Solar sails and nebulae

fuckyeahdinoart:

Spino by ~DeEtta

inlovewithgeosciences:

Ordovician sea

“Astraspis (at the bottom) and the Arandaspida (at the top) (Arandaspis, Sacabambaspis, and a couple of others). They’re not known from the same area though. Astraspis is from North America, and the arandaspids are all from South America or Australia.

There’s evidence of arandaspids right through the Ordovician.”

Meet Gilbert, a 2.5 centimetre long nudibranch with a massively oversized gill, based on a living one of the same name (which was quite a lot smaller, and had a sensibly sized gill)

I imagine I’ve altered the colours and patterns on him quite a bit, since I was working from memory and have only a limited number of bead colours. I say him, but since nudibranchs are hermaphrodites it doesn’t matter which pronoun you use. 

Interesting fact: The word nudibranch means ‘naked gill’, and refers to the large external gills (that can often be retracted) in some species.

denizensofearth:

Kinkajou, Potos flavus

there’s a special on procyonids this week.:3 Cousin of the olingo, the Kinkajou lives in the tropical forests of Central and South America, where they spend most of their time in the trees. They are able to turn their feet backwards to run easily in either direction along branches or up and down trunks. The kinkajou also has a prehensile tail that it uses much like another arm. Kinkajous often hang from this incredible tail, which also aids their balance and serves as a cozy blanket while the animal sleeps high in the canopy.

Kinkajous are sometimes called honey bears because they raid bees’ nests. They use their long, skinny tongues to slurp honey from a hive, and also to remove insects like termites from their nests. Kinkajous also eat fruit and small mammals, which they snare with their nimble front paws and sharp claws. They roam and eat at night, and return each morning to sleep in previously used tree holes. Kinkajous form treetop groups and share social interactions such as reciprocal grooming. They are vocal animals—though seldom seen, they are often heard screeching and barking in the tropical forest canopy.

Female kinkajous give birth to one offspring in spring or summer. The baby is born with its eyes shut and cannot see for a month. It develops quickly, however, and by the end of the second month, it is already able to hang upside down from its tail.

(x)

(via rhamphotheca)

rhamphotheca:

This swimming polychaete worm uses its long squid-like tentacles for breathing. The worm was spotted at a newly discovered hydrothermal vent field along the Galapagos Rift.

Be sure to check out the video of these worms swimming through the water column…very cool:

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex1103/logs/dailyupdates/media/movies/0722_polychaete_worm_video.html.

(photo: NOAA Ocean Explorer)

rhamphotheca:

500-Million-Year-Old Sea Creature With Limbs Under Its Head Unearthed

by Tia Ghose

Scientists have unearthed extraordinarily preserved fossils of a 520-million-year-old sea creature, one of the earliest animal fossils ever found, according to a new study.

The fossilized animal, an arthropod called a fuxhianhuiid, has primitive limbs under its head, as well as the earliest example of a nervous system that extended past the head. The primitive creature may have used the limbs to push food into its mouth as it crept across the seafloor. The limbs may shed light on the evolutionary history of arthropods, which include crustaceans and insects.

“Since biologists rely heavily on organization of head appendages to classify arthropod groups, such as insects and spiders, our study provides a crucial reference point for reconstructing the evolutionary history and relationships of the most diverse and abundant animals on Earth,” said study co-author Javier Ortega-Hernández, an earth scientist at the University of Cambridge, in a statement. “This is as early as we can currently see into arthropod limb development.”…

(read more: Live Science)            (photos: Yie Jang, Yunnan Univ.)

rhamphotheca:

Fossils of the Cambrian Period

Arthropods from the Burgess shale, such as the trilobite Olenoides (left) and a chelicerate called Sidneyia (right), exploded in morphological diversity following the so-called Cambrian Explosion.

(via: Live Science)            

(photo: Smithsonian Institution, Courtesy of Douglas Erwin)

rhamphotheca:

Fossils of the Cambrian Period

Orthrozanclus reburrus (“Dawn scythe with bristling hair”) is a sea creature known from the Middle Cambrian (~505 million years ago) Burgess shale, about one cm long, with long spikes protruding from its armored body… 

(read more: Wikipedia)            

(photo: Marianne Collins (C)AAAS/Science-2007)

rhamphotheca:

Pacific Leatherback Turtles’ Alarming Decline Continues

by Becky Oskin

The Pacific leatherback turtle’s last population stronghold could disappear within 20 years if conservation efforts aren’t expanded, a new study finds.

Most of the Pacific Ocean’s leatherback turtles, at least 75 percent, lay their eggs at Bird’s Head Peninsula in Papua Barat, Indonesia. The number of leatherback turtle nests at the peninsula’s beaches dropped 78 percent between 1984 and 2011, the study discovered.

“If the decline continues, within 20 years it will be difficult if not impossible for the leatherback to avoid extinction,” Thane Wibbels, a biologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), said in a statement. “That means the number of turtles would be so low that the species could not make a comeback.”…

(read more: Live Science)            

(photos: T/BL -  NOAA; B - rustinpc/Flickr)

earthlynation:

peek-a-boo by jon kroupa

(via earthandanimals)