The Panther

Katie's lecture on our Fast Plants' anthers got me thinking about TA panthers. One thing lead to another, and before I knew it, a famous little poem by Ogden Nash came to mind:

The Panther

The panther is like a leopard,
Except it hasn't been peppered.
Should you behold a panther crouch,
Prepare to say Ouch.
Better yet, if called by a panther,
Don't anther.

A little poem that should be in everyone's memory bank I think. Connections. Even if they appear a little random at times. Let your mind dance.

OK - please proceed to this week's actual post below!

MEET THE BEETLE!

Wow.
Yes, it's real, but the question of course is: Why? If evolution is driven by natural selection for best fit within an organism's environment, what possible advantage could such armor provide? Why on earth would a beetle develop such horns? Why for that matter would an Irish elk (now extinct) carry around a rack with a width of 10-12 feet and a weight of 70-90 pounds? And why on earth would a peacock develop those beautiful, yet extraordinarily cumbersome feathers? When in flight, peacocks make turkeys look as graceful as geese.

Darwin theorized that another evolutionary process was at work in cases such as these. He called it sexual selection. Basically, Darwin theorized that females would choose mates who would offer the most protection, or the most successful hunter, or highest quality genetic material. Recent studies seem to bolster this idea.

Researchers tried shortening some of the plumage on male peacocks. Not dramatically - just a few inches. Yet the outcome was indeed dramatic in terms of preferences expressed by the peahens. Males with cut feathers were passed by in the mating process. Regardless if they were known or unknown to the females. Peahens seemed to make a conscious choice to select the males with the more extravagant plumage to father their brood.

Other organisms develop weapons to fight for the attention of the female. The Irish Elk is one of many animals that carried it's weapons around with it. Males actively fight for the females' attention. The greatest warrior won. Many examples of this remain today.

In the case of the rhinosaurus beetle pictured, an evolutionary arms race began millions of years ago that lead to the pronounced claws on the beast. This dung beetle doesn't merely push its ball of dung along a path for furtive consumption. It burrows under the dung, and drags the dung into its own tunnel network for storage and consumption. These tunneling beetles have developed their armor and huge claws not for defense, but rather as a warning. Two males may approach, they wave their claws, they perceive the threat to each other, and one will aver and back away. Claws may interlock, and the combatants may assess their relative strength, rather than inflict actual damage. Males can signal the intent, as well as their relative strength. And once again, females notice this, and it plays a role in sexual selection.

What about humans? As noted in the NY Times article which discussed this, our teeth are puny. We don't have claws. We don't look terribly menacing. (Well, most of us) But we DO manufacture our weapons. We do signal our intent. Think of the samaurai's sword. Or the military parades of tanks and gun carrying soldiers. Or the opening of the movie Iron Man.

But I gotta tell you - if I can find a helmet on eBay that looks like this rhinosaurus beetle....it's mine.

(the article on which this post is based can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/science/24armo.html?pagewanted=1&ref=science)

The Right Whale (early post for Anya!)

As you know, this past Friday I attended a workshop. The keynote speaker, and workshop presenter, was Tom Wessels, author of Reading The Forested Landscape, and a professor of biology and environmental science at Antioch College. (btw Katie, he says "hello"). Tom's presentation was wonderful, but his talk was full of the caveats that biologists seem so focused on at this point in time; ie, climate change, loss of habitat, species extinction etc. At the end of the workshop, we talked, and I asked him how he responds to his students when they ask the same question I here from many of my students: Is there any good biology news? It all seems so bleak - what can we do? What can we hopeful about?

Tom told me that he responds by telling his students that we are, indeed, on the verge of a sixth "great extinction", but not to despair - human life as we know it will disappear but life, and the earth, will go on to renew itself and prosper.

Oh. Somehow I was hoping for more.

Fortunately, I read an article in the New York Times which offered me more hope. A lot more hope.

As some of you know, I'm very interested in the history of whaling in the United States. Whaling was a brutally hazardous way of making a living, but a necessary one. Whaling providing the world with a much needed commodity: whale oil. Whale oil lit the world prior to the invention of the light bulb. And whale oil was an important energy source prior to the discovery of the oil fields in the Middle East, and the creation of the refineries that created gasoline.

Whalers lead dangerous lives. The hunters' prey were the objects of callous and brutal hunting practices. In one famous historical incident, the Whaleship Essex was repeatedly rammed by a ferocious bull Sperm Whale who decided that he had taken enough. This incident probably served as the model for Herman Melville's creation, Moby Dick.

The Right Whale is a calm, slow, curious behemoth of the North Atlantic. It has lots of oil and baleen, (used by the mammal to filter food out of its waters, and used by humans for corsets), it swims close to the shoreline, and when killed, it floats on the water's surface. Curious, slow, docile, full of oil and easy to retrieve. Whalers of the 19th century named it for what it was: the right whale to kill.

By 1900, Right Whales were hunted to the brink of extinction. Their worldwide population had dwindled down to 100. Scientists were certain that the large mammal, that typically gives birth to a single calf, would not reproduce at a rate needed to sustain the population. In other words, the Right Whale appeared to be heading to certain extinction.

But a funny thing happened. People began to care about whales. Their value as an eco-tourist entity (ie,whale watching trips) began to out value their market value as a resource. As a result, many countries, including the United States, began to put legislation in place to protect the Right Whale, and other marine mammals.

During the past couple of decades the Right Whale, and several other species, have given scientists cause for hope. In 2001, a record number of Right Whale calves were born - 31. This past year, the record was broken with the birth of 39. These numbers have little to do with ocean habitat change, or food availability, or changes in acid precipitation. Rather, they're a reflection of people caring, and working to change human behaviors and their impacts on other creatures.

This article really gave me cause for hope. If we can bring the Right Whale back from the verge of extinction, there's hope for many of the other creatures currently at risk throughout the world.

Even ourselves.

I encourage you to take a look at the complete article, and its embedded slide show at
www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/science/17whal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=science

Oh yeah...AND THE WINNER IS.....

"Yeah, my water left me for a potato with a higher salinity concentration......"
Congratulations to Dan G.!

Please keep reading for your response to the next post...

NAME THE OCTOPUS!

You can tell it's a slow night at my house. Actually, I'm just pooped after having a grandchild's 3rd birthday family celebration here. So - you get off light this week! (Use the time wisely -)

Use your comment to name the octopus! No simple name (not "Bessie") but a fake scientific name that you explain. Format: Capitalized Genus has to be Octopus followed by lower case species name of your choice. You can use fake latin. The common octopus, for example, is Octopus vulgaris.

My entry: Octopus bos cephalus, because the whole beast looks like a cow's head.

("The cow is of the bovine ilk; one end is moo, the other milk." Ogden Nash)

Best name wins a mini Snickers..........and don't try to milk the octopus for all it's worth.

(then, for further amusement - read the cartoon below)

Speaking of cephalopod intelligence.....

Oh, it's a little random, I know.

It was originally sent to me by my daughter (who was a bio major). (Disclaimer: This comic does not represent the views of the blogger, his students, his employer, his school or his personal views towards his colleague who teaches chemistry and physics. We respect chemists and physicists, and even socialize with them on occasion. We also respect and honor cuttlefish. We do not condone the training of cephalopods to do harm. We think of them more as, "cuddle fish".) (Sort of)

(Not really)

It's pretty funny though.......(you can click on the picture to enlarge it, so it's easier to read)

TWO BEES OR NOT TWO BEES? THINK ABOUT IT.

Let’s continue with our thoughts on octopus intelligence.

When we speak of intelligence, we can find ourselves on a slippery slope. I once heard a biologist make a strong case for the exhibition of signs of intelligence in the slime mold.

Yes; a slime mold.

Slime molds, like other fungi, reproduce by releasing spores. When these spores become moist they go on an amoeba-like prowl, seeking bacteria to eat. Once they chow down on bacteria, they become a moving mat called a “plasmodium”. Plasmodia may move several feet a day. When conditions dry up, or they no longer have a decaying log or plant to lay on, they go into a “puffball” stage, in which they produce more spores. The puffballs are carried by the wind to infect new areas.

Few of us would question whether the slime mold is alive. You can run down the typical characteristics of life and find examples of growth, development, response to environment, homeostasis, et al. But intelligence? I think the jury is still out on that one.

To me, (and other scientists, more well versed in neuroscience than your humble teacher) intelligence is demonstrated through a demonstration of consciousness regarding one’s actions. We have recently seen examples of this among orangutungs, and last week’s “post”-er star, the octopus (octopi? octopuses?). Remember that the stealth killer octopus did return to his tank, only to repeat his actions on another night, remember? That’s either intelligence, or an indication that the cephalopod in question has seen way too many episodes of Dexter.

It’s one thing to debate intelligence in primates, marine mammals, or cephalopods – but what about bees? This month’s Scientific American contains a story on scientists’ exploration of consciousness among our little furry pollinating friend, Apis mellifera.

You can read the brief article here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=exploring-consciousness

(I'm afraid you'll have to cut and paste the link in your adddress bar - it isn't going live for some reason. Probably something to do with my intelligence......)

Please focus your comment specifically on this article, rather then a simple statement of your personal opinion on whether or not bees (or slime molds) are intelligent.

Maybe our next cake should have the shape and texture of plasmodia? Yummy!

OCTOPUS'S GARDEN

Big news this week from Santa Monica California.

One of their star octopus (octopuses? octopi?) Tried to make a get-away by swimming to the top of her tank, disassembling the valve that lets water into her tank, and making an attempt to get out. (She wound up releasing about 200 gallons of water all over the aquarium's floor). A planned escape sounds a little far-fetched, perhaps? Well, think back to the DVD we watched about Orangutang behavior. Octopus (octopuses? octopi?) are also pretty darn smart.But are they intelligent?

"Octopuses have a wonderful combination of intelligence, tremendous manipulative ability, curiosity, and strength," says Jennifer Mather, a psychology professor at Canada's University of Lethbridge who has studied cognition in octopuses. Indeed they do - at least so far as curiousity and strength go. Yet they can also be extraordinarily gentle and delicate. Octopuses (octopi?) actually appear to caress each other during mating. And they are gentle, caring parents.

They can also be devious. A few years ago an octopus in the New England aquarium made nightly raids on another tank, attacking and eating fish in the central tank, and then slithering back to its own tank after finishing its meal. Aquarium workers were perplexed, not knowing why fish seem to be disappearing from the central tank on a regular basis. It was only when they set up night-time cameras that they witnessed the gelatinous blob slithering from one tank to another, and then returning to its lair.

As members of the phylum cephalopod, literally "head-foot" they do not have the conventional body plan seen throughout the animal kingdom. Basically, there is no central body section, or thorax. What we refer to as arms, are actually the equivalent to legs/feet - hence their name.

Cephalopods, which also include squid, have highly evolved brains. Biologists hypothesize that these complex brains are put to good use in managing a multitude of chamoflage colors and patterns, that may also allow cephalopods to communicate. This seems to be particularly true in squid. Celphalopod communication through color pattern helped influence the final climactic scene in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, where Steven Spielberg hypothesized are initial communication with aliens would be through sound and light.

What evidence do we have of cephalopod intelligence? Why do we suspect that this octopus was trying to make a run for it?

Check out this video:

And she is not a "gifted octopus". This type of problem solving behavior has been seen in many individuals.

Still, some people continue to question whether this is evidence of "intelligence". What to you think? Provide a comment that demonstrates YOUR intelligence (sorry - couldn't resist.)

PS - The title of this entry brought to mind a Beatles trivia question - first person who posts the correct answer gets, um, something. Here it is: What was the original working title of The Beatles movie, "Help!"?