Drive by posting

Another super cute baby octopus picture! They seem to be pretty healthy looking, and have the strength/ cunning to escape their enclosures. So far, I've returned two to their tanks after they have escaped to the wet table. One of them even caught its first meal the other day. (We fed it a small grass shrimp) Hopefully, they will survive to adulthood.

Photohunter: Blue

"Blue you sit so pretty west of the one"

-- Red Hot Chili Peppers

Road Trippin'

(Hanauma Bay, Hawaii)

For me there is only one blue... the endless blue of the ocean. It is so fascinating words cannot describe it. Even if you only get to visit the edge, it's amazing; and if you get the chance to immerse yourself, it's like stepping into another world.

( Los_Cat at Blue Pearl Bay, Australia)

I can't remember a time when I was not fascinated by the ocean.

Fun ocean facts:

• 70% of the world's oxygen is produced by organisms in the ocean
• 70% of the world's surface living space is provided by oceans, and 95% of the world's living space by volume.
• 20-50% of the world's species are found in the ocean (this number is skewed towards the terrestrial as more species have been identified on land, and the large number of insect species)

And there is still so much to learn!

Life Photo Meme: Scary but cool spider

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Arachnida

Order: Araneae

Family: Tetragnathidae

Spiders are definitely on many people's scary list, especially when they are as large as your hand. This is a golden orb weaver, most likely Nephila clavipes. The Nephila genus is rather interesting. Males tend to be much smaller than females, 1/10 the size of females, and live on the female's web eating their food. Males will mate with the female while she is busy, general while she is eating.

Of course, what the golden orb weavers are most famous for is their webs.

Their webs are a beautiful golden color, very large (1 meter or 3 feet in width) and very strong. Their webs are strong enough to catch a bird (not that they want to catch birds), and last for several years. There has been research on the properties of all spider silk, and some very innovative uses for the golden orb weaver's silk in particular. The silk of golden web spiders has been used to culture nerves cells, and may be useful as a 'nerve graft' as nerve cells adhere to it, it does not cause a major immune response, and is resistant to decay by bacterial or fungal agents [1].

Photohunter: Scary fish

This is a fangtooth fish, a deep water fish with very large teeth. It's been said that they have the largest teeth to body size ratio of any fish. They are found around 2,000 feet, and can be found as deep as 5,000 feet.

These fish are the poster child of the deep sea fish and can be seen on any special featuring deep sea animals. Although they general do extreme close-ups of the face, which makes them seem very large and frightening, they only get 5 inches (13 cm) in length. They are the terror of various shrimps, small fish, and cephalopods, that make up the majority of their diet.

There are only two species of fangfish world-wide, one which is present world-wide, and the other which is only found off the pacific coast.

Life photo meme: Misunderstood animal

Which of these is a misunderstood animal?

Sharks have a undeserved reputation of vicious man-eaters, who'd bite your arm off as soon as look at you, and go through the sea eating everything in there path. However, I would bet that more people would agree with the statement that sharks are animals, then would agree with the statement that humans are animals. But in what kingdom would we be placed?

• Plantae: Multi-cellular, non-motile, and autotrophic. We do move, and don't photosythesize so that leaves us out.
• Fungi: Multi-cellular, non-motile, and heterotrophic. Again, no, because we move.
• Protozoa: Generally unicellular, generally motile, can be heterotrophic or autotropic. While this is a grab-bag category, most are unicellular and live in an aquatic environment. That leaves us out.
• Monera: Unicellular (but lacks many membrane-bound organelles), can be motile or non-motile, can be heterotrophic or autotropic. I don't think anybody would try to insist that we are bacteria (at least in the literal sense).
• Animalia: Multicellular, motile, heterotrophic. Bingo! We do walk around, eat things, and we are multicellular.

That was a short list (just three characteristics), but you can see that the animal kingdom is where we fit. So for those of you who missed it, the complete classification of humans:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: sapiens

Note: the shark in the picture is my favorite shark, the zebra shark (Stegostoma fasciatum). They can grow 11 feet long, and eat crabs, clams, and fish they suck out of the sand. As an adult, they look like a potato with spots, and a very long tail.