They Actually Eat That: Oysters.

Well, it's been a while since I did this column! I recently got back from New Orleans, AKA "foodie heaven." It's the best place ever if you want to try something you have never eaten before. I looove crawfish, and had my first taste of creole, which is its own thing. Alligator meat is...where else? Florida? A few farms? Basically, New Orleans is not Chicago, which could only ever win awards for "most poisonous junk food." There's really good, unique stuff, there.

Oh, and oysters. I can say I've had oysters, now.

Oysters are everywhere in New Orleans. It's hard to walk down a street there without seeing at least one oyster bar, or at least someplace selling oysters, on your way. Oyster shells can be picked up off the ground, if you have a good eye. Bourbon and Royal Streets, both interesting in their own rights, have their fair share of oyster bars as well as other fun things to look at (every sin known to man and antique stores, respectively).

It's not that oysters are as unique as alligator meat, but, rather, that New Orleans has a lot of them. New Orleans is located right along an estuary - a place where fresh and saltwater mix. This creates a home so ideal for the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) that several oyster reefs can be found right near New Orleans.

An oyster reef (or, confusingly, "oyster bar") is an area where successive generations of oysters thrive. There have been approximately 5,895 oysters recorded with in a single square yard of reef - that's 45 bushels, for the culinarily curious. Flatworms, small fish, and other molluscs all make their home in these massive oyster beds. Other things, such as cow-nose rays, also prey upon the oysters. There are plenty to go around, at least.

Source: Eatyourworld.com

So, how do they taste? It depends on how you eat them. If you coat them in butter, seasonings, or anything else, they'll almost inevitably taste like that dressing. It's a little hard to pick out the taste beneath that - I would call it more subtle than mussel. Eaten raw, they supposedly taste exactly like fresh and salt water - both at once. Eat them while you're in New Orleans, for sure.

A bonus point: raw oysters are a scientifically-proven aphrodisiac. Raw, and only raw, oysters, contain zinc and other minerals that boost sperm count. Casanova's secret is backed by scientific fact, so, while raw oysters sound good on a hot day anyways, don't be surprised to find more junk downstairs. If you feel the sudden urge to go down Bourbon St. after slipping in some raw oysters, nobody will blame you. I repeat: It is OK to have fun. 

New Orleans has a lot of creative food options. That said, I still haven't gotten bold enough to try escolar, which I did an entry on a while back. It's illegal in a lot of places, but my favorite N'awlins sushi haunt (Ginger Lime - Google map it if you're there!) is not one of them. 

Creature Feature: Apple Snail.

I apologize in advance for the video I am about to show you:



Yes, snails can actually be interesting to watch. I had the pleasure of seeing one of these up close and active. These are apple snails (family Ampullaridae), and they are among the most popular freshwater aquarium snails in the trade. The 6 genera in the family can be found in the freshwater areas of South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the lower parts of North America.  They are also marketed as "mystery snails," which is a complete marketing gimmick. These snails are far from a mystery, but still quite cool. We'll focus on Pomacea for now; other apple snails are fascinating in their own rights.

Apple snails are among the few truly amphibious snails. They have both primitive lungs and gills.  The mantle - the part of the body that yields a shell - is actually divided between the two types of respiration. Thankfully, most apple snails can stay aquatic; only if food runs out in the water will they move onto land. They have survived for over 50 million years for a reason.

The shell even looks apple-y.

That said, if you intend to breed apple snails, it is not as easy as it is with some other snails. Unlike most snails, apple snails have sexes - they aren't hermaphrodites. Each species of apple snail has its own egg-laying style and preferences, so adjust accordingly. We wish there was a cute Valentine's Day pic with snails, but these guys and girls sound difficult to sex properly.  If taken care of, some snails can get shells up to 6 inches in diameter.

Apple snails have mixed effects when introduced to non-native ecologies. In Taiwan, apple snails were marketed as a protein source, but fell flat on their not-faces and escaped into the wild after being unprofitable. The population then exploded; remember, these are versatile, adaptable creatures. Before they were bred in captivity, many apple snails were actually unwelcome hitchhikers in aquaria. Times change.

 Other people deliberately introduce apple snails (but not Pomacea) to out-compete and even eat more harmful snails that are vectors for parasites - some deadly, some just annoying. They are even eaten in Mexico. Mystery snails no more; apple snails are here to stay, but we make no promises about keeping the doctor away.

Newsflash: Mass Squid Beaching - A Sign of the End!

OK, I've been bad. It would be downright cruel to you all if I didn't do something relating to the apocalypse. December 21st, 2012 has come and gone, but nothing happened on that day. Some weird stuff happened before that day, but, with the exception of it being Friday (and therefore awesome by default), nothing happened.

Were there still signs of the end times? Sure. North Korea launched a "satellite" up into space. There were two mass shootings on the opposite sides of the country (no offense meant). Oh, and this, which happened on December 11th, 2012:



"Hundreds of squid intentionally stranded themselves on the shores of California and scientists only have guesses as to why. The Santa Cruz coastline is littered with squid carcasses. Sure, but what does the Bible say about this? Check the Book of Revelations...Nothing!?... Seriously!?...Ok... Check the Mayan Calendar...What, that doesn't say anything about this either?!...Fine, ask a Stanford professor...Oh. They say there's nothing to worry about? Probably just normal. Cool. That's great."

~Source.

I knew it was going to be Cthulhu. Even when people were ranting about the Four Horsemen and Judgement Day, global warming, and massive spiritual revelations, the most realistic answer turned out to be that Cthulhu is waking up from his millennia-long nap at the bottom of the ocean. Enjoy your sanity while it lasts, because it won't be around much longer.

Don't know who Cthulhu is (or why I bring him up around weird cephalopods)? You will...after looking him up on Wikipedia. 

Mollusc Week: I've saved the best for last.

Hoo boy, it's been a weird week. Molluscs are strange creatures in general, and picking out exceptionally strange or obscure ones makes them look even weirder. Cephalopods are slowly taking over the world. So, what could possibly top flying squid?

Tell me if this doesn't sound like crack to you: Antarctic oysters that can change sex.

Belongs to the Smithsonian. Yep, that's an oyster, all right.

Lissarca miliaris is far from an impressive oyster.  It's small, unassuming, and lives in a place that most sane people would dare not venture to. If it involves Antarctica and not penguins, people just plain won't go; this says nothing about one's willingness to dive beneath the ice for shellfish. Again, not penguins. Only marine biologists acknowledge this thing's existence.

These weird little oysters follow the same reproductive strategy that tunicates and some fish have: they start out as fertile males, then mature into egg-bearing females. They may also go back to being males when brooding their young. At first, researchers were only looking at breeding females; then they found males with the mollusc equivalent of "junk" as well as eggs. Yep, these little molluscs are genuine, natural, breeding hermaphrodites.

Of course, there is a natural advantage to changing sex. Antarctica is a harsh environment.  The more viable mating partners there are, the better; mating at a young age is also a good idea in such an environ. These oysters have all the reason in the world to be natural transexuals. Why should we think of them as freaks for it?

So yeah. There's your awesome week of molluscs! They solve mazes, stick really hard to rocks, fly, and now change sex! A few of them also taste terrible, but most of them can be seen at your local sushi bar. In case of mollusc world takeover,  prepare the tempura batter and chopsticks.

Mollusc Week: Japanese Flying Squid.

You knewJapan was going to make it on here. Somehow, somewhere, the oceans around Japan, AKA the Weirdness Archipelago, would turn up a mollusc so weird that this blog would have to cover it. Remember, the Japanese culture eats everything it possibly can from the sea; weird is on the menu. One could not expect, however, that Japan would be weird enough to yield baby eldritch overlords.

Baby Cthulhu, AKA the Japanese/Pacific Flying Squid (Todarodes pacificus), is exactly what it says on the label: A squid native to the Pacific Ocean around Japan down to Vietnam that, of all things, flies. All squid are predatory, so if you happen to see one of these hovering above you, your brains may not be safe. Squid have never been known to eat human organs, but there's always a first time. 

Now, like many "flying" animals, flying squid do not actually fly. The extended fins on their mantles are not capable of powered flight. They can glide up to 50 meters to avoid predators; while not impressive compared to arboreal creatures, that's still pretty far for whatever was trying to eat the squid. They also glide looking backwards, a feat that mammals and fish have only thought of in their wildest dreams. Wildest, stoned dreams.

They are, however, jet-powered gliders. The squid gets in the air via the same mechanic that it shoots out ink: jet propulsion. These squid simply get the eff out of the area instead of shooting ink. While this squid may not actually be able to fly, it's closer than most gliding animals simply by having a built-in engine. Rocky the flying squirrel doesn't count.

Worry not. These are small squid that are easily confused for flying fish. They only fly to escape...as far as we know. The cephalopod apocalypse is not near, but if we see bigger squid flying? Godzilla might be necessary. Also, get all the sushi chefs on this, pronto.

Mollusc Week: True Limpets.

As this clip demonstrates, some things in nature are more filmable than others. Guess what? We have to cover at least one boring mollusc here because, hey, it's weird and most of us probably never heard of it outside of science class or a Monty Python clip.

These are star limpets (Patelloida sacchroides). Source here will tell you more.

Meet the true limpet, i.e. any member of the large family Patellogastropoda. As the lengthy name might imply, limpets are related to snails and slugs, and true limpets can only be found on rocky coasts near the sea. The other limpets can be marine or freshwater, and some have even adapted their mantles to breathe air or survive intense conditions around hydrothermal vents. The big difference seems to be who has gills and who has 'lungs,' but there are so many false limpets that there may be more subtleties in the classification than that.  One would think that the false limpets would be far more interesting than the true limpets, which are about as active as presented in the "documentary" and are therefore very rarely covered on television.

Limpets are marine slugs with very odd houses. The shell of a true limpet is like a flat cone, making it blend in very well with whatever rock the limpet sees fit to adhere to. Some stay stuck so long that they get algae growing on their shells. The last time we saw that was with the three-toed sloth; algae is great camouflage.

Not sure how "true" these are. Please correct me if they're fakes. Source.

Limpets make sloths look active. They don't move very much, lest they dry out in the sun. When they do move, it is to scrape off algae from the rocks. This, too, is done very slowly. MOst of them are also under 3 inches long, so not only are they slow, they're small. Yep, that's Grade A documentary material, there.

Here's the kicker: Once a limpet really clamps down, it is impossible to remove through force alone.  The limpet would rather die than leave its rock - seriously, limpets will break if you try to pull them off. It's as futile as trying to pry a hardcore WoW addict away from his computer. They can even adjust their strategy to the type of predator. On the plus side, next time you meet a particularly stubborn person, call him/her a "limpet;" the joke may well be lost on them, but you can laugh to yourself.

And yes, finally, limpets can be eaten. The largest true limpet, the Mexican Giant Limpet (Patella mexicana,), is actually under threat from overharvesting. If limpets are around, people The shells of limpets are also valuable to some collectors, so as long as you can get them off the rock, a limpet can become a gold mine. Consider that every time you need help getting motivated; limpets are awesome once they let go of the rock.

"They Actually Eat That:" Chiton.

There are so many ways that people eat molluscs. Many of them are delicious; molluscs have only mild flavor on their own, so any cream, butter, or garlic makes them taste pretty good most of the time. It should be no surprise that we've tried to eat every squishy thing with a shell, right?

Chiton does not usually appear on menus in the mainland U.S. restaurants. It is, however, quite common in Caribbean and Alaskan cuisine. Native Americans in the U.S. also enjoy chiton. In other words, the main reason this is unusual is because "regular" people in the U.S. have a narrow definition of "food."

First off, I did not mention this in the chiton entry, but chitons can get huge.The Giant Pacific Chiton (or "gumboot"), enjoyed in the North American northwest, can get up to a foot (300 mm) long. A lot of it is guts and shell. Believe it or not, there is relatively little meat in this big thing here:

VIa Wikipedia.

The rules for eating chiton are about the same as eating abalone. This does not mean it is advised; chitons yield very little meat and have tough, rubbery hides. They are usually reserved for times of famine because of it, and please have a Native (no offense, guys) prepare your chiton for you should you still wish to eat one. Oh, and apparently "abalone" is the mollusc equivalent of "chicken;" everything is compared to it. 

Chitons have very interesting shells. They have eyes in there, for example. The last blog entry on chitons talked about how awesome that shell was. Underneath that awesome shell is a blob of meat waiting to be devoured. It should be absolutely no surprise that someone noticed the meat beneath the armor and tried to eat it. It's snail logic, basically.

Chiton: It's like snail, only with even less shell.

Mollusc Week: Giant Octopus + Octopus Wonders.

In the interests of givig xhitons and their squishy brethren their due, this blog proudly presents Mollusc Week! Yes, molluscs are weird, wonderful creatures that inhabit most types of water. They have soft bodies and have shells, not exoskeletons: (Fun fact: If you get a whole squid at a restaurant near a port, they might leave the small, iridescent, internal shell in for you.) Of course, not all of them have apparent shells, like today's number:

The Giant Pacific Octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) is exactly what it says on the can: a big octopus found in the Pacific Ocean. These particular octopuses prefer temperate waters. Like all octopuses, it is carnivorous, using a sharp beak to snatch and tear fish. The main distinguishing trait of these octopuses is their odd skin, which looks almost like leaves.

So, how giant is giant? The legs on a giant octopus can get 30 feet (9.1 meters) across. They could easily tentacle rape somebody with their arms (which is the correct term), but are by no means the krakens that people love marketing. They are, however, still impressive enough to be among the most filmed octopuses in the world. They never reach the massive sizes of giant squids...as far as we know.

More importantly, however, octopuses (in general)  are the magicians of the sea creature world. They can disappear into the background, escape from almost any prison that isn't entirely enclosed, and, of course, use the classic ink vanishing act. They can also solve mazes and open jars. A lot of octopus feats are better witnessed than described; how does that amazing brain fit through a tiny hole?!


Probably not a giant. Still impressive.

The only limit to an octopus's awesomeness is how big its beak is. In general, they are intelligent creatures who manage to do things that we thought only vertebrates could do. Yeah, chimps suddenly look really boring by comparison, don't they?

By the way, in case you were curious, octopuses make horrible pets. They are very sensitive to their environments, making them strongly affected by climate change and pollution. Also, they are escape artists. Please leave them either in the ocean or to real aquarium experts. 

Creature Feature: Chitons.

Some people really like the idea of techno-organic lifeforms. I don't just mean cyborgs - I mean, theoretically, lifeforms that are mechanical, but reproduce like normal organisms. How this would work, I have very little idea. On one level, however, nature has already beaten them to the punch:

Chitons (Polyplacophores) are a large group of molluscs that, once again, I feel guilty lumping into one entry. I am quite certain that they are all individually fascinating. Chitons are all marine and can be found in virtually any ocean, eating algae off of rocks with a sort of toothy tongue called a radula. The lined chiton (Tonicella lineata) above actually looks pretty trippy. Mollusc-lovers, please don't kill me.

Chitons are a lot like pillbugs. They roll up in defense and can ever roll away from predators. The 8-piece shell is still flexible enough to let the squishy creature beneath it climb up rocks and the like. When a chiton dies, its shells can be washed up on the shore; these are sometimes called "butterfly shells," but they look too edgy to be butterflies. 

This does not look real. Source.

Chiton shells contain a lot of the mineral aragonite. For those of you who know absolutely nothing about organic chemistry, aragonite is not a common organic compound. It's made of calcium, carbon, and oxygen, which are all pretty common, but it is a rock.

Although a lot of mollusc shells are blessed with aragonite in their structures, chitons are the only molluscs that use it like a suit of armor, curling up into calcerous balls while still being allowed to move freely when not under threat. That makes this mollusc the closest thing to a real-life golem on the planet. Sure, it's not quite a robot, but look at it. It's a footfall away from being the next Hex Bug. Get one on your Christmas list today!

Source.

That's not all. Chitons have done something that no other mollusc has ever done with their aragonite: evolved eyes in their shells. The aragonite in chiton shells forms simple lenses that can see light and dark above the armored little slug (again: please don't kill me, mollusc-lovers). THey can, amazingly enough, see equally well above or below water. The most ancient chitons do not have these eyes; if the fossil record is correct, this makes these pseudo-eyes the most recently-evolved eyes in existence. They're almost inorganic eyes.  Tell that to your eye doctor next time you need new glasses!

Although not quite cybernetic, it would be extremely easy to create a mechanical chiton with "eyes" in its metallic shell. Hell add something in there to strengthen the calcium; then we would have a real armored mollusc. The only issue would be making sure the fleshy part could reproduce. Just another thing for science to work on.

Creature Feature: Queen Conch.

Picking up shells on the beach is fun. You aren't supposed to do it, but it's fun anyways. Often, one gets so preoccupied in the shells that the original owners get ignored. For example, ever stop to wonder what's inside a conch shell?

Scary drawing a la Wikipedia. True to life.

...An eldritch horror, that's what. Say hello to the queen conch (Lobatus gigas / Strombus gigas), one of the most alien-looking snails ever. It is native to the Atlantic waters from Florida down to the top part of South America. Thankfully, it is an herbivore and only eats various types of seagrass - particularly turtle grass.

Fear factor 1: Queen conches are big.  They can get up to a foot (30cm) long after just a few years. Adult queens weigh about 5 pounds - way more than a paperweight. The expected lifespan of a single conch is 20-30 years, but age 40 is suspected. Oh, and they breed readily, too.

Found here. Will reappear in my nightmares.

Fear factor 2: Look into its eyes. Along with being huge as with the rest of the snail, queen conches have the most developed eyes of any gastropod. They have a fully-functioning lens and gold iris. It's like they have a vertebrate eye on the end of each stalk. Not even gonna mention that it's got a snout that looks an awful lot like a tentacle between those eyes. Nope.

Queen conches are popular snails. They can be found as captive-bred specimens in the exotic pet trade. They're treated as a delicacy in the Caribbean. Over-harvesting has upped their protection level on CITES, but they aren't endangered (yet). The good news is, this alien-looking snail (snailien?) is no threat. It is, in fact, perfectly edible so long as you mind the laws. Totally puts a new spin on shell-hunting, doesn't it? 

Creature Feature: Sea Hares.

Not enough good things can be said about sea slugs. Really, our land slugs might not be that pretty (and even then, there are a few exceptions), but sea slugs are almost uniformly gorgeous. Even if they aren't breathtakingly pretty, even species as simple as sea hares have their own unique charm.

Aplysia parvula looks quite fetching here. :)

The term "sea hare" covers a few genera, most notably Aplysia. Sea hares are closely related to snails, but the shell, if any, only covers important organs. They eat seaweed, so don't worry about getting bitten by monster slugs should you encounter one. They can be found in the warm waters of California, northern Mexico, and Florida - or, at least, the major ones can be found there. Others can be found in temperate and tropical waters around the world.

As is the norm with invertebrates, there are so many different sorts of sea hares out there that they could almost get their own month on this blog. We will try to focus on the two varieties of California sea hare, simply because they are the two most commonly used in science (Aplysia vaccaria and Aplysia californica).

Sea hares get their name from the pointy rhinophores sticking up out of their heads. They look like rabbit ears, but they aren't for hearing. They allow the slug to smell and taste. Some sea hares ever have extra projections that look like a little bunny tail, just to make the similarity even clearer. Maybe the old tales of everything on land having a parallel in the sea were not so far off, after all.



Sea hares,  like cephalopods, are capable of expelling ink to deter predators. This ink is colored dark red like blood, making it a gross-out factor for anything thinking of eating the slug. A few of them are also poisonous to dogs and fish, just in case the ink is not enough of a deterrent. A. vaccia does not have this ink; the A. californica above clearly does.

Sea hares are the largest gastropods in the world. Looking just at our two model species, A. californica can get some 30 inches (75 cm) from head to rear when fully extended. A. vaccia has topped at 99 centimeters, again when fully extended, and has been recorded at 14 kilos - that's more than 20 pounds in U.S. measurements and quite a lot of escargot.

Sea hares, specifically A. californica, are valuable model organisms in science. On the dissecting table, they have large, brightly-colored neurons that are easy for beginning students of neuroscience to pick out. Despite this simplicity, sea hares can be conditioned and taught simple tricks. The whole genome is being sequenced as we speak. It's just a tiny bit disturbing to know that some of the tricks in human cognition go all the way back to sea slugs, but at the same time, it's pretty cool.

Creature Feature: Giant Ghana Snail.

Normally, there is nothing remotely threatening about snails. Sure, they're slimy and have weird little antennae, but it's not like most snails would make good movie monsters. They have pretty shells and are too slow to be really intimidating. WALK FOR YOUR LIVES!



Actually, wait. That's...kinda terrifying, especially for a snail.

The giant Ghana snail, or, alternatively, giant tiger land snail, is exactly what its name says it is: a giant, terrestrial snail native to western Africa. It just so happens to sport a very attractive shell. It eats any number of plants. Very, very slowly. Luckily, they mean humans no harm.

How big is big? Since slugs are a bit hard to measure, scientists usually measure shell length/diameter. The largest shell ever found was roughly 30 cm long. Average length is around 18 centimeters. Use a converter if you like, but what you really need to know is this:




Did we mention that these are spreading around the world's humid regions? They make decent pets, but, if unleashed, can feed on over 500 different types of plants. They also breed like crazy. They are  frequently quarantined, but have not yet been established in the U.S. Florida is slowly developing a population, but they are not as big a problem as, say, Burmese pythons. India has it much worse; salting the snails is a daily occurrence.

The snails are, however, found almost solely in hot, humid areas - i.e. FLORIDA, the country's magnet for invasive species. French restaurants ought to be rejoicing. Everyone else...not so much.

Creature Feature: Dumbo Octopus.

The deepsea abyss is full of things that you thought only existed in nightmares. There are things with diminished eyes, huge jaws, tentacles, and other traits that make one wonder if R'lyeh was really Atlantis at some point. Maybe H.P. Lovecraft was right about evil gods living at the bottom of the ocean.



For example, this is baby Cthulhu. Or, if you prefer, the Dumbo octopus (genus Grimpoteuthis). Dumbo octopuses live in the abyssal depths of 3-4,000 meters, feeding on worms, bivalves, copepods, and, presumably, human souls. The largest of the Dumbo octopuses are 1.8 meters in length (almost 6 feet) but most of these cephalopods are smaller.

The Dumbo octopus gets its name from the cute earlike flaps on its head. They make it look somewhat like Disney's classic flying elephant as it swims through the water. It also has another method of crawling along the bottom in which it flattens itself into a pancake, which is just as adorable. This other style gives it the name "flapjack octopus."

As creatures of the abyss, they do not need the sophisticated camouflage seen in other octopus species. Instead, they employ light tricks similar to those of the vampire squid. They can do anything from making their skin glow to making it completely clear. When you live in a place with so little light, color does not matter nearly as much. They also have no suckers, simply because they do not need them.

Alas, Dumbo octopuses are rare. Some researchers have even called them the rarest of all cephalopods. As abyssal sea creatures and octopuses, they also fare poorly in captivity. They would probably make adorable pets if only we could keep them! Good thing this mini-Cthulhu is one of the least terrifying creatures this week.

Creature Feature: Geoducks.

We try not to turn this blog into a parade of dick jokes. That's what most of the internet is for. However, there are some times when we just can't help it. Nature sometimes THROWS dick and/or vulva at our collective face. Geez, nature, no wonder the Chinese consider geoducks an aphrodisiac:

 

 Those giant marine clams above are called geoducks (Panopea generosa). They are not ducks, and it's pronounced "gooeyduck." The name apparently comes from some corrupted Nisqually word meaning "dig deep," as they are rather large burrowing clams. Other fun names include "mud duck," "king clam," or "elephant trunk clam."

Geoducks are native to the coasts of Washington and British Columbia. They are the largest burrowing clam in the world (7.9 in/20 cm at largest), and can live over a hundred years (with the record being 168 years). Nobody really seems to care how large the shell is or how long they live; everybody wants to see the siphons, which...yeeaaah...



For those of you unaware of mollusc biology, bivalves like geoducks use their siphons for eating, breathing, excreting, and, yes, mating. Burrowing clams tend to have the longest siphons of any molluscs. The siphons of a geoduck can be up to a meter in length - a record among bivalves. Such a long extension also makes human males get inferiority complexes.

Geoducks happen to have some of the tastiest cock around. The siphon is valued by both Eastern and Western cultures for its meat, although some consider it an aphrodisiac anyways. (For once, China, we see eye to eye.) They sell in China for up to 168 USD per pound. A whole 80-million dollar industry has boomed over clam cock. Human porn, you have met your match in a single clam.

Creature Feature: Mimic Octopus.

Nature is full of awesome mimicry. We've already covered the pseudo-poisonous coloration of the king snake family. Viceroy butterflies are a good example of a non-toxic creature mimicking one with a bad taste. Mimicking a toxic/bad tasting species while being harmless yourself is called Batesian mimicry and is found throughout nature.



This octopus does that and then some.

Discovered in 1998, the mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) lives exclusively in the prey-rich areas of Indonesia and Sulawesi. It is considered the single most intelligent invertebrate in existence. Is it a manifestation of Cthulhu's almighty tentacles? Maybe.


In his city at R'lyeh, dread Cthulhu waits dreaming. Do not disturb.

All octopuses are carnivores, but they have predators, too. They are the masters of camouflage. Octopuses do not just change the colors of their skin, they change the texture as well. Push comes to shove, a lot of them have ink and can regenerate tentacles if one gets torn off. Octopuses have plenty of tricks up their sleeves simply by virtue of being Cthulhu's minions octopuses.

The mimic octopus makes other octopuses look like amateurs. It has excellent camouflage powers, copying other species of sea life in every way except genetics.

AWESOME chart from webecoist.com; feel free to open it in another window for a better look.

A number of factors affect what form the mimic octopus chooses to take. Depending on where it is located in the water, it can copy the shape and movements of a flounder (which is not like the friendly fish from The Little Mermaid at all) or the venomous lionfish with its flashy fins spread wide. Granted, the lionfish is not its most impressive imitation; for something without a spinal cord, it still does a damn good job.



If attacked, the mimic octopus may even imitate the aggressor's natural predator.  For example, a lot of things fear black and white sea snakes. They have good reason to; sea kraits are the third most venomous snake in the world and have menacing bands to look the part.  In a flash, the octopus can look like one of the most venomous creatures in the world. This is not just a color change; as you can see in the video, it makes its tentacles mimic the behavior of a snake as well.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg; the mimic octopus has been known to copy up to 15 different species with surprising accuracy. Somewhere, viceroys are jealous. No wonder it wasn't acknowledged by science until recently - it does a fine job of keeping its true identity under wraps.

Tomorrow: Speaking of, flounders are pretty weird fish in and of themselves!

"They Actually Eat That:" Escargot.

Humans really are omnivores. Pica (i.e. eating random stuff) aside, there is almost nothing that our stomachs cannot handle. Numerous zoo exhibits have pointed out that, despite the fact that we should be eating leaves with all the other Great Apes, we have evolved systems to work with meat as part of our diets. Screw pigs and goats; humans should be used as the classic "eats anything" animal.


If you watch the video of a goat eating a textbook on YT, the goat only takes a few pages before realizing that law texts do not even taste good.

This has been stated a million times and will never grow old: People eat what's around them. If there is a not-so-appetizing something around, chances are that we will try to eat it, no matter how poisonous it may be. (No doubt the toxicity of poison dart frogs was discovered the hard way.) We can do that; we're omnivores.

That means that we will even eat things that regularly feed on things that are already dead. Things like snails:



They Actually Eat That?!

And it's classy. Really, really classy. You probably know snail meat by the French name of "escargot," but many places eat land snails, from the U.S. to France to Laos and Vietnam. They rank up there with frogs in the category of "notorious French foods," despite their universal appeal.

The snails themselves are usually some species of the genus Helix (which in turn led to snail farming being called "heliciculture"). Eating snails goes back to the prehistoric days (hey, shells preserve well), proving that even ancient humans ate more different things than goats.


Helix pomatia, the Roman snail. Yes, the Romans loved snails, too.

Snails eat carrion, rotten plants, and leaves.  If just listening to some of those made you want to throw up, worry not; farmed escargot are fed grain and have all the toxins 'purged' out of them. Purging can consist of either feeding them grain like other livestock or, umm, starving them.



Escargot, like all molluscs, is low in fat and high in protein. This is, of course, barring any additions; usually, the sauce adds a couple hundred calories by itself. To get REALLY nutritious snails, one would probably have to boil and eat the poor snails oneself. (Also, avoid the canned snails at any cost; they supposedly taste TERRIBLE.) They provide a good "beginner's step" into 'weird' food regardless of their nutritional value.

(I will be giving these snails a try sometime in December-early January. Expect a video! Wish me luck on my THREE finals tomorrow, guys!)

Creature Feature: Colossal Squid.

OH MY GOD A COLOSSAL SQUID! It's a squid and it's colossal!

The Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) is one of the rarest cephalopods known. It lives in a nice, wide ring around Antarctica, which leads it to sometimes being called the "Antarctic Squid." This creature and the giant squids of the genus Architeuthis are probably what inspired tales of sea monsters like the Norse kraken.


The Greeks had other sea monsters  and a million crazy little islands to pick on.

The term "kraken" should ring a few bells if you have seen any crappy CGI flick at all.  It has become a generic modern term for "that giant-ass cephalopod," regardless of whether or not it should really be part of that particular mythological canon. Sometimes, all we see of a kraken are those giant tentacles wrapping around a ship.

Both the giant squids and Colossal Squid owe their massive size to abyssal gigantism. Because the deep-sea abyss is a high-pressure, isolated region, some creatures have evolved to massive sizes. The exact reasons for this phenomenon are unknown, but some theories include pressure resistance, scarcity or abundance of energy, delayed sexual maturity and/or slower metabolisms. Whatever the reason, the deep-sea abyss has yielded many creatures far bigger than their shallow water counterparts, including sperm whales, spider crabs, and of course giant squids.


Or you can blame Cthulhu, take your pick.

That said, how colossal is "colossal" according to science?



The most complete Colossal Squid is 14 meters long and weighs half a ton. In relative terms, that is at longer than a school bus. In squid terms, the giant squid still gives it a run for its money at 13 meters. "Colossal" is still a better name than "that squid only slightly bigger than the giant squid, but still large enough to make us wet ourselves," so let's forgive science on this one.

Creature Feature: Turban Snails.

This blog has been updating at a snail's pace lately. May as well do a snail.



If you are familiar at all with Japanese monsters, you have no doubt seen odd, spiky snail shells adorning a pink, hermitcrab-like monster. You may have also seen the monster "Cornutus" in the Korean MMORPG Ragnarok Online. Ever wonder where they came from? Well, wonder no more:



That snail is one of the many snails of the family Turbinidae, or "turban snails." The common name comes from their shells' resemblance to a turban; the scientific name has the same roots as the word 'turbine' - a  reference to a top used by ancient Roman children. There is another family called "top snails" that is similar to turban snails in several aspects.

Unlike most snail shells, the shells of turban snails spiral upwards. They are sometimes ringed with long spikes for protection. Turbo cornutus in particular has spikes curling all along the spiral of its shell.



Although the shell is the most visible feature to us humans, what really sets turban snails apart are their calcified opercula. The operculum is the 'door' that snails use to hide entirely inside their shells; in turban snails, it is a lot harder to break open. These have been used throughout history as incense and jewelery. Hell, some opercula from larger turban snail specimens have been used as paperweights.


This is Turbo marmoratus, one of the largest turban snails. It is native to the waters around Madagascar. Its shell is also a source of mother-of-pearl. 




Japan in particular has a rather interesting take on the turban snail. The turban snail is one of many animals that, after living for a certain amount of time, becomes a supernatural entity (a youkai). The result of a turban snail living for 30 or more years is called a "sazae-oni"- literally, "shellfish demon."



One of the most famous stories involving this youkai tells of an encounter with a group of pirates. After rescuing a beautiful woman from the sea, the pirates debated over who should have his way with her. She made it easy; she was all too willing to have sex with all of them. The next morning, the scallywags found that she had cut their nuts off, and tossed her back into the ocean. There she took the form of a giant turban snail; the pirates bargained with the snail for their balls back. The turban snail left with a hoard of pirate gold. (Testicles are sometimes called "golden balls" in Japanese (much like "jewels" elsewhere), so the pun is that gold was bought with gold.) Sounds like a good business formula to me.


Slowbro agrees.

Creature Feature: Spanish Dancer.

Did you know that you can get cold sores from stress? Well, you can, and I have two now. Enjoy this lava lamp in sea slug form while I collapse; I will be commuting a LOT in these next couple of weeks.



Soooo yeah, that's a Spanish Dancer (Hexabranchus sanguinus - what an awesome name!) is a carnivorous sea slug native to the Red Sea and Indo-Pacific Ocean. It is one of the largest nudibranchs around at over 40 cms long. Take out a ruler with centimeters and inches if you have to.

Besides floating around like it does above, it can move like a normal slug...but that swimming is so damn cool that nobody really cares. It was named, of course, due to its unique locomotion resembling a flamenco dancer's big, flowing skirt.

Night.

Creature Feature: Giant Clam.

Bivalves are cool. They make pearls. They look good and they taste good (well, to some people). Their shells are darn awesome, but not quite as awesome as some snails. Never has a bivalve seen the light of this blog...until now.



Meet the giant clam (Tridacna gigas). Its name says it all: This clam is the largest extant bivalve known to man. It is native to the South Pacific (they have more awesome fauna where this came from), and, owing to its great size, often carries a lot of stories with it. It is one of the most endangered clam species.


That's not an eye, it's a siphon. Really.

A little primer on bivalves: All bivalves, clams included, start their lives as little larvae called glochidia. These are mobile little critters that look an awful lot like Pac-Man would if he ever made a heavy metal album:


Those teeth are for latching onto fish, not eating your soul.

The giant clam goes from being a motile little Pac-Man larva to a sessile, gigantic clam. How big are we talking? The shell of the largest giant clam was 115 cm long, and it is estimated that the live weight was around 734 pounds (340 kg).


It's a clam and it's giant!

Along with being the world's largest clam, the giant clam produces the world's largest pearls. The largest pearl on record, the Pearl of Lao Tzu, was given to Wilburn Cobb by a Philippine chief in 1939. This pearl is 24 cm's in diameter and weighs 6.4 kg (9.45 pounds). Later, Cobb told a story about how the pearl was cultivated in successively larger clams until it reached this massive size. Since its discovery, it has been dubbed "the Pearl of Lao Tze" and "the Pearl of Allah." It currently resides in the private collection of Victor M. Barbish, so should you ever desire a giant calcified bird dropping, you know who to go after.


You would have to be an eccentric billionaire to want it to begin with, really.

The giant clam gets its food from the algae growing in its shell. Every so often, it opens its shell to let the algae photosynthesize. These algae are what allow it to get so big; hey, if Popeye could not convince you that veggies were a good thing, perhaps a giant clam can.