Let’s stick to the point here… Icana is the cutest face in your feed today. 📷: Debbie Beals
Sure is!
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Paddlefish have been referred to as “primitive fish” because they have evolved with few morphological changes since the earliest fossil records of the Late Cretaceous, seventy to seventy-five million years ago. There are two living species, the American paddlefish, which is native to the Mississippi River basin, and the Chinese paddlefish, which is critically endangered.
Paddlefish have electroreceptors on their rostrum (the paddle-shaped snout) which can detect weak electrical fields; this signals the presence of prey items. They have poorly developed eyes, and rely on their electroreceptors and other sensory pores covering their bodies for foraging.
Paddlefish can live up to 30 years or more; females don’t reach sexual maturity until they are 7 to 10 years old. Their slow reproduction rate has made wild repopulation in China difficult, but since 1988, China imports approximately 4.5 million fertilized eggs and larvae every year from hatcheries in Russia and the United States to combat over fishing.
(via typhlonectes)
A teeny tiny baby Coast Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma coronatum) found on McGinty Mountain in Southern California, USA.
Photograph by John Martin/USFWS
Attention beachcombers of the Pacific coast! Thetys vagina salps are here, they’re clear, and they’re washing up along the coast from Oregon to SoCal! They come in two variants: long chains of clones and solitary forms with long “tails.”
(As we’re sure many of you are snickering behind your screens, apparently this animal was named when the term ‘vagina’ simply meant ‘sheath’ before its application to human anatomy.)
They’re the largest of the West Coast salp species. Salps are filter-feeding gelatinous animals related to sea squirts. As larvae, they have vertebrate characteristics, making them more closely related to fish and humans than to jellyfish!
Photo 1: Joe Platko. A photographer snapping a shot of a clonal chain in Carmel Bay.
Photo 2: Andrea Dingeldein. A solitary Thetys vagina salp with distinctive tails off the coast of Big Sur.
Photos 3 and 4: Jon Anderson. Solitary and chain morph off Big Sur.
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Common wombat (Vombatus ursinus)
The common wombat is a marsupial, one of three extant species of wombats and the only one in the genus Vombatus. The common wombat grows to an average of 98 cm long and a weight of 26 kg. Common wombats are widespread in the cooler and better-watered parts of southern and eastern Australia, including Tasmania, and in mountain districts as far north as the south of Queensland, but is declining in western Victoria and South Australia. They may be found in a variety of habitats including rainforest, eucalyptus forest, woodland, alpine grassland, and coastal areas. In some regions, they have adapted to farmland and can even be seen grazing in open fields with cattle and sheep.Common wombats are a solitary, territorial species, with each wombat having an established range in which it lives and feeds. In this area, they dig a tunnel system, with tunnels ranging from 2 to 20 m in length, along with many sidetunnels. Common wombats are herbivorous, subsisting on grass, snow tussocks, and other plant materials.
photo credits: muzina_shanghai , JJ Harrison
It’s “watermelon” season at the San Diego Zoo! A 13-day-old endangered Baird’s tapir calf strutted his unique striped coat—with a watermelon-like pattern—before his scheduled bottle feeding at the Zoo’s Harry and Grace Steele Elephant Odyssey. Animal care staff are helping with assisted rearing of the youngster, along with daily interactions between the male calf and his mother Luna—and the other animals that share his mixed-species habitat, behind a protective fence. Read the full story: http://bit.ly/BairdsTapir18
(via cool-critters)
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“Zebra shark likes belly rubs. [video]
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“Zebra shark likes belly rubs. [video]
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American paddlefish (Polyodon spathula)
American paddlefish are basal chondrostean ray-finned fish closely related to sturgeons in the order Acipenseriformes. American paddlefish are one of only two extant taxa in the paddlefish family, Polyodontidae. The other is the critically endangered Chinese paddlefish which may now be extinct. American paddlefish are highly derived with adaptations specifically for filter feeding. Their rostrum and cranium are covered with tens of thousands of sensory receptors for locating swarms of zooplankton which is their primary food source. American paddlefish are endemic to the Mississippi River Basin. They commonly inhabited large, free-flowing rivers, braided channels, backwaters and oxbow lakes. American paddlefish are among the largest and longest lived freshwater fishes in North America. They have a shark-like body with an average 1.5 metres in length. American paddlefish populations have declined dramatically primarily as a result of overfishing and habitat destruction. In 2004 they were listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
photo credits: wiki, blickwinkel/Alamy, scienceforums
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