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Daily Dose Of Interesting Information

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# 50. WEAPON GOBBLERS.

Sea slugs have no shells to protect their soft rippling bodies. They have no natural defences. So they gobble protective weapons!

Glaucus eats the sting cells of the jelly fish Porpita, but does not digest them. Instead these cells are passed in tact, to the slug's skin - ready for use against any predator.

Another slug eats the the stinging buds of anemones - since it is immune to them. The buds are swallowed whole and in tact.

They are guided through the intestinal walls to the back. They nestle under the skin there.

If triggered, the stings shoot out at the enemy!

Fighting with borrowed weapons!!!

 
# 51. COCONUT THIEF CRAB.
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A giant relative of the hermit crab finds it food not in water but on trees!

This robber crab Birgus latro, lives on the islands of the South west pacific and the Indian oceans.

While young, it lodges in the empty shells - very much like the hermit crab. A mature robber crab can grow up to 18 inches in length.

The long legs and the enormous pincers, enable the crab to climb the coconut palm trees. Once on the top, the crab snips off the young coconuts.

Then it climbs down to the ground to enjoy its hard earned meal.
 
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# 52. SEA WASP.
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The sting of the box jelly fish or the sea wasp - with

its dome shaped bell 10 inches high - contains one of

the world's most potent poisons.

A sting can cause high temperature, make the victim

go blind, gasp for breath and die - all these in just a

few minutes.

An antidote for this poison does exist - but the poison

acts so fast that a victim has very little chance of

getting treatment in time.

 
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# 53. The Portuguese man-of-war.

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(courtesy Google images)

This medley creature is not one animal but many living in a perfect four part harmony. This slimy creature is a kind of jelly fish. Its tentacles can kill even human beings.

A total of 1000 different individuals with four different skills join together. Each one does one of these four jobs - floating, catching prey, digestion and reproduction.

They work so well together but none can survive on its own. Together these form a crew of killing machines with a poison as powerful as that of a cobra.

For a small fish the touch of the tentacle means instant death. When humans get stung their blood pressure drops rapidly ; they go into a shock and some even die.

If they remain alive, they carry the angry red marks of the tentacles for a long time.
There is no antidote for the venom. Vinegar neutralizes the poison to some extent.
 
# 54. Giant squids.

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(Giant squid sucking a sperm whale. Compare their relative sizes!)

These are the real giants of the deep. No one knows how big these monsters can grow!

Occasional specimens emerging to the surface give stunning figures.The one found in New Zealand in 1887 measured 57 feet long and had tentacles 50 feet long!

A squid of this size will weigh over a ton! Its eyes are 16 inches across - the largest in the animal kingdom.

The marks made by its suckers on the sperm whale - its traditional enemy - measure anything from 4 inches to 18 inches across!
 
# 55. Bird-eating-spiders!

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Spiders large enough to to tackle birds and win, live in holes and under the fallen trees on the forest floors in Asia, Africa and South America.

They have a body as wide a a man's palm and legs 8 inches long. They eat small mammals and insects too.

These spiders do not chew their food. They inject their digestive juices into the prey and then suck out the fluid form the body.
 
# 56. Cone Shell snail.

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A single specimen of the cone shell of this snail can fetch 400$! Its collectors will happily part with that kind of money!

It is one of the most beautiful killers found in the Indian and the Pacific oceans. Strangely it is a relative of the harmless whelk.

But this animal owns a horrid and loaded trunk-like living syringe. This can whip against the body of an attacker.

In the tip of the trunk are minute needle teeth through which the snail injects paralyzing fluid. People die with in hours of this pin prick attack by the deadly beautiful snail.

Small wonder that its shell is so highly prized by the collectors!
 
# 57. Anesthetic Dracula!

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(image courtesy cbsnews.com)


Leeches are related to the farmer-friendly earth worms! They have their own built-in devices to aid to their feeding undisturbed and in peace.

The leech clamps itself to the body of its victim with its suckers at each end of its body. At the center of the front sucker is its mouth.

The leech makes a Y shaped wound with three sharp toothed jaws. It then drinks blood to its fill undisturbed!

An anesthetic in its saliva numbs the wound so that the victim doe not feel the attack or brush it off!

In addition the leech secretes a substance that dilates the blood vessels and increase the blood flow.

It employs an anti-coagulant substance to prevent the blood from clotting!

How very ingenious on the part of mere insect parasites!!!
 
# 58. The sharp-shooter-shrimp.

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High in the coral reefs of tropical waters lurks a tiny bandit - the two inches long pistol shrimp. The pincers on its right claw form the shape of a peg and a matching hole.

It keeps hidden away from the sight - very much like the traffic policemen lurking with their radar gun.

When a small fish wanders into the ambush point, the shrimp comes out, aims its pistol and takes a shot by snapping the peg into the hole.

The shock wave produced at 100 k.m.h by this snap stuns the tiny fish for a few seconds - time enough for the shrimp to close in for its kill and its fill!

Aquatic Quick Gun Murugan!
 
# 59. The world of worms.

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Ascaris lumbricoides

The world's 10,000 species of worms have learned to make their homes any where :
the earth, the fresh water, the sea and the bodies of other animals and plants.

They are so abundant that a handful of garden soil will contain about a 1000 worms!
Many round worms are small and microscopic - but some may grow up to 3 feet.

Some of the worms are record breaking breeders. The female of the 14 inches long intestinal parasite known as Ascaris lumbricoides can lay 200,000 eggs everyday!
 
# 60. Longest reach!

jellyfish.gif

There are more than 200 different species of Jellyfish. Jellyfish are invertebrates and they come in different shapes and sizes. The longest jellyfish is the Arctic lion's mane whose tentacles may stretch up to 100 feet in length.

Jellyfish can be found in all the world's oceans and even in freshwater. Jellyfish are 95% water. They have no heart, brain, blood, or gills.

The body of the Jellyfish is called a bell. What they do have is a mouth, tentacles, and arms around their mouth. They use their arms around their mouth to help sense and find food that ends up inside their mouth.

Jellyfish can sense smells and tastes using chemo receptors. Also they can remain balanced in the water. Jellyfish eat small animals called zoo plankton.

An adult female jellyfish produces eggs and holds them around her mouth. The male jellyfish releases sperms into the water that the female jellyfish collects with her tentacles.

Then the female jellyfish fertilizes her eggs.The mother jellyfish carries them around until she finds a hard place like a rock or a shell to put them.

Jellyfish have only a few predators because of the fact that they can sting. A few of their predators are the Banner fish which are not bothered by their tentacles.

Arrow Crabs gobble them up in one bite. Turtles, certain fish and snails nibble on the jellyfish's tentacles.
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The Arctic jelly fish of the North west Atlantic has the larges reach for an animal. One of these creatures washed up in a beach in 1865 had a body 7.5 feet across.

Its tentacles measures 120 feet giving it a possible span of more than 240 feet.
 
# 61. Longest worm!


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Ribbon worms are flat and ribbon shaped. They exceed by far any other worm in length.

The Bootlace worm is a type of ribbon worm which lives around the British Coast, can grow up to 16.5 feet in length.

A specimen washed ashore in Scotland in 1864, measured a stunning 180 feet in length-making it the longest worm and the longest animal ever found!
 
# 6. Parasitic partnership.
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Scientists have found that the parasitic fungusOphiocordyceps unilateralishas possibly been invading carpenter ants(Camponotus) for 48 million years. The parasite not only infects the ant, but it manipulates the ant’s behavior as well, influencing it to bite the underside of leaves along the veins. Once the ant finds an optimal location, the fungus grows rapidly, killing the ant and preparing it to release a new spore.
 
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# 62. Gardener Ants.

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The workers of the South American leaf cutter ants tend their own food producing garden in their underground nests!

The nests may be 33 feet across and accommodate 500,000 ants. The ants collect and carry the leaves like flags to their nests.

They then shred the leaves to pieces and grow on this compost a crop of fungus eaten by the ants.
 
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