bibliotaxa

astronomy-to-zoology:

Orcutt Naked Clam (Chlamydoconcha orcutti)

…a species of clam native to the west coast of North America, ranging from northern California to Baja California. The orcutt naked clam is not truly naked, its shell is greatly reduced and are hidden inside the bivalves enlarged mantle. For defense C.orcutti has white papillae covering its mantle, these papillae secrete a chemical defense to thwart predators. It also has a very large and muscular foot allowing it to crawl around and be more active than other clams. Like other bivalves it is a filter feeder, and filters the water around it for food particles.

Phylogeny

Animalia-Mollusca-Bivalvia-Veneroida-Galeommatidae-Chalmydoconcha-orcutti

Image Source(s)

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Tailless Whip Scorpion
by ~Novastar2486 - Jeremy Loranger 

Amblypygi - The Blunt Rumps
There are 140 species of “tailless whip scorpions” whose front legs are modified into whip-like sensory structures as long as 25 cm or more.  They do not have the telson (“tail”) carried by related species. 

The Amblypygi form a separate order of arachnids alongside the spiders, scorpions and others.  There are 40,000 species of Araneae, the true spiders, and 2,000 species of Scorpiones.  There are also 220 species of Schizomida, also called whip scorpions.  Despite the name, they aren’t amblypygids.

[ information and lower image, Wikipedia ]

astronomy-to-zoology:

Anderson’s Salamander (Ambystoma andersoni)

Also known as the Achoque, Anderson’s salamander is a species of mole salamander endemic to Lake Zacapu in the state of Michoacan in Mexico. Anderson’s salamander exhibits neoteny (the retention of juvenile traits) and as such it keeps its external gills and caudal fin throughout its life. Because it keeps its gills Anderson’s salamander is totally aquatic and lives its entire live in the water. Currently Anderson’s salamander is listed as critically endangered, this is thought to be a combination of its limited habitat and pollution.

Phylogeny

Animalia-Chordata-Amphibia-Caudata-Ambystomatidae-Ambystoma-andersoni

Image Source(s)

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⇑  Earth 170 million years ago and Earth 105 mya — the Americas and Africa move apart.    [Image credit: Colorado Plateau Geosystems, Paleogeography Library]
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Global Climate Intrinsically linked to Earth’s Interior
at Million Year Time Scales. These processes can modify ecospace for marine life, driving evolution.
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A “cold snap” 116 million years ago triggered a marine ecosystem crisis similar to the ones witnessed in the past as a result of global warming, according to research published in Nature Geoscience.

Analysing the geochemistry and micropaleontology of a marine sediment core taken from the North Atlantic Ocean, the team show that a global temperature drop of up to 5°C resulted in a major shift in the global carbon cycle over a period of 2.5 million years.

Occurring during a time of high tectonic activity that drove the breaking up of the super-continent Pangaea, the research explains how the opening and widening of new ocean basins around Africa, South America and Europe created additional space where large amounts of atmospheric CO2  were fixed by photosynthetic organisms like marine algae. The dead organisms were then buried in the sediments on the sea bed, producing organic, carbon rich shale in these new basins, locking away the carbon that was previously in the atmosphere.

The result of this massive carbon fixing mechanism was a drop in the levels of atmospheric CO2, reducing the greenhouse effect and lowering global temperature.

This period of global cooling came to an end after about 2 million years following the onset of a period of intense volcanic activity in the Indian Ocean. …

The research team highlight in this study how global climate is intrinsically linked to processes taking place in Earth’s interior at million year time scales. These processes can modify ecospace for marine life, driving evolution.

(‘Cold snap’ 116 million years ago triggered marine ecosystem crisis)

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Katy Wiedemann
Locomotion of the Octopus Vulgaris
Read about Octopus vulgaris …

(via Behance)  |  [ Artist’s website ]

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STINGRAYS DO IT IN THE MUD AT FOSSIL LAKE, WYOMING

Photos by Lance Grande from The Lost World of Fossil Lake: Snapshots from Deep Time, published on June 14, 2013 by the University of Chicago Press   [ Amazon  ]

The creatures in these photos [retrieved from Live Science] were all entombed at the bottom of Wyoming’s long-gone Fossil Lake, which was teeming with life during the early Eocene, about 52 million years ago.

1. Mini-Horse.  This is the most complete skeleton of a so-called dawn horse ever discovered. This specimen of Protorohippus venticolus was much more diminutive than today’s horses, standing less than two feet high at the shoulder, but its long back legs suggest it was a good jumper. Perhaps it was less skilled as a swimmer; researchers aren’t sure how the horse ended up at the bottom of the middle of Fossil Lake but they suspect it drowned, possibly trying to escape a predator.
2. These two adult fossilized turtles, each more than 4 feet long, belong to the species Christernon undatum. They flourished during the Late Cretaceous but became extinct in the late Eocene, meaning the specimens shown here represent some of the last survivors of their kind.
3. Only one frog has ever been found at the formation. The single specimen pictured here measures just 1.6 inches (4 cm) long.
4. The pièce de résistance: male and female fat-tailed stingrays (Asterotrygon maloneyi) shown here were likely mating or just about to mate when they were killed, researchers believe.

mucholderthen:

Lance Grande
The Lost World of Fossil Lake: Snapshots from Deep Time
Published June 14, 2013 | University of Chicago Press
432 pages | 243 color plates

The landscape of southwestern Wyoming around the ghost town of Fossil is beautiful but harsh; a dry, high mountain desert with cool nights and long, cold winters inhabited by a sparse mountain desert community. But during the early Eocene, more than fifty million years ago, it was a subtropical lake, surrounded by volcanoes and forests and teeming with life. Buried within the sun-baked limestone is spectacular evidence of the lush vegetation and plentiful fauna of the ancient past, a transitional ecosystem giving us clues to how North America recovered from a great extinction event that wiped out dinosaurs and the majority of all species on the planet.

(Uviversity of Chicago Press)

See it at Amazon …