ISOPOCALYPSE 2010

If you go on the Internet, you may or may not have seen this image that is making the rounds through mainstream online media:

Apparently this got posted to Reddit in which people commenced with their "OMG WHAT IS THIS KILL IT WITH FIREing" that you may or may not be familiar with.  You, gentle reader, almost certainly thought, "Pish posh, anyone can clearly see that is a giant sea isopod they've strung up so rudely on boat...stuff."  If you didn't, that's okay, you still have my eternal gratitude for reading this. 

Continuing on, the good folks at Deep Sea News came to the rescue and educated people hard; you can read the chronicle here, in which they staunchly defend our brave isopod from the slander of the Internet.  However, rampant misinformation of the occasionally-amusing type is still being spread so your friendly Uncle A. (<--me) is here to learn you even HARDER.

-Despite what you may have heard on AOL giant sea isopods are not roaches.  The lowest taxonomic level to which they both belong is the phylum Arthopoda.  

To put that in perspective, humans and dogs are closer together on the taxonomic tree (we both belong to the Mammalia class) than giant isopods (Bathynomus) and cockroaches (Blattaria) are.  Organisms closer to isopods include the usual restaurant suspects (crabs, lobster, shrimp) krill and the like.

Taco has nothing on Lord Isopod.

TAXONOMY BREAK*!

If you want to make my veiny heart swell with pride, go read this introduction to the taxonomic hierarchy as it is used in biology.  For the rest of you, here's a crash course that involves me borrowing images from the aforementioned site.

HERE IS A DIAGRAM AND FLASHBACK TO 7TH GRADE SCIENCE CLASS.  Organisms are divided into six large categories, called kingdoms or regna: 

1) Animalia (mammals, insects, primates) 

2) Plantae (flowers, trees) 

3) Fungi (mushrooms, mold) 

4) Protista (amoeba, the awesomeness of slime molds, algae, diatoms) 

5) Archaea (most famous for extremophiles, i.e. the blue/green stuff that lives in hot springs in Yellowstone, the things that live your in guts RIGHT NOW!!!1)  

6) Bacteria (most famous as pathogens; the LIVE ACTIVE CULTURES advertised on yogurt).  Yes, six; I'm from the U.S. so we'll be dealing with the U.S. system.

Organisms are classified by a number of different characteristics as being more or less similar to one another in terms of evolutionary biology.  The further down you go on the taxonomic staircase, the more specific you are.  For example, the taxonomy of a yellow-bellied marmot, a creature near and dear to my heart (SPOKANE MARMOT POPULATION HOLLA), would look something like this:

 Spokane's greatest natural resource, upping property AWESOME values by 

merely existing.  HATERS GONNA HATE

Image: Rajah Bose of The Spokesman-Review

 

KINGDOM: Animalia (it's an animal)

PHYLUM: Chordata (it has a spine)

CLASS: Mammalia (it is a mammal; it gives birth to live young and 

            breastfeeds them) 
ORDER: Rodentia (it is a rodent, which are characterized by 

             having by two sets of continuously growing incisors 

             which must be kept short by gnawing on stuff).  

             Notice that humans diverged from marmots below 

             the CLASS level; until then we're together.   
FAMILY: Sciuridae (it is a squirrel)

SUBFAMILY: Xerinae (it is a ground squirrel)

GENUS: Marmota (it is a marmot)

SUBGENUS: Petromarmota (it is a marmot that lives in 

                  rocky areas)

SPECIES: Marmot flaviventris

If there are subspecies, they go there at the bottom.  But yes, if you want to know what a given organism is most closely related to, CONSULT YOUR TAXONOMY!  For fish we have the venerable FishBase as a resource for this.  

Taxonomy lets you do things like find out that the langostino lobster in Long John Silver's "Lobster Bites" are not actually lobster, but a "squat lobster".  Which look are related to porcelain crabs and hermit crabs, which are also not actually true crabs. ... ...awkward.  Does it make them any less tasty?  No, but they're still not lobsters.

Same with the obligatory market labeling of certain types of catfish as "tra" or "basa" courtesy the shining paragon of science and rationality that is Senator Trent Lott; I am embarrassed to have his state border my own, but it's not like Louisianan politicians aren't embarrassing me/themselves/the entire state on their own.  This was done in an effort to appease U.S. catfish farmers who felt that they were being undercut.  

I have personally seen websites and store displays describe basa and tra as "similar to catfish".  This is dead wrong, because BASA AND TRA ARE CATFISH.  Yes, they belong to the Pangasiidae family of catfish, whereas the catfish native to North America are from the Ictaluridae family.  This does not make them "not catfish", however; ALL fish that belong to order Siluriformes.

Chum (aka keta or dog) salmon with some dude.  You may see these guys marketed under the name "silverbrite" because nothing says "tasty fish" like something that sounds like it's silverware cleaning product.  Especially since the fish is very clearly silver.

I will stop now, because I could go on for days about my anger regarding the "market" names of fish and nobody wants that (yet).

Actually, this brings up something else that I'm sure all of you know, but I'm going to throw it out there.  Whenever there are pictures circulating on the Internet (possibly forwards from your great-aunt) of various creatures, don't necessarily believe the caption.  Examples include deep-sea creatures allegedly washed up by the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 (HINT: Tsunami do not work that way) and well, plenty of others.  

One my mother asked me about described an animal in a picture as a "giant catfish" when it was actually a juvenile whale shark (READ: catfish do not look like whale sharks and whale sharks are very distinctive).

E-mail forwards are not necessarily known for their standards to accuracy so I would suggest applying a healthy degree of skepticism and seeking further information from reliable sources whenever one receives such things.

*=Yes, I am aware that the biological taxonomy hierarchy is changing/the one I've provided may not be 100% correct at this moment in time.  However, I figure that this breakdown would be the most useful while avoiding splitting hairs about microbiology/clades/etc.

 

BRAVO

I've been meaning to rage about the results of the recent CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) meeting for a few days now.  CITES is an international conservation agreement between (as of 2009) 175 nations that meets once every three years to discuss various protections for flora and fauna.  

The results of the most recent meeting would probably be best conveyed by the participants writing "SCREW THE OCEAN" in a snowbank with urine.  Christie Wilcox at Observations of a Nerd writes about it in a much more dignified manner than I would, but here at the main points:

-Protection/regulations for eight species of shark did not pass.  The majority of sharks being commercially caught are being taken for their dorsal fins.

I'm pretty sure these look better on sharks.

-Trade ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna failed.  Bluefin (the shining stars of sushi and sashimi) are being eaten out of existence; this is only about Atlantic stocks, Pacific stocks are in a bad way as well.  You can largely thank Japan for this one; for having such a thing for tuna, you'd think it'd be concerned about their conservation.  APPARENTLY NOT

-Trade ban on polar bear products (they count as marine mammals, hush) failed.

-Trade ban on 31 species of coral failed.  The need for coral jewelry apparently trumps corals being integral to many marine ecosystems.

I've heard that tigers made out pretty well (given some people think parts of them are good for the old E.D.), but that's small consolation.  There are a good number of resources out there that discuss all this in more detail if you're interested, but the heart of the matter is that short-term gains from trade apparently trump conservation and sustainability for many members of CITES.  

One would hope that with everybody and their grandmother howling about "sustainability" and "green" everything people would've picked up on what happens when demand exceeds supply, but this seems to be one of those things that can be conveniently compartmentalized away when the situation (PROFIT) calls for it. 

Here are some groups responding to this:

The Pew Environment Group

Oceana

Ocean Conservancy

Scripps Institute of Oceanography

Overfishing.org

I could go into more detail (and probably will later) but it upsets me greatly that so many posts are about how this or that organism is endangered, nearly extinct (goodbye dear baiji; kind of surprising given people usually crap themselves over marine mammals.  Maybe just not weird-looking river dolphins?), has a threatened habitat, etc.

In closing, I strongly encourage all (any?) readers to do what you can in terms of supporting oceanic (and frankly all types of environmental) conservation.  If you read this thing regularly you've noticed that this blog is a way for me to share my lifelong love, fascination and enthusiasm for marine life; think of it as an exceptionally dorky love letter to the sea* that I insist on reading to everyone I meet.  It is my goal to infect others with this enthusiasm; this will become much more difficult the more damage these valuable ecosystems sustain.

*=though we're not married.  Yet.

HONK HONK CHIMAERA ALERT

Enjoy this lovely video of chimaeras, fantastic little cartilaginous shark-esque fish also known as ratfish, rabbitfish and ghost sharks.  Don't worry, they'll get their own entry; I can never ignore something with grinding plates for teeth. 

Via Deep Sea News, footage by Neptune Canada.

Detachable penises and the argonauts who love them.

The male Argonaut is an insignificant shell-less creature, fond of retirement, solitary and rarely seen.  When the tender passion seizes him, as he rocks on some sunny wavelet, far from female society, he does not go in search of a wife, but with Spartan courage, detaches one of his eight hands (or arms) and consigns it to the deep, in the hope that some tender hearted individual of the other sex will fall in with it and take it under her protection.

  

Dall, W.H. (1869). Notes on the argonaut. The American Naturalist, 3(5), 236-239. 

 Diagram of the male argonaut; a is the octopus, b is the hectocotylus.

Nicholson, H.A. (1880). Manual of zoology. St Andrews, Scotland, UK: William Blackwood And Sons.

One subject that is always of interest to me is the sheer diversity and gory details of the many reproductive practices found in nature*.  That (and winter recess) is what brings this entry to this evening: the semi-autonomous phallus of the argonaut.

 

"Hectocotylus", for our purposes, means "octopus wiener".

Photo: Julian Finn, The Malacologist

However, after briefly consulting a few sources, I thought it might be a good idea to introduce my readership to the argonaut itself, as opposed to merely its PHABULOUS PHALLUS.  When we think of cephalopods (which I hope you do several times per day), most people think of octopus and squid, possibly cuttlefish too if they had the misfortune to spend time with me around age six or so.  And while the argonaut is certainly an octopus (it belongs to Order Octopoda) it's a weird octopus and not usually what people envision when they hear the word.  An image will explain what I'm talking about:

 

 © 1996 David Paul 

As you can see, she's riding around in one of the many things that makes argonauts so distinctive, as well as being the source of their nickname, the "paper nautilus": the thin calcium carbonate eggcase of the female.  

ACHTUNG

They are not nautiluses, nautiluses belong to an entirely different order (Nautilida, to the shock of nobody) and their shells are quite different than those of the argonaut.  The government of Australia has even prepared a handy and user-friendly argonaut vs. nautilus comparison chart so that you'll have the resources you need when push comes to shove in those high-stakes cephalopod knowledge duels.

ALSO NOTE: In looking for information for this post I've seen many posts that say that they are "closely related to octopuses".  This is not actually true, given they ARE IN FACT octopuses.  Octopoda is a very diverse order that I intend to post more about in the future because I am mildly obsessed with cephalopods in case you missed the note; argonauts are not the strangest of the order.  Wait until we get to some of the more obscure orders under Cephalopoda, like Sepiolida, or even hang out with more extinct cephalopods!

The shell/eggcase of the argonaut is created from secretions produced by two of their dorsal arms, which are webbed and feature chromatophores, aka the things that lets cephalopods change colors real good.  Let's have some VISUAL AIDS:

 

S. G. Goodrich Animal Kingdom Illustrated Vol 2 (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1859)2:495

 Big ol' webbed arms.  Arms != tentacles, by the way.  And sans shell!

 

The shiny pink part of the shell are the webbed arms, all splayed out. 

These modified arms are particular to the females; the males have their own...modified arm, but that'll come later.  For now, more SCIENCE FACTS ABOUT ARGONAUTS:

-Females can leave and re-enter their shell because they cling to it with their suckers.  This is not the case for nautiluses, who are physically attached to their shells.

-Argonauts do not in fact use their webbed arms as sails by sticking them above the water, although this was apparently a widely-accepted belief back in the day.  You can thank Aristotle for that one, by the way.  While I can't confirm it through experience, supposedly they also exhibit this ability in Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

-Oddly, argonaut shells are not an example of a remnant cephalopod shell, evolutionarily speaking (the vestiges of this shell can be seen in the cuttlebone and the gladius/pen of the squid).  The jury is still out on how the argonaut acquired this ability in terms of evolutionary biology, but what we do know is that the true mollusk shell is formed through an internal shell sac; the argonaut's shell is formed through an entirely different external mechanism, indicating that despite some visual similarities, their magnificent eggcase chariots are evolutionary innovations.

-Continuing on about the shell, most true cephalopod shells are composed of aragonite; the shell of the argonaut is composed of calcite.

-This is probably assumed at this point, but argonauts lay their eggs in their eggcase; most octopuses lay their eggs in strings inside of caves.

-BIG difference between most octopus and argonauts: octopus are benthic, argonauts are pelagic.  Basically, most octopus hang around on the sea floor at varying depths.  Sure, they swim around some, but by and large they live on the floor.  Argonauts, on the other hand, live in the open ocean, relatively near to the surface.  

This also means that they are much more difficult to study because of the sheer lack of availability.  Contrast this with this octopus wandering between tide pools like it ain't no thang.  There will occasionally be mass strandings, which shell collectors often enjoy.  Like many other cephalopods they keep poorly in captivity, which doesn't really help the situation.

-The word for argonaut in Japanese is "蛸船" (takobune）, which literally means "octopus boat".  This is an absurdly cute name.

Now let's talk about ARGONAUT SEX.  Argonauts exhibit significant sexual dimorphism, i.e. females are WAY bigger than the males; males' full growth is about 10% of that of the female of the species.  Males also have the star of this entry, the detachable female-mantle-cavity-seeking hectocotylus.  Unfortunately for male argonauts, they only get to mate once.  I could write all this out, but I'd rather quote (bolded emphasis added by me):

The male argonaut has a modified third left arm that carries and stores sperm. This arm develops in a pouch under the male’s eye until needed for fertilization, at which point it explodes out of its sheath and leaves the body (Nesis, 1977; Iliffe, 1982). The arm attaches to the outside of the female’s mantle via suckers, then autonomously wiggles into the mantle cavity (Nesis, 1977). Originally, this arm was thought to be a parasitic worm and was given the scientific name Hectocotylus, and the modified arm is still called a hectocotylis in octopuses and squids. The detached arm is free-swimming and very active, but it probably cannot seek out females since it lacks a sense of direction (Iliffe, 1982). Upon expulsion of the hectocotylus, the male dies, and the arm, with its threadlike organ to carry and store spermatophores, remains in the female’s mantle cavity until such time as she chooses to fertilize it (Iliffe, 1982; Norman, 2003).

Female argonauts can have a few hectocotyluses within their mantle cavities simultaneously and often lay eggs after attaining spermatophores (Norman, 2003).

Orenstein, M., & Wood, J.B. (2007). Argonauta argo, argonaut. Retrieved from http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/MarineInvertebrateZoology/Argonautaargo.html

 Crudely summarized, the male argonaut's terrifying micro-penis EXPLODES out from under his eye, he dies, penis-arm swims to the female and plops itself into her mantle cavity minus the male who is now just another tiny seven-armed carcass drifting in the sea.  Note that females can: 

a) carry a number of sperm packets simultaneously 

b) tote the sperm packets around until they decide to fertilize their eggs.  

I don't know if argonauts have this ability, but I know some organisms who do the sperm packet thing (cuttlefish, if I'm not mistaken) can decide which sperm packets they want to use.

As mentioned earlier, people most frequently encounter argonauts in as either washed up and dead or just the eggcase alone.  However, occasionally live ones will be encountered on the beach, as demonstrated in this video:

Note how she's jetting water pretty much the whole time and expels ink at 2:26.  At about the same time she wraps her webbed arms around the eggcase, whereas she had them tucked in before.  Hopefully she made it back safely.

 

REGARDING EGGCASES

The Argonaut shell is formed, curiously enough, by the females only; as among more highly organized beings sometimes, the gentler sex outshine their brothers in the splendor of their apparel, and the extent it occupies. Unlike many, however, the Argonaut toils not, neither does she spin.  Folding her arms about her, in her earliest infancy, she is speedily arrayed in all her glory, and has not shown any discontent at the old fashions since the time of Aristotle.

(Hall, 1869)

I desperately wish that this was how scholarly papers were still written, full of whimsy and random opinions regarding cephalopod aesthetics.  This is why I am quoting resources about argonauts from the 1860s. /TANGENT

I've spent most of this entry talking about the organism itself; however, most people are more interested in the delicate eggcases of the argonaut than the octopus that travels in it.  Argonaut species can differentiated by the types of eggcases they produce.  A gallery of eggcases for sale can be seen here; Wikipedia has a handy comparative chart as well:

 

Of course, I'm more interested in the octopus than the shells really, so here's one without her shell.  You can see her webbed arm trailing out behind her:

I will leave you with a video of an argonaut in captivity that shows off the chromatophores (color-changing cells) beautifully.  Like most cephalopods in captivity, it is not doing anything particularly exciting, but it's still lovely to observe:

*=BONUS! Here's am oddly beautiful video of leopard slugs mating.  It gets hot and heavy at around 1:30.

BONUS BONUS! Here's the opposite of the above video, a banana slug chewing off its partner's penis!  You should read the whole page, it's fascinating.  Apparently the researcher observed a banana slug suffering from priapism (i.e. penis won't go down) and it decided to take matters into its own metaphorical hands by chewing its own penis off of its head (that's apparently where they keep their junk).  TOO HOT FOR TV XXX MEGA-HUNG SLUG PENIS PIX AT 3:00

GONADS (not custardy this time)

Here is a fabulous tweet today from Miriam Goldstein formerly of The Oysters' Garter and now at the venerable Deep Sea News:

My interns found a polychaete epitoke! Everyone loves when their gonads break off and have sex without them. http://bit.ly/cqLayS

بهموت

As y'all can probably tell, this semester (ending in mid-April) isn't shaping up to be chock-full of updates, much to my infinite sadness.  Instead, my days are filled with Arabic, Indo-European linguistics and TESOL business.  HOWEVER, THERE ARE FISH TO BE FOUND IN THIS MADNESS!

I remember reading this a while back (by which I mean probably upwards of ten years ago now), but brainwashing by Squaresoft caused me to forget: the mythological Bahamut is not in fact a dragon, but a fish.  A very very large fish, a fish that holds the earth on its back.

A fish that is so big that in the 1,001 Nights, Jesus (Isa) literally passes out when he beholds the Bahamut (who also hangs out with Kujata, natch) and Allah has to tell him what's up (which continues to blow his mind.  Allah does stuff like that).  The Bahamut is days long.  The full story can be found in Jorge Luis Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings, a fine text that currently holds a place of honor in my bathroom and that I encourage all to read.  It has vegetable lambs which are both awesome and gross.  Other features include Kafka's bizarre/surreal descriptions of his imaginary beasts that must be read to be understood. 

This Bahamut can kill Hedgehog Pies, but cannot make Jesus pass out.

How did Bahamut turn from a cosmic Middle Eastern world-bearing fish into a metal space dragon with lasers?  The answer lies, as it does with so many things, with Dungeons & Dragons.  Apparently the Dragon King was first given the name Bahamut in the first edition Monster Manual, released in 1977, after Ye Olde World-Fish, given the habits of fantasy authors to shamelessly crib from various mythological and religious traditions (not hating, btw).  Square employees, like all proper nerds, were playing D&D at that time and Bahamut was among one of the large number of enemy designs (particularly in early games) that were directly ripped from D&D.  Bahamut the Dragon King makes his first appearance a Final Fantasy game in the original Final Fantasy (I), released in the U.S. in 1987 in Japan and 1990 in North America.  The rest is history.

Dragon Bahamut, straight from the source.  NEEDS MORE LASERS

Unfortunately, due to not being featured in a prominent console RPG series, Bahamut-the-World-Fish appears to have considerably fewer depictions online, and much less recent.  It gets messier, too, for the word "bahamut" in Arabic turns into the more well-known Hebrew "behemoth".  However, the behemoth mentioned in the Christian Bible's Book of Job (where most non-nerds encounter the word) is usually depicted in medieval art as a terrestrial quadruped of some sort; his buddy Leviathan is interpreted as an aquatic beast.  Both of them, shockingly, show up in Final Fantasy games.

So I guess the moral of this post is that MYTHOLOGICALLY-SPEAKING, BAHAMUT IS A FISH, NOT A DRAGON OR A FLYING FORTRESS.

Other topics coming up soon related to this are FISH, PALEO-LINGUISTICS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO THE INDO-EUROPEAN HOMELAND PROBLEM!  I know you are all quivering with excitement, given the importance of the Indo-European Homeland Problem in our daily lives.  I'm seriously doing a paper on this for class, so I may as well spread some knowledge; think of it as manure for the fertile fields of your brain.

P.S.:

...not fish-related, but at the same time since I'm on the subject: SHIVA IS NOT AN ICE SPIRIT. SHIVA IS A VERY IMPORTANT HINDU GOD WHO IS NOT ELEMENTALLY ALIGNED BECAUSE HE'S WAY BEYOND ELEMENTS.  HOWEVER, I WILL CONCEDE THAT HE IS SOMETIMES BLUE.

HONK HONK! FISH NEWS

Time for a Star-Gazy Pie FISH NEWS* ROUND-UP!

• From Conservation Maven: Adverse effects: when stream restoration improves habitat for invasive fish

• Adorable news from Science Daily: 'Squeaker' Catfish Communicate Across Generations

• Science Daily informs us that this is a catfish.  Actually, it's about venomous (cat)fish.

• The 47th Circus of the Spineless is up at Beetles in the Bush, an entomology blog.  This time around features sea slugs that look Final Fantasy X enemies, the Heike crab, beetles, green bottle flies (useful in determining time of death in human corpses!) and more!  YOU KNOW YOU WANNA

• Do you remember basket stars?  If not, they were featured in the entry in which I totally called out Oceana on their idea of "freaky fish". The Echinoblog has all sorts of cool stuff up about basket stars AND MORE. 

• Indie Squid Kid, who is living the dream of the cephalopod enthusiast, is doing a list of Ten Sensational Squid.  You know what you must do.

• Dead sunfish (Mola mola) look more like they eat souls for breakfast than sad.  I blame the cavernous empty eye sockets and munchy teeth.

• The ice-cool cats down at Deep Sea News explain that just because a squid is big doesn't make it Giant.

* = news is probably kind of current.  Maybe.  Guaranteed to be interesting, at least!