Weird Animals

http://img04.deviantart.net/446d/i/2012/116/3/d/montezuma_oropendola_by_jamie_macarthur-d4xm116.jpg

meet the montezuma oropendola, a guatemalan bird with bizarre mating rituals and a song that sounds like aphex twin on a good day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HjNZ1a0PTY

Greater fidelity here: http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/127299

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/why-frog-tongues-are-so-sticky/515193/

“The analysis helps to explain many bizarre observations, like why frogs use the backs of their eyeballs to push prey down their throats,” says Kiisa Nishikawa from Northern Arizona University. When the insect’s in the frog’s mouth, the frog has to get it off its tongue. Fortunately, all of its adhesive tricks work best in the perpendicular direction—it may be really hard to pull the insect off, but it’s comparably easy to slide it off. The frog just needs something to push against the insect—so it uses its eyeballs. Twelve years ago, Robert Levine used X-ray videos to show that a frog swallows, it retracts its eyeballs inwards, and uses these to push victims off its tongue.

that is remarkably efficient

there are so many amazing phrases in that article

They would launch their sticky tongues at insects with incredible speed and precision

Try to design a wet material that can hit a highly textured object at incredibly high speed and adhere

People have been studying frog tongues since the 19th century

bloody bags full of frog tongues

its saliva flows freely and readily seeps into every crack and gap

Who knows what frog tongues will lead to?

Noel, meanwhile, is turning her attention to cat tongues. They are coated in tiny spines, and Noel wants to know whether these help the felines to groom themselves, to rip meat from bones, or something else. “I’m working with both house-cat tongues and tiger tongues,” she says. “My two favorite animals are cats and frogs and that’s what I’m studying now. It’s a good life.”

#peoplewho'vefiguredouthowtolive

Many studies of sticky animals have led to the development of new materials

yes who can forget 3M's bold research on sellotapeworms

this gecko that can shed its scale sgives me the heebiejeebies

https://i.imgur.com/4MDCBbZ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/cUCITMm.jpg

the phrase "looks like a raw chicken breast" stuck in my mind's eye

The phrase "googly-eyed penis" stuck in mine.

Did George Lucas know about the bobbit worm before Jedi or was it just chance that he thought up a giant one?

That sand striker footage is just missing a moment where there's a belch followed by a perfectly formed fish skeleton popping out of the sand

Eunice aphroditois are common on soft bottoms in warm waters, and if Lucas were a scuba diver he'd be aware of them. It wasn't known colequially as the Bobbit worm prior 1996, after Loreena Bobbit.

http://i.imgur.com/eSOyd3k.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4FdNaJK.gif

oh i hate that

Evil.

never seen a fish emote like that

https://68.media.tumblr.com/204891818aca56c158bdeb07b07cae6f/tumblr_inline_ollyarKWQt1qb3qcf_540.jpg

the warusoba can be deep fried and eaten

hr giger's lunchbox

apparently it was the inspiration for alien?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/04/17/scientists-find-giant-elusive-clam-known-as-the-unicorn-of-mollusks/

Is 'mollusk' the US spelling? No matter, it just looks odd to me.

Yeah sorry, I know they're in the phylum Mollusca, but we spell it mollusk all the same.

Ignoring the memetic internet slang, pretty funny:

https://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/159737441365/asapscience-this-never-gets-old

https://assets.wired.com/photos/w_1536/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Freediver-and-giant-manta-copyright-Andrea-Marshall.jpg

It is 25 feet wide.

Or those remoras???

OMG that is awesome in lots of ways

Right?

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/andrea-marshall-manta-queen/#slide-1

Leee - assume they're some kind of parasitic sucker fish (highly technical term) that's latching onto the ray but I have no idea what kind.

Or those remoras???

Sigh. *Are

Remoras are symbiotic sucker fish. That pic though gives me the creeps.

Just say NO to parasites. They fill me with a primordial horror/revulsion.

remoras are anti-parasite; it's a mutualistic rleationship
http://www.leisurepro.com/blog/explore-the-blue/shark-remora-relationship/

Oh, cool! I had this image (from another fish?) of them attaching themselves and sucking blood. If I had to guess I'd say...leechfish, because that's how stuff is named.

remoras are anti-parasite; it's a mutualistic rleationship

I'd forgotten they cleaned up their host's skin, but that picture! It's like a different kind of trypophobia.

Oh, cool! I had this image (from another fish?) of them attaching themselves and sucking blood. If I had to guess I'd say...leechfish, because that's how stuff is named.

Lampreys?

yes and let's please not add pictures of them or hagfish here

They do fit the WEIRD criterion, though!

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/05lostcity/logs/july27/media/xeno2_600.jpg

xenophyophores, (relatively) giant single-celled amoeba-like organisms that live on the deepest sea floors

Dang that's a big cell.

right? so bizarre -- they can't even really study them well because they just fall apart when they attempt to capture them

news of a single-celled organism that can grow to nearly a foot across is kinda blowing my mind tbh

makes me wonder why i bother having all these other cells

the biggest cell, the best cell

Note that there are many, many cell nuclei in that xenophyophore, they just share a common cytoplasm. All it takes is nuclear replication without cytokinesis. Seems a perfectly reasonable solution for organisms with no need for tissue differentiation or cell migration during development.

Xenophyophores aren't the largest multinucleated cells. The aquatic algae Caulerpa taxifolia grows to 6-12 inches long. The pretzel slime mold Hemitrichia serpula is one you could find in temperate forests.

http://www.ispotnature.org/sites/default/files/images/51608/39f663908013471a17b43bfe643858c1.jpg

^aren't the largest by some measures. Also, wiki tells me that some filamentous mold cells extend hundreds of meters.

mmmm pretzel cells

Dammit ulysses beat me to it.

i'm getting alphabetti spaghetti vibes

Should thread title be changed to weird eukaryotes since we've now moved into slime mold and sea floor "thing" territory