Inverts
laelaps | September 16, 2009Considering the fossils of the Cambrian, the oldest fossil-bearing rocks known during his time, Charles Darwin wrote the following in the 6th edition of On the Origin of Species;
... it cannot be doubted that all the Cambrian and Silurian trilobites are descended from some on crustacean, which must have lived long before the Cambrian age, and which probably differed greatly from any known animal. ...
... if the theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian stratum was deposited long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the…
laelaps | September 12, 2009
A bee collecting pollen from a sunflower. Photographed at Antelope Island, Utah.
laelaps | September 7, 2009
A scorpion illuminated under a black light. Photographed at the Utah Museum of Natural History.
laelaps | August 10, 2009
A gull attempting to make a meal out of a crab. Photographed in Cape May, New Jersey.
Original image.
laelaps | July 9, 2009
A female widow skimmer (Libellula luctuosa), photographed in Mount Kisco, NY. Thanks to Rich for the identification.
laelaps | June 11, 2009
An Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata), photographed at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware
laelaps | June 8, 2009
An Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata), photographed at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware.
laelaps | June 6, 2009
A horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus), photographed at Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware. Many of the crabs that were stranded on the beach, but still alive, dug themselves into the sand near the water to stay moist during low tide.
laelaps | June 4, 2009
Two horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) making their way down the beach towards the water. Photographed at Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware.
laelaps | June 3, 2009
I haven't yet looked up the identification of this species, but this crab was clearing out its burrow at sunset at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge.
laelaps | June 1, 2009
A horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) sculling about in the shallows at Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware.
laelaps | May 29, 2009
A horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus), photographed at Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware.
This weekend I'm headed off to see the annual breeding explosion of horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) in Delaware Bay. During late May and early June, especially during the full and new moon, scores of the invertebrates with shield-shaped carapaces pile onto the beach to breed, and all those eggs provide a smorgasbord for migratory birds. I never would have guessed that such a natural spectacle occurred just a few hours away.
This will be my second attempt to see the horseshoe crab mating…
laelaps | April 10, 2009
An artist's restoration of Hurdia. From the Science paper.
It is not easy working on Cambrian fossils. The petrified treasures are found in only a few places in the world, and even though many exhibit exquisite preservation they come from a time when life on earth would have looked very unfamiliar. One such creature, Anomalocaris, was a three foot long invertebrate that swam by undulating a series of lobes on either side of its body. In front of its mouth were two spiked tendrils that may have helped situate prey items to be processed by its conveyor belt of crushing plates that was its…
laelaps | March 18, 2009
A very unusual reconstruction of Dimetrodon from the textbook Geology, based on a reconstruction by E.C. Case. Dimetrodon and other sail-backed creatures were once considered to have become too "spiny" to survive.
According to the old, if inaccurate, aphorism ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, or the development of an individual organism replays its evolutionary history. This idea was seen in the work of various scholars, from Ernst Haeckel to Sigmund Freud, but at the turn of the 20th century some paleontologists thought it could hold true stated the other way. Might the evolution of a…
laelaps | February 6, 2009
The shell of a horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) crawling withe ladybugs (Coccinellidae). Photographed at Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware.
laelaps | December 29, 2008I would not have expected the Italian actress, model, author, and filmmaker Isabella Rossellini to have ever used the phrase "I will dig my palpae in her epigyne!", but in her series of short films, Green Porno, she does that and more.
Developed for the Sundance Channel, Rossellini has created a series of films that makes Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation seem absolutely innocuous. Rossellini dresses up as a series of insects (often the male) and graphically reenacts the mating habits of the animals;
Here's the one she made about snails (DEFINITELY NSFW!);
You can find the rest…