Cool animal adaptation evokes Alien design

[urbpan]

Everyone, especially fans of evolution, marine biology, and the Alien movies, and especially especially my brother, needs to go look at this page right now.

Thanks to drhoz for the link.

Comments

[bdot.livejournal.com]

that is so cool!

[mperrotti76.livejournal.com]

cool. I love your blog. Thanks for all the eco info.

[sin-agua.livejournal.com]

I heard the story on NPR yesterday, but the article and accompanying drawing and video was awesome. I wish our son was old enough to have seen the Alien movies, so he could appreciate the thoroughly terrifying awesomeness of this! And I bet there are some creatures out there with caustic (acid) blood, too. Why not? ;) The universe is a big place...

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

In one of the Alien comic books, a character remarks "I'd hate to meet the predator that acid blood defense evolved for."

[sin-agua.livejournal.com]

WORD.

[iheartoothecae.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful.

That's amore? No.

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

Like it's not bad enough to get bitten once by a moray, then they bite you a second time while they're still biting you the first time. I've seen those guys underwater and even though they are pretty mild-mannered, this makes them seem a little scarier.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

Wheeennn you swim in da sea,
and an eel bites your knee,
dat's a moray...

and then bites off your ****s
with pharyngeal jaws
dat's a moray...

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

Dat's excellent!

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

I can't claim credit for the first verse, but the second is original :)

Fish thread!

[by-steph.livejournal.com]

Sheepshead have pharyngeal teeth used for grinding that are pretty neat looking too: http://www.smm.org/buzz/museum/object/2003_04_pharyngeal_teeth_from_freshwater_drum_aplodinotus_grunniens

Also, some fish have teeth on their tongues or growing out of the roofs of their mouths. The teeth of sharks are actually modified scales, not from bone tissue like other fish. And THEN, you have jawless fish like hagfish, that in order to tear off what they bite, will tie themselves into knots. The knot travels up their body until their head swings around and makes a tearing motion.

[bellelvsbeast.livejournal.com]

I was super interested in eels when I was younger, so I already knew this....one of the coolest animal oddities! :)