Parrotfish - There is Something Fishy About This Parrot!
If you were a parrotfish, though, none of this would have bothered you. You would have just produced your own slime sunscreen during the day to escape the harsh sun. At night, you would have secreted a mucus cocoon to protect yourself from blood-sucking parasites and bad-tempered predators.
Pygmy Seahorse and the Art of Camouflage
What are pygmy seahorses? As evident from the name, these are a group of tiny seahorses (<2 cm in height) found mostly in the Coral Triangle area of Southeast Asia. Consider how tiny they really are; a recently discovered one is reportedly no bigger than your fingernail. (Ref 1) This fact, along with their exceptional camouflage abilities, means that they manage to escape detection – not just by predators, but also by scientists and explorers. Spotting a pygmy seahorse on its host coral is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Who Would You Rather be? Don Quixote or Remora Fish?
Here’s a real-life scenario: You are in a neighborhood teeming with criminals of every size and shape. You have none of the thuggery or valor needed to beat them, and worse, there’s nowhere else to go to live out your life. What do you do? You can charge in like a swashbuckling 21st-century Don Quixote, challenging the goons to dare to touch you while secretly despairing about the danger waiting around every corner. Or, you could “think smart, not hard” and strike a friendship with the biggest Don in town…
Which is the cutest crab around? Candy or fairy?
These tiny crabs, no bigger than your fingernails, are master foragers. Their long hairs help them catch and eat organic ocean debris. They live on giant barrel sponges, with whom they have struck an agreement – the sponge gives the crab a safe place to live in; the crab, in return, keeps the sponge clean and free of ocean debris.
Meet the Seadragon Cousins of Australia: Leafy, Weedy, and Ruby
The most stunning of the lot, the leafy seadragon (Phycodurus eques) lives in the seaweed beds, seagrass meadows of the southern coastline of Australia. Leafies have leaf-like appendages all over their bodies; they literally look like pieces of seaweed that have broken off and are floating around.
When the flashing blue, and not a flashing red, becomes a dire warning signal - Meet the blue-ringed octopus
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, or an angry blue-ringed octopus. They do give a final warning shot – a brilliant flash of blue. Within 1/3 of a second, they turn bright yellow, with each of the 50-60 rings on its body flashing a bright iridescent blue.
Kelp Fish - The Camouflage Artists of the Californian Coast
Yes, it is a giant, growing to around 24 inches (61 centimetres). Yet, with its blade-like body and wizardry in active camouflage, you could be looking at it and fail to spot it. It comes in a variety of colours – red, green and brown. A no-brainer, really…
“It’s All About the Nectar, Honey!”—A Sneak Peek into the Sweet and Sour Life of a Trumpet Creeper (Campsis radicans)
The surprise package of your gourmet business are your kitchenettes, though—the underappreciated extrafloral nectaries found on the calyx and the pedicel (the flower stalk). Roughly equivalent to food trucks, they specialize in doling out sugary extrafloral nectar…
Windows and Crystals- The intrigue of the succulent Prayer Pepper, aka Peperomia dolabriformis
There is a window, or rather, a skylight, in the ceiling to let in the life-affirming sunlight. There are crystals scattered around, thoughtfully placed to reflect and disperse the warm rays of the sun. Am I talking about the interior design of my newly-opened wellness center? Hardly…Read on to figure out what it is!
A GPS system in the bird beak- would you like one for yourself?
A GPS system in the beaks of migratory birds—does it hold hope for directionally challenged people like me?
Meet the dinosaur nemesis—the 99 million-years-old blood-sucking ticks
You have a grand home, and are revered as a giant. You have two guests over for a visit. One pays for his food and accommodation by cleaning up after you. That’s symbiosis, and the guest is dermestid beetle larvae. The other not only refuses to pay, but also insists on sucking the lifeblood out of you. That’s parasitism, and the guest is the tick who, by the way, goes by the name of Deinocroton draculi (Greek word ‘deinos’–terrible, ‘kroton’–tick), or Dracula’s terrible tick.
The Avian Book of Flight Records-I
While astounding, the feat of the bar-tailed godwit would elicit a disapproving ‘Bah’ from the Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea). A true-blue marathoner, this summer crazy bird migrates from its Arctic homeland to the Southern Ocean (Antarctic Ocean), a distance of nearly 35,000 kms (21,500 miles) (Tell me once again—what is your car’s annual mileage?)…