Cephalopodcast

Cuban Tree Frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis), a common but introduced species in Florida. Picture by J. Robertshaw

According to the Gregorian calendar, today is Leap Day. It is also the beginning of an amphibian conservation promotion by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums as part of their Year of the Frog campaign. Frogs and toads are the most numerous group of the amphibians, which also include the newts, salamanders and caecilians. But they are all in trouble.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums will highlight 2008 as the Year of the Frog to mark a major conservation effort to address the amphibian extinction crisis. The Year of the Frog is also meant to engage the public in amphibian conservation and to raise funds for AZA amphibian conservation efforts into the future.

Find out the Top 8 Ways to Help Frogs in 2008

1. Look, listen, and learn: educate yourself and your family about amphibians.
2. Visit an Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited institutions near you and experience your very own amphibian adventure!
3. Create amphibian friendly environments by providing clean water, hiding places, and insects to eat.
4. Don’t pollute.
5. Be a responsible pet owner.
6. Conserve water at home, school, and work.
7. Reduce the use of fossil fuels, such as oil, coal and natural gas.
8. Be an amphibian champion.

Growing up on a lake in Florida, we had a lot of opportunities to witness amphibian activity. During the wet season there was a solid wall of noise coming from the passionate anurans in the pastures. It was not something you would hear so much as feel. Soon, the lake edge was strung with the black beads of toad eggs. And later, we could gather pollywogs by the handful. I have to wonder what it would be like if I ever went back there.

The difference between frogs and toads might seem obvious at first. Frogs are hoppers with long legs and wet skin. Toads are walkers with dry skin. But as my herpetology professor pointed out, there are exceptions to each of these and the distinction between frogs and toads amongst the experts is not so clear. For instance, the suborder of spadefoot toads (Mesobatrachia) also includes the parsley frogs.

Recently on This Week in Science, Justin and Dr. Kiki were commenting on the recent discovery of a very large amphibian fossil in Madagascar, appropriately dubbed Beelzebufo (at approximately minute 00:23:29). They ran into this same kind of consternation.

• Amphibian Ark: Year of the Frog
• AZA: Year of the Frog
• AZA Year of the Frog Educational Activities and Resources
• How to Tell a Turtle from a Tortoise is a book that also talks about the difference between frogs and toads. Remarkable moreso because it is the first book that I have ever come across that is not available on Amazon.

I have an avatar in Second Life called Calamari Ricardo. He wandered into the lair of Grendel’s Children the other day and came across a new undersea option for avatars (see below).

Randy Olson cheekily suggested that the next Science Blogging Conference be conducted in Second Life. If so, maybe we could hold it on the newly expanded NOAA sim and all the ocean bloggers could go dressed up as Vent Nymphs.

Vent Nymphs
MiniHUD controls the black smoker effect & sound, and includes a unique skin and sculpted tubeworm growths! Both genders included. Created by Flea Bussy.

See also:

• NOAA in Secondlife via Hack’s Haven
• The Abyss of Secondlife

Today is National Peguin Awareness Day. The official declaration is over at the Peguin Geek blog.

Unfortunately, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Penguin Cam is currently offline, so you can’t celebrate that way. But they are working on a new exhibit which should be open in March. In the meantime, try the other links below.

Penguins are birds. They have feathers, beaks and wings, and they lay eggs. Their closest relatives are other fish-eating seabirds: albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters.

There are currently 17 species of penguins. They range in size from the small two-pound (1 kg), 16-inch (41 cm) little blue penguin to the large 84-pound (38 kg), 51-inch (130 cm) emperor penguin. They’ve adapted to environments as different as Antarctic ice fields and the tropical Galápagos islands. Yet all penguins share their ancestors’ trait: they’re at home in the ocean.

• Penguin Geek: National Penguin Awareness Day
• Zapatopi: Penguicons
• MBAq: Become a Penguinologist
• Wikipedia: Penguin
• SeaWorld Education: Penguins
• Defenders of Wildlife: Adopt a Penguin
• Penguin Caffinated Peppermints

UPDATE: I composed this post rather quickly and did not do as much link research as I had hoped to do. If I had, I might have also discovered these other remarkable penguin Web sites:

• Penguin Science understanding penguin response to climate and ecosystem change (via kottke)
• Penguin of the Day: View a different penguin every day! You can also see the last week’s worth of penguins, just in case you missed one! (via Nicola Rickett’s Antarctic blog)
• Real-time penguin blogging with Viola Toniolo at Antarctic Journal: I’m working on my graduate research project on the foraging ecology of Adelie Penguins
• Penguinsland Blog: a blog for cute pictures, fun videos, news, and information about penguins

Back in February I cheekily proposed a new Internet adage called Gorton’s Law. It was an allusion to the more well-known Godwin’s Law and is the notion that in any discussion of sea life, no matter how rare, strange or repulsive, some knucklehead will quickly sour the conversation by asking how well it goes with lemon or butter. An addendum to this is that it will usually happen within the first 10 comments and that they might also propose some other condiment.

My intent was to highlight how prevalent the attitude is that sea life is there merely for us to “harverst.” That the primary purpose is for our consumption and not for any intrinsic value or ecological roles those flora and fauna may contain.

Deep-Sea News has now officially formulated this notion into an actual equation.

Gorton’s Measure states that the time for someone to ask “Can you eat?” when discussing a marine species is directly proportional to the rareness, strangeness, and repulsiveness of the species.

where theta=time for someone to ask “Can you eat?”
t=total people in room
alpha=species’ rareness
sigma=species’ strangeness
delta=species’ repulsiveness

This is related to Gorton’s Constant (Gamma) that states that the question “How well does it go with lemon and butter?” will occur at a very high percentage approaching infinity despite relative changes in audience size (n).

My thanks to Craig for working out the maths. Of course, now that it is officially formulated, I regret a little going for the more amusing Gorton’s Law and not the more eponymous Robertshaw’s Law. At least that way I would have been know for something. Oh well.

See also:

• Another most excellent World’s Fair meme. Give us your personal scientific eponym.
• HOW TO GET YOUR OWN SCIENTIFIC EPONYM, AND, INTRODUCING THE ARBESMAN LIMIT

The Circus of the Spineless is a blog carnival celebrating the diversity of invertebrates. This month’s festivities are hosted over at the Other 95% blog. I submitted my What The Shell #2 for your consideration.

Yesterday, the aquarist at work carved pumpkins while underwater in the Mote shark tanks.

• See also: Tirck-or-Treat [sic]

As mentioned on Cephalopodcast #6, anyone who needs a last minute costume for Halloween can try this Instructable from Tool Using Animal. You can probably assemble it in less than 30 minutes out of commonly available office supplies. Plus an option for glow-in-the-dark action!

• Super quick last minute Squid costume

Another more involved invertebrate Instructable is the Halloween LED Jellyfish Costume.

[via neatorama]

Something fun from the Wildlife Conservation Society: Build Your Wild Side. It’s a marketing gimmick, but a wild one.

And in the tradition of infecting other bloggers, I challenge the following to build their wild self too and pass on the meme:

• Laelaps
• Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets
• Invasive Species weblog
• The Other 95%
• Bioephemera

If you suckers didn’t get enough of a cephalopod fix between Cephalopod Awareness Day and TONMO, you can now embrace the efforts of Matt Stagg, who is extending a tentacle into the mired depths of Facebook. He has started an International Cephalopod Appreciation Society group therein.

Dr James Wood apparently has a ceph group in Facebook too, but it appears to have entered a stage of senescence.

UPDATE: You know, there are only ~89,000 of these facebooktopuses left. If someone wanted to get me a gift, you know, I wouldn’t mind.

Washington Post staff writer Marc Kaufman will be online Monday, Oct. 15 at 11 a.m. ET to discuss a Navy project to learn how sonar and other loud ocean noises affect the deep-diving beaked whale.

• Submit a question or comment now or during the discussion.

Many visitors to this cephaloblog are probably already aware of the plight of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. However, there is another, rarer species said to lurk in the farm country of the northeast. And the first photographic evidence of the elusive seven-legged Vermount tree octopus has recently been released. It is an enormous beast which obviously has binocular vision and a hardened siphon. Be aware folks. Be very aware!

- -

All kidding aside, this concludes my posts for the first annual International Cephalopod Awareness Day. Thanks again to everyone who participated. If you are interested in planning events for next year, head on over to TONMO and join the conversation. And remember, next year it will be 08-October-08!

Sheryl is a sculptor with a couple of quirky works on display. Some are fluffy fantasy while others are bare reality. But the ones that caught my attention the most are her Perma-Pet “cuddlefish”, nudibranchs and octopuppy.

• Octopuppy, Mixed Media Fantasy Sculpture
• YoutTube: Octopuppy Sculpture
• Available as a T-shirt
• Permapets: cuttlefish and nudibranchs
• Cthulhu’s Gems, One of a Kind Fantasy Tentacle Pendants
• Baby Rat, One of a Kind Polymer Clay Sculpture

Related items:

• Different kind of “octopuppy”: Six-legged puppy found in Malaysia (2005)
• How the Moon got its Craters
• oopsy the octopuppy infant and toddler shirts

Celebrate Cephalopod Awareness Day, October 8, 2007

AKA: World Octopus Day, Squid Appreciation Day

We begin our celebration of the First International Cephalopod Awareness Day with a look back. I found this little carbuncle on the Internet Archive, and it proves you can mix the great taste of peanuts butter and octopus. It’s a 1950s show called You Asked For It, and it features a moment in the life of Ben Frick, octopus trapper, Washingtonian and “delightful fella.” Skip the knife thrower and fast forward to minute 07:00 to see all the action.

EDIT: Sorry folks. Internet Archive embedded player isn’t playing nice with Wordpress. Click the image above to open the movie in a new window.

Apparently, octopus wrestling used to be pretty popular in the States around this time, as evidenced by this 1949 article in Modern Mechanix: Octopus Wrestling Is My Hobby. And this one from a 1965 edition of Time, Adventure & the American Individualist:

Merely to minnow about underwater is no longer enough, and such sports as octopus wrestling are coming increasingly into vogue, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, where the critters grow up to 90 Ibs. and can be exceedingly tough customers. Although there are several accepted techniques for octopus wrestling, the really sporty way requires that the human diver go without artificial breathing apparatus.

It would seem that the Japanese continue this tradition, albeit with less lively opponents and the disadvantage of being on land.

• Read more about International Cephalopod Awareness Day, including posts by other bloggers
• “You Asked For It” (ca late 1950s)
• Previously: Vintage Ocean and Science Fair Footage

Unofficial International Cephalopod Awareness Day is on October 8.

This is a good a day as any to celebrate cephalopods. So embrace your inner octopus and let the world know what you think of our tentacled fiendsfriends. If you have a website, consider writing about cephalopods on this day. Share any links, stories or images that you have.

Why October 8? Hope that one is obvious. Spread the word.

• Official Unofficial First International Cephalopod Awareness Day webpage, with links to cephalopod aware bloggers
• Original discussion on tonmo.com
• Free ICAD blog badges in different sizes and colors (black and white)

There are many things to dislike about this video. Mixing limnetic and stenohaline fishes. Confusing a Holocentrid for a Salmonid. Undergravel filters. But then you realize the kid is probably just tripping and the beatbox blowfish is really amusing. So don’t sweat the details and just give it up for Sammy the Salmon and his amazing salmon dance…

mild profanity

• Chemical Brothers
• Alternate encoded version: Chem1_FactoryWeb.mov
• The Fish and the Forest

The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, WA, will host the traveling Smithsonian exhibit In Search of Giant Squid from September 22-December 31, 2007. The have a FREE Teacher Workshop & Open House on Thursday, September 27, 2007.

This 2-hour workshop for teachers will introduce useful resources from the Burke Museum and the upcoming Smithsonian traveling exhibit, In Search of Giant Squid. Learn how to use this exhibit to reinforce your marine science curriculum, including the scientific process, ocean research, and deep-sea ecology. The workshop will feature a presentation by a museum curator, a guided tour of the exhibit, an introduction to the exhibit curriculum created by the Smithsonian, a small-group activity, and a review of available teacher resources.

The workshop and curriculum is ideally suited for teachers of grades 5 through 8, but can be adapted for younger and older grade levels.

• Workshop Flyer [PDF]
• More Burke Squid Events