Tadpole Shrimp

Image by jurvetson via Flickr

The Tadpole Shrimp. Another strange, ancient creature which brings to mind times long past and life long dead. They are also known as shield shrimp and Triops, and are indeed sort of tadpole shaped, look quite a lot like a shield with a tail and are related to true shrimp. There are 16 species in all and almost everywhere in the world has at least one of them. 6 of the species are in the genus Triops, meaning three eyes, which is another feature they have, and that name has spread to all the other ones. A large tadpole shrimp might reach about 10 cm (4 inches) in length, others are smaller. They are found in freshwater ponds, pools and puddles and, like some kind of desert plant, they are geared up to take advantage of irregular rains and long periods of desiccation.

Lancelet

Image: Wikipedia

A while ago we took a look at a strange jelly creature called the salp, which was, oddly enough, more closely related to humans than to jellyfish. Today we set our eyes upon the lancelet, also known as amphioxus. It is another strange invertebrate creature that is a chordate, like all vertebrates. In fact, the creature that eventually developed into everything that has a backbone on the one hand, and maybe even the salp itself on the other, may well have looked very much like the lancelet.

And what does it look like? Quite a lot like a fish. A fish without brain, bone, heart or eyes. So maybe more like a fillet of fish from the shops, just throw it in the frying pan. I guess that's why they are harvested for food in parts of Asia.

Crazy Yellow Ant

Image source

This little guy means big problems. The crazy yellow ant shows, for good or ill, the impressive power of cooperation. At less than half a centimetre long they aren't even large for ants, though their legs and antennae are unusually long. The 'crazy' part of their name comes from their madcap movements which become frenetic and frantic when they are disturbed.

There's something else they do when they're disturbed. While they can't sting, they can spray formic acid in defence. This stuff can actually cause blindness if it gets into the eyes so if you get it on your hands it's best to wash them immediately.

These are ants, so they obviously nest in colonies. I wouldn't like to stumble and tumble into a nest of these acid spewing terrors so the question arises: where are these little beasts from?

Amoeba proteus

Image by Antonio Guillén via Flickr

I thought it would be fun to investigate a single celled organism and Amoebae seemed a good place to start, but boy, I really didn't know what I was getting into! To get around all the complexity and diversity, the Amoeba, Amoebidae and Amoebozoa, I've decided to focus primarily on one species, Amoeba proteus. They can be found at the bottom of clean ponds, anywhere in the world as far as I know, and seem like an all-round good place to start.

Nautilus

Image by PacificKlaus via Flickr

It looks like we're going way back in time for this one, indeed some Nautilus have barely changed for 500 million years. They look quite a lot like prehistoric ammonites, although ammonites are actually more closely related to octopus and squid than to nautilus. Nautilus are all on their own, the only living cephalopod to have an external shell - all others have their shell within their body and some have none at all. At least it's all smooth and beautiful with its stripy white and brown-orange-copper colour. Worth having on the outside I think.

New Year, New Blog

Hello all! Yep, I'm having such fun with this blog malarky that I've decided to start up a whole new similar-but-different blog which I'm calling:

Natural Born Record Holders

I've been finding out about so many gigantic monsters and unique oddities that I decided to start a site totally devoted to giants and unique oddities. Also the fastest, oldest, smallest and whatever other '-ests' we can think of.

I'm taking much more of a whizz-bang approach with this one. I won't be going into great detail on their life and times. We will focus instead on their gold medal, marvel for a while and respectfully move on after a brief celebration.

Real Monstrosities shall of course continue, with the next post tomorrow as usual. I'm just hoping to use what I've learnt so far to try something with a different tack.

So I hope you will join me on this journey of joyous discovery. 

It could be fun!

Head on over to NBRHblog.com.

It's only just begun!

Happy New Year everyone!