The moon jellyfish, also known as the common jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) is a species of jellyfish found in every ocean but the Arctic. There are many species of moon jellies within the genus Aurelia, and most are functionally very similar. A. aurita are especially common among the coasts of North and South America and Australia, where they frequently wash up on beaches. They prefer warmer shallow waters around 18C, and require a salt content of at least 0.6%, although they can survive in a wide range of temperatures and salinity, and have been found as deep as 1,000m.
As jellyfish, A. aurita have no internal organs and exhibit radial symmetry, or symmetry around a central axis. The outer bell is transparent, ranging from 10 to 60 cm across. This bell also acts as a membrane through which moon jellyfish absorb oxygen, digest food, and move their bodies. Beneath the bell are distinct, colored veins which act as a reproductive organ. Most moon jellyfish have 4, but some individuals can have more. Small, non-stinging tentacles line the outer bell, and on the underside are 4 arms which stun and collect prey such as plankton, copepods, mollusks, fish larvae, and smaller jellyfish. Although they posess no caloric value, they have high amounts of fatty acids which makes them prime prey for seabirds, turtles, fish, and larger jellyfish.
Most moon jellyfish only live 2 years in the wild, though in captivity they can live up to 25 years. They reproduce sexually, although they exhibit no courtship behaviors. Male A. aurita release their sperm into the water, where they are carried by currents into the gastric pouch of female jellyfish and fertilize their eggs. These eggs are then re-released into the water. After 10 days the eggs hatch into a larval stage called a planula which settles onto the ocean floor and form polyps. These polyps can form buds that break off and form individual jellyfish through a process called strobulation. The whole process takes about 4-6 months, and usually begins in the summer when most mating occurs. However, A. aurita is capable of reproducing year-round and will do so whenever conditions are good.
Conservation status: The moon jellyfish has not been rated by the IUCN. However, in many places it is considered invasive; when resources are plentiful, populations can explode leading to diminished resources for other animals and increased bacteria levels in the water.
Katydids comprise a diverse group of insects particularly well adapted to survival in rainforest because of their exceptional camouflage. Most katydids are well camouflaged with brown or leaflike green markings.
The Lichen Katydid, Markia hystrix (Orthoptera - Tettigoniidae), however, has one of the most incredible camouflages of all. It resembles the pale greenish-white lichens on which it lives in rainforest treetops. Not only does the color match the lichens, but the body and legs have a bizarre assortment of spines and points that blend well with lichens, in fact, so well that this insect is extremely difficult for predator to find.
This astonishing insect is known to occur in Central America (Costa Rica, Panama), Colombia and Ecuador.
I put together some of Reginald Cocroft’s treehopper courtship call recordings with photos of the genera that make the noise. Platycentrus makes the best animal sound ever I think
Polypodium hydriforme is one species of cnidarian so different from the other cnidarians it’s just its own thing, like you can split cnidarians into corals, jellyfish and a few other groups and then this group is just the one species here.
And it’s a parasite that grows in salmon eggs!!! These photos are what it looks like in its free living stage where it just keeps multiplying in blobs. when they develop in a salmon egg all their tentacles are pushed in, like if you pushed in all the fingers in a rubber glove, and as they hatch they flip all their tentacles out but this action sucks all the salmon yolk into them and then that’s their food for the rest of their life.
Pleasing fungus beetles of the family Erotylidae (Coleoptera) are easily recognized by their usually red, orange, yellow or purple bright color combined with black, forming patterns of stripes, spots or rings.
Their common name is because these beetles are mycophagous, which means that they eat fungus, and the fruiting bodies of mushrooms provide the only food for both larvae and adults. In fact, Erotylidae is a very important part of the mycophagous fauna in the tropics, and are largely responsible for recycling the nutrients, which are absorbed by fungi during decomposition of organic matter, and dispersing them through out the food chain.
The beetles copulate on or near the host-fungus. Fertilized female lay eggs into the hymenophore or directly on the fructification, and larvae feed on or inside the fungus, devouring all its available parts.
This one purple Pleasing Fungus Beetle in the photos could be ErotylusorGibbifer.
Edwardsiella andrillae, an Antarctic species of sea anemone that lives upside-down, burrowing into the sea ice and projecting its tentacles into the frigid water below.
For #macromonday here is a crab spider hiding on the underside of a Queen Anne’s lace flower. Taken 8/15/21. #nature #wildlife #macro #spider #crabspider #predator #camouflage #canon #canon5dmarkiv #invertebrate #arachnid #nys #upstateny #newyork #nywildlife #wildlifephotography https://www.instagram.com/p/CTyH6Trg0rU/?utm_medium=tumblr
For #macromonday here are two monarch butterflies, in the process of creating more monarch butterflies. Taken 7/10/21. #nature #wildlife #macrophotography #wildlifephotography #butterflies #lepidoptera #monarchbutterfly #canon #canon5dmarkiv #insect #invertebrate #nys #upstateny #nywildlife #nativepollinators https://www.instagram.com/p/CTODnVzrfyo/?utm_medium=tumblr
What: Louisella is a worm-type organism from the Burgess Shale formation in the Canadian Rockies of BC. This organism was about 12 inches (~30 centimeters) long, with a proboscis at its anterior end that could be inverted into the body or extruded. In the images above it is inverted into the body in the fossil specimen, but shown at its full extended length in the reconstruction. This structure was ringed by a series of spines with shorter and more robust spikes on the end of the proboscis. These structures would rub past one another as the animal extended and retracted its proboscis, allowing it to ‘chew’ its food. The rows of short fringes on one surface of Louisella are thought to possible have been the animal’s gills. This worm has been reconstructed as a burrowing and carnivorous creature, and due to the grinding capability afforded to it by its proboscis, it likely ate animals of a relatively large size.
Louisella is currently held as a stem fossil on the lineage leading to the Priapulida worms, also known as the 'Penis worms’. I swear I am not making that up. These worms are very rare even today, with less than 20 living species known. They, like their ancient relative, are burrowing creatures which hunt other invertebrates. Fossils of priapulid worms are also rare, only a handful of Louisella specimens are known. What is far more common though are their distinctive shaped burrows, which are sort of an interlocking L-shape. The appearance of this type of burrows is one of the biostratigraphic markers of the start of the Cambrian period.
