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Glass Octopus
''Vitreledonella richardi'', also known as the glass octopus, is an incirrate octopus. It is in the genus '' Vitreledonella'' and of the family Amphitretidae. Description ''Vitreledonella richardi'' is a transparent, gelatinous, and almost colorless meso- to bathypelagic octopod found worldwide in tropical and subtropical seas with a mantle length up to and a total length up to in adults. The upper three pairs of arms are subequal in length; in juveniles about as long as the mantle, in adults two to three times mantle length. The fourth, ventral pair is slightly shorter. Suckers are small, widely separated, and in a single series. In males, the left arm III is hectocotylized, with a spherical vesicle near the tip, but is not detachable. The large ampulla and the elongate accessory gland lie out among the internal reproductive organs, notable among mature males alongside its reproductive anatomical counterparts. Its eyes are rectangular, as seen from the side. In accordance t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Joubin
Louis Marie Adolphe Olivier Édouard Joubin (27 February 1861 in Épinal – 24 April 1935 in Paris) was a professor at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. He published works on nemerteans, chaetognatha, cephalopods, and other molluscs. He served as an assistant to Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers, subsequently becoming director of the laboratories at Banyuls-sur-Mer (1882) and Roscoff (1884). Later on, he became an instructor at the University of Rennes,Prosopo Sociétés savantes and in 1903 succeeded Edmond Perrier as ''chaire des mollusques, des vers et des zoophytes'' at the |
Ampulla
An ampulla (; ) was, in Ancient Rome, a small round vessel, usually made of glass and with two handles, used for sacred purposes. The word is used of these in archaeology, and of later flasks, often handle-less and much flatter, for holy water or holy oil in the Middle Ages, often bought as souvenirs of pilgrimages, such as the metal Monza ampullae of the 6th century. Materials include glass, ceramics and metal. Unguentarium is a term for a bottle believed to have been used to store perfume, and there is considerable overlap between the two terms, one defined by shape and the other by purpose. The glass Holy Ampulla was part of the French coronation regalia and believed to have divine origins. Similar, but far more recent, is the Ampulla in the British regalia, a hollow, gold, eagle-shaped vessel from which the anointing oil is poured by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the anointing of a new British sovereign at their coronation A coronation is the act of placement or bes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bottlenose Whale
''Hyperoodon'' (or ''Hyperoödon'') is a genus of beaked whale, containing just two species: the Northern and Southern bottlenose whales. While not in the genus ''Hyperoodon'', Longman's beaked whales are alternatively called tropical bottlenose whales due to their physical features resembling those of bottlenose whales. They are considered to be molluscivorous, eating mainly squid True squid are molluscs with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight arms, and two tentacles in the superorder Decapodiformes, though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also called squid despite not strictly fitting t .... References Ziphiids {{whale-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Predation
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the host) and parasitoidism (which always does, eventually). It is distinct from scavenging on dead prey, though many predators also scavenge; it overlaps with herbivory, as seed predators and destructive frugivores are predators. Predators may actively search for or pursue prey or wait for it, often concealed. When prey is detected, the predator assesses whether to attack it. This may involve ambush or pursuit predation, sometimes after stalking the prey. If the attack is successful, the predator kills the prey, removes any inedible parts like the shell or spines, and eats it. Predators are adapted and often highly specialized for hunting, with acute senses such as vision, hearing, or smell. Many predatory animals, both vertebrate and inv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ovoviviparous
Ovoviviparity, ovovivipary, ovivipary, or aplacental viviparity is a term used as a "bridging" form of reproduction between egg-laying oviparous and live-bearing viviparous reproduction. Ovoviviparous animals possess embryos that develop inside eggs that remain in the mother's body until they are ready to hatch. The young of some ovoviviparous amphibians, such as ''Limnonectes larvaepartus'', are born as larvae, and undergo further metamorphosis outside the body of the mother. Members of genera ''Nectophrynoides'' and ''Eleutherodactylus'' bear froglets, not only the hatching, but all the most conspicuous metamorphosis, being completed inside the body of the mother before birth. Among insects that depend on opportunistic exploitation of transient food sources, such as many Sarcophagidae and other carrion flies, and species such as many Calliphoridae, that rely on fresh dung, and parasitoids such as tachinid flies that depend on entering the host as soon as possible, the emb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radula
The radula (, ; plural radulae or radulas) is an anatomical structure used by molluscs for feeding, sometimes compared to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food enters the esophagus. The radula is unique to the molluscs, and is found in every class of mollusc except the bivalves, which instead use cilia, waving filaments that bring minute organisms to the mouth. Within the gastropods, the radula is used in feeding by both herbivorous and carnivorous snails and slugs. The arrangement of teeth ( denticles) on the radular ribbon varies considerably from one group to another. In most of the more ancient lineages of gastropods, the radula is used to graze, by scraping diatoms and other microscopic algae off rock surfaces and other substrates. Predatory marine snails such as the Naticidae use the radula plus an acidic secretion to bore through the shell of other molluscs. Other predatory marine snails ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camouflage
Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier, and the leaf-mimic katydid's wings. A third approach, motion dazzle, confuses the observer with a conspicuous pattern, making the object visible but momentarily harder to locate, as well as making general aiming easier. The majority of camouflage methods aim for crypsis, often through a general resemblance to the background, high contrast disruptive coloration, eliminating shadow, and countershading. In the open ocean, where there is no background, the principal methods of camouflage are transparency, silvering, and countershading, while the ability to produce light is among other things used for counter-illumination on the undersides of cephalopods such as squid. Some animals, such as chameleons and o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adaptation
In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the population during that process. Thirdly, it is a phenotypic trait or adaptive trait, with a functional role in each individual organism, that is maintained and has evolved through natural selection. Historically, adaptation has been described from the time of the ancient Greek philosophers such as Empedocles and Aristotle. In 18th and 19th century natural theology, adaptation was taken as evidence for the existence of a deity. Charles Darwin proposed instead that it was explained by natural selection. Adaptation is related to biological fitness, which governs the rate of evolution as measured by change in allele frequencies. Often, two or more species co-adapt and co-evolve as they develop adaptations that interlock with those of the oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morphology (biology)
Morphology is a branch of biology dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features. This includes aspects of the outward appearance (shape, structure, colour, pattern, size), i.e. external morphology (or eidonomy), as well as the form and structure of the internal parts like bones and organs, i.e. internal morphology (or anatomy). This is in contrast to physiology, which deals primarily with function. Morphology is a branch of life science dealing with the study of gross structure of an organism or taxon and its component parts. History The etymology of the word "morphology" is from the Ancient Greek (), meaning "form", and (), meaning "word, study, research". While the concept of form in biology, opposed to function, dates back to Aristotle (see Aristotle's biology), the field of morphology was developed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1790) and independently by the German anatomist and physiologist Karl Friedrich Burdach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and Asia from the "New World" of the Americas in the European perception of the World. The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and North and South America to the west. As one component of the interconnected World Ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The Atlantic Ocean is divided in two parts, by the Equatorial Counter Current, with the North(ern) Atlantic Ocean and the South(ern) Atlantic Ocean split at about 8°N. Scientific explorations of the Atlantic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hectocotylus
A hectocotylus (plural: ''hectocotyli'') is one of the arms of male cephalopods that is specialized to store and transfer spermatophores to the female. Structurally, hectocotyli are muscular hydrostats. Depending on the species, the male may use it merely as a conduit to the female, analogously to a penis in other animals, or he may wrench it off and present it to the female. The hectocotyl arm was first described in Aristotle's biological works. Although Aristotle knew of its use in mating, he was doubtful that a tentacle could deliver sperm. The name ''hectocotylus'' was devised by Georges Cuvier, who first found one embedded in the mantle of a female argonaut. Supposing it to be a parasitic worm, in 1829 Cuvier gave it a generic name, combining the Greek word for "hundred" and Latin word for "hollow thing". Anatomy Generalized anatomy of squid and octopod hectocotyli: Variability Hectocotyli are shaped in many distinctive ways, and vary considerably between species. The s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guy Coburn Robson
Guy Coburn Robson (1888–1945) was a British zoologist, specializing in Mollusca, who first named and described '' Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni'', the colossal squid. Robson studied at the marine biological station in Naples, and joined the staff of the Natural History Museum in 1911, becoming Deputy Keeper of the Zoology Department from 1931 to 1936. Evolution Robson is best known for his major book ''The Variations of Animals in Nature'' (co-authored with O. W. Richards, 1936) which argued that although the fact of evolution is well established, the mechanisms are largely hypothetical and undemonstrated.Allee, W. C. (1937)''The Variation of Animals in Nature: A Critical Summary and Judgment of Evolutionary Theories by G. C. Robson, O. W. Richards'' ''American Journal of Sociology'' 42 (4): 596–597. The book claims that most differences among animal populations and related species are non-adaptive. It was published before major developments in the modern synthesis and contains ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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