Amazing Zoology

Myth 1 Myth 2 Myth 3 Myth 4 Myth 5 Myth 6 Myth 7 Myth 8 Myth 9 Myth 10 Myth 11 Myth 12 Image courtesy: 9gag.com

Lampris guttatus , commonly known as the opah or moonfish, is a large fish with small red fins and can grow up to 61.8 meters long. It belongs to the family Lampridae and genus Lampris. It has a cosmopolitan distribution and is pelagic in nature. What brings this fish into limelight is the finding of recent study [1]  which makes opah, the first warm-blooded fish every discovered. Animals can be divided into Cold blooded and warm blooded based on the ability of its body to maintain heat. In most of the animals, body heat fluctuates with the change in environmental temperature and are cold blooded or poikilothemic. Other organisms which maintains a constant body temperature in spite of the changing environmental temperatures are considered warm blooded or homoeothermic. Birds and mammals are the only true warm blooded animals. Most of the fishes are cold blooded, meaning that they have body temperatures that match the surrounding water. Some have the ability to make specific body p...

  Greenland shark, Somniosus microcephalus of the family Somniosidae ("sleeper sharks"), is one of the largest living species of shark living on earth. Their distribution is mostly restricted to the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean and Arctic Ocean. It is characterized by its large, heavy-set body which gives it a sluggish appearance and movement. It has a short, rounded snout, thin lips, and very small eyes. The dorsal and pectoral fins are very small, and it lacks spines in its dorsal fins. The gill openings are very small in comparison to its size and are located low on the sides of the shark"s head. The Greenland shark varies between a black, brown, and grey colour. Although the shark is usually uniform in colour, it may often be marked with dark lines or white spots along its back and sides. [1] They can grow to 6.4 m (21 ft) and 1,000 kg. [2] In the 1930s, a fisheries biologist discovered that these sharks grow only about 1 cm a year. Yet scientists had been un...

Giant dragon flies, as they are commonly called, appears in evolutionary history during Carboniferous period, which lasted from about 359 to 299 million years ago. Very similar in appearance to modern day dragon flies, they are the biggest flying insects that ever lived. Included in genus Meganeura (large-nerved, which refers to the network of veins on the insect"s wings), a genus of giant insects from the Carboniferous period, Meganeura monyi , had a wingspan of 2 ft. It was always a mystery, how these insects grew so big. As oxygen is diffused in insect body through its tracheal system, there is an upper limit on body size. But these insects seem to have overcome that limit. One theory [1]  proposed that atmosphere at that time contained more oxygen than the present 20% and this caused the increased size. During carboniferous the rise of vast lowland swamp forests led to atmospheric oxygen levels of around 30 percent—close to 50 percent higher than current levels. This theo...

Steve Gettle, a nature photographer based in Brighton, Michigan has done an amazing job of photographing the life cycle of a mosquito in high resolutions. Mosquitoes start off as eggs which hatch into larvae. The larvae, also called wrigglers feed on algae and micro-organisms in the water. They spend much of their time at the water’s surface sucking oxygen through breathing tubes attached at their tail. After about a week they turn into pupae. The pupae do not feed. Like larvae, pupae spend much of their time at the water’s surface breathing through two tubes called trumpets. This stage is very much like a Butterfly’s cocoon. This is where the larvae transforms into a mosquito. If you look closely at the photo below you can actually see the eye of the mosquito of this pupae which is very close to hatching. After a couple of days the adult mosquito has formed inside. At this point the pupae unrolls flat on it’s back on the water’s surface, and the adult...

Giraffe’s neck consists of seven vertebrae like any other mammals. Only difference is that, all individual vertebrae are elongated, usually more than ten inches in length.  Moreover, a normal giraffes neck is almost 6-foot long and weighs around 270 kg. [1] Anyone with basic knowledge in zoology wonders how an animal like giraffe can hold such a heavy neck, always high above the ground! The secret lies in its anatomy. A giraffe’s neck contains huge amounts of muscle. Obviously it needs that. But that is not holding its neck so high. It is a band of elastic tissue, a ligament that runs from top of the neck to start of tail vertebrae. Actually the ligament band is normally holding its neck high by just pulling its neck against the weight of head and neck. The weight of its head is acting downward and the ligament is holding it upward. So the natural position for giraffe’s head is almost 55˚ from horizontal level. It is using its muscles to lower its head ...