Category: Curiosities of Nature

Meet the Four-Eyed Fish

Within the family Anablepidae, there is a genus Anableps which are known as four-eyed fish. They are found in Central and South America in fresh or brackish waters. These fish are live bearers and interestingly they exhibit a “sidedness”. Males that are left-handed may only mate with females that are right-handed.

Now the fish do not have four eyes exactly, but in both eyes they can see above and below water simultaneously. This is a good super power to have when you spend most of your time on the surface foraging insects.

Photo Credit: Paul Zahl/National Geographic

The retina is specialized so that half receives light from the aquatic environment and the other from the aerial environment. Recent research found that the dorsal and ventral retina have differential gene expression. Click here for a link to the article to learn more.

“Meet the…” is a collaboration between The Finch & Pea and Nature Afield to bring Nature’s amazing creatures into your home.

Duck, Duck, Golden Goose!

Geese, the most aggressive of all poultry. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
Geese, the most aggressive of all poultry. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

The second annual Golden Goose Award ceremony was held on September 19th. The Golden Goose Award is given to obscure federally funded research projects that ultimately resulted in breakthroughs with wide-ranging benefits. The name comes from The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs fairytale. One of the 2013 awardees exemplifies the potential application of very basic and somewhat obscure science.

In 1966, Thomas Brock, a microbiologist, and his undergraduate research assistant, Hudson Freeze, set out for Yellowstone. They were interested in organisms that live in the most extreme of conditions. They collected bacteria thriving in the hot springs of the park. Among the samples they collected, one was called Thermus aquaticus. Molecular biologists around the world know it by its more common nickname, Taq. Continue reading “Duck, Duck, Golden Goose!”

Meet the Corpse Flower

Note: these are not miniature children
Note: these are not miniature children

Plants are so often the overlooked underdogs that I wanted to highlight one today. With their weird and wacky genomes, plants come in a variety of shapes and sizes and if you say you love orchids then you haven’t seen enough plants. Also, just recently we’ve discovered a new organelle (tannosome) in plants! A NEW ORGANELLE (yes, it’s in all caps because I’m yelling) -I sort of thought at this point, the whole organelle deal was sorted out. Nope, plants just keep surprising us. This is major news, like rewriting middle school textbooks major.

One of my personal favorite plants is Rafflesia also called “corpse flower” because it smells like rotting flesh. Sending a bouquet of rafflesia is a bad idea not only because of the smell, but also a single flower may be 90 cm in diameter.

Thanks to ARKive we canwatch this stinky, giant flower bloom.

ARKive video - Rafflesia flower openingThere are 28 species in the genus Rafflesia and they are all found in southeastern Asia. They have no roots and parasitize other plants. Speaking of organelles, the corpse flower has no chloroplasts which perhaps changes the way you define plants. This also provided a headache for the plant systematics world as they use chloroplast DNA to make their phylogenetic trees.

Learn more with this remarkable video from the botanist, Alastair Robinson

“Meet the…” is a collaboration between The Finch & Pea and Nature Afield to bring Nature’s amazing creatures into your home.

Meet the ‘Semaphore’ Frog

Green-spotted rock frog (Staurois tuberilinguis)
Green-spotted rock frog (Staurois tuberilinguis)

I am lucky enough to spend my days in a frog communication lab, but everyone on the street knows how frogs communicate-by calling (if you didn’t know that, I’m really sorry about the sad life you’ve been living. Please go outside today and sit in the grass. Maybe quit your job. Also, let your parents know you’d be better off if you were raised by wolves because at least then you’d know the glory of nature).

In general, we think of frogs calling from the edge of the pond where the only competition is from other male frogs. It gets more interesting when you consider some frogs call near rushing water and the modifications they must make to their call. Calling is energetically costly and competing with rushing water can surely be exhausting. Some frogs have developed another mode in which to signal by using semaphore. Indeed, the frogs of the genus Staurois from Borneo still call, but the streams are so loud that they modify their call and employ this semaphore in the form of foot flagging. Continue reading “Meet the ‘Semaphore’ Frog”

Meet the Nautilus

NautilusSpirlDataAndFitThe nautilus joins the ranks of cephalopods like the squid, cuttlefish, and octopus. However, the nautilus is the only one with a chambered shell. Interestingly, this shell is a natural logarithmic spiral.

Check out this video from the BBC to learn more:

“Meet the…” is a collaboration between The Finch & Pea and Nature Afield to bring Nature’s amazing creatures into your home.