The A to Z of Amazing Zoology

harvestheart:

Tiny Peacock Spider  (Peacock spider  Image Credit Flickr User Jurgen Otto)

Australia is home to many strange and unusual animals, something the majority of us know. When asked, most people would say that it is the marsupials of the country that are the most significantly different to the rest of the world.  Perhaps that assumption should be questioned – Australia is also home to the tiny Peacock Spider, whose behaviour and appearance is nothing short of startling.

(via justaquickquestion)

headlikeanorange:

This mudskipper from Japan is a fish that spends much of its time out of the water. It  can walk on land and breathe air. (Life - BBC)

(via p-e-r-e-g-r-i-n-e)

briannahassparetime:

jenkristofu:

So I didn’t know that fucking dragons existed. Just look at them. Just fucking look.

They hide under a disguise of feathers and call themselves bearded vultures. But I see through their lies.

Want one as a pet? Well they’d be $9000 dollars, but that’s hypothetical because you simply cannot have one. Also, they like to eat dead parrots and dolphins and that’s out of your budget too. Ablubblubbloo…

what. Are these real??

(via mother-rucker)

rhamphotheca:

Crickets Sing Deeper When Cold

by Daniel Strain

A lesson for crickets wanting to sing like Barry White: chill out. Like most of their relatives, South Indian tree crickets (Oecanthus henryi) woo mates by rubbing their wings together, causing them to vibrate and produce sound much like a guitar string. But these bugs, which have especially long and transparent wings, are also slaves to the weather. When it gets cold out, tree cricket chirps drop in frequency by as much as an octave.

To find out why, researchers employed lasers capable of detecting slight vibrations to measure how the wings of tree crickets buzzed during these calls. The appendages, it turns out, vibrate at several distinct frequencies—rather than just one like most crickets—making them versatile singers, the group reports online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And when the weather turns chilly, the insects likely can’t beat their wings as fast, meaning that they also can’t hit those high notes. So while they can sing soul, opera may be out of the picture.

(via: Science NOW)   (photo: David Cappaert/Michigan State Univ.)

oceansoftheworld:

(Photo found here)

Nautilus belauensis, also known as the Palau Nautilus, is a species of nautilus native to the waters around the Pacific island nation of Palau. Nautilus is the common name of marine creatures of cephalopod family Nautilidae (see this previous post), the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina. It comprises six living species in two genera. The nautilus is similar in general form to other cephalopods, with a prominent head and tentacles. Nautiluses typically have more tentacles than other cephalopods, up to ninety. These tentacles are arranged into two circles and, unlike the tentacles of other cephalopods, they have no suckers, are undifferentiated and retractable. The radula (structure used for feeding) is wide and distinctively has nine teeth. There are two pairs of gills. Nautiluses are the sole living cephalopods whose bony body structure is externalized as a shell. The animal can withdraw completely into its shell and close the opening with a leathery hood formed from two specially folded tentacles.

(Source)

(via cog-nito)

mad-as-a-marine-biologist:

Aforementioned Mimic Octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) by Samantha Craven

I’m pretty proud to say this got “Spotting of Day” on Project Noah the other day. It was my spotting of the day in real life too. 

mad-as-a-marine-biologist:

Mimic Octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) by Samantha Craven

So that previous pic was supposed to be a gif! Check out this awesome mimic escape!

As if a testament to this animals extraordinary camouflage and mimic abilities, it was only discovered in 1998. It mimics the physical likeness and movements of more than 15 different species, including sea snakes, lionfish, flatfish, brittle stars, giant crabs, sea shells, stingrays, flounders, jellyfish, sea anemones, and mantis shrimp by contorting its body and arms, and changing colour.

Even more incredible, the mimic may decide which animal to impersonate depending on local predators. For example, when the octopus was being attacked by damselfish, the octopus was observed to appear as a banded sea snake, a damselfish predator. The octopus impersonates the snake by turning black and yellow, burying six of its arms, and waving its other two arms in opposite directions.

Easily confused with the Wonderpus (Wunderpus photogenicus), the Mimic is easily distinguished by a consistent white line bordering it’s arms. And you know, when it mimics. 

(via scinerds)

dailyfossil:

Rhynchonkos

Reconstruction by Smokeybjb. 

When: Late Permian (~275 - 270 million years ago)

Where: Oklahoma, USA 

What: Rhynchonkos is a very rare amphibian that lived in the swamp land covering what is now Oklahoma in the Permian. It was about 4.5 inches (~11 cm) long, not counting the tail, with an extremely elongated body and tiny tiny limbs. The elongation of its body compared to other amphibians was accomplished via replication of vertebrae, not elongation of each individual bone.  Rhynchonkos had at least 36 pre-sacral (before the hips) vertebrae. Its mouth was full of rows of tiny teeth, and it is likely that it ate insects and small fish in its swampy home. Older literature about this animal refers to it as Goniorhynchus rather than its current name. This change is due to the fact that the fossil taxon was named in 1970, however, a moth was given the name Goniorhynchus in 1896. Stupid insects. At least it wasn’t a beetle this time! The name  Rhynchonkos was applied in 1981. 

The phylogentic relationships of Rhynchonkos are fairly uncertain. For some time it was held as a close relative of modern caecilians (a group of limbless amphibians), but later fossil finds have cast doubt upon this affiliation. Within other fossil ‘amphbians’ Rhynchonkos has been placed in Lepospondyli (along with our friend Diplocaulus). This group as a whole has a much debated relationship with living amphibians. Some studies have them having nothing to do with living amphibians (lissamphibians), where as others link specific taxa with certain groups of living amphibians. Such as the now disputed Rhynchonkos - caecilian link. It may seem obvious to link this almost limbless fossil with the limbless amphibians, but amphibians (and lizards too!) seem to like to lose their limbs at the drop of a hat. It is very common in swimming and burrowing forms. 

(via scientificillustration)

Sand Bubbler crab

Sand bubbler crabs live in burrows in the sand, where they remain during high tide. When the tide is out, they emerge on to the surface of the sand, and scour the sand for food, forming it into inflated pellets, which cover the sand. The crabs work radially from the entrance to their burrow, which they re-enter as the tide rises and destroys the pellets.

(via halliness)

kqedscience:

Small Furry Hyrax Sings in Regional Dialects

By recording hundreds of the animals’ songs and applying clever mathematics, researchers discovered that differences in note arrangement, or syntax, in hyrax songs vary as the distance increases between colonies — a surprising occurrence of dialect.

(Click here to read more and view a short video of a singing hyrax.)

(via: Wired Science)

(via justaquickquestion)