A Komodo dragon in Wichita, Kansas gave birth to two boys last week. However, the mother has not been in contact with a male dragon since 1993 – when she was only 1 year old.
It’s possible that she had been holding onto some sperm for all those years; Komodo dragons have been known to do that. But many are calling the two hatchings “virgin births.” Zoo officials are checking it out.
Apparently, “virgin births” have been documented several times in the animal kingdom. A female hammerhead shark gave birth in Nebraska a few years ago, despite living in an all-female tank. A virgin bamboo shark had kids a year later in Detroit. The phenomenon is called parthenogenesis. It’s common among invertebrates and has occurred a few times in other fish and reptiles.
Parthenogenesis is good in the short term – it allows endangered species such as Komodo dragons to keep on breeding. But it can be terrible down the road. No father means less genetic diversity in the group and possibly weaker offspring for generations to come.
Dawdling deep beneath eastern Africa is one of the quirkiest mammals alive: the naked mole rat. The oddball rodent is bald, basically blind, buck-toothed, cold-blooded, and – we now know – immune to the stinging pain of acids.
It could chow down on chili peppers or trot through acids without feeling any irritation.
This invulnerability comes from another biological eccentricity – naked mole rats lack a chemical called Substance P, which triggers the feeling of burning pain in other mammals.
"Their insensitivity to acid was very surprising," professor Thomas Park told LiveScience; he’s a neurobiologist from the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Every animal tested – from fish, frogs, reptiles, birds, and all other mammals – every animal is sensitive to acid."
(Credit: Rochelle Buffenstein, City College of New York)
Mole rats probably evolved this resistance after centuries of crawling through oxygen-starved tunnels. As the rodents exhale, these tight passages build up high levels of carbon dioxide, which can turn the air acidic.
Normal air is less than 0.1 percent carbon dioxide. At 5 percent, humans will “feel a sharp, burning, stinging sensation in our eyes and nose,” Park said. But naked mole rats “live in up to 10 percent carbon dioxide.”
Park hopes that by studying mole rats scientists can discover new ways to treat people with chronic pain. We need your help, little guy!
In English, "shrimp" is an insult. It refers to the small, the weak, and the defenseless (like Monster-Watch writers). But don't assume the same about every shrimp in the ocean. Here are the shrimp who make other creatures cower-- the shrimp who make humans think twice-- the shrimp who could form their own superhero team. (And, for your edification, what X-Man each shrimp would be.)
Pistol Shrimp: Pistol shrimp (family Alpheidae) have one of the most unbelievable adaptations in the known world: they can fire concussive bursts created by a superfast claw-snapping action.
The key is in the pistol shrimp's mighty claw. One of a pistol shrimp's claws is oversized and specially built. The claw can lock into a cocked position, then suddenly snap shut, creating a cavitation wave (that's a hole in the ocean to you and me) as loud as the songs of sperm whales. How loud is that? 4 centimeters from the claw, the pressure is 80,000 pascals, or about 790 times standard atmospheric pressure.
But it's not just a snap, it's a cavitation wave. The shockwave from the snap shoots through the ocean with enough force to kill a small fish. I am so serious.
So for its powerful concussive energy blasts, (and the awesome action figures that the snap-claw would make) the pistol shrimp joins the X-Shrimp as Cyclops.
Mantis Shrimp: Okay, so these beachside behemoths aren't technically shrimp; but hey, they ain't mantises either. (They are called "prawn killers" in Australia, and "thumb splitters" by divers everywhere.) They're crustaceans, though, from the order Stomatopoda, and they're freaking huge. They range from 3 cm (small) to 30 cm (12 inches) or more; the biggest was measured at 38 cm (just under 16 inches, or, freaking huge)! They also range in color from brown to 60's-flashback neon. Worst of all, unlike almost all crustaceans, they'll actively hunt and fight their prey-- and trust me, the mantis shrimp will win.
Mantis shrimp are divided into two categories: spearers and smashers. (Seriously!) Spearers' claws have spiny appendages with barbed tips that stab and snag prey like a hooked arrowhead. But it's the smashers, whose claws are like huge clubs (with sharp cutting edges on the incurve) that make our supershrimp team.
What gets these guys on the team is their super-strength. How strong are they? Well, smashers can lash out with an acceleration of 10,400 g (that is, ten thousand four hundred times the force of Earth's gravity) and a speed of 23 meters per second (about 51 miles per hour). They strike with a force of 1,500 newtons, the force of a 337-pound man sitting on you.
So what about the damage it causes? Well, Bunky, smasher mantis shrimp throw their claws so fast they create cavitation bubbles, pockets of no water, between the claw and the prey's poor body. So first the claw hits with 1,500 N of force. Then the cavitation bubble pops, producing an extra strike that can stun or even kill the victim. (It's kind of like Sanosuke's Futae no Kiwami in Rurouni Kenshin.)
Mantis shrimp attacks are so powerful they can shatter thick aquarium glass, so for its enormous size and amazing stopping power, the mantis shrimp gets the X-Shrimp title of Colossus.
As an inexplicable side note, the mantis shrimp is the only animal known to have hyperspectral vision; it can see from infra-red to ultra-violet.
Treadmill Shrimp: Okay, yeah, you've seen this before. But what superhero team would be complete without a speedster? So this little guy is our Quicksilver. After you stop laughing, though, remember that the researchers were actually doing this to measure the shrimp's health and fitness. So he probably got pretty fit. Yeah, science.
Justin O. Schmidt is a brave man. As an entomologist at Tucson’s Bee Research Center, he has taken it upon himself to get bitten and stung by every ant and bee in the world. In 1984, he published a paper ranking how painful each insect’s venom feels. He’s perfected the “Schmidt Sting Pain Index” over the years and added great descriptions for each bug.
He compares a Yellow Jacket’s sting to “W.C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.” That gets a 2 out of 4 on the index. At 3 we have a bite from the Red Harvester Ant, which feels like “somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.”
The highest rating (a 4+) goes to the Bullet Ant, whose bite is reminiscent of “fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.” At this point, let me remind you that Schmidt has authority on describing pain because he’s been bitten by all 78 species on this list – and endured a Bullet Ant bite four times! Bleh!
Anyway, here’s a quick graphic of the Schmidt’s index. I suggest that you avoid anything pictured here.
It’s possible that she had been holding onto some sperm for all those years; Komodo dragons have been known to do that. But many are calling the two hatchings “
(Credit: Rochelle Buffenstein, City College of New York)
