todropscience: “ FANTASTIC! RECENTLY DISCOVERED RUBY SEADRAGON SPOTTED IN THE WILD FOR THE FIRST TIME Until 2015 only two species of seadragon were known, the leafy seadragon and the common seadragon, both from Australia. But that year, a new...
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todropscience: “ FANTASTIC! RECENTLY DISCOVERED RUBY SEADRAGON SPOTTED IN THE WILD FOR THE FIRST TIME Until 2015 only two species of seadragon were known, the leafy seadragon and the common seadragon, both from Australia. But that year, a new...
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todropscience:

FANTASTIC! RECENTLY DISCOVERED RUBY SEADRAGON  SPOTTED IN THE WILD FOR THE FIRST TIME

Until 2015 only two species of seadragon were known, the leafy seadragon and the common seadragon, both from Australia. But that year, a new species of seadragon, the ruby seadragon was discovered, knowly from four preserved specimens, leaving many aspects of its biology unknown. It was the first seadragon species to be discovered in 150 years.

Now we know little more about them. Researchers has made the first live observations of the ruby seadragon in the wild, at Recherche Archipelago, Western Australia.

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According to videos, the ruby seadragon clearly live in shallow waters (30~50m depth) in a very different habitat compared to their relatives. The ruby seadragon, unlike to other seadragon, has no leaf-like dermal appendages  and has a curled, likely prehensile tail with a yellow tip. It appears that at these low-light depths, an efficient camouflage strategy for ruby seadragons is to rely on cryptic red coloration.

dynamicoceans: “Octopuses move with a simple elegance, but they have no rhythm. Each of an octipus’s eight arms is soft, flexible and muscular, and acts as if it has an infinite number of joints. The cephalopods are bilateral symmetric, which means...
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dynamicoceans:

Octopuses move with a simple elegance, but they have no rhythm.

Each of an octipus’s eight arms is soft, flexible and muscular, and acts as if it has an infinite number of joints. The cephalopods are bilateral symmetric, which means their left and right sides are mirror images of each other. Most bilateral-symmetric animals face forward when they are moving.

But octopuses can crawl in any direction relative to their body orientation. They don’t have to turn their bodies to change direction; one of an octopus’s arms can simply push off of a surface and propel the animal any which way.

The scientists also found that the octopus moves by shortening and elongating its arms, which creates a pushing thrust. The animal does not move by bending or pulling its arms, which simplifies matters for the creature.

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