The aardvark is the only living species left in the order Tubulidentata (literally “tube of teeth”). This order of mammals dates back to the Eocene, and once ranged across Eurasia and Africa. It has a completely unique dental structure where each tooth is made, not of enamel, but thousands of vertical tubes of dentine.
All good things must come to an end, and #CephalopodWeek is no exception. But take heart! Before we close out this celebration of some of the world’s most astonishing invertebrates, we’re highlighting some of great content that this event inspired.
Our colleagues at @sciencefriday explored both the biology and psychology of octopuses (not octopi!) in this video:
Meanwhile, the @montereybayaquarium Research Institute (MBARI) assembled a remarkable highlight reel of cephalopods from around the world:
Crawling, swimming, squeezing, jetting—the range of movement available to an octopus is impressive. Yet some species occasionally choose to stand up on two arms and “run” backwards. Chrissy Huffard, a Senior Researcher at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, explains the pros and cons of this seemingly silly behavior and why an octopus might find looking foolish useful.
Wildlife photographer and scientist Danté Fenolio has a new book full of creatures that have evolved to thrive deep inside of caves, at the bottoms of oceans and underground. It’s called Life in the Dark and it comes out today. These are just a handful of the hundreds of the images in the book.
Some of the species in this book have never been photographed. Some (like the larval octopus at the top of this post) have never been described by science.
Günther’s Boatfish is a dragonfish with luminous spots called photophores along the length of its body.
The Golden Harlequin Toad is now extinct in nature thanks to the plague of amphibian chitrid fungus.
This bioluminescent mushroom is an undescribed species.
Waterfall Climbing Loach use their strong fins to crawl out of water and eat bacteria growing on rocks. This specimen was found in a cave in Thailand.
This cave house centipede was found in a Chinese cave.
The Square Pink Anthias lives in deep canyons near reefs called “drop-offs.” Weirdly, its bright colors aren’t visible at these depths - but its patterns are.
The candiru is a South American catfish that enter the dark gill chambers of other fish and eat their gills. They will haunt my nightmares forever.
Here’s a photo of Fenolio holding a giant Japanese Spider Crab (credit W. W. Lamar).
