Friday, 10 February 2012

Stalked Jellyfish

Image: Wikipedia
Stalked Jellyfish? What? It may seem strange but there really is such a thing as a jellyfish with a stalk. They have abandoned the usual life of swimming with the sea's most graceful wobble and have instead opted to attach themselves to the floor and stay there.

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Greenland Shark

Image: Nick Caloyianis/National Geographic
It snowed. I hate it when it snows because snow becomes ice and my utter loathing for ice on the pavement is matched only by my fear and hatred of slipping and falling. Next time you walk on ice, please tread harshly because you tread on my nightmares. Good job I don't come from the world's most ironically named country, like a certain shark I know.

Sunday, 5 February 2012

Hell as Habitat

Image: NOAA
Darkness spews into the darkness.
There is a Hell on Earth. A real one, not that silly fake one. It's a place where our glorious Sun is a long banished frivolity. A place of such insurmountable evil that chocolate is frozen by the cold, melted by the heat and crushed by the pressure. It's so dark that if you drop your chocolate, it will be lost and gone forever. Indeed, it's so dark that the Tree of Chocolate won't even grow.

Chocolate! Why have you forsaken us!

We're talking about hydrothermal vents.

Friday, 3 February 2012

Sea Apple

Image: emmiegrn via Flickr
What happens when you take a cucumber and squish it up a little? You get an apple of course! Or at least that's what happens in the sea...

Thursday, 2 February 2012

Eastern Tiger Salamander

Image: J. N. Stuart via Flickr
Do you remember the Axolotl? Well check out their close relative, the Eastern Tiger Salamander! Doesn't he look grown up?

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

Axolotl

Image: Stephen Dalton
In the face of terrible adversity the critically endangered Axolotl smiles cheekily, loses a place in the wild but gains a place in our hearts. Cheesy I know, but this is probably the only salamander most people can get weepy and sentimental about. So let's do it when we can.