Amazing animals

Among octupi only one has venom strong enough to put you away:

Blue-ringed octopus - Wikipedia

Its 'courtship' seems impolite, but if we ever get around to snails here, man o man...

 

Before 200 million years ago there were Synapsids; probably reptiles but with some mammalian features. Among them a newly described 9-ton example:

An Elephant-Sized Mammal Relative Roamed Among Dinosaurs

An elephant-sized Late Triassic synapsid with erect limbs | Science

Only small rat-like mammals seem to have survived earth's problem 66 million years ago, and from those came you know who. But earlier times on earth were very interesting, in ways that CGI movies have yet to describe well. Whether they've been eclipsed by much more recent tool-building and fire-using you know who is a matter of opinion.

 

I can think of some fish that fully qualify as amazing, but mostly not cichlids. However in lake described below they have evolved very rapidly. So I deem it worth a look:

The Fishy Mystery of Lake Malawi | Science | Smithsonian

 

A small fish living in an isolated spring in Death Valley might not seem amazing, but it tolerates hot water and has been genetically isolated since glacial retreat. Considered fewest in number of any fish species.

For some reason, its place (Devil's Hole) gets sloshed by earthquakes as distant as Alaska and S. Mexico. There must have been many such in 10,000 years. But these pupfish persist, rocking and rolling and spawning and whatever else they do.

Fish and Wildlife Service has a webcam in there that has captured these sloshes (we are supposed to call them seiches) in the past, but I can't find any right now. More than anything they remind me of local street vendors 3-wheel carts carrying goldfish in bowls for sale. As they bounce down roads, fish look like they'd want to hang on to something. If only they could...

 

Ticks were recently mentioned nearby, so I bring attention to blood-feeding animals in general. This:

Hematophagy - Wikipedia

frankly, is not example of a good wiki article

It might better be organized anatomically (scissors or needles, effectively)

Taxonomically (which is sort of is, but leeches are only mentioned as hirudotherapy)

Medically. Again it sort of is, but quantitative medical impacts of these diseases would seem a better organizing principle.

Medically version 2. Besides diseases, anticoagulants and anesthetics been borrowed from these bad boys.

Ecologically. If you think about it for a moment, you'd probably realize that there is now more cow blood than any other flavor. It's not clear to me that blood feeders have kept up with changes. Or, while we do fret about future extinctions of large-animal species, what happens when their blood buddies need alternative sources?? It has long been claimed that tsetse files in Africa protect against deforestation because without them, there would be more demand for land clearing for cow-having. It may be a bit of a myth, but survives in undergraduate Ecology classrooms because ... well ... we need stories I guess.

DNA-ishly. About the only thing I think mosquitoes are good for is that they sample local species' blood remarkably efficiently. Collect a few mozzies (absolutely not difficult), do some genomic magic, and if there are any rare terrestrial species nearby, you'll know it. For some of those there is nearly no other way to detect them.

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In terms of stories I know of no better than vampire bats sharing their nightly harvest with other colony members who came back empty.

 

The following has been done:

Mapping the Global Distribution of Livestock

Blood volumes per animal type are readily known. There is a detailed human population density map at CIESIN (Columbia univ) and they'd likely share underlying data. Fiver liters per adult.

Then do realistic hand-waving for other abundant species. Perhaps it's obvious I'm driving at a global blood-volume map, liters per km^2. This is what blood feeders are 'looking at'. Where do which groups dominate (livestock, human, or other)?

It would be click baity (compared to most science studies) with "Where to be a vampire?" lede.

Dang, now I need to email PLoS authors above. Bisco's fault.

 

Birds called oxpeckers eat the ticks and just keep going deeper. It's yummy down there.

Thus I hope vampire birds can help you through loss of butterflies.

 

Not divergent at all. Only a few species of XXX taxonomic group feed on blood. Even the dang mozzies. It seems to be an oddly acquired taste, and yet has appeared very widely.

 

Global blood map has begun. Gawd I'm weird.

 

Those squeamish about blood should not click this link:

Everything You Need to Know About Cooking with Blood | GOOD Food

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BTW gravy is not exactly cooked blood. It is cooked myoglobin.

 

Back to bats - they live too long compared to similarly-sized mammals:

Long-lived bats could hold secrets to mammal longevity: Biologists found four bat lineages that live at least four times longer than similar-sized mammals and revealed new traits associated with bat longevity -- ScienceDaily

Study included vampires and more common insect eaters. Spending a lot of time hibernating (or nearly so) seems to be involved.

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Long ago here I may have mentioned people with pet bats putting them in refrigerator during vacations.

 

Those few who study wood decomposition appreciate some aspects that public at large might find trivial. Further out than that, there are 'stories' which all would agree represent monuments to trivia. When one of the latter is told well, PriusChat gets a link:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/how-a-half-inch-beetle-finds-fires-80-miles-away/

 

Elephants are amazing but mostly in a "ho hum everybody knows that" way. But they topple many trees to get (leaf) food to more convenient locations.

Elephants May Be Knocking Over Too Many Trees - Seeker

linked mostly for the photo. If you see an elephant in this stance, you may be in trouble. In this case it is just a young fella - could be much worse.

Seeker sets up the story.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01842.x

fills in details. This is how things stood until

Nature verbose link

So toppling small trees allows big tees to get bigger. Xylophiles can go hack to liking elephants. From a safe distance of course.