Sea lice mob devours pig from the inside out

Finding a dead body in the ocean may be gruesome, but for forensic scientists it can also be perplexing. Although the way a body decomposes on land is well understood, little is known about how human remains fare underwater.

Now a pioneering experiment lead by forensic scientist Gail Anderson from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, is using dead pigs as a model for humans to gain insight. In this video, a pig carcass is tracked as it turns to bones in the ocean, capturing the scavengers that visit the body. Sharks are unable to tuck in since it's enclosed, giving sea lice exclusive access to the remains. They enter orifices in droves to feast on the animal from the inside out and congregate on the cage bars to prevent other arthropods, like shrimp, from getting a bite. "By the end of the fourth day, the sea lice had left and the pigs were reduced to bones," says Anderson.

Shrimp arrive to pick at the skeleton, eventually removing all the cartilage. The team then recovered the bones which, strangely, were jet black for a period of 48 hours. "This is something that has never been seen before," says Lynne Bell, a member of the team. "Colleagues are working to identify the micro-organisms collected close to the bone, which may help to identify the unique chemistry of the change."

Stick around till the end for a surprise visitor. :)

Interested in the science behind decay? Check this out;
After Life: The Science of Decay

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2012/10/sea-lice-mob-devours-pig-from-the-inside-out.html

Evolution on Acid

Nudibranchs or sea slugs come in a truly stupendous amount of shapes, sizes and colors.

50 Shades of Nudibranch

How the male Angler Fish gets completely screwed

Nature is known for pulling of some bizarre stunts when it comes to animal reproduction but this one just leaves you scratching your head.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/angler

This Siphonophore will siphon off your breath

Terrible pun I know. Still, aren't these creatures just beyond breathtaking? Although many siphonophorae can be mistaken for your average looking jellyfish, this is something else entirely. You almost expect it to casually turn towards the camera and ask for a call home.

Siphonophorae might appear to be a single organism but each specimen is actually a colony composed of many individual animals. Most colonies are long, thin, transparent pelagic floaters.

The best known species is the dangerous Portuguese man o' war (Physalia physalis) [1]. With a body length of 40–50 m (130–160 ft), another species of siphonophore, Praya dubia [2], is one of the longest animals in the world.

Each zooid (a single animal part of a colonial animal) is an individual, but their integration with each other is so strong, the colony attains the character of one large organism. Indeed, most of the zooids are so specialized, they lack the ability to survive on their own. Siphonophorae thus exist at the boundary between colonial and complex multicellular organisms.

Like other hydrozoans, certain siphonophores can emit light. A siphonophore of the genus Erenna [3] has been discovered at a depth of around 1,600 m (5,200 ft) off the coast of Monterey, California. The individuals from these colonies are strung together like a feather boa. They prey on small animals using stinging cells. Among the stinging cells are stalks with red glowing ends. The tips twitch back and forth, creating a twinkling effect. Twinkling red lights are thought to attract the small fish eaten by these siphonophores. While many sea animals produce blue and green bioluminescence, this siphonophore was only the second lifeform found to produce a red light (the first being the scaleless dragonfish Chirostomias pliopterus [4]).

[1] Portuguese man o' war
[2] Praya dubia
http://biolum.eemb.ucsb.edu/organism/pictures/praya.html
[3] Siphonophore of the genus Erenna
http://biolum.eemb.ucsb.edu/organism/erenna.html
[4] Scaleless Dragonfish
http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/fall2007/images/features/oceans_photo_essay/Acanthephyra-BL.jpg

Bonus; Marrus orthocanna

> http://deepseanews.com/2014/06/amazing-purple-jelly-sighting-in-the-deep-sea/ .
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophore


Looking for more creatures from the deep?

> Stranger in a Strange land
https://plus.google.com/108487783243149848473/posts/NbAL93gw776

> Sea Pigs
https://plus.google.com/108487783243149848473/posts/ehNPREq1zx3

> Nudibranches
https://plus.google.com/108487783243149848473/posts/MuPJQB23VNs

> Dreaming of Europeans
https://plus.google.com/108487783243149848473/posts/NgxJqSbJVfg

Polly Morgan - Playing with food

"I went to the Serengeti last summer, and while I enjoyed seeing all the living animals, it was the corpses that really inspired me."

Morgan's controversial taxidermy masterpieces are sure to make you think about life, death and everything in between. Her works make the dead speak in voices not their own. A master of her craft, she imbues what were once energetic living creatures with a bit of their former selves but also adds more than a few hints of the macabre and the surreal. There is something quite unnerving about seeing the horrific mixed with the playful in such a casual manner.

"There's something vulnerable about a bird lying down. You see mammals lying down, sleeping. But birds tuck in while perched when they sleep; if they're lying down they are dead. When you see a bird unable to fly it's powerless and motionless. It's like a tiger without teeth."

http://pollymorgan.co.uk/

Sometimes, putting all your eggs in one sheet is a good idea

When I was looking around for more information on deep sea dwelling siphonophorae for my last post; - http://goo.gl/nZfWEQ - I came across the +MBARI youtube channel... The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute sits on a treasure trove of some exceptionally amazing footage. The video below contains the first ever footage of brooding deep sea squids that carry their eggs around with them! It features stunning shots throughout and ends with a taste of cannibalism.

"Reproduction is one of the many challenges faced by deep-sea animals. In recent years, submersibles have allowed scientists to explore the lives of deep-sea animals in ways that were not possible before. One of the many exciting discoveries was that a mother of the deep-sea squid species Gonatus onyx broods her eggs by holding them in her arms, a behavior that had never been previously reported for squids. This shocking discovery was the first time scientists had evidence of parental care in squids."

I've shared a video of them once before; Stranger in a strange land (http://goo.gl/918G5n) but they've been very busy since then. If you've got the time you should definitely check out some of the other videos on their channel.

> The law of beak and claw .
> What the vampire squid really eats .
> Boneworms on dead whales in Monterey Bay .
> Hide and Seek in the Deep .
> Davidson Seamount: The Biology of an Underwater Mountain .
> Magnapinna sp. - The Long-armed Squid .
> Lost at sea: Ecological assessment around a sunken shipping container .
> Grimalditeuthis bonplandi: A deep-sea squid with tentacle tips that "swim" on their own .
> Macropinna microstoma: A deep-sea fish with a transparent head and tubular eyes .
> Eerie critters from the deep sea: PREDATORS AND SCAVENGERS
...
you get the picture :p

Killer songs stave off murder on the dancefloor

Camouflaged sea dragons

This stunning HD footage from the acclaimed BBC - Life series of two Weedy Seadragons showing off their courtship ritual is truly a sight to behold.

The Weedy seadragon is a marine fish related to the seahorse. It is found in water 3 to 50 m deep around the southern coastline of Australia. They resemble drifting weed when moving over bare sand but they have got nothing on their cousins, the Leafy Seadragon.

Bonus video: Leafy Seadragon

Spaceship Earth

A bone-chilling history lesson presented in the format of a comic.

St. Matthew Island

GFP

The GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) exhibits bright green fluorescence when exposed to blue light. Although many other marine organisms have similar green fluorescent proteins, GFP traditionally refers to the protein first isolated from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. Although it has been used by artists around the world, this GFP is especially useful for the biological sciences. In biology, GFP is used for highlighting specific structures. Compared to other fluorescent proteins, it is much less harmful when illuminated in living cells. The discovery and use of GFP has triggered the development of highly automated live-cell fluorescence microscopy systems, which can be used to observe cells over time expressing one or more proteins tagged with fluorescent proteins. In 2008 Martin Chalfie, Osamu Shimomura, and Roger Y. Tsien were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein.

 Wiki - Green Fluorescent Protein

The immortal jellyfish

The lifecycle of the jellyfish is quite remarkable (pictured below). A jellyfish larva first develops into a polyp and it is this polyp that will then asexually produce thousands of jellyfish. This surely is rather bizarre but thanks to Turritopsis nutricula, this lifecycle gets a whole lot weirder.

Turritopsis nutricula is potentially immortal, it is a hydrozoan whose medusa, or jellyfish, form can revert back to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of a metazoan capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation. Cell transdifferentiation is when the jellyfish "alters the differentiated state of the cell and transforms it into a new cell". In this process the medusa of the immortal jellyfish is transformed into the polyps of a new polyp colony. First, the umbrella reverts itself and then the tentacles and mesoglea get resorbed. The reverted medusa then attaches itself to the substrate by the end that had been at the opposite end of the umbrella and starts giving rise to new polyps to form the new colony. Theoretically, this process can go on indefinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal.

Lyrebird

Lyrebirds have the amazing capability to replicate almost any sound they come in contact with. This results in some very unusual songs for the lyrebird when he comes into contact with human civilization.

Bonus video: Attenborough finds one that does cameras

Otter playtime

This otter is having a good time in the sun while effortlessly juggling some pebbles without even looking at them. This game is played by otters all over the world and has been documented numerous times. (another otter doing the same thing)

In the wild they are frequently spotted using rocks as crude tools to smash open shells, but it's not exactly clear what these guys are doing. They might learn to handle rocks through play, but several otter species that don't make use of stone tools also play this game. Otters are highly social animals and appear to engage in various behaviors, for sheer enjoyment and this seems to be such an occasion.

Velvet worm

This remarkable creature, a living fossil, uses a rather unusual but effective technique to capture its prey. Just when you thought you'd seen it all... Nature seems to have an infinite supply of tricks up her sleeve.

Bonus video: Velvet Worm Attack
Wiki - Velvet Worm

Swarming sea stars

The following beautiful spectacle takes place in antarctic waters where three-foot nemertean worms and carnivorous sea stars prowl the sea floor in search of flesh. Finding a dead seal, the sea stars inject it with digestive juices... then suck it up like soup.

Tiny wasps vs ants

Tiny wasps, 2.0 mm in size, pull off amazing aeronautical stunts to inject their eggs into the bodies of ants.

The mating of leopard slugs

Have you ever wondered how slugs get it on? If so, this video is for you. Depending on your personality it will either make you marvel at nature's beautiful and strange complexity or give you nightmares. The clip is from the BBC's Life in the undergrowth.