Creature 12: Nemopilema nomurai

The largest jellyfish in the world?

Description:
There is some confusion  as to which jellyfish is the larges in the world the two candidates being Nemopilema nomurai or Nomura's jellyfish and Cyanea capitata or the Lion's mane jellyfish. Nomura's jellyfish has a larger mass, while the lion's mane jellyfish is longer. Of these two features I would be more inclined to give the award to Nomura's jellyfish. It can group up to 2m in diameter and can weight up to 200kg.

 The jellyfish tend to swarm every few years due to factors that we don't fully understand. These swarms can be so large that other fisheries in the Yellow sea and the East China sea suffer severe reduction in catch numbers. Fortunately Nomura's jellyfish is also eaten, and can be a substitute form of revenue, even if it is not as profitable.

Distribution:
Nemopilema nomurai lives in the west pacific.

Classification:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Schyphozoa
Order: Semaeostomeae
Family: Rhizostomatidae
Genus: Nemopilema
Species: nomurai 

Image Links:
http://environmental.lilithezine.com/Jellyfish-Swarms.html
http://mostlyopenocean.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/attack-of-jellyfish-swarm.html

New feature

I have added a new feature today, it is a tree illustrating the relationships between the creatures I have added. I will not be updating it every day, maybe every week or so. If you are unsure how to read trees like this I will provide a page explaining it soon. I used lisbeth to construct this tree, because it is quite easy to use for this sort of thing.

Creature 11: Myrmeleontidae

A backyard sci fi monster

Descriptions:
Today's creature is a whole family of insects, the Myrmeleontidae. As juvenile's their common name is antlions, as adults their common name is lacewings.The juveniles look and behave like something out of a Sci Fi series.

They dig pits in loose sandy soil by moving around in circles, changing from clockwise to anticlockwise from time to time. Once their pit is complete, they wait at the bottom just below the surface of the lowest point in the pit.

Then they wait. When an ant comes along it will innocently walk into the pit and the loose sides and the steep gradient will cause them to stumble to the bottom. When the ant realizes that it is in a pit it will try to escape, but that is when the antlion spring into action. taps the side of pit flinging sand at the ant and shaking the sides so the ant falls to the lowest point. Then the antlion uses its unusually large and fierce looking jaws to clamp down an the ant and drag him below the surface, where he will never be seen again.

Like most holometabolous insects, they have a pupal phase between their juvenile and adult phase. As they emerge from the cocoon they have wings and can fly. Adults are still voracious predators, but are active predators rather than ambush predators.

Distribution:
Antlions have a cosmopolitan (world wide) distribution, but prefer sandy and loose soils and given their food source, you can imagine they are most common in desert areas.

Classification:
Lace wing can refer to the common name of adult of any species in the order Neuroptera. Antlion usually only refers to juveniles of the family Myrmeleontidae, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear of it used to refer to juveniles of other neuropteran families which sometimes can look similar.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropods
Class: Insecta
Order: Neuroptera
Family: Myrmeleontidae


Video Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWkfAyfBDHE

Image links:
http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_lacewings/Myrmeleontidae.htm
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Myrmeleontidae#mediaviewer/File:Antlion_trap.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Myrmeleontidae#mediaviewer/File:Ameisenloewe_fg01.jpg

Creature 10: Melanocetidae

Just like finding nemo

Description: Today’s animal is the hideous looking deep sea fish Melanocetidae, commonly known as the clack sea devils, which are a type of deep sea angler fish. They are famous for its unusual strategy of luring in its prey with a small light producing structure attached to {an outgrowth of their spine}. The end of this structure contains bioluminescent bacteria, which produce the glow that entices their prey. The angler fish will lure them in and then, well with teeth like that you can imagine what will happen.

Most people have heard of the angler fish at least from finding nemo and have heard all that stuff about the bioluminescent bacteria, but what is less often mentioned is that this is only the female. Male angler fish are much smaller than the females, often 10 times smaller or more. They exhibit a rare life history strategy known as sexual parasitism. This is one of the most bizarre examples of parasitism in the animal kingdom. When they reach sexual maturity they latch on to a female and eventually burrow under her scales. They then parasitise the female for the rest of their life while fusing their circulatory systems together. Most of the body of the male fish is further reduced once it has becomes attached to a female, except the testicles which expand, providing the female with a means of fertilizing her eggs. In fact the male anglar fish Photocorynus spiniceps (Family Lynophrynidae) is said to be the smallest fish in the world. Some females can have up to 6 males living off them. I guess this behaviour is a product of the fact that members of the same species are hard to come by in the aphotic zones of the ocean, so when you find them, you latch on.

They can catch prey which is larger than themselves and stretch their body more than twice its original size to accommodate them, probably due to the scarcity of food in the aphotic zone.

Distribution:
Melanocetidae are found in all the world's oceans, but only in the mesopelagic, bathyalpelagic and higher up in the abyssalpelagic zones of the ocean.

Classification:
Actually the term angler fish can apply to any member of the Order Lophiiformes, and not all of them live in the deep ocean. I decided that the Melanocetidae had the meanest looking appearance out of the Anglerfish families. The family contains only a single known genus; Melanocetus.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Acinopterygii
Order: Lophiiformes
Family: Melanocetidae

Image links:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Melanocetus_johnsonii.001_-_Natural_History_Museum_of_London.JPG?uselang=en-gb
http://mudfooted.com/deep-sea-anglerfish-bizarre-reproduction/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Melanocetus_johnsonii.002_-_Natural_History_Museum_of_London.JPG?uselang=en-gb

Creature 9: Hydnellum peckii

A weird looking fungus

Description:
Today's creature is just a simple weird looking fungus Hydnellum peckii.

Commonly called Bleeding tooth fungus, and many other names I have never if you check out wikipedia's entry. Striking as it may be while its fruiting body is growing, it becomes a plain brown color when it is mature.

Distribution: 
Hydnellum peckii is common in North America and Europe.


Classification:
Kingdom: Fungi
Phylum: Basidiomycota
Class: Acarimomycetes
Order: Thelephorales
Family: Bankeraceae
Genus: Hydnellum
Species Hydnellum peckii


Image Links:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hydnellum_peckii#mediaviewer/File:Hydnellum_peckii2.jpg
http://www.medioambiente.org/2012/09/la-muela-del-diablo-un-hongo-que-sangra.html
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hydnellum_peckii#mediaviewer/File:Hydnellum_peckii_01.JPG

Creature 8: Conus geographus

The most deadly snail in the world

Description: Most people wouldn't be too intimidated by an animal with the title of the most deadly snail in the world, but that because they don't know about Conus geographus.

The Conus genus is a large one, with hundreds of species, all of them containing some form on conotoxin, but it is particularly potent in C. geographus. 

The toxins are usually used for killing prey as the genus are predators, with many species including C. geographus displaying a preference for fish. They can swallow a fish three time their size with their extendable, stretchable siphon.

They have evolved an harpoon-like delivery system for their deadly toxin. They have been known to bury themselves while hunting their harpoon delivering proboscis sticking out feeling around for prey. 

What is disturbing is that many species will use this system for self defense when some naive diver sees a pretty orange shell that would make a great souvenir. Without treatment you have a 70% chance of dying one you have been envenomated by one of these snails. It can theoretically inject enough venom in one sting to kill you 700 times over. The sting actually contains a wide variety of toxins and the exact mechanisms by which it kills is still partially unknown.While deaths from C. geographus could not be said to be common, with the number of reported fatalities worldwide reaching into the dozens, and given its distribution there is a fair chance that there have been even more unreported fatalities.

Distribution: Conus geographus have a wide distributions, living in coral reef habitats across the Indo- Pacific region. They are most commonly reported in the Great Barrier reef and the Torres strait.

Classification:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Order: Sorbeoconcha
Family: Conidae
Genus: Conus
Species: Conus geographus

Image Links:
http://www.latelanera.com/naturalbornkillers/naturaletale.asp?id=115
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conus#mediaviewer/File:Conus_eating_a_fish.jpg
http://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/tag/dart/

Video Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BsYejyH8e0

Creature 7: Menura

A ridiculously good mimic

Description:

Today's creature of the day if a little bit closer to home for me, the avian genus Menura, commonly known as Lyre birds. Most Australians have heard of them, even though they probably haven't seen them as they are very shy birds. There are actually two species: M. novaehollandiae and M. alberti. They are named for the tail of the male, which resembles the ancient instrument called a lyre as you can see below. 

There is a not so common fallacy in Australia that lyre is an archaic spelling of the word liar and that they are named after their remarkable ability to mimic other bird calls. It is this ability which has earned them a place as a bizarre creature.

Male Lyrebirds use a variety of calls while dancing on their mating mounds to attract females.

A wide variety of complex calls improve male lyre bird's chance of attracting females.They learn these calls from things they hear throughout their lifetime.

Distribution: 

Lyrbirds are found on the South East coast of Australia as far north as the Sunshine coast, including Tasmania. M. novahollandiae is the more common lyre bird, often known as the Superb lyre bird with its distribution encompassing the entire range while M. alberti the rarer species is only found in the northern end of the range.

Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Sauropsida

Order: Passeriformes

Family: Menuridae

Genus: Menura

Image Links:

http://australiawild.com.au/news.html/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/MrG4-by-A_Maisey120.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrebird#mediaviewer/File:Superb_lyrbird_in_scrub.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Superb_Lyrebird_mound_dance.jpg

Video Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXE6aUGb4zw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el8hSgA3vPA

Update: The first video there is obviously a little sarcasm, while a lyre bird's call is an impressive mimic, it cannot mimic a human voice. The camera is real and the bird calls are real. They can mimic chainsaws and sirens, and may be able to mimic snatches of certain songs, but even by the way it is edited, you can tell it is a fake when it is doing the Seinfeld song.