Evolution in Action

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[romkids]

Liz Butler Draws The ROM: Coelacanths!

Hi ROMKids! 

Let’s talk about coelacanths! 

Coelacanths are rare and strange fish often called ‘living fossils’. They get this title from sporting a body plan that has remained largely unchanged for over 350 million years, and from having a unique ancient lineage that makes them more distant cousins to ray-finned fishes than to mammals. It’s important to keep in mind though that while coelacanths, like modern-day sharks or alligators, have ancient relatives that look similar to themselves, they have been adapting and changing on this planet along with all other species. 

Coelacanths are secretive fish, living in rocky ocean caverns and so far unable to survive long after capture, which only adds to the mystery that surround these fish! Western scientists hadn’t even described them until 1939, when one was found on a fishing trawler (read the amazing account here via NOVA). Of course, local people knew about the fish for far longer, but did not deliberately capture them as they are horrible to eat. While coelacanths are unique in many aspects, unfortunately they are not unique in being creatures threatened with extinction. West Indian Ocean coelacanths are critically endangered and Indonesian coelacanths vulnerable to extinction. 

The good news is, if you come to visit the coelacanth model in the Schad Gallery of Biodiversity you will be able to learn about the actions we can take to save ocean ecosystems, along with the risks those ecosystems face.

Liz Butler is an artist and teacher who loves natural history and museums. She loves drawing, painting, and making crafts of all kinds. She is happiest when she can find ways to combine art projects with science content.

Liz’s Website – Liz Butler Draws, Liz’s Blog – Saw Whet Studio

Find EVERY post of Liz Butler Draws The ROM HERE!

Do you like to sketch? Love museums? Are you a full time student in Canada? The ROM is yours to explore, FREE, every Tuesday! MORE!

Guest Post By Liz Butler. Last Updated: March 5th, 2017.

[noaasanctuaries]

Why do invasive species matter?

This is an Indo-Pacific lionfish.

Lionfish are native to the Pacific Ocean, but in recent years they’ve been appearing in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, including in Gray’s Reef, Florida Keys, Flower Garden Banks and Monitor national marine sanctuaries.

With 18 venomous spines, they’re dangerous for divers in those areas.

But it’s not just humans that are at risk: lionfish are threatening entire ecosystems.

These fish have voracious appetites, and outside the Pacific they have no natural predators. A thousand lionfish can consume 5 million prey fish in a single year. 

So you can see how their impacts can begin to add up. Researchers in affected national marine sanctuaries are studying these fish to understand what they’re eating, and are working to remove them from their invaded habitats. You can help, too, by participating in lionfish derbies and eating lionfish at home and in restaurants.

Lionfish aren’t the only invasive species in national marine sanctuaries, though. In Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Lake Huron, zebra and quagga mussels compete with native mussel species.

Each one of these bivalves can filter up to a liter of water each day and alter food webs as a result. They also degrade the integrity of many of the Great Lakes’ historic shipwrecks.

Another invasive species, orange cup coral, has established itself throughout the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, including in Flower Garden Banks and Florida Keys national marine sanctuaries.

This bright coral thrives on artificial substrates like shipwrecks and oil and gas platforms; in Flower Garden Banks it is also expanding into the natural reef. 

As it colonizes these spaces, orange cup coral leaves less and less room for native corals and sponges.

The good news is, that from research to removal efforts to targeting your culinary adventuring, we can help protect these fragile ecosystems from invasive species.

Learn more about invasive species in your national marine sanctuaries.

[noaasanctuaries]

Reblogging in honor of Invasive Species Week!

[usfwspacific]

Wisdom, the World’s Oldest Known Wild Bird, has a new chick!

Wisdom checks in with her newest chick. Photo credit: Naomi Blinick/USFWS Volunteer

By Holly Richards, USFWS

Wisdom Returns!

On a remote atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the world’s oldest known wild bird just became a mother again. Last December, volunteers and staff at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and Memorial documented that Wisdom, a 66 year old Laysan albatross had returned to the atoll and was incubating an egg with her mate. About two months later, word came from Midway, Wisdom had hatched another chick!

“Wisdom continues to inspire people around the world. She has returned home to Midway Atoll for over six decades and raised at least 30-35 chicks,” said Bob Peyton, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Project Leader for Midway Atoll Refuge and Memorial.

Wisdom and her newest chick. Photo credit: Naomi Blinick/USFWS Volunteer

In her lifetime Wisdom has likely flown over three million miles. She spends much of her life in the air, crisscrossing the North Pacific from the Hawaiian Islands to the Bering Sea. When she’s not soaring over vast expanses of open ocean, or resting on the waves hunting for squid, she returns nearly every year to the same nesting spot on remote Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and Battle of Midway National Memorial in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Wisdom and her mate are not alone in their annual pilgrimage to Midway Atoll - over three million seabirds call the Refuge and Memorial home. 

Every available space at Midway Atoll Refuge and Memorial is taken up by nesting albatross. Photo credit: Dan Clark/USFWS

Keep reading

[noaasanctuaries]

Congratulations, Wisdom!

[montereybayaquarium]

Hooray! 

[fossilera]

One of the more alien looking trilobites, the aptly name Dicranurus monstrosus.  Amazingly preserved with all of it’s spines and horns after 380 million years of being encased in solid limestone.

Source: https://www.fossilera.com/fossils/killer-2-7-dicranurus-monstrosus-trilobite

[realmonstrosities]

Evan’s Sea Spider (Anoplodactylus evansi) has the blues!

This is rickety, wobbly-kneed beast is the scourge of east Australia’s sea slugs.

The sea slugs try to defend themselves. They eat corals, sponges and bryozoans, they take over the poisons and stinging cells, incorporating them into their tissues for use against their own predators.

But it doesn’t work. Not against Evan’s Sea Spider. It may only be a couple centimetres long, but this sea spider has guts of steel. And, of course, it’s a sea spider so its body is so tiny that half of those guts are in its legs.

Also there’s a whole lot of blue on those legs! They’re very important legs.

… Image: WoRMS Editorial Board

[revretch]

this is a balloon animal, just a lost balloon

[pinkoddity73]

Amazing

[zooophagous]

It’s always so amazing to watch a spider build a web. How does a creature with a brain the size of a pinhead create such an intricate weaving so perfectly?

[0ct0pus]

Those beautiful pictures have been taken in Mayotte (France). More cephalopod pictures (from the same source) here.

(via Photo sous-marine: Mayotte / Découvrez un autre monde!)

[currentsinbiology]

 Pangolin, The ‘Artichoke With Legs,’ Earns Top Trade Protection

Commercial trade of the pangolin, the aardvark-like mammal that is the world’s most-trafficked animal, has been officially banned by the international body responsible for regulating the international trade of endangered species.

On Monday, delegates to a meeting in Johannesburg of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) voted to approve the strictest protections available under international law — moving the pangolin into a category reserved for species “threatened with extinction.”

A pangolin carries its baby at a zoo in Bali, Indonesia. Delegates at a U.N. wildlife conference have voted to ban commercial trade in all eight species of pangolin.  Firdia Lisnawati/AP            

[thebrainscoop]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[fossilera]

This is a truly world class ammonite specimen from South Dakota. It’s one of if not the best specimen of Hoploscaphities comprimus ever collected. It has beautiful red iridescent shell with green flashes, and all of the nodes are intact.

What makes this specimen so phenomenal is the preparation work. It was masterfully prepared by Luke Larson of Larson Paleo, taking over 20 hours to complete. The hard concretion around it has been carved into a beautiful base, accented with carved striations 

For sale at: https://www.fossilera.com/fossils/world-class-red-iridescent-hoploscaphities-ammonite

[zooophagous]

👀

[gentlesharks]

Thresher Sharks literally whip their meals into submission! These strange sharks feed on a variety of small schooling fish, but because they have weak jaws and relatively small teeth, they’ve learned to resort to a rather unusual method for catching their prey. Instead of using their mouths, Threshers stun their prey by slapping them with their long, whip-like tails. The Monad Shoal – a sunken island near Malapascua in the Philippines – is reported to be the only place in the world where divers can spot thresher sharks on a regular basis.

[itscolossal]

Photographer Nicky Bay Documents Mirror Spiders Adjusting their Silver Plates to Appear More Reflective

[always-evolving]

Wow!

[gentlesharks]

The Whitetip Reef shark is a fairly small shark, not usually getting bigger than five feet long. These little guys are one of the most common sharks found on Indo-Pacific coral reefs. Its scientific name “Triaenodon obesus” means “Fat Trident-toothed” shark. During the day, the Whitetip Reef shark often rests on the seafloor and continuously gulps water to breathe, meaning it does not have to swim to breathe! This shark is more active at night, and on an island called “Cocos” in the Pacific, the Whitetip Reef sharks have learned to hunt by following divers lights.

[cutie-sharks]

More whitetips! Yay!

[franzanth]

Save the sea squirts! Wait, what?

Think of ten animals that you know are endangered – go on, we’ll wait. Now, cross out every animal on that list that has fur, hair, feathers, or scales. Do you have many left on that list? Do you have any left at all? - @pagurus

Although invertebrates make up the majority of the animal kingdom, they are often overlooked in conservation efforts. Will we ever look beyond the mighty, the cute, and the magnificent?

Illustrated as the final instalment in a series covering endangered animals, published on Earth Archives.

- - -

Will Art for Science · Shop

[franzanth]

Sixteen animals racing against extinction in 2016

In this year’s congress, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declared that 12,316 species are currently threatened by extinction. This number is merely the tip of the iceberg, considering only 61,007 species have been assessed – a small portion out of at least six million species currently living on Earth. In this article published on @eartharchives, guest writer @strigiforma profiles sixteen of them. Follow the link above to read their story.

- - -

Will Art for Science · Shop

[typhlonectes]

Lizardfish, Bathysaurus sp., encountered in Veatch Canyon in the deep sea off the NE coast of the U.S.

These fish use their lower jaw to scoop in the sand.

Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, 2013 Northeast U.S. Canyons Expedition.

[sixth-extinction]

Unknown Tourism: Commemorating the Wildlife We’ve Lost

We are all used to looking at guidebooks to learn more about a country before we visit – but how often do we stop and think about the things we can’t see there anymore? We’ve created Unknown Tourism, a series of vintage-style travel posters to commemorate some of the wonderful creatures we’ve lost, and are in danger of forgetting. (by Expedia.co.uk)

These are fantastic!

[sealasaurus]

I wish you could buy these as posters!

[sixth-extinction]

I agree. I’d love to have these framed on my wall, and I’m curious about who the artist is too. I might contact Expedia UK about it. *nerd*

[deletedblog121520-deactivated20]

spiders.