Cephalopodcast

Saw one of these embiggened octopus plushies today. FAO Schwartz sells them. At ~183 cm across, it’s probably a little too big (and spendy) for Cephalopodcast HQ.

Our octopi [sic] are available in two sizes. The Giant Octopus lives up to his name, reaching almost 63″ from head to tip of tenctacle and he makes a very comfortable pillow. If that’s too big to handle, we also offer a smaller version, constructed of the same richly-detailed plush.

They also have other large, fluffy sea creatures, including sea turtles, hammerhead sharks, walruses, jellyfish, stingrays and clownfish.

Last summer we started noticing upside-down jellyfish (Cassiopeia sp.) appearing in abundance in Sarasota Bay, Florida. These are typically saucer-sized animals that are content to pulse upside-down (hence the name) on the bay bottom, exposing their frilly, weed-like tentacles to the sun. They aren’t supposed to have much of a sting, but apparently some people do get an allergic reaction to touching them.

These creatures have a symbiotic relationship with the algae that packs their tentacles. It is similar to the relationship between reef-forming, stony corals and their algae partners. These partners are called zooxanthellae (zoe-zan-thelly), or as we like to tell the kids, they are the green jelly in the belly of the corals. Not strictly accurate, but catchier than saying the dinoflagellate symbionts in the endoderm of hermatypic cnidarians. The algae photosynthesizes, producing oxygen and sugars that the animals use. In return, the animals give the algae a protective matrix to grow in, carbon dioxide and other waste products that act like fertilizers.

Typically you find these jellies further south in Florida and it’s unsual to see them this far north. This story just recently got some mainstream press coverage and by coincidence the inkspot blog posted some beautiful pictures and video of upside-down jellies nearly the same day.

It’s interesting to note that this article by Karla C. Garcia states that the upside-down jellies tend to expel their zooxanthellae under stressful conditions, like extreme water temperatures and changes in salilnity. In coral reefs, this process is commonly referred to as bleaching. Presumably the conditions in Sarasota Bay have change now in favor of recruitment by Cassiopeia larvae and their algae. Sarasota Bay has also been affected by several seasons of serious red tide outbreaks. It is interesting to speculate if this may have influenced the natural predators of the planktonic larvae.

And here’s the obligatory disclaimer. These animals are not fish, of course, and some people object to calling them jellyfish. They are an ancient lineage of animals that predate any finny creatures with backbones. Instead, simply call them sea jellies and you should be okay.

• Herald Tribune: Strange jellyfish move into Sarasota Bay
• inkspot: jellicles
• A Symbiotic Lifestyle: C. xamachana and Zooxanthellae

I came across the coastal wildlife illustrations of Patrick Lynch over on Flickr. These are taken from his current book, A Field Guide to North Atlantic Wildlife, and its companion on Southeastern and Gulf Coast marine wildlife coming out in 2008.

Lynch is a man of many talents. But it took me a moment to remember where I had seen his name before. Then I remembered he was the illustrator of my ornithology textbook.

In his 35 years with Yale University Lynch has been a medical illustrator, biomedical photographer, audiovisual producer, and for the past 20 years a designer of interactive multimedia teaching, training, and informational software and Web sites.

• Flickr: Coastal wildlife illustrations
• Flickr: Patrick J. Lynch’s photos
• A Field Guide to North Atlantic Wildlife: Marine Mammals, Seabirds, Fish, and Other Sea Life
• Creative Commons medical illustrations
• Wikipedia: Patrick J. Lynch

The Radula blog reports that students at John Adams Middle School vandalized some of the fish tanks during a recent fieldtrip to the Albuquerque Aquarium.

There is damage to two separate tanks, which had been gouged and “tagged”. The massive shark tank may be repairable but the tank holding the moon jellies will have to be replaced at a cost of over $30,000. The biopark has banned the school (an APS school) from all future biopark venues.

If you would like to donate to help repair the aquariums, contact the office of the BioPark Director at 505-764-6211 for details.

• KOAT: Albuquerque Aquarium Vandalized
• KOAT: Animal Tanks Damaged At Albuquerque’s Aquarium
• The Radula: What we value
• Albuquerque Aquarium

[via TONMO]

The companion website to Claire Nouvian’s book has a gallery of deep sea critters that you can glance through. Note especially the Dumbo octopus (Grimpoteuthis sp.), Glowing sucker octopus (Stauroteuthis syrtensis), Telescope octopus (Amphitretus pelagicus) and an egg-bearing Black-eyed squid (Gonatus onyx). All very well photographed and tentacley. Splash page includes ethereal, mysterious music too so you know you are underwater.

The Deep
The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss
By Claire Nouvian

Featuring 220 color photographs of deep ocean species, some photographed for the first time.

• The website: The Deep
• The book: The Deep
• Tree of Life profile: Amphitretidae, the Telescope octopus
• Bridge Lesson Plans: Deep Sea

[via Make]

Well, here is some ocean-going plastic that I can appreciate.

Taking art from found objects to new depths, Miwa Koizumi uses heat guns and soldering irons to sculpt startlingly realistic sea creatures from discarded liquid containers. Her PET project cleverly takes its name from PET (polyethylene terephthalate) - the highly recyclable, plant-based oil the containers are made from.

• Sculptor Miwa Koizumi has a PET project
• Koizumi PET Project
• Previously: Bad plastic

Stumbled upon the Glass Jellyfish, a photo album over at PangalacticTrading.com. They are pictures of the works of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. It reminds me a of the delicate glass rotifer sculptures at the American Museum of Natural History.

The second half of the 19th century was a time of great scientific discovery. New museums were being built throughout the world and many existing private museums were opening to the public. New galleries were designed to display the expanding array of known living plants and animals. For many groups of animals this was easily done…But what about soft bodied animals such as jellyfish and sea anemones? Examples of these animals could be pickled in spirit to preserve them, but this in no way reflected their extraordinary appearance in life. Their colours quickly faded and their shapes became distorted as the tissues shrank. Papier-mâché and wax models could not capture their translucence and transparency. Leopold Blaschka, a brilliant glassworker and amateur naturalist, devised a solution to this problem - vividly recreating these life forms modelling them in glass.

• Glass Jellyfish
• Out Of The Teeming Sea: The Life and Work of the Blaschkas
• Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka and natural history in the nineteenth century
• Blaschka on Flickr: Ine Poppe, vmuskie