The blog Tetrapod Zoology has become a regular stop in my surfing habits.
It’s chocked full of crazy interesting information about animals -common to rare, extant to extinct, and even imaginary to real. The best part about this blog is that it does no dumbing down. Evolutionary origins, research articles, and statistics are all presented in an easy straightforward manner.
“As you’ll no doubt already know, the remarkable morphology of the Matamata’s head and neck correlates with a remarkable feeding behaviour. Like various other turtles that lurk, concealed, on the bottoms of ponds, lakes and rivers, matamatas are (usually!) cryptic lunge-feeders that wait for small prey (typically fish) to come close…
Once the prey is within range, the Matamata engages in dynamic suction-feeding: a feeding Matamata gapes its jaws really wide (opening them to an angle of about 80°), and rapidly expands its throat to suck in a huge quantity of water – hopefully containing the prey. Structures normally present on the pleurodire palate (and apparently restricting their gapes to between 40-65°) have been strongly reduced (as discussed in the article on skull and hyoid anatomy). It’s fairly easy to get a Matamata to indulge in this behaviour if you tease it with bits of meat, or wiggle your fingers around in front of its face. Ordinarily, this sort of thing is only recommended when there’s a sheet of glass in the way, but it’s reported by people who have experienced matamata ‘attacks’ that their bites aren’t actually that painful. And they shouldn’t be, given the weak jaws, absence of beak tissue, and importance of suction and engulfment of water.”
About the blog author:
Darren Naish is a science writer, technical editor and palaeozoologist (affiliated with the University of Portsmouth, UK) who mostly works on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs. He also messes around with swimming giraffes, fossil marine reptiles, British big cats and stuff like that. An avid interest in modern wildlife and conservation has resulted in many adventures in lizard-chasing, bird-watching and litter-collecting.
This fantastic program, funded by an LCCMR grant, gives teachers (grades 3-9) of all disciplines the knowledge and tools (i.e. digital cameras) needed to bring nature photography into the classroom and plug students into nature.
Each FREE four-hour workshop is standards-based, and is designed to provide training for approximately 12-20 teachers of any subject area.
The format covers the use of digital cameras, basic photo tips, a hands-on photo activity, reveiwing and discussing the photos taken by staff during the photo activity, downloading and editing techniques, and student project ideas. We’ll show how to enhance your curriculum, not add to it!
After the workshops teachers have access to a classroom set of digital cameras to check out for free from the DNR.
I am facilitating two open workshops at the Como Park Street Car station on October 23, 2010. If you are teacher (grades 3-9) email me to register for the morning (8:00 – 12:00) or the afternoon (12:30 – 4:30) workshop. Hurry, space is filling up fast!
On July 11, we had a kick-off event in Luverne, Minnesota sponsored by Jim Brandenburg and his family. We practiced our photography in Blue Mounds State Park where we were all astounded and thrilled to find the rare western prairie fringed orchid.
Jim B. Photographing a Western Fringed Prairie Orchid, Photo by Jane Eaton, Diamond Path Elementary
As an environmental educator, I often feel like I’m trying to make scientific information relevant and digestible to children and the general public.
The blog Information is Beautiful is a demonstration of how art and creativity transform dry data into something stunning, attractive, and readily meaningful.
“The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these images of the Twin Cities region on March 17, 2010 (top), and August 5, 2009 (bottom). Both use a combination of infrared and visible light to increase the contrast between water and land. Vegetation appears bright green. Clouds appear sky blue. Water varies in color from electric blue to navy. Bare ground ranges in color from dark brown to tan.
Taken in different seasons—late winter and mid-summer—these images not only show different water levels in the Mississippi and other rivers, but also dramatically different amounts of vegetation. While much of the region is heavily vegetated in August 2009, river levels are low enough to make the water bodies nearly invisible. (Tree cover along the riverbanks may partly obscure the rivers.) In contrast, the image from March 2010 shows vegetation just beginning to emerge from winter’s chill. Differences in vegetation between August and March are especially visible in the west, in what appears to be a large patchwork of agricultural lands. Compared to the previous summer, the Mississippi and other rivers in the region appear swollen. Some of the electric-blue hues in water bodies away from the rivers might result from lingering ice. Springtime rains and snowmelt often conspire to raise water levels.”
Jellyfish are stirring up the oceans. Above is a video demonstrating, with dye, how the negative pressure void behind a swimming jellyfish brings some water along for the ride. This may seem trivial, but when you add up the movement of all the swimming ocean creatures it sums to a major component of (previously unknown) significant ocean water movement. Which of course has major implications for world climate. Read more here (WIRED Science).
Also, sorry for the long blogging silence. The good news is that I have been very busy! The bad news – no time for blogging. A New Year’s resolution of mine is to find time for this blog – stay tuned and hold me to it!
Jellyfish and plastic pieces from the Pacific Ocean.
Crabs, Algae, and Flying Fish Eggs on Ocean Plastic.
Barnacles living on plastic bottles in ocean.
A research ship recently docked back home after weeks out at sea studying plastic in the ocean. You can read about the fascinating trip and see amazing photos on their blog. Or check out the official website.
Their destination was a location in the Pacific Ocean, far off the coast of California, where sea currents converge and cause a mass gathering of plastic. The plastic gathering isn’t a floating raft; but small pieces suspended at varying depths.
These plastic pieces probably leech chemicals into the water but they also act like magnets attracting hydrophobic industrial and agricultural chemicals – which are suspected to be consumed by small fish and work up the food chain to top-level-consumers like us.
Interestingly, larger pieces of ocean plastics become homes to pelagic creatures like crabs, algae, flying fish eggs. They anticipate needing six months (or more) to analyze all the data – should be some interesting results!
“Sophia Tintori and Alison Sweeney talk about iridescence in squid. Audio production and animations are by Sophia, who normally studies siphonophores in the lab.”
