Dragonfish are the stuff of nightmares with their oversized jaws and rows of fanglike teeth. The deep sea creatures may be only several centimeters long, but they can trap and swallow sizeable prey. How these tiny terrors manage to open their mouths so wide has puzzled scientists, until now. In most fish, the skull is fused to the backbone, limiting their gape. But a barbeled dragonfish can pop open its jaw like a Pez dispenser — up to 120 degrees — thanks to a soft tissue joint that connects the fish’s head and spine, researchers report February 1 in PLOS ONE.
BIG GULP This X-ray image reveals that a dragonfish has eaten a large lanternfish in a single gulp.
Nalani Schnell of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and Dave Johnson of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., examined preserved specimens of nine barbeled dragonfish genera. Five had a flexible rod, called a notochord, covered by special connective tissue that bridged their vertebrae and skulls. When Schnell and Johnson opened the mouths of the fish, the connective tissue stretched out. The joint may provide just enough give for dragonfish to swallow whole crustaceans and lanternfish almost as long as they are.
OPEN WIDE Some species of dragonfish (Eustomias obscurus shown) open their jaws like Pez dispensers, thanks to a flexible joint at the base of their skulls. The joint may allow the fish to swallow bigger prey, which they trap with their fanglike teeth. Other articles on the same theme:
It might be time for monkeys to have an intervention with themselves, because trying to mate with an unenthusiastic, non-monkey bystander is never a good look. And while the attempted coupling is nowhere near as violent as when that Antarctic fur seal sexually harassed king penguins before eating them alive, it’s so awkward, we just want to hand that monkey a tissue and run away. Filmed by French scientists in the dense cedar forest of Japan’s Yakushima Island, the bizarre behaviour involves a low-ranking Japanese macaque attempting to mount two female Sika deer before sliding off in disgrace. As The Guardian reports, this is only the second recorded example of sexual relations between these two distantly related species. At one point in the footage below, the monkey appears to have mounted a deer and ejaculated on its back, before deciding to casually pick at itself under a nearby tree. The deer licks away the evidence with such nonchalance, you can’t help but wonder if it’s all too familiar with the situation:
Later on in the footage, we see the monkey chasing off two other monkeys that got too close to the deer, because no one’s going to get in the way of him and his unwilling sex partner
So what exactly is going on here? The researchers who caught the behaviour on film, led by Marie Pelé from the University of Strasbourg in France, suspect that a hormonal surge prompted the monkey to seek out the Sika deer. Being of such low social status in his local monkey troop - the researchers refer to him as a "peripheral" male, meaning he’s only been permitted to occupy the fringe of the social circle - he probably couldn’t get a female monkey to mate with him if he tried. "It would be interesting to continue to observe these Japanese macaque male groups in Yakushima as this species is known to display cultural behaviours and social learning," team member Sueur Cédric told New Scientist. "As a consequence of not having access to females, these peripheral males could socially learn to have sexual interaction with Sika deer in order to decrease their sexual frustration." The fact that the deer barely react to the behaviour suggests that either they’re used to the peripheral monkeys trying to mate with them, or that the behaviour is similar to some more 'innocent' interactions between the two species. "It could be a manifestation of the known play behaviour between Japanese macaques and the deer they are known to sometimes ride," Pelé said. The good news that while the monkey might have successful relieved some tension thanks to the whole affair, it wasn’t a total loss for the deer. "[T]he licking behaviour shown by the deer seems to indicate that the sperm could be a good source of protein," the team reports. Good job, nature. Good job. Other articles on the same theme:
It looks like something out of a horror movie, with two dead eyes peering out of a pale patchwork of flesh, but that's a perfectly happy 'ghost shark' - otherwise known as a spookfish - cruising about in the deep sea off the coast of California. The species, which features retractable sex organs on its forehead, has never been seen on film before.
The individual has been identified by researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) as Hydrolagus cf. trolli - known commonly as the pointy-nosed blue chimaera.
Chimaeras: Strange Fish With a Cartilaginous Skeleton Owlcation
The "cf." in its species name indicates that its physical characteristics closely match the official species description for Hydrolagus trolli, but without DNA evidence, they can't be sure.
In fact, there's also the possibility that this isn't just the first ever footage of a live Hydrolagus trolli - it could be showing us an entirely new species of ghost shark. But because these fish are usually too large, fast, and agile to be caught by deep-sea roving vehicles, it's going to be incredibly difficult to find out for sure. "If and when the researchers can get their hands on one of these fish, they will be able to make detailed measurements of its fins and other body parts and perform DNA analysis on its tissue," "This would allow them to either remove the cf. from their species description, or assign the fish to a new species altogether." The footage was captured by an autonomous rover in the Gulf of California back in 2009, and researchers have only just released it to the public. The creature is a chimera - an order of deep-sea fish that split off from sharks in the evolutionary tree nearly 400 million years ago, and has remained isolated ever since. Chimaeras live on the ocean floor at depths of up to 2,600 metres (8,500 ft), and they have a permanent set of 'tooth plates' to grind their prey into pieces, unlike the conveyer belt of replaceable teeth found in sharks.
But perhaps their most creepy characteristic are the deep grooves cut into their flesh that make them look like something a serial killer stitched together:
Until now, the pointy-nosed blue chimaera has only ever been identified in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, particularly around Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia, from specimens dredged up in fishing nets. This new footage now suggests that the species has a much wider range than anyone had expected, and hints that it could range even further away from its known haunts have made researchers hopeful that it's not rare - just good at hiding. In reality, those grooves are called lateral line canals, and they form a system of open channels on the heads and faces of ghost sharks. They're thought to contain sensory cells that help these creatures detect movement in the pitch-black water.
You can see another view of them here, including the rows of dots that are also thought to be tiny sensory organs:
Photo: MBARI
"Similar looking, but as yet unidentified, ghost sharks have also been seen off the coasts of South America and Southern Africa, as well as in the Indian Ocean," Fulton-Bennett reports. "If these animals turn out to be the same species as the ghost sharks recently identified off California, it will be further evidence that, like many deep-sea animals, the pointy-nosed blue chimaera can really get around." The sighting has been described in Marine Biodiversity Letters.
You can see more footage of a ghost shark below - this species has a distinctive purple hue, and a serious parasite problem:
SpaceVR, a new startup, has signed a deal for the world's first satellite equipped with a camera capable of shooting video at 360 degrees to reach space. The vehicle, called Overview 1 will be placed aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket next summer, says Go4It. The ship will carry the satellite into the International Space Station, where it will be placed later on a low Earth orbit by NanoRacks LLC, the company that operates commercially module aboard the station.
Content to be recorded by the camera on Overview 1 can be seen through a VR headset. SpaceVR wants to do, ultimately, a permanent live broadcast from space via satellite. Customers will have to pay subscription to access the stream.
Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by go4it . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
