Freezable frogs
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| It is hard to tell from a photograph but... this frog is not currently frozen. Photo by W-Van (Wikimedia Commons) |
Many animals have very interesting methods of surviving
changes in their environment – this one tops the list. The wood frog, or Rana
sylvatica, is a freeze-tolerant
frog which literally becomes a frogsicle in the winter months. Pretty cool,
huh? (See what I did there?).
As we all know,
frogs are cold-blooded. This means that, unlike warm-blooded creatures, they
tend to be roughly the same temperature as their environment, so when winter
rolls round the tree frogs can drop to freezing temperature. When ice starts to
form on a frog’s skin, its body begins a process of putting the frog into a kind
of ‘freeze mode’. If you remember my article about life in extreme environments
I talked about certain bacteria producing cryoprotectants to survive in
sub-zero temperatures – kind of like biological antifreeze. Probably the most
abundant compound in biology which can act in this manner is glucose. The frog’s
liver begins to convert stored sugars into glucose which gets pumped round the
body where it protects cells from becoming damaged by the freezing process.
This is the most
fascinating part: while the frog is freezing its heart begins to slow and
eventually stops completely along with all of its other internal organs. In
this state up to 70% of the water in the frog’s body can be frozen and you wouldn’t
be mistaken for thinking it is dead. Luckily for Kermit, this is not the case:
come spring time the frog melts and happily comes back to life and resumes
hopping around and doing its many and various frog things and frog-related
business.
When it melts, the frog
has to do some general repairs to recover any damaged cells, but other than
that they seem generally unfazed by the whole ordeal. Scientists say that the
frog can happily undergo numerous freeze –thaw cycles during the winter but
nobody is quite sure through what mechanism their heart restarts.
Note: Don’t try
this at home. It only works with a very limited number of species – I tried it
with my pet frog Happy Marge and he’s gone now *sniff*.
Barreleye fish
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| I know it looks like some kind of novelty submarine but it is actually a see-through fish. (Source: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) |
How could any list of weird and wonderful creatures be complete
without some kind of freaky transparent thing?
The barreleye can be found deep down in the warmer parts of the Indian,
Pacific and Atlantic oceans and has a see-through head. While this sounds a lot
like something that might be witnessed whilst under the influence of the previously
mentioned shrooms, I assure you it is not.
The barreleye fish is so named because of its barrel-shaped
eyes which protrude from its skull into soft transparent flesh, allowing them
to see. Their eyes are naturally directed upwards through their see-through
head (makes sense, really), allowing them to detect prey swimming above them.
Luckily for the freaky fish, it can also direct its eyes forward – it probably wouldn’t
last long if it was constantly swimming into rocks or the mouths of big sharks
or underwater sea gods and what-have-you.
Dumbo octopus
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| Have you ever seen an octopus fly? (Source) |
I don’t know how scientific it is to include a creature on
this list because it looks hilarious but I like to bend the rules because I’m a
bit of a rebel (I have SO MANY unpaid library fines!) and I think it’s a pretty
sweet octopus. Some people may be familiar with the folksy-racism-filled-fun-for-all-the-family
Disney flick Dumbo. These octopuses
(octopi?) are named after the eponymous elephantine hero due to the large
ear-like fins growing at the top of their bodies. Yes. There actually is an
octopus named after an elephant.
The Dumbo octopuses (octopi?) (Their less amusing name is Grimpoteuthis) float slightly
above the sea bed using their ‘ears’ to swim, munching up any little critters they
can find. They live at extreme
depths of up to 7,000 meters and unlike most octopuses (octopi?) they swallow their
prey whole.
There isn’t really much more to say – it’s an octopus and it
has big ears. Moving on.
Armillaria bulbosa
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| Lovely, aren't they? Don't lick them though - you might eat your own knees and die. Photo by Dan Molter (Wikimedia Commons) |
This one isn’t perhaps as interesting as the others, but
someone has to stick up for the fungi. Armillaria gallica is a fungus that is
thought to be amongst the largest living things in nature. In 1990 a specimen
was found in a Michigan forest spanning an area of at least 15 hectares
(150,000 meters squared) and weighing around 10,000 kg. It was also calculated
that this particular fungus was around 1,500 years old – making it one of the
largest and oldest organisms ever to be discovered.
You might be picturing a mushroom the size of a blue whale.
While this would be the most awesome thing ever, it’s not quite accurate. It’s
time to talk about the structure of fungi! Aren’t you lucky? The mushrooms that
you eat (or smoke, lick, drink – I don’t judge) are actually not the whole
fungus – they are just the fruiting bodies. Most fungi grow through the ground
as long thin tendril-like cells called hyphae which grow together into a
complex underground network called mycelium. The fruiting bodies, or mushrooms,
are the part of the fungus which sheds spores above the ground, allowing for
reproduction. Turns out they are also delicious and/or deadly and/or
hallucinogenic.
Underneath the bright yellow mushrooms (called honey
mushrooms) of A. gallica lies a vast
network of mycelia. Any fans of The
X-Files might think this sounds familiar – the fungus was the inspiration for
an episode where Mulder & Scully get kidnapped by a giant fungus and become
wrapped in a vivid hallucination. For all you know you could be having a
mushroom hallucination right now. I might not even exist. Or your computer. Or
you… *doo dee doo dee doo doo*
Unfortunately for both of us, I do exist. I had the pleasure
of working on a 9 month research project involving this magnificently massive
mushroom as a microbiology student , which involved calculating how much water
it contained and how much of that water a mouse might absorb… I know, right? It
was a rollercoaster. You can imagine how glad I am to be able to talk about
these things once more.
To counterbalance the boringness of this section I will give
you an interesting fact: Beatrix Potter, the author of children’s classics such
as Peter Rabbit, was as mushroom expert.
Sea Sparkle
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| Purty, ain't it? (Source) |
This is literally one of my most favourite things in the
universe. I am aware that this sounds like a character from a weird, brightly
coloured and annoying Japanese children’s cartoon, but I assure you it isn’t.
Sea sparkle is the friendly name for a single-celled-organism called Noctiluca scintillans – I know, catchy. During
the day sea sparkle isn’t much to look at; in fact it can be responsible for
huge, ugly red blooms on the surface of the sea called ‘red tides’. At night
time though, it’s a whole different story. You guessed it - it sparkles!
When something living glows, biologists give it the fancy
name bioluminescence. In many cases bioluminescence is caused by a
luciferin-luciferase reaction. This is the same process which makes fireflies
glow and involves a chemical called luciferin interacting with an enzyme called
luciferase in the presence of oxygen. Enzymes are proteins which lend a helping
hand to biological chemical reactions, and in this case luciferase converts
oxygen and luciferin in to a molecule called oxyluciferin which emits light.
When sea sparkle is in still water it doesn’t glow because
it isn’t in contact with oxygen – this missing ingredient prevents the
bioluminescence from happening all the time. When the water is disturbed, by a
wave or a swimmer for example, the cells come into contact with the air and the
reaction begins, producing a beautiful otherworldly blue glow.
Scientists believe that this light show is a defence
mechanism taking advantage of the food chain. If a small fish comes along and
begins to feed on the poor sea sparkle cells it will disturb the water,
inevitably causing the awesome blue glow. This blue glow will then attract a
bigger fish which will come along and much down the smaller fish, leaving the sea sparkle to glow another day.
I guess in this situation everyone wins… except the little fish. There is
probably a profound life lesson in this – there is always a bigger fish.
If you ever happen to be visiting Puerto Rico, I highly
recommend checking out a bioluminescent bay.
Also, please check out an article by a fellow blogger Peter Harrison:
http://endlessforms.net/2013/01/22/my-top-5-weirdest-animals/
http://endlessforms.net/2013/01/22/my-top-5-weirdest-animals/
That about does it for me, join me next time for something possibly technology related (exciting!). In the meantime, check out the Facebook page from the link at the top of the page.
As with every article I post here, this one has been thoroughly
researched and a list of sources can be provided for anyone who is curious –
just check out the contact page.
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