Image: Richard Ling Echinoclathria leporina |
Friday 30 December 2016
Orange Fan Sponge
Wednesday 28 December 2016
YAWN!
Video: Dr N Kimura
At up to 1.5 metres (5 feet) long, the Japanese Giant Salamander is the second biggest amphibian in the world, second only to its closely related and almost identical, Chinese cousin.
Seeing them yawn is, well, you know how Jonah spent three days in the belly of a whale? This is probably about as close as you can get without getting your feet wet.
Friday 23 December 2016
Merry Christmas!
Original image: NOAA |
Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas! I know I sort of dropped off for a good 2 months or something crazy like that, but I reckon this year I'll give myself the gift of lots and lots of monstrosities. And of course, I'll share. Should be great!
Video: Wayne Jagdeo
Thursday 22 December 2016
Shaggy Scarlet Cup
Image: Kathie Hodge Microstoma floccosum |
I sure didn't.
Image: Patrick Harvey Line 'em up, drink 'em down |
That's... inconvenient. It looks nice, though. And Christmas is nothing if not the season for inconvenient things that look nice.
Image: Dan Molter |
If you'd like to give Santa a nice surprise and leave the milk in his favourite tumbler alongside the cookies, you may be interested to know that they particularly enjoy half-buried branches of oak.
Image: Dan Molter |
Perfect for your favourite, Christmas tipple!
Monday 31 October 2016
And the Number of the Hallowe'en Horrors is 666
Its Halloween! That time of year when we draw black waters from the well of cosmic truth with death, draw deep breaths of chill, grave-leaden mist with darkness, and draw white, chalk outlines around corpses in the alleyway with evil. Woo!
Behold Death. He's wearing his Loch Ness Monster costume this year. Basically it's a dark green robe, a dark green handle for his scythe and a kind of lizard mask on the blade. It looks great and boy is he committed to the role. We've been trying to get him out of the swimming pool for hours!
Here be Darkness. She's been trying to teach the zombies about the miraculous power of make-up. I don't think it's going too well. Lipstick is supposed to stick to lips, not the other way round. There's bits of face everywhere!
Yonder is Evil. He's dressed up in a long, white robe with a little cardboard halo fixed onto his head with a piece of wire. He does that every year but it's hilarious every time!
Labels:
bony fish,
cartilaginous fish,
deep sea,
gastropod,
insect,
mammal,
multi monster,
other arthropod,
plant,
reptile
Friday 28 October 2016
Attack of the Giant Snip-snip
It was a close thing, but this jelly-legs just barely escaped from the enormous snipper of a giant snip-snip.
Sunday 23 October 2016
Webspinner
Image: Mike Quinn |
It's not the whole 'bitten by a radioactive spider and now he's a bit like a spider' thing. That's fine. That's great. That makes perfect sense. Well known fact, that is. The problem is the 'now he's a bit like a spider'.
Friday 21 October 2016
Gnome Plant
Image: Tab Tannery Hemitomes congestum |
So you know their special plant is going to be odd.
Wednesday 19 October 2016
A Whole Lot of Leg
Friday 7 October 2016
Not Baskets With Stars On
Wednesday 5 October 2016
Friday 30 September 2016
Wednesday 28 September 2016
Berried Anemone
Image: Oceana in Europe Alicia mirabilis |
But where's the anemone?
Sunday 25 September 2016
Jabiru
Image: Francisco Severo Neto Jabiru mycteria |
Friday 2 September 2016
Wednesday 31 August 2016
Derby Hat Bryozoan
Image: Donna Pomeroy Eurystomella bilabiata |
Monday 29 August 2016
Thread-legged Bug
Image: Carlos De Soto Molinari |
And you know what that means...
Friday 19 August 2016
Blind Cusk Eel
Humans have never been great at the whole ghost thing. They all look like white bed sheets with black circles for eyes.
Blind Cusk Eels, on the other hand, now they're almost 100% pure ectoplasm!
Wednesday 17 August 2016
Apheloria virginiensis
Image: Marshal Hedin |
That's right. Cyanide! Yaaaay!
Friday 12 August 2016
Bullseye Electric Ray
Image: Steve Ryan Diplobatis ommata |
Possibly not the best accessory for a relatively small fish in a big, bad sea with sharks in...
Wednesday 10 August 2016
Button Zoanthid
Image: Stéphane Duquesne |
I never thought of gathering them up into a bouquet of buttons!
Friday 5 August 2016
Wednesday 3 August 2016
Red Palm Mite
Image: Eric Erbe, Chris Pooley Raoiella indica |
Monday 1 August 2016
African Clawed Frog
Image: Brian Gratwicke |
Friday 24 June 2016
Wednesday 22 June 2016
Jellynose Fish
Wednesday 15 June 2016
Big, Voluminous Sleeves
Big, voluminous sleeves... the trend that keeps on giving. And billowing. After all, who doesn't want to look like a rakish buccaneer or ostentatious wizard?
Sunday 12 June 2016
Carpet Anemone
Image: Nevit Dilmen |
No. When it comes to carpets, it's teeny-tiny tentacles tickling my tootsies from now on.
Friday 10 June 2016
Lophogastrid
Image: Alexander Semenov |
Wednesday 8 June 2016
Snaggle-tongue of the Gumboot Chiton
Cryptochiton stelleri
Yuck! What devilry is this? It's like that bit in Jurassic Park with the giant T. rex eye except he's made of mash potato and appears to be staring actual daggers.
Wednesday 1 June 2016
Bryozoa Nudibranch
Image: Donna Pomeroy |
Sunday 29 May 2016
Cusk-eel
Friday 27 May 2016
Kinabalu Crested Dragon
Image: Bernard DUPONT Hypsicalotes kinabaluensis |
Wednesday 25 May 2016
Brain on Holiday
Some might claim this is Leuckartiara octona, a jellyfish widespread in chillier parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans...
Sunday 22 May 2016
Stability, Prettily
Image: James Niland |
Or so it was once thought...
Friday 20 May 2016
Queen of the Andes
Image: inyucho Puya raimondii |
Commander Humperdinck grimaced as he fired photon-rockets from his shoulder mounted, heavy light-bazooka. White trails arced over the carnage of the Andesian Royal Hall and exploded into multi-coloured sparks that sent vegetable men sprawling in all directions. The hall filled with the stench of vegetarian roast dinner.
Wednesday 18 May 2016
Phylliroe
Sunday 15 May 2016
Rat-tailed Maggot
Wednesday 11 May 2016
Wednesday 4 May 2016
Friday 29 April 2016
Two Worms a' Weirding
Image: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2015 Hohonu Moana |
It's a Scale Worm... but he has no scales! In their place is what looks like a smooth, gelatinous blimp of translucent flab tip-toeing on feet made of bristles. It's disgusting. It's beautiful. It's precisely the kind of thing we expect from the deep sea.
Image: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2015 Hohonu Moana |
It looks to me like she might be related to the Green Bomber and the Squidworm, and she's splendidly attired in luxurious, feathery bristles. I'm sure she uses them to swim through the gloomy water in a manner that looks both disgusting and beautiful. Because when you live in the deep sea, that's what you do.
Wednesday 27 April 2016
Pretty Little Jellyfish
I know absolutely nothing about this jellyfish except that it's gorgeous and I want one on my ceiling.
Video: oceanexplorergov
Even better would be if it floated a few feet above my head. Then it'd be on all the ceilings.
Friday 25 March 2016
Bottle Tree
Image: bathyporeia Pachypodium lealii |
Wednesday 23 March 2016
Friday 11 March 2016
Wednesday 9 March 2016
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)