That which dwells in the deep…
Seattle Aquarium
Humpback whales use a special hunting technique known as bubble net feeding. Whales, either individually or in a group, swim in a shrinking circle, blowing bubbles below a school of prey. The shrinking ring of bubbles encircles the school and confines it in an ever-smaller cylinder. The fish trapped in the middle of the bubble net are then eaten in one go as whales rise from below with an open mouth.
Pictures by Wayne Davis and Christin Kahn
Wow! I’ve never seen this from above before! So cool!
(via moreanimalia)
Source: watershedplus
Sleepy red #octopus in a bauble. (Or it may have been shy. There were a ton of people around.)
#sleepyanimals #aquarium (at New England Aquarium)
Octopus Eyes Are Crazier Than We Imagined
by Maddie Stone
The latest fascinating cephalopod insights come to us from a father/son team of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University, who’ve learned that weirdly-shaped pupils may allow cephalopods to distinguish colors differently from any other animals we know of. The discovery is published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.
Boring animals like humans and birds see color using a combination of light-receptive cone cells, each of which contains pigments that are sensitive to a different part of the visual spectrum. It’s only by combining information from different cone cells that colors can be properly distinguished. Hence, when a person lacks a particular type of cone, he’s considered colorblind.
Cephalopods only have a single type of light receptor, which means they should not be able to distinguish color at all. And yet, many octopuses, squids and cuttlefish have color-changing skin that’s used for elaborate camouflage ruses and courtship rituals. Clearly, these colorblind animals have become masters of color manipulation. How? …
(read more: Gizmodo)
photographs: NOAA, Roy Caldwell, and Klaus Stiefel
Jellyfish! My other favorite aquarium thing. I love moon jellies, but the little tiny mushroom guys were my favorite this time. Too tired to Photoshop out that glare on the glass, but maybe I’ll come back to it if I ever want to use these pictures for anything.
(via moreanimalia)
Source: kittendrumstick
DYSMORPHOPHOBIA … Soon … @jonathanlevinegallery #colorpencil #coloredpencils #moleskine #gaia #lemur #dysmorphophobia
Baby octopus photo by Chris is Playa Del Carmen, Mexico
