The Furry lobster
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The Furry Lobster - Kiwa hirsuta
Kiwa hirsuta is a crustacean discovered in 2005 in the South Pacific Ocean. This decapod, which is approximately 15 cm (6 inches) long, is notable for the quantity of silky blond setae (resembling fur) covering its pereiopods (thoracic legs, including claws). Its discoverers dubbed it the "yeti lobster" or "yeti crab."
K. hirsuta was discovered in March 2005 by a group organized by Robert Vrijenhoek of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Monterey, California and Michel Segonzac of the Ifremer and a Census of Marine Life scientist using the submarine DSV Alvin, operating from RV Atlantis. The discovery was announced on the 7th of March, 2006. It was found 1,500 km (900 miles) south of Easter Island in the South Pacific, at a depth of 2,200 m (7,200 feet), living on hydrothermal vents along the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge. Based on both morphology and molecular data, the species was deemed to form a new genus and family (Kiwaidae). The animal has strongly reduced eyes that lack pigment, and is thought to be blind.
The "hairy" pincers contain filamentous bacteria, which the creature may use to detoxify poisonous minerals from the water emitted by the hydrothermal vents where it lives. Alternatively, it may feed on bacteria, although it is generally thought to be a carnivore.
Although it is often referred to as the "furry lobster" outside the scientific literature, Kiwa hirsuta is not a true lobster but is more closely related to squat lobsters and hermit crabs. The term "furry lobster" is more commonly used for the family Synaxidae.
The distribution of the furry lobster is quite widespread. The species is generally found in abundance in the Indian and Pacific Oceans as well as off the east coast of Australia from the Capricorn Bunker Group in Queensland down to the South West Rocks in New South Wales. While there is an interest by fishermen in all of these areas to catch the species, they do not have much luck. For some reason, the furry lobster rarely will enter crayfish or lobster traps, therefore they have to be caught by divers that are using their hands or spears.
The habitat of the furry lobster doesn’t seem to vary much despite the fact that they are found over a wide area of land. The species is usually found in rocky areas or coral reefs, which is why they are often called coral lobsters. The furry lobster likes to be able to hide in the cracks of the rocks and coral from predators, which are numerous and vary from location to location.
The diet of the furry lobster is not unlike most other lobsters. While many used to think that lobsters feed on dead things, this is not always true. Furry lobsters are known to feed on fresh things such as crabs, mussels, clams, and even other lobsters. These animals generally feed at night and are creatures of opportunity, often eating what their environment readily provides.
The female furry lobster will generally mate when she is in a soft shell state, which is right after she sheds her shell, or molts. Female furry lobsters are known to be able to carry sperm for up to two years, choosing when she wants to fertilize up to 75,000 eggs!
The female carries the eggs inside for nine to 12 months and then she will carry them for another 12 months under her tail. When the eggs finally hatch the larvae will simply float near the surface of the water for four to six weeks. Astonishingly, out of every 50,000 eggs that are laid, only two lobsters will survive.
Source : Wikipedia
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The Blobfish
The blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus)is a fish that inhabits the deep waters off the coasts of the Australian mainland and Tasmania. Due to the inaccessibility of its habitat, it is rarely seen by humans. Blobfish are found at depths where the pressure is several dozens of times higher than at sea level, which would likely make gas bladders inefficient. To remain buoyant, the flesh of the blobfish is primarily a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less than water; this allows the fish to float above the sea floor without expending energy on swimming. The relative lack of muscle is not a disadvantage as it primarily swallows edible matter that floats by in front of it. It can be caught by bottom trawling with nets.
Source : Wikipedia
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The Monkey faced pig
Curious locals gathered to the home of owner Feng Changlin after news of the piglet spread in Fengzhang village, Xiping township.
"It's a ugly freak of nature". No one will be willing to purchase it, and it scares the family members to even take a glance at it!" Feng told Oriental Today.
The piglet has a monkey like face ,2 thin lips ,2 big eyes and a small noose.the animal his rear legs are much longer then the front legs ,making it to jump instead of walking.
The farmers wife declared that the "monkey"-faced was 1 out of a litter of 5 of a pig that they had been raising for 9 years.
"My God, it was so frightful. I didn't have a clue what it was. I was really scared by it," she said.
"But our son likes to play with it, and he prevented us from getting rid of it. He even gives it milk to feed it."
Neighbors have suggested the couple should keep the piglet to see how it looks as it becomes fully grown.
Source : thelondonpaper
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Polycephaly More Then One Head
Polycephaly is a condition of having more than one head. The term is derived from the stems poly- meaning 'many' and kephal- meaning "head", and encompasses bicephaly and dicephaly (both referring to two-headedness). A variation is an animal born with two faces on a single head, a condition known as diprosopus. In medical terms these are all congenital cephalic disorders.
There are many occurrences of multi-headed animals, in real life as well as in mythology. In heraldry and vexillology, the double-headed eagle is a common symbol, though no such animal is known to have ever existed.
Bicephalic or tricephalic animals are the only type of multi-headed creatures seen in the real world and form by the same process as conjoined twins: they all result from the failed separation of monozygotic twins. One extreme example of this is the condition of craniopagus parasiticus, whereby a fully developed body has a parasitic twin head joined at the skull.
Two-headed people and animals, though rare, have long been known to exist and documented. The "Scottish brothers" were conjoined twins, allegedly dicephalic, born 1460 (dates vary). (Human conjoined twins, not all of the dicephalic type, have been documented since the year 945.)
Polycephalic animals often make local news headlines when found. The most commonly observed two-headed animals are turtles and snakes. Other species with known two-headed occurrences include cattle, sheep, pigs, cats, dogs, and fish. In 1894, a two-headed partridge was reported in Boston, Massachusetts. It was notable as a dicephalic animal for surviving into adulthood with two perfect heads. Scientists have published in modern journals about dissecting such animals since at least the 1930s. A 1929 paper studied the anatomy of a two-headed kitten.
Polycephalic animals, due to their rarity, are a subject of novelty. "We", a two-headed albino rat snake born in captivity in 2000, was scheduled to be auctioned on eBay with an expected price tag of $150,000 (£87,000), though their policy of not trading in live animals prevented the sale.[3] On 2006-10-31, the World Aquarium[4] announced that "We" was adopted by Nutra Pharma Corporation, a biotechnology company developing treatments using modified cobra venom and cobratoxin. "We" died of natural causes at age eight in June 2007, not long after being acquired by Nutra Pharma.
Two-headed farm animals sometimes travel with animal side shows to county fairs. Most notably, The Venice Beach Freakshow supposedly houses the world's largest collection of two-headed specimens. Many museums of natural history contain preserved two-headed animals. The Museum of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Ripley's Believe It Or Not! museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, have collections of preserved two-headed animals. A very well preserved 2-headed lamb is on display in Llanidloes museum in Wales.
Each head of a polycephalic animal has its own brain, and they somehow share control of the organs and limbs, though the specific structure of the connections varies. Animals often move in a disoriented and dizzy fashion, with the brains "arguing" with each other; some animals simply zig-zag without getting anywhere[8] Snake heads may attack and even attempt to swallow each other. Thus, polycephalic animals survive poorly in the wild compared to normal monocephalic animals.
Most two-headed snakes only live for a few months, though some have been reported to live a full life and even reproduced with the offspring born normal. A two-headed black rat snake with separate throats and stomachs survived for 20 years. "We", the two-headed albino rat snake, survived in captivity for 8 years. There is some speculation that the inbreeding of snakes in captivity increases the chances of a two-headed birth.
A famous successful modern case is that of the human dicephalic twins Abigail and Brittany Hensel, born in 1990. The twins have two heads, two hearts, three lungs, and two spinal cords, and share the other organs. Each twin controls the limbs on her "side", and with coordination can walk, run, and play piano.
It is difficult to draw the line between what is considered "one animal with two heads" or "two animals that share a body." With humans, dicephalic conjoined twins such as Abigail and Brittany Hensel are considered "twins", i.e., two individuals. This makes sense as there is a range of conjoinedness, and non-dicephalic conjoined twins may be barely-conjoined and separable by surgery, as is the case with Chang and Eng Bunker. Although the Hensel twins only have one pair of arms and legs total, each twin controls one side of the body's limbs. On the other hand, Syafitri, born 2006 in Indonesia, were given one name by their parents because they only had one heart.With other animals, polycephaly is usually described as "one animal with two heads."One of the heads, especially in three-headed animals, may be poorly developed and malformed, and not "participate" much.
The February 22, 2007 issue of the journal Biology Letters detailed the discovery of a 120 million-year-old fossil of a 2-headed Hyphalosaurus lingyuanensis, marking the earliest known occurrence of axial bifurcation.
As you see from the pic above (a 2 headed calf) in Victorian time Polycephaly is already a long time around ,but in the last years it seems to happen more and more among livestock. Is it because of genetically manipulated feed ? Preservatives in the feed? Or global pollution? More and more young children are diagnosed with cancers or with auto immune diseases.
What are we busy with ?Why is there so little research in to the causes of it (Auto immune diseases) compared
with the budget for cancer research?
There's a book that i recently read "Slow Death By Rubber Duck" 2009 by Dr. Rick Smith .
Dr.Rick Smith is a prominent Canadian author and environmentalist and Executive Director of Environmental Defence Canada (since 2003).
i would advise to read this book, especially parents with young children it's about the long term effects of every day household items on our health.
Source : Wikipedia
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The Saiga Antelope
The Saiga (Saiga tatarica) is an antelope which originally inhabited a vast area of the Eurasian steppe zone from the foothils of the Carpathians and Caucasus into Dzungaria and Mongolia. Today they are found only in a few areas in Kalmykia (Russia), Kazakhstan, and western Mongolia.
The Saiga typically stands 0.6-0.8 meters at the shoulder and weighs between 36 and 63 kg. Their lifespan ranges from 6 to 10 years. Males are bigger than females and are the only sex to carry horns. The horns have some value as Chinese traditional medicine and for that reason Saiga are now endangered by poaching. The Saiga is recognizable by an extremely unusual, over-sized, and flexible, nose structure. The nose is supposed to warm up the air in winter and filter out the dust in summer.
Saigas form very large herds that graze in semi-desert steppes eating several species of plants, including some that are poisonous to other animals. They can cover considerable distances and swim across rivers, but they avoid steep or rugged areas. The mating season starts in November, when stags fight for the possession of females. The winner leads a herd of 5-50 females. In springtime the mother gives birth to, in two thirds of all cases two, or in one third, one single foal.
During the Ice Age the Saiga ranged from the British Isles through Central Asia and the Bering Strait into Alaska and the Yukon. At the beginning of the 18th century it was still distributed from the shores of the Black Sea, the Carpathian foothills and the northern edge of the Caucasus into Dzungaria and Mongolia.
After a rapid decline they were nearly completely exterminated in the 1920's, but they were able to recover and by 1950 there were again two million of them in the steppes of the USSR. At one point, some conservation groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund, encouraged the hunting of this species as its horn was presented as an alternative to that of a rhinoceros.[2] Today the populations have again shrunk enormously and the Saiga is classified as critically endangered by the IUCN. There is an estimated total number of 50,000 Saigas today, which live in Kalmykia, three areas of Kazakhstan and in two isolated areas of Mongolia. Cherny Zemli Nature Reserve was created in Russia's Kalmykia Republic in 1990s to protect the local saiga population. The populations of Mongolia represent a distinct subspecies, the Mongolian Saiga (Saiga tatarica mongolica), with 750 individuals. All other populations, belong to the nominal subspecies Saiga tatarica tatarica.
Currently only the Moscow and Cologne zoos keep saigas. San Diego Zoo has had them in the past. Pleistocene Park in northern Siberia plans to introduce the species.
More at : The Saiga Conservation Alliance
Source : Wikipedia
The Saiga Antelope
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The Coelacanth
The Coelacanth adaptation of Modern Latin Cœlacanthus: cœl-us + acanth-us from Greek κοῖλ-ος [hollow] + ἄκανθ-α [spine]) is the common name for an order of fish that includes the oldest living lineage of gnathostomata(is the group of vertebrates with jaws) known to date. The coelacanths, which are related to lungfishes and tetrapods, were believed to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period, until the first Latimeria specimen was found off the east coast of South Africa, off the Chalumna River in 1938. They are, therefore, a Lazarus taxon(is a taxon that disappears from one or more periods of the fossil record, only to appear again later). Since 1938, Latimeria chalumnae have been found in the Comoros, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, and in iSimangaliso Wetland Park, Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa. The second extant species, L. menadoensis, was described from Sulawesi, Indonesia in 1999 by Pouyaud et al. based on a specimen discovered by Erdmann in 1998 and deposited in Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). The first specimen of this species was only photographed at a local market by Arnaz and Mark Erdmann before being bought by a shopper. The coelacanth has no real commercial value, apart from being coveted by museums and private collectors. As a food fish the coelacanth is almost worthless as its tissues exude oils even when dead, imparting the flesh with a foul flavour.
They first appeared in the fossil record in the Middle Devonian. Prehistoric species of coelacanth lived in many bodies of water in Late Paleozoic and Mesozoic times.
In 1938 a coelacanth was caught by fishermen on the vessel Nerine trawling off the mouth of the Chalumna River in South Africa. The fish measured about 1.5 m (5 feet) in length and weighed 57 kg (126 lbs).
The next coelacanth was not caught until 1952. Since then at least 200 Coelacanths have been caught in and around the Comoro Islands. In 1998 a new population was discovered off North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Indonesian coelacanths appear quite similar to those from Africa except they are brown in color rather than blue and their sides sport gold flecks.
Coelacanths are lobe-finned fish with the pectoral and anal fins on fleshy stalks supported by bones, and the tail or caudal fin diphycercal (divided into three lobes), the middle one of which also includes a continuation of the notochord. Coelacanths have modified cosmoid scales, which are thinner than true cosmoid scales. Coelacanths also have a special electroreceptive device called a rostral organ in the front of the skull, which probably helps in prey detection. The small device also could help the balance of the fish, as echolocation could be a factor in the way this fish moves.
Although now represented by only two known living species, as a group the coelacanths were once very successful with many genera and species that left an abundant fossil record from the Devonian to the end of the Cretaceous period, at which point they apparently suffered a nearly complete extinction. It is often claimed that the coelacanth has remained unchanged for millions of years, but, in fact, the living species and even genus are unknown from the fossil record. However, some of the extinct species, particularly those of the last known fossil coelacanth, the Cretaceous genus Macropoma, closely resemble the living species.The most likely reason for the gap is the taxon having become extinct in shallow waters. Deep-water fossils are only rarely lifted to levels where paleontologists can recover them, making most deep-water taxa disappear from the fossil record. This situation is still under investigation by scientists.
Today's coelacanths can reach almost 2 m in length and weigh up to 68 kg, (a "giant" Mozambique female was 1.8 m long and 95 kg) but they are usually somewhat smaller, particularly the males, which average under 1.65 m. Coloration is dark blue with distinctive white flecks that can even be used by researchers to designate individuals. (Indonesian coelacanths, Latimeria menadoensis, tends to be more brown than blue). Latimeria has a single, large, elongated, pseudo-lung filled with fat, a virtually linear heart, shark-like intestines with a spiral valve, and an axial skeleton composed only of a hollow tube of cartilage called a notocord. They possess hinges in their skulls that allow then to consume large prey. Latimeria also has a special electroreceptive device called a rosteral organ in the front of the skull. They are also noted as particularly mucilaginous; not only do the scales exude mucus, but their bodies continually ooze a large quantity of oil.
They are opportunistic feeders, hunting cuttlefishes, squids, snipe eels, small sharks, and other fishes found in their deep reef and volcanic slope habitats. Location of prey fish is possibly aided by their rostral organ (in the snout) acting as an electric field receptor. Latimeria is also known to stand on its head, swims backwards and belly up to locate its prey presumably utilizing its rosteral gland. Scientists suspect that one reason Latimeria has been so successful (and also long-lived) is that they can slow down their metabolisms at any time, sinking into the less-inhabited depths and minimizing their nutritional requirements in a sort of hibernation mode.
More at : Marinebio.org
The Coelacanth
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