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Big Baby | The Quantum Biologist
https://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/big-baby
October 7, 2010. At first glance, Pseudis paradoxa. Looks like the most normal frog in the world. It’s green, it lives in the water, it buries itself in mud, and it eats flies. Nothing particularly unusual about it. Until you meet its monstrous offspring. That’s the P. paradoxa. Tadpole. And this is the adult and the tadpole next to one another:. For all you non-biologists out there, let’s get something straight about amphibians. The two-sided lives ( amphibios. Unless you are Benjamin freaking Button, y...
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Four-Eyes | The Quantum Biologist
https://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/four-eyes
April 26, 2011. In a recent visit to the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, I saw beluga whales. I saw Steller’s sea lions. I saw stingrays and sharks and electric eels. But nothing captivated my imagination like the school of homely mudskippers staring out at me from the water’s surface… from both above, and below. And I'm not impressed with either half. The Four-Eyed Fish ( Anableps anableps. The four-eyed fish is that teacher. Does myopia persist in our species due to sexual selection? Christian Drake, A...
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Snipe Hunt | The Quantum Biologist
https://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/snipe-hunt
May 29, 2011. I never was sent on a snipe hunt, but the warning left me with the impression that the snipe was, in fact, mythological. (I believed the same about gypsies until a trip to Europe at age 16.) This was no doubt reinforced by my poor recollection of Lewis Carroll’s jabberwockese poem The Hunting of the Snark. A short farce about a beast that is hunted by diverse characters but found by none. At some point, I misremembered The Hunting of the Snark. As The Hunting of the Snipe. Christian Drake, ...
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The Feather Orchestra | The Quantum Biologist
https://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/the-feather-orchestra
June 20, 2011. Everyone knows that birds sing, but what about the ones that play instruments? After to listening to half an hour of recordings of the snipe’s winnowing tailfeather sounds the other night, my mind turned to all the other birds I know who produce music with their feathers instead of their voices. The first to come to mind was the Mourning Dove, whose whistling wingbeats. Male and female club-winged manakin secondary feathers. The effect is the only avian example of stridulation. How do you ...
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About Quantum Biology | The Quantum Biologist
https://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/about
But not your average “weird animal” blog. Instead of simply linking to the latest strange discovery from the zoological (and occasionally botanical) world, my mission is to use humor, poetry, rigorous science and questionable theories to showcase some of the Earth’s strangest and most fascinating life forms in order to prove that there is, in fact, a small universe ingeniously folded into our improbable planet. 7 responses to “ About Quantum Biology. July 25th, 2010 at 7:46 am. July 25th, 2010 at 2:36 pm.
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The Quantum Biologist | Page 2
https://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/page/2
April 20, 2011. Je Ne Sais Quoi. 8212; can sniff and walk away. He is the product of millions of years of sexual selection for extravagance, and possesses the most spectacular, show-stopping plumage in the world, but he is far from irresistible. Having seen plenty of peacocks in my life, nowadays I’m more intrigued by the peahens and their discerning gaze. So frustratingly fickle! It’s that pickiness that has undoubtedly driven the male to such desperate majesty. What am I doing wrong? The biologists tel...
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V for Vanadium | The Quantum Biologist
https://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/v-for-vanadium
June 22, 2011. Not even ones that play saxophones, bongos and guitar in a cute hat. In fact, you are more closely related to this creature:. It’s a tunicate. Specifically, this tunicate is a sea squirt. It has no sense of play, memory, or observational learning. It is not smarter than a 5th grader. It doesn’t own the intellectual capacity to play Candyland. In fact, it doesn’t even have a brain. ( Anymore. It doesn’t have a brain anymore,. To think, we are a distant cousin to the mighty purple sea squirt.
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The Monster’s Veil | The Quantum Biologist
https://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/the-monsters-veil
July 1, 2011. The Monster’s Veil. 8221; I said. “Damn, monkfish is good.”. We half-nodded in agreement. 8220;Pretty damn ugly, though.”. We half-nodded in agreement. The next day, by chance, I ended up at the New England Aquarium, and was reminded that “pretty damn ugly” is an insult to pretty damn ugly fish. Come closer, little girl. The American Monkfish, Lophius americanus. 1 Buy a pumpkin. 2 Carve the biggest, fangliest mouth on that pumpkin that you can. 3 Allow pumpkin to rot beyond recognition.
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A Natural History of Leopard Print | The Quantum Biologist
https://quantumbiologist.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/a-natural-history-of-leopard-print
June 26, 2011. A Natural History of Leopard Print. And part of me wishes they HAD been Adam and Eve. Leopard print has never gone out of style — and has probably never not. The other type of nostalgia, of course, is this:. My perfect world: 80% leopard print, 20% babe. The original, primal symbolic meaning of leopard print met the modern symbol of female sexual empowerment in the 1950’s with Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, a sort of pin-up Tarzan:. Not a cat person, apparently. This giant leopard moth.