Colorful new Tarantula species discovered

New to nature No 107: Typhochlaena costae 

Little is known about a new species of tarantula found in Brazil – but it is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. 

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Single cells, Single cells, Plankton All The Way....

Because of the reaction to his special Christmas card Dr Richard Kirby is considering putting it on sale next year

Christmas Card made out of tiny sea creatures

'.....The variety is incredible and if you look at them with a festive eye you can see all sorts of things.

'Many people have remarked how certain plankton remind them of other things, so I've collated several pictures to make a classic Christmas card.

'The importance of these micro marvels in the sea can't be underestimated.

'Their importance on a global scale is obvious when you realize that 50 per cent of the world's photosynthesis takes place in the surface of the sea, drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the oceans and releasing oxygen.....

Best 50 Nature Photos

Click here to view the rest of this breathtaking series

Bearded Dragon plays Ant Crusher game

Surfers Save Stranded Baby Great White

This baby Great White Shark was stranded on Venice Beach, CA and tangled in fishing line. Luckily, some good samaritan surfers come to the rescue.

i shall call him squishy, and he will be my squishy

Megaleledone setebos

Eyeless Urchins “See” the Sea With Their Spines

Oh, you. You think you’re pretty fancy, don’t you, with your matching pair of eyeballs, your precious optic nerve, your oh-so-sophisticated visual cortex. You think you’re so evolved.
The sea urchins are not impressed.

Though the round, spiny marine creatures have no actual visual organs, they do have light-sensitive proteins that help them “see” well enough to move around, find shelter and avoid predators (well, at least the slow ones). Biologists now think that a sea urchin’s entire body functions as one big compound eye, where photosensitive tissue inside the exoskeleton picks up light that’s filtered by the radiating spines. And the denser an urchin’s spines, the sharper its perception of its surroundings, a new study suggests. So who’s fancy now?

Sönke Johnsen and his team at Duke University in Durham, N.C., tested the visual responses of Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, a large, purple Pacific urchin with an especially spiny exoskeleton. They placed individual urchins in the center of a tank with a dark target on one side, and they lit the tank from above.

In under a minute, the urchins began to move relative to the target. Some inched toward the dark spot and others scooted away from it, but their trajectories were definitely deliberate—each urchin was tested four times with the spot in different parts of the tank, and each repeated its behavior every time.

“Even though the group as a whole did not choose one direction relative to the target, they obviously responded to it,” the researchers wrote in The Journal of Experimental Biology. “This is analogous to a group of people each using their own compass to go a different direction.”
According to Johnsen’s team, it’s possible that urchins who were attracted to the spot interpreted it as a cave to hide in, while the ones who fled treated it as a predator like an eel or a sea star.

S. purpuratus could detect smaller targets than a previously tested species with sparser spines, suggesting to the researchers that the additional spines give it greater visual resolution. They say they’d need to test additional species to be sure.

Okay, so they still can’t recognize faces or appreciate the subtleties of a Van Gogh, but Johnsen and his colleagues say the urchins can see about as well as a horseshoe crab or chambered nautilus — and those guys have actual eyes. Not bad, right?

At least one urchin species, by the way, can live up to 200 years, so don’t even think that you’ll win in a stare down.


By Mara Grunbaum. This article is provided by Scienceline, a project of New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.

Fun With GFP's

Green flourescent proteins, which are naturally occuring in some species, can be attached to other proteins enabling scientists to mark proteins of their choice with a green glow. GFP's have been used to decrypt previously invisible processes, like the spread of cancer or the development of nerve cells.

Crystal Jelly- Green fluorescent protein, naturally occurring

Rhesus Macaque Monkey- Green fluorescent protein, introduced into DNA of egg via virus (2008)

Pig- Green fluorescent protein, added to embryos (2006)

Cat- Red fluorescent protein, introduced via a virus into cloned DNA, which was implanted in cat eggs, then implanted in mother (2007)

Mice- Green fluorescent protein, received via DNA from father, which had been implanted with glowing sperm-creating cells from a flourescent mouse (2004)

Mice- Cyan, red, and yellow fluorescent proteins, injected into DNA in embryos (2007)

Tobacco- Firefly luciferase gene, introduced via a virus into tobacco DNA (1986)

Emperor Scorpion- Beta-carboline, naturally occurring

Nematode Worm- Green fluorescent protein, introduced into its DNA (2005)

Dog- Red fluorescent protein, introduced via a virus into cloned DNA (2009)

Zebrafish- Green, yellow, and red fluorescent protein, introduced into its DNA (2003)

Bacteria- Multiple colors of fluorescent protein, introduced into its DNA (2008)

I feel pretty! Oh so pretty!

Triturus cristatus

The warty or great crested newt lives only in Europe. Females, which are larger than males, can reach 7 inches (18 centimeters) in length, making these stout-bodied amphibians the continent’s largest newts.

True to its name, the warty newt has skin that is covered in small bumps. The skin contains glands that secrete a milky, acrid-smelling substance to dissuade predators. Its other common name derives from the dramatic, jagged crest that males develop along their backs during the spring breeding season.

These newts are generally dark colored on top and orange or yellow with black spots underneath. They also have white speckles on their flanks and a large, vertically flattened tail that bears a white streak down the side.

Warty newts are nocturnal and are voracious eaters, feeding on worms, slugs, and insects on land, and tadpoles and mollusks in water. They are more terrestrial than most newts, but must remain near bodies of fresh water to keep their skin moist.

These newts spend a significant portion of their lives in hibernation, usually from around October to March of each year. On a rainy night in March, they awaken and trek back to the pond where they hatched to mate.

Females lay from 200 to 300 eggs, but only about half develop into tadpoles. Tadpoles emerge from their eggs in about 21 days and feed on small insects like water fleas and tiny worms. Warty newts are extremely long-lived, with some exceeding 16 years of age. Like all newts, they can regrow body parts if necessary, but that ability diminishes as they age.

Warty newt populations are in decline throughout their range, and they are considered an endangered species. They and their habitats are protected under European law.