Fossilized Creature named after Johnny Depp!

I have to hand it once again to the intrepid geeks and nerdlings over at ScienceDaily.com!

Actor Johnny Depp Immortalized in Name of Fossilized Creature With ‘Scissor Hand’ Claws

The article begins, “A scientist has discovered an ancient extinct creature with ‘scissor hand-like’ claws in fossil records and has named it in honour of his favourite movie star.”

The 505-million-year-old fossil called Kooteninchela deppi (pronounced Koo-ten-ee-che-la depp-eye), which is a distant ancestor of lobsters and scorpions, was named after the actor Johnny Depp for his starring role as Edward Scissorhands — a movie about an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands.

(What a cutie. Just like its namesake!)

Kooteninchela deppi is helping researchers to piece together more information about life on Earth during the Cambrian period when nearly all modern animal types emerged.

David Legg, who carried out the research as part of his PhD in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, says:

“When I first saw the pair of isolated claws in the fossil records of this species I could not help but think of Edward Scissorhands. Even the genus name, Kootenichela, includes the reference to this film as ‘chela’ is Latin for claws or scissors. In truth, I am also a bit of a Depp fan and so what better way to honour the man than to immortalise him as an ancient creature that once roamed the sea?”

It lived in shallow seas off the coast of what is now British Columbia, Canada, although in those days, the area was closer to the equator.

It was approximately four centimetres long with a trunk for a body and millipede-like legs and large eyes which it used to search for food along the sea floor, according to research published in the Journal of Palaeontology.

The researcher believes that Kooteninchela deppi would have been a hunter or scavenger. Its large Edward Scissorhands-like claws with their elongated spines may have been used to capture prey, or they could have helped it to probe the sea floor looking for sea creatures hiding in sediment.

(Kooteninchela deppi – a distant relative of lobsters & scorpions)

It also had large eyes composed of many lenses like the compound eyes of a fly. They were positioned on top of movable stalks called peduncles to help it more easily search for food and look out for predators.

The researchers discovered that Kooteninchela deppi belongs to a group known as the ‘great-appendage’ arthropods, which includes spiders, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, insects and crabs.

Mr Legg said: ‘Just imagine it – the prawns covered in mayonnaise in your sandwich, the spider climbing up your wall and even the fly that has been banging into your window and annoyingly flying into your face are all descendants of Kooteninchela deppi.’

‘Current estimates indicate that there are more than one million known insects and potentially 10 million more yet to be categorised, which potentially means that Kooteninchela deppi has a huge family tree.’

Legg now wants to study the fossils from the Ordovician period, when species diversity increased.

The research was published in the Journal of Palaeontology 2 May 2013.

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Journal Reference:

1. David Legg. Multi-Segmented Arthropods from the Middle Cambrian of British Columbia (Canada). Journal of Paleontology, 2013; 87 (3): 493 DOI: 10.1666/12-112.1

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The Spider, the Porcupine, the Lizard and the Bat

Reblogged from Nature Box:

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Spiders, porcupines, lizards and bats. What could they possibly all have in common? Well according to a recent suite of published research, each of these animal groups has a new addition to their ranks.

Scientists working in Sri Lanka have described a new species of tarantula 'as big as your face', in the British Tarantula Society's latest journal. The species has been named…

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THE SPIDER, THE PORCUPINE, THE LIZARD AND THE BAT

by Lydia O'Donoghue

(Spider the size of a dinner plate... or your face)

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Bug Self-Medication Widespread!!

Torn from today’s headlines!!

Self-Medication in Animals Much More Widespread Than Believed

YES!! Drug use in the animal kingdom is a much more pervasive activity than originally suspected!

As our intrepid geeks and nerdlings over at ScienceDaily.com reveal, “It’s been known for decades that animals such as chimpanzees seek out medicinal herbs to treat their diseases. But in recent years, the list of animal pharmacists has grown much longer, and it now appears that the practice of animal self-medication is a lot more widespread than previously thought, according to a University of Michigan ecologist and his colleagues.”

The fact that moths, ants and fruit flies are now known to self-medicate has profound implications for the ecology and evolution of animal hosts and their parasites, according to Mark Hunter, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and at the School of Natural Resources and Environment.

(A parasite-infected monarch butterfly lays her eggs on medicinal tropical milkweed that will help to protect her offspring from disease.) [1]

In addition, because plants remain the most promising source of future pharmaceuticals, studies of animal medication may lead the way in discovering new drugs to relieve human suffering, Hunter and two colleagues wrote in a review article titled “Self-Medication in Animals,” to be published online today in the journal Science.

“When we watch animals foraging for food in nature, we now have to ask, are they visiting the grocery store or are they visiting the pharmacy?” Hunter said. “We can learn a lot about how to treat parasites and disease by watching other animals.”

Much of the work in this field has focused on cases in which animals, such as baboons and woolly bear caterpillars, medicate themselves. One recent study has suggested that house sparrows and finches add high-nicotine cigarette butts to their nests to reduce mite infestations.

“Perhaps the biggest surprise for us was that animals like fruit flies and butterflies can choose food for their offspring that minimizes the impacts of disease in the next generation,” Hunter said. “There are strong parallels with the emerging field of epigenetics in humans, where we now understand that dietary choices made by parents influence the long-term health of their children.”

(Fruitfly larva – Is this young’un getting the benefits of Mom’s drug use?)

The authors [2] argue that animal medication has several major consequences on the ecology and evolution of host-parasite interactions.

In addition, animal medication should affect the evolution of animal immune systems, according to Hunter and his colleagues.

The authors also note that the study of animal medication will have direct relevance for human food production.

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[1] Image credit Jaap de Roode

[2] The first author of the science paper is Jacobus de Roode of Emory University. The other author is Thierry Lefevre of the Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement in France.

Journal Reference: J. C. de Roode, T. Lefevre, M. D. Hunter. Self-Medication in Animals. Science, 2013; 340 (6129): 150 DOI:10.1126/science.1235824

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Bug Robots Get Jobs

Reblogged from The Bug Enthusiast:

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Well, this is interesting. Turns out science is harnessing the power of robotics to create new "robot bugs" designed to crawl, fly, and squirm their way into tight spaces humans can't. These robots can theoretically do the dirty jobs people don't want to do - innovation!

Check out the full article here. Below are some pictures of the prototypes and no, this isn't an April Fool's day prank (I checked.)

Read more… 4 more words

BUG ROBOTS GET JOBS Well, this is interesting. Turns out science is harnessing the power of robotics to create new “robot bugs” designed to crawl, fly, and squirm their way into tight spaces humans can’t. These robots can theoretically do the dirty jobs people don’t want to do – innovation! Check out the full article here. Below are some pictures of the prototypes and no, this isn’t an April Fool’s day prank (I checked.)

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New Jersey Wins Fight Against a Tiny Invader

I was browsing through the New York Times Science section when I came upon this happy headline:

New Jersey eradicates the asian long-horned beetle after an 11-year fight.

But this month, New Jersey declared victory in its war against the Asian long-horned beetle, an invasive, hardwood-eating insect that arrived on the shores of New York City in 1996, most likely on wood pallets. The beetle has since surfaced in a total of five states and, by tunneling through tree trunks, has threatened some of the nation’s most common tree species, including maples, London planes, birches and poplars.

The beetles lay their eggs inside the bark of the tree, and after the eggs hatch, larvae feed on the trunk’s hardwood. “It kills a tree by eating the wood from the inside out,” said Rhonda Santos, a spokeswoman for the federal Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. “If you took a cross section of a tree infested by Asian long-horned beetles, it would look like Swiss cheese.”

More than 20,000 trees were removed in New Jersey during the struggle, but — knock on wood — the beetles are now vanquished from the Garden State. “It shows that the program works,” said Paul J. Kurtz, a state entomologist who led the eradication effort. “I’ve been doing this for 11 years nonstop, so it’s a little weird that it’s over. But at the same time, it’s like, ‘Wow, we did it.’ ”

(Paul J. Kurtz, a state entomologist, led the eradication effort against the Asian long-horned beetle)

Just because New Jersey has conquered the Asian long-horned beetle does not mean that Mr. Kurtz is idle. “If you’re not minding the store,” he said, “someone else could come in.” He was referring to the emerald ash borer, an invasive insect and fast flier that attacks ash trees and is now in 18 states, including Pennsylvania and New York. “It’s inevitable,” he said of the ash borer’s arrival. “We’re surrounded.”

Well done, Mr Kurtz. Well done, New Jersey!

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The Eyes Have It

Dragonfly hides behind a plant stem…

… but it looks like she doesn’t know that her eyes have betrayed her.

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230-million-year-old bugs!

What’s more interesting than bugs preserved in amber?

230-million-year-old bugs preserved in amber!!

George Dvorsky, writing at io9.com, reports “An international team of scientists working in Italy have found the oldest samples of arthropods preserved in amber — a finding that is 100 million years older than previous fossilized samples. The insects, a fly and two mites, are the first ever to be discovered from the Triassic era. The group’s findings will help biologists gain a better evolutionary understanding of these organisms and the time periods within which they developed.

Amber droplets can be a goldmine for paleontologists. Even a millimeter sized droplet can contain extremely well preserved specimens of organisms that lived eons ago — specimens that can be observed with microscopic fidelity. Globules of fossilized resin can range in age from the Carboniferous era (about 340 million years ago) to about 40,000 years ago, and were produced by plants like tree ferns, flowering trees, and conifers.

The amber droplets, which are only 2-6 millimeters long, were discovered buried in the Dolomite Alps of northeastern Italy. Paleontologists working there were able to uncover about 70,000 droplets — all of which were screened for signs of preserved life.

Paleontologists suspect that arthropods, a class of organism that includes insects, arachnids, and crustaceans, have been around for at least 400 million years.

Two of the arthropods are a new species of mites — members of an extremely specialized group that fed on plants and sometimes formed an abnormal growth called “galls.” Paleontologists were surprised to see how similar these mites were to ones still alive today. It’s thought that the mites fed on the leaves of coniferous trees that eventually preserved them. What this indicates to the scientists is that mites are a highly adaptable species, able to shift their feeding habits; today, only 3% of mites feed on conifers — yet they’ve remained largely unchanged over the course of 230 million years.

The fly could not be identified, outside of its antennae, on account of poor preservation in the amber. But what’s clear is that flies existed at the time of the Triassic — offering paleontologists hope that they’ll eventually be able to find a better preserved specimen.

You can read the entire study in PNAS.

Images: University of Göttingen/A. Schmidt.

 

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Can Blue Tits Save The Conker Trees?

Hurray for Blue Tits!!

(No! Not THOSE kind of… oh, never mind!)

Could they be the key to solving a serious British environmental problem?

(THIS kind!! [1])

Yes, bird-watchers and tree huggers, the geeks and nerdlings over at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology have uncovered the wonderful truth about blue tits.

(A bird feeder sporting a nice pair of British blue tits)

The article begins, “Blue tits, a familiar garden bird, could be the salvation of our imperiled conker trees (horse-chestnut trees), which are under severe attack by a tiny non-native moth that has spread from continental Europe.”

Yes, the foreign illegal alien moth arrived in London just ten years ago, and has since spread across most of England and Wales. The moth caterpillars eat the leaves while hiding inside them, so damaging the leaves and causing them to turn brown and making the tree appear as if autumn has come early.

(Horse Chestnut Leaf-miner Cameraria ohridella. [Photo © Ian Kimber]) 

Experts at the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) and the University of Hull are asking today (August 30, 2012) for the public’s help to find out how many moth caterpillars are eaten by birds, such as blue tits. They are asking volunteers to check leaves from a horse chestnut tree for the distinctive damage caused by the birds to the leaf mines and report it through the Conker Tree Science website.

(Damaged horse chestnut leaf, showing whitish leaf mines [2])

Dr Michael Pocock, from CEH, said, “It’s a big mission and we’re reliant on people’s help to discover how much birds are feeding on the alien moths.”

Dr Darren Evans from the University of Hull added, “In discovering whether garden birds, like blue tits, can help to protect conker trees, we will also be learning more about the behaviour of the birds themselves.”

The alien moth, which was discovered in the 1980s, has caterpillars that live inside the leaves, forming distinctive patches of damage called “leaf mines”. Up to 700 leaf mines have been recorded on a single leaf and the damage caused by large numbers of larvae can be striking. A previous Conker Tree Science mission discovered that predatory wasps were not effectively controlling the alien moths, possibly explaining their rapid spread.

(Signs of a bird attack on the leaf mine home of the moth [3])

This project, where anyone can get involved with genuine scientific research, is one of the largest of its kind in the UK and is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Find out more by visiting the Conker Tree Science project’s website. People in Britain can take part in the new “Bird Attack” mission from August 20 to September 23, 2012.

Let’s keep those cute blue tits up front in our battle against these pesky moths!

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[1] A blue tit in front of horse-chestnut leaves that are covered with brown patches of damage caused by the caterpillars of the leaf mining moths. (Photo Credit: Richard Broughton/CEH)

[2] [3]  Photo credit: Dr Michael Pocock/CEH

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Aging Termites That Go Out With a Bang!

Saw this the other day in the Science Section of the New York Times.

Now it goes without saying that I love exploding insects as much as the next guy, so here goes…

According to the article by Sindya N. Bhandoo, science writer, the termites’ suicide mission is a sophisticated one, involving a backpack full of blue crystals and a substance that joins with them to make a poison. But these are not terrorists or agents of espionage; they are aging worker termites of the species Neocapritermes taracua.

The termites, which are found in French Guiana, have an external structure that stores blue crystals that develop as they age. When a worker is attacked, its body wall ruptures, and an internal gland secretes a fluid that mixes with the crystals. This mixture is toxic to the attacker, said Yves Roisin, an evolutionary biologist at Free University of Brussels.

“When they are young they are all white,” Roisin said. “And when they get older their mandibles also wear down, so they are probably less efficient for feeding, but they develop the crystals for defense.”

Dr. Roisin and his colleagues report their findings in the current issue of the journal Science.

They initially noticed that some of the termites they were studying had blue spots at the junction between the thorax and abdomen. The blue spots, they discovered, are copper-containing protein crystals and are found only on older termites.

(Explosive backpacks in old termites)

Now the researchers would like to determine what the secretion from the internal gland contains.

“It’s difficult to get the pure secretions from inside the body,” Dr. Roisin said. “We are also trying now to understand how this behavior evolved within this termite species, because there are other related species that don’t explode.”

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Macro Photos Reveal Mystical World of Insects

I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I have an odd fascination with bugs.

Imagine my delight when I stumbled upon these great photos courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution website, Retina.

Macro Photos Reveal Mystical World of Insects

These photos were taken in 2009 and 2010 by photographer Thomas Shahan.

It’s a good thing bugs are small. Could you imagine one of these things the size of a cow?

OK. I’ve had my bug photo fix for the day!

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