious impact on the behavior of the mantises in question. The incidence of sexual cannibalism in mantises seems to still be a subject of some debate among entomologists, but apparently males are able to recognize when they stand a risk of being eaten and are suitably cautious, while a female who is well-fed before mating will usually show no interest at all in biting anybody’s head off. It is true, however, that even once a female has bitten his head off, the male’s body will continue to mate with her — more vigorously, even — despite his state of headlessness. He probably learned that trick from the cockroaches.

The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It’s like a human jumping the length of a football field.
False, I think? Most of the sources I’ve found say they can jump about 200 times their body length, which isn’t as impressive, and isn’t a terribly accurate measurement either. On average they can manage about 13 inches with a single leap which is still pretty awesome, if only they weren’t such horrible, horrible little creatures. Biomechanically speaking they’re pretty mind-blowing though, as this article on BBC Earth News explains:

It was known that the energy to catapult a flea over a distance up to 200 times its body length lay in a spring-like structure in its body.

But scientists did not understand how they transferred this energy to the ground in order to jump.

High-speed footage now reveals that the secret lies in the way fleas use their hind legs as multi-jointed levers.

This “lever-effect” allows fleas to drive their feet onto the ground, and the sudden release of the “coiled spring” hurls the insect forwards and upwards, scientists report in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
True. This inadequately explains how rad that is, because their tastebuds are distributed all over their bodies, so they’re sort of like a giant, swimming tongue. Which really is a great argument for why we probably shouldn’t dump so much crap in our rivers, it probably tastes awful. Save the waterways, people. For the sake of the catfish.

Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
Okay, before we even get to the frequency of mating I want to point out something about lion mating, which is that the male lion’s penis is fucking barbed. Barbed. I mean Jesus, what is this shit. Animal kingdom, why don’t you do something for the ladies for once? Why is nature all about screwing the women over? As far as the fifty times a day claim, they saved themselves on that one with “some lions.” Average is apparently 20-40 times a day so I’d imagine some overachievers manage fifty times a day. They must be exhausted when they’re through, and the lionesses ought to be rewarded with like a spa day at the end of it all.

The female lion does not appear to be amused by this shit.
(Photo by Bob Fabry, used under Creative Commons license, from WikiCommons.)

Butterflies taste with their feet.
True fact, in fact. When butterflies are trying to figure out where to lay their eggs, they can tell just by landing on a leaf whether their eventual caterpillar offspring would find it delicious. It’s probably a time-saver, since they don’t have to sit around chewing bits off of leaves like they’re sampling wedding cakes. It’s probably kind of a rad superpower to have, until you landed on like a manure pile or something. But it’s not quite as impressive when you consider that during chrysalis they turn themselves into a cell soup and then make themselves into an entirely new organism. What is this witchcraft?!

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
Apparently it’s true that elephants can’t jump; they just aren’t built for it, and it wouldn’t help them escape predators when instead of jumping they can just trample you to death. But any statement that claims “X is the ONLY animal that…” automatically makes me suspicious, and saying that elephants are the only creatures in all the animal kingdom that can’t jump is simply too broad a claim for me. How about snails? Clams? Sloths? Starfish? Jellyfish? Blobfish? It’s difficult to find any definitive statements on which animals may be physically incapable of jumping since so many of them simply don’t jump, ever, because it would be pointless and also silly, but I do think assigning the sole honor of a non-acrobatic life to elephants is going to too far. Speaking of silly, if you’d like to see what it might look like if elephants did jump, you can watch this lovely animated short of an elephant on a trampoline. Just tell everyone that it’s for science.

A cat’s urine glows under a black light.
This is true, and actually kind of handy if you’re trying to rid a house of the horrific odor of cat urine. However, it’s not that terribly interesting a fact because it’s also true of many other fluids, both animal and non-animal in origin. Human urine will also glow in damning brightness under blacklight — as Chef Ramsay often likes to demonstrate — so I don’t know what makes cats think they’re so special. A UV light may also reveal traces of semen, blood, saliva, or sweat, and many objects and substances will fluoresce under UV light for any number of reasons, but these include petroleum jelly, laundry detergent, tonic water, and all sorts of other boring things. It does look good on crime shows, though.

Baby, you got such big beautiful eyes that allow you to see predators from a great distance thus ensuring your longevity and the continuation of your damn fine genes.
(Photo by A. Kniesel, under Creative Commons license.)

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
True! This is not so much a statement on the ostrich’s intelligence — though they aren’t renowned for their remarkable brain power — but rather on the environment in which it is most suited to survive. While its eye-to-brain ration isn’t that bad in comparison to other birds, try not to think of it as incredibly small-brained so much as incredibly large-eyed (the largest eye on any land vertebrate, apparently); the size of its eyes (each is about two inches in diameter) gives it great long-range vision, combined with the heightened vantage point of its long neck, helps it immensely in its quest to not be eaten and die a horrible, horrible death. Which frankly seems like an admirable pursuit to me. (And while we’re on the subject of ostriches, I hope everybody realizes by now that they don’t actually hide their heads and think you can’t see them. That myth was probably started by Roman “historian” Pliny the Elder, who as far as I can tell spent most of his writing time drunk off his ass because nothing that jerk says is ever true.) Ostriches get kind of a bad rap, let’s be honest. Everybody thinks they’re stupid and we find it hilarious to watch people ride them, but just for perspective’s sake, you should know that they can run faster than you, the male ostrich has a scientifically important 8-inch phallus, and they are pretty much epic kickboxers. So I’m just saying, laugh all you like, but I wouldn’t fuck with an ostrich because they will mess your shit up.

Starfish have no brains.
Not entirely true, and not very fair to the starfish. True, if you were facing an army of zombie starfish and you were trying to destroy their brains so they couldn’t feast on you, you might have a hard time knowing where to aim, but really I don’t think zombie starfish should be very high on your list of things to worry about. In essence, a starfish’s entire nervous system acts as its brain, which if you think about it is kind of awesome. Let us take a moment to just appreciate the humble starfish, okay? Because starfish do not need to take this bullshit. If you cut off a starfish’s arm, it can grow a new one.  They can grip onto things using their very own adhesive chemicals, so basically they make their own glue. They don’t need to have sex to make babies because sex is so totally passé. They have their own internal hydraulics to move around with. When a starfish is hungry it doesn’t have to eat things smaller than its mouth — instead it can devour shit like clams and fish — because it can eject one of its stomachs and turn its prey into delicious prey-soup. That’s how badass they are. So let’s give a little respect to the starfish before they decide to join the jellyfish army and put an end to us all, okay?

Polar bears are left-handed.
That is just fucking ridiculous. What do we think polar bears do with their time, anyway? It’s not like they can hold a fountain pen. They’re not out there on the polar ice practicing their fastball. They don’t even have hands. God, why are we even having this conversation? Okay, here are actual facts: there is no science to support this idea, nor has anyone managed to hunt down whoever started that stupid rumor and kill them with a trained polar bear, more’s the pity. (It was probably the asshole Pliny the Elder. That guy’s definition of “facts” was “shit I made up because I was too busy doing other stuff to actually learn anything.”) In fact, the only research I could find on the subject indicates that injuries seem to be more common to the right forelimb, which might indicate more of a tendency toward right-pawedness, or might indicate nothing at all because that study is actually about vitamin deficiencies in captive bears so who the fuck knows. In case you’re secretly harboring any other ridiculous ideas about polar bears, Polar Bears International actually has an entire page just about myths and misconceptions regarding polar bears, so please read it. You will find it enlightening and fascinating, and if you don’t, you can instead go watch this video of a baby polar bear riding around on its mom’s back and experience a drastic reduction in your stress levels. Because I’m sure that you, too, feel frustrated and annoyed by the persistence of stupid made-up “facts” about polar bears.

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
So. Patently. Untrue. This is so untrue it makes me sad. Like, if the first item on this list were completely true and pigs actually had glorious 30-minute orgasms you’d think they’d be having sex for pleasure too. In fact, all sorts of animals have been demonstrated to have sex for what we would call pleasure, which for simplicity’s sake I will call non-reproductive. Just about every permutation of sexuality and sexual behavior that has been seen in humans has also been documented somewhere, somehow, in animals. Bisexuality, orgies, self-stimulation, homosexuality, heterosexuality, autoeroticism, stimulation with objects, rape, sex with dead animals, prostitution, fetishism, the list goes on on and on and on. Literally. This Wikipedia entry on animal sexual behavior is a pretty good place to start if you’d like to have your mind blown. Since dolphins are particularly mentioned here, I feel like it’s also my duty to point out that a dolphin’s idea of pleasure usually involves gang rape and sexual slavery. They also enjoy long swims near the beach and some nice infanticide.

But since we’re talking about sex for pleasure, let’s talk specifically about bonobos. Because how in the name of all that is holy can you talk about sex for pleasure without talking about bonobos? Bonobo chimps have sexual practices for every occasion. There’s sex to say hello or to resolve conflicts or to say I’m sorry. If they find an awesome new food source they’ll have a celebratory orgy. Bonobos are not at all monogamous and don’t particularly care what age or gender their sexual partners are, either. Aside from all the homosexual contact, which clearly is not for purposes of reproduction, they also enjoy all sorts of sexual positions that don’t result in offspring, either. They enjoy kissing with tongue and oral sex and occasionally the males like to do something called “penis fencing.” Yeah, it’s really called that. I won’t link you to any of the youtube videos with bonobos having enthusiastic and undoubtedly pleasurable sex, but I’m sure you can find them on your own, if you’re so inclined.

And it’s not just sex, either. We like to think of animals as slightly mindless and driven by their various urges for survival and perpetuation of the species, but I hope we’ve all realized by now — particularly since science is providing us with solid proof — that all sorts of animals engage in all sorts of behaviors just for the fun of it. They have rich, complex lives of their own, and it’s not like they stop existing when we aren’t watching, so let’s all just take a moment to get over ourselves.

And sure, maybe my idea of fun is exhaustive Internet fact-checking, which is decidedly less exciting than a bonobo’s idea of a good time, but I hope that you’ve found this excursion into pedantry entertaining, and I do hope you’ll think about doing a little research of your own the next time you feel inclined to hit the share button this kind of bullshit. I mean Jesus, how could they forget about the bonobo orgies? Fucking amateurs.

The New Rocky Shores Exhibit and More From Hogle Zoo

by

My local zoo recently opened a new “Rocky Shores” exhibit, which was enough of an excuse for me to go again and take some more pictures. The new exhibit, which houses the sort of animals you might see at various points on the Pacific coastline, including otters, seals, and polar bears, is a pretty sweet set-up, particularly with the various underwater views it offers. Hogle Zoo is a very small zoo and I remember it from my childhood with a kind of horror — it wasn’t that awful and I remember the animals being in good shape, but it was a small zoo of its era, complete with big cats in little cages, the elephants on a nearly featureless concrete pad, and other habitats completely unsuitable, and going there on school field trips kind of put me off zoos in general for the next ten years — but I’m incredibly pleased with the efforts they’ve made since to update the zoo and improve the exhibits for the animals. Rocky Shores is a step in the right direction, and the concept drawings for the African Savannah exhibit they’re planning to open in 2014 looks quite good, as well. I have very little commentary to offer, but I did take a lot of pictures of the new exhibit and around the zoo in general, so I should like to present them without further ado:

 

Featured Creature Friday: The Freeloading Alcon Blue Butterfly

by

Last week I featured another bizarre caterpillar, Hawaii’s carnivorous Eupithecia, and I thought perhaps this week you’d like to meet a larva that is somehow, impossibly, even more bad-ass.

Denmark’s beautiful Alcon Blue butterfly looks about like you’d expect, for a butterfly. It has lovely blue wings and eats flowers and is about as intimidating as a nice decoupage. But don’t let them fool you. These lepidoptera are devious little bastards.

You see Jimmy, when a mommy and daddy butterfly love each other very much, they put their abdominal regions together and get nasty. Don’t pretend you’re scandalized. I know you’re familiar with the mating habits of butterflies. I’ve seen your browser history, buddy.

For the most part, the Alcon Blue’s reproductive cycle looks pretty normal. They get it on, as butterflies do, and then the female lays her eggs on a specific flower that she’s terribly fond of, and then the larvae hatch and hang around eating plants for awhile, and then shit starts getting real. You see, when the larvae are large enough, they drop down to the ground and sit around waiting, while emitting a delicious pheromone-y perfume that makes them smell irresistible to ants. And I’m not talking irresistibly delicious, either.

The scent that the larva emits convinces the ants that the larva is one of their own offspring, and they’ll pick it up and carry it right into their own home. In fact, they are so freaking stoked about this larval caterpillar that they will protect and preserve it at the cost of their own offspring. They feed it, they keep it clean, they make it the happiest little larva in all the land, and they don’t even mind that these faux-ants they’re tending to are eating not only the food they bring in but also they’re devouring the ants’ own larvae, because hey, who needs their own offspring when they can use all their resources caring for the freaking bad seed, instead?

Did you want another cheeseburger, sweetie? How about some Cheesy Poofs? No, don’t get up, I’ll make some snacks for you and all of your friends! Oh, you want to eat my other children? Okay, honey, that sounds fine!

Although this may sound like basically the perfect life for a larva, wherein they are fed and cared for and presumably get to spend all of their time playing Call of Duty, their gambit is not without risks. For one, the ants who are being parasitized might just figure the whole thing out, as this BBC article explains:

By looking at the patterns of infection/resistance and the genetics of different populations, the team was able to describe how the separate chemistries of the butterflies and the ants co-evolve in what amounts to an ongoing “arms race” – giving each animal periods and locations of dominance in their relationship.

So essentially, the ants change their chemical scent to help them recognize the butterfly larvae, and the larvae change their scent to adjust to the new situation, and on and on forever and ever. But that isn’t the only risk the Alcon takes inside the ants’ brood. They’re also preyed upon by a wasp called Ichneumon eumerus. The wasp, upon discovering Alcon larvae within an ant nest, will spray a chemical concoction that causes the ants to become confused and attack one another. Then it will seriously screw up the Alcon’s life; to wit:

When the wasp detects an Alcon caterpillar inside an ant colony, it charges inside and sprays a pheromone cocktail that makes the ants attack each other. The wasp slips through the confusion, lays its eggs inside the caterpillar and leaves. After the caterpillar turns into a chrysalis, the eggs hatch and consume the it from the inside.

Pleasant, no? And this is all while the little beggars are still just little pink slug-looking things. If they survive the wasps long enough to actually pupate — which may take up to two years in the ants’ care, being total freeloaders — their chemical defenses no longer protect them from being seen by the ants as intruders. They then get to run the gauntlet out of the ants’ brood chamber and out into the world. They aren’t without defenses, however; they’re covered in loose scales which detach when grabbed by angry ants, allowing them to make their escape.

You might think that this sounds like a horribly convoluted way to reproduce, and frankly you’d be right; the Alcon Blue lives a very specific life which requires specific plants (they feed from and lay their eggs only on Marsh Gentians and Willow Gentians) and needs ant colonies (though it is somewhat non-specific in which ants will do) to perpetuate its life cycle. Both the butterflies and the wasps that prey on them are considered endangered, which is too bad because there are some scientists who would dearly like to leverage their brand of chemical warfare, but you’d probably think it was pretty good news if you were an ant; it probably gets tiresome being caught in the crossfire between butterfly and wasp.

Featured Creature Friday: Hawaii’s Carnivorous Caterpillars

by

Your childhood readings of The Very Hungry Caterpillar will do little to prepare you for today’s featured creature, because these particular caterpillars are not the cute, fuzzy, slow, living-bootbrush kind of creatures that you’re thinking of. These ones are quite rare specimens among caterpillars, even though their genus Eupithecia are found around the world, and they’re a terrific example of the stunning specificity of survival adaptions that occur on isolated islands. Because unlike their seed- and plant-eating cousins, these caterpillars eat meat.

Just imagine this slow-motion scene accompanied by the theme music from Jaws and you’re on the right track. OMG FLY THE SERIAL KILLER IS ABOUT TO GET YOU I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO INTO THE BASEMENT. (All photos on this post are stills from the BBC’s South Pacific, which is linked to below. Please buy it and support Benedict Cumberbatch’s documentary-narration career.)

The grappling inchworm chilling out in its FREAKING HANDCRAFTED SNIPER NEST.

These hunting Eupithecia — which have been given the excellent common name of “grappling inchworms” — have a pair of hair-like appendages on the abdomen which, when touched by prey like the common fruit fly, cause the inchworm to arch itself backwards, deploying its frankly bad-ass-looking grappling arms to grab the insect before it can escape. Then it eats it, because delicious, right? They also employ some pretty ingenious techniques — like the “looking like a stick” technique and the “just the edge of a leaf, nothing to see here” technique — to disguise themselves, so hapless prey won’t know what hit them until, well… it hits them. And even then they might not know, because they’re flies and if we’re honest, flies just don’t seem like the most well-read species to me.

Because Hawaii lacks many of the other forms of predatory insects that are found elsewhere, these inchworms apparently found a vacant ecological niche — and a very plentiful food source — and adapted to fill it. By being awesome. Less than 1% of the planet’s known 160,000-odd species of butterflies and moths eat other insects, and no other Eupithecia do outside of Hawaii.

The following absolutely gorgeous video from the absolutely fantastic BBC documentary series South Pacific is kind enough to offer you excellent video footage of this caterpillar in action, with the added bonus of narration by Benedict Cumberbatch:


(If the embedded video isn’t working for you, just click here.)

(On a side note, I can’t recommend this documentary series highly enough; it’s beautifully filmed, beautifully produced, beautifully narrated, and endlessly fascinating. You can purchase a copy from the BBC America shop, the BBC UK shop, or I would imagine from any major DVD retailer. You can also rent the discs on Netflix, though tragically as of this writing it isn’t available to stream.)

For more on these inchworms from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about, I’d like to highly recommend this blog post from the fantastic Bioblog.

Featured Creature Friday: The Plummeting Paradise Tree Snake

by

You guys. You guys, this is a snake. You guys, this is a snake THAT FLIES.

All my nightmares are coming to life.

I’ve always wondered exactly how skills like this develop in nature. I mean, I understand natural selection and adaptive evolution and all of that, but to me this looks like the sort of skill set that could only have come from a long line of severely depressed snakes. They were trying to end it all when they discovered that actually they can be kind of wing-shaped. Maybe they discovered a new purpose in life as accidental pilots and stuck around long enough to breed whole new generations of ridiculous flying snakes.

Or maybe they were just minding their own business, flying the old fashioned way on an airliner — perhaps on their way to a vacation destination far from their native southeast Asia — when Samuel L. Jackson started exterminating all of their friends, and they had to risk jumping just to survive the slaughter. (Now they’re just trying to get over the post-traumatic stress and are planning to bring a court case.)

Their gliding abilities are said to rival those of flying squirrels, and if you ask me they do the job with more style, too. And they come in some pretty swell colors, as you can see here. In addition to flying, they also have available to them a venom that’s powerful enough to paralyze the small lizards and mammals that they prey on but not really powerful enough to hurt humans badly, so at least we don’t have to worry about like… flying acid attacks or anything. They’re also pretty freaking cute. Just look at those adorable little nose-holes! Awww!

Paradise Tree Snake closeup

Featured Creature Friday: The Humble Hermit Crab

by

It seems only appropriate that today’s featured creature should be one that, at first glance, seems a little boring. Hermit crabs are pretty common animals — there are 1100 different species and many of them are kept as pets. Of course, as pets, they’re about on par with seamonkeys or beta fish, the kind of pet that people impulse buy for a couple bucks and expect to be dead within a week. (With proper care, of course, these sorts of animals can live a long time — some species of hermit crabs, for instance, have been known to live over 20 years in captivity.)

Naked hermit crabs kind of look like what would happen if H.R. Giger had been in charge of creating Hello Kitty. (Photo by Arnstein Rønning, 2011, by way of Wikimedia. Used under Creative Commons license.)

Hermit crabs just don’t get a lot of credit for being complex animals with intricate social — yeah, they’re not very hermit-y — behaviors. And frankly, I don’t think we’re appreciative enough of the hermit crab’s particular form of body armor/performance art; unlike true crabs, hermit crabs have no shell of their own, and instead acquire or improvise a suitable home. You’ll find them living in snail shells, stones, driftwood, broken bottles, crab shells, glass shells, and even, apparently, Legos.

Without a shell, they’re vulnerable and also a little funny-looking when they’re naked, just like people. Which is why they armor themselves with the detritus of the sea floor. Basically, they’re like the Iron Man of the sea, if Iron Man was kind of timid and spent all of his time eating tiny things in the ocean.

Which he doesn’t. Because he’s Iron Man. And that’s neither here nor there.

In cases of shell shortage, hermit crabs will fight over shells the same way humans will fight for a decent neighborhood and a jacuzzi bathtub. But give them shells in abundance and they’re practically socialists, as this article in Scientific American explains:

When a lone crab encountered one of the beautiful new shells, it immediately inspected the shelter with its legs and antennae and scooted out of its current home to try on the new shelter for size. If the new shell was a good fit, the crab claimed it. Classic hermit crab behavior. But if the new shell was too big, the crab did not scuttle away disappointed—instead, it stood by its discovery for anywhere between 15 minutes and 8 hours, waiting. This was unusual. Eventually other crabs showed up, each one trying on the shell. If the shell was also too big for the newcomers, they hung around too, sometimes forming groups as large as 20. The crabs did not gather in a random arrangement, however. Rather, they clamped onto one another in a conga line stretching from the largest to smallest animal—a behavior the biologists dubbed “piggybacking.”

I guess that it’s a bit like when you’re a kid and all you get to wear is your siblings’ hand-me-downs (so speaks the youngest child of the family…), but the hermit crabs at least seem happy about it. And sometimes intensely competitive. Here’s a sweet video from Blue Planet with a terrifyingly huge snail, plus some hermit crab combat. The first rule of Fight Club is, you don’t talk about Fight Club.

Speaking of hermit crabs, did you know that coconut crabs are also sort of a hermit crab? In addition, they’re the largest terrestrial arthropod in the world (that means land-dwelling creepy-as-shit crab-thing). They can and do climb trees, live for decades, and have pincers so powerful they can crack coconuts. When the mommy crab and daddy crab love each other and decide to have a family, the female crab releases her eggs into the ocean, where the young ones start out as plankton. As juveniles they do the usual hermit crab thing and find random shells to live in, then when they get older and toughen up a bit they get by with just a thick sort of leathery exoskeleton and put away childish things like shells. Eventually crawl their way back onto land. Despite being the sort of creature you might imagine dwelling in the sea, adult coconut crabs actually drown if they’re left in the water, and so they generally prefer to dwell in your nightmares.

OH MY GOD HOW ARE YOU SO ENORMOUS AND WHY DO I SEE YOUR TERRIFYING PINCERS EVERY TIME I CLOSE MY EYES.

Featured Creature Friday: The Wonderful Woolly Bear Caterpillar

by

I’m not really an entomology sort of person. It’s partly because insects are often creepy and partly because I’m just not good enough at spotting them to foster an interest. It’s the same reason I’ll never take up birdwatching: when your eyesight is bad enough that it takes you five minutes to spot a full-grown eagle, it might be time to consider an interest in elephants, instead.

I am generally a fan of caterpillars, though. For one thing, they’re often incredibly cute in a bizarre and alien sort of way, and like the butterflies and moths they become, caterpillars come in a truly staggering array of colors and configurations. Some of them look like tiny cacti and some have horns and some are poisonous and some will burn you with acid and I’m sure that deep down, some of them just want to be loved.

But we’re here to talk about a particularly magnificent specimen in the form of the Woolly Bear Caterpillar, which is particularly extraordinary because it has considerably lengthened its lifespan through cunning use of cryogenic technology.

I've named this one "Fry." It was only trying to deliver a pizza...
photo by IronChris, by way of Wikimedia Commons and used here under Creative Commons license.

Compared to some other caterpillars, the Woolly Bear might not be much to look at — it’s sort of like a multicolored scrub brush — but it’s anything but mediocre. Where most species of caterpillar live only a few weeks, the Woolly Bear has adapted to cold climates by simply freezing solid when the temperature drops, which has extended this little Lepidoptera’s lifespan considerably. In warmer climates they’ll live a few years; in the arctic, their badassery extends to fourteen years or more. Every winter they freeze, every summer they thaw, eat, and grow bigger, until they finally become moths, live just long enough to reproduce, and then die. It’s a bit of an anti-climax, but who knows, maybe being a moth sucks.

As you all know, I’m a sucker for scientists getting all excited about nerdy things — they’re like teenage girls at a Bieber concert — so here’s a fantastic video from the new series Frozen Planet with a lovely gentleman and his lovely accent telling you all about the Woolly Bear and how completely awesome it is.

But wait, there’s more! Woolly Bear Caterpillars were also the first insects shown to self-medicate to stop parasitic infestation. Woolly Bears are plagued by a type of parasitic fly which is kind enough to leave a gift of larvae inside the poor caterpillar; when the little bastards hatch, they eat the caterpillar from the inside and then bust right out of there like they think they’re extras in Alien. But infected Woolly Bears can fight back by eating alkaloid-laden plants.

Bernays and her colleagues showed that infected woolly bears eat more toxic alkaloids than their non-infected peers. Healthy woolly bears also ingest alkaloids, but only in small amounts, apparently to make themselves unsavory to predators.

In addition, the team showed that parasite-free woolly bears that binge on alkaloids are more likely to die compared with woolly bears that take the drug in moderation. – source National Geographic

So not only have they figured out how to treat their own medical problems in a totally groovy holistic fashion, but they’re also better at moderation with their alkaloids than I am with chocolate. Thanks a lot, Woolly Bear caterpillars. Now I feel like crap about myself. Which is probably how you’re going to feel when you finally turn from a bad-ass caterpillar into a completely boring moth. CHECKMATE.

Featured Creature Friday: Crafty Crows, Agricultural Ants, and Pyro Bonobos

by

When I was a kid, I remember reading dated books about natural human history that showed early human ancestors (typically clad in Flintstones-style approximations of what I can only assume were sabertoothed tiger skins), and they explained the process of our evolution, and what forces had contributed to our eventual rise to true civilization (which at the time meant listening to Phil Collins and wearing stirrup pants and jellies.)

Our large brains separated us from the animals, we were told. We learned to create and use tools. To farm and keep livestock. To harness fire. We were convinced that all of this made us better than the beasts.

Of course, in the time since then, we’ve learned that there are animals that do all of those things too. They just haven’t taken it that one step further by building monster trucks, synthesizing bovine growth hormone, or inventing nuclear weapons, all of which truly makes us superior to the dumb beasts of the world.

Still, you have to give the animals credit for being just ridiculously clever, so let’s take a look at a few of them and boggle together at how much smarter they appear to be than we are. They’re at least out there making their way in the world, pulling themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps, instead of sitting around at home and watching Jersey Shore.

Art by John Gerrard Keulemans, in the public domain

The Toolsmiths: New Caledonian Crows

We all know that many birds are kind of ridiculously intelligent. They’ve been observed doing things like dropping turtles from great heights to break their shells, or using the tires of passing cars to crack open nutshells. Birds have been shown to show some ability for counting, problem-solving, deception, pre-planning, operating  and incredible skills of dancing. And although many birds have a demonstrated ability to use tools, the current master toolsmith of the bird world is the New Caledonian Crow of New Zealand. These birds have been shown to not only use tools but also to create them, and to use one tool to acquire another tool to acquire another tool to get to a food source. Here’s a TED talk from a fellow who built a crow vending machine, where they could exchange coins for peanuts. (I can only assume that this gentleman is now both very rich and also a regular at his bank’s coin-counting machine.)

The Farmers: The Herding Ants

There are actually a surprising number of animals that actively engage in farming. Termite mounds are essentially giant terrariums designed to create optimum conditions for the fungus they like to eat. You might think Leaf-Cutter Ants cut leaves so they can eat them, but actually they’re creating compost for growing their own fungus farms. Ambrosia Beetles grow their fungus farms in trees, while Marsh Snails use their tongues to slice into cordgrass, creating a perfect environment for the fungi they prefer to feast on. Even the oceanic creatures get in on the action: spotted jellyfish are their own living greenhouses, and make use of photosynthesis and their own transparent skins to help them create a rich fungal crop inside their own bodies. (I’m beginning to sense that animals love fungi.) Damselfish, meanwhile, grow algae and are as aggressively protective as a farmer with a shotgun… plus, the algae they prefer are a bit wimpy, and probably wouldn’t really survive without cultivation. If you’ve ever read Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, that may sound like a familiar story.

But I was going to talk about ants. Ants are particularly interesting because they don’t raise mere crops like the rest of their fungus-loving friends. They actually farm livestock. Several species of ants keep herds of aphids, which they “milk” for their excrement, “honeydew,” which is extremely sugary. (Before you start judging the ants, remember that humans make a common practice of not only eating all sorts of animal meat but also their mammary secretions and in the case of birds, the byproducts of their menstrual cycle.) The relationship between ants and aphids directly mirrors that between humans and our own livestock animals. The ants get to enjoy good nutrition and delicious treats, plus an extremely reliable food source. They relocate their herds to better grazing when necessary, defend them from predators, clean up their waste (which would otherwise attract unwanted visitors), keep them out of the weather, and even help them reproduce by sheltering, protecting and nurturing their larvae.

New research also suggests that humans aren’t the only ones to use pharmaceuticals on our livestock, or to physically modify them the same way we might castrate calves or dock a lamb’s tail. The ants sometimes nip off the adult aphids’ wings so they can’t fly about on their own. A new study suggests that chemicals the ants track around on their feet may serve as some sort of signal or actual tranquilizer for the aphids.

The Firestarters: Bonobo Apes

Okay, this one’s a little bit of a cheat, but you’re going to love it anyway. This TED talk shows video of bonobos starting a fire, driving a golf cart, playing musical instruments, inventing new uses for tools, and playing Pac-Man. Yeah, you heard me. They weren’t taught these things as tricks, but basically the behaviors were modeled for them, and they picked them right up and started experimenting for themselves.

So I guess we’re just not as special as we thought we were, nor are animals quite the dumb beasts that they’ve been made out to be… and we’d better be careful, because we’ve taught them how to start fires. I’m just saying.

Featured Creature Friday: The Dapper Dresser Crab

by

You can ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you the truth: I know nothing about fashion. That’s why I’ve been looking to the experts for tips. No, I haven’t been watching a Project Runway marathon, and I still have no intention of taking my mom’s suggestion that I should go on What Not To Wear. (Thanks mom.) Instead, I’ve been reading up on dresser crabs.

I'm not really sure if the pearls are the right look for you, but they are a classic.

Don’t laugh. You don’t know a thing about accessorizing until you’ve seen a dresser crab (also known as a decorator crab) carefully select the right look for any occasion. But this isn’t just about fabulousness for them: it’s a matter of life and death. In order to defend themselves against predators, these crabs actually attach bits and bobs found on the ocean floor to the velcro-esque surfaces of their bodies, and then freeze to blend in with their surroundings when they feel there’s danger.

The crabs in the video, of course, are wearing the latest in crab fashion, but normally (when BBC camera crews and their obviously twisted senses of humor aren’t involved) dresser crabs use more common items found on the sea floor. After all, it’s the ocean, and they don’t have H&M or Abercrombie stores down there. (Yet.) They can’t just go pick up a nice frock or a pair of skinny jeans.

Their typical attire, however, is infinitely more bad-ass. Dresser crabs will stick anemones (which have stinging tentacles) or poisonous seawood to their backs. Then they’re not only sporting the latest fashion, but also a formidable defense against any animals foolish enough to tangle with them. I’m not sure why anybody would tangle with them, though. Dresser crab hangouts must be like the awesome drag reviews of the sea. And frankly, with all the jellyfish in there, I reckon the sea can use all the awesome it can get.

Featured Creature Friday: The Tongue-Eating Louse

by

I threw you an easy pitch last week with the Kakapo. It was cute and fluffy, as promised, and the worst thing it does really is shag the heads of eminent conservationists. But now that we’ve gotten that out of our systems, I think it’s time to return to the world of general horror and creatures that will keep you up at night, dreaming the sort of dreams that make you stop breathing and occasionally wet yourself. And the place you need to look for that sort of experience is of course in the water, which as far as I can tell is occupied by nothing but animals that want to make you cry like a little girl. (I know what you’re thinking. Dolphins, right? Dolphins are made out of fun and joy! Well, dolphins murder things for fun and also they’re baby-killing rapists, so there’s that illusion shattered. You’re welcome.)

photo by Matthew R. Gilligan, Savannah State University / public domain

Luckily, in times like these, there’s Cymothoa exigua: the tongue-eating louse. It is exactly what it the name implies: it is a parasite that eats tongues. But it’s worse than that. Oh, friends, it is so much worse than that. Because what it does is it takes up residence inside a fish’s mouth (by crawling in through the gills), kills the fish’s tongue (it actually drinks all the blood from it and the tongue atrophies; the louse doesn’t actually eat it), and then it attaches itself to the stump and pretends to be the fish’s tongue. And the fish, poor bastard, doesn’t appear to know any better; because the parasite is attached to what remains of the tongue, it can actually use the thing like it is a tongue. It’s the only known parasite that actually functionally replaces a host organ. You’d think that maybe it would use this advantageous new position to take a cut of the fish’s food, like some sort of a louse mafia, but no… it’s feeding on either the fish’s blood or its delicious fish mucus (whatever fish mucus is). Now I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned that makes this thing the most psychopathic parasite ever. If it could talk, undoubtedly the only thing it would say is, “It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again!”

That’s about all there is to the tongue-eating louse. I don’t have any interesting reproductive facts or fascinating tidbits for you. It pretends to be a fish’s tongue. Really that alone is quite enough.

If you enjoy these features (and who doesn’t enjoy a good tongue-eating louse?) I want to point you to an excellent blog: The Proceedings of the Ever so Strange. They’ve even got a blog about the tongue-eating louse with even more horrifying pictures! The things they post about there are ever so strange, and extend to more than just creatures, so even when it’s not Friday you can learn something terrifying about your world!