Off Topic, But Have Some Fishes For Now

I met some relatives of my beloved leatherleaf slugs in the mangroves of Singapore, the onch slugs! they’re perhaps some of the slowest-moving animals I’ve ever encountered; this is one in a hurry:

the species pictured is a Platevindex, which are particularly interesting to me since their backs are studded with extra eyes! the dorsal papillae each have a little black dot that’s a photoreceptor, which helps the slug detect changes in light exposure.

onchidiids are marine animals, living on costal rocks and in mangroves, but breathe air and spend much of their time out of the water. like the leatherleafs, they’ve got a dry, tough hide that maintains water balance, but Platevindex takes that to an extreme—when I picked one up, it felt like a vulcanized rubber tire!

For the Bigfin Reef Squid, mating is a serious business. 

New research, led in part by Museum scientist Sam Cheng, shows that a male will scope out nesting sites and scare off rivals in order to improve his mating success. In this study, Cheng explains how this “probing behavior” could be a type of mate-guarding, a mating strategy in which males attempt to prevent a mate’s eggs from becoming fertilized by a rival. Ultimately, this research can help inform biodiversity and conservation efforts.

Photo: Courtesy of Rhododendrites/Wikimedia Commons

via: American Museum of Natural History

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the archfey trench coat has been restocked! <3

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Hey where's that one post about the sturgeon and other fish that were waaaayyyyy evolutionarily far apart but still made viable offspring during a control test and all the science hippies were freaking out I've lost this post but it has never left my mind