Weird Invertebrates

A sea slug has been discovered to apparently swipe genes from algae, allowing it to produce its own chlorophyll. (News source.)

An orchid-pollinating cricket has been discovered in Madagascar. (News source.)

A Couple of New Species

A new chameleon from Tanzania, and a "strawberry" colored (not flavored) crab from Taiwan.

[Edit: Also, via Kevin Stewart, Arapaima may be more than one species.]

New King Crabs

Four new species of king crabs have been described. (Eurekalert)

Coral Eats Jellyfish

A mushroom coral has been photographed eating a moon jellyfish. (News source.)

Steve Irwin's Tree Snail

A new tree snail with a colorful shell (including khaki highlights) has been named after the late Steve Irwin. Crikey steveirwini is found in northern Queensland. (News source.)

Jellyfish Capsize Boat

A Japanese fishing trawler capsized after its nets were filled with a giant Nomura jellyfish swarm. (News source.) More info here.

The Great Pumpkin Starfish

An echinoderm biologist discusses Astrosarkus, a giant pumpkin-colored starfish that he described in 2003, on his blog, The Echinoblog. Includes a link to the first video taken of the species live. What is particularly fascinating is that he discovered specimens of the new genus/species in a couple of museums where they were unrecognized as distinctive.

Lord Howe Island Stick Insect Recovery

A paper on this rediscovered insect:

The recovery programme for the Lord Howe Island Phasmid (Dryococelus australis) following its rediscovery
Nicholas Carlile, David Priddel and Patrick Honan (2009)
Ecological Management and Restoration 10(s1): s124-s128

Abstract:

"Until its rediscovery on Balls Pyramid in February 2001, the Lord Howe Island Phasmid or Stick Insect (Dryococelus australis) was thought to be extinct. It disappeared from Lord Howe Island soon after the accidental introduction of the Ship Rat (Rattus rattus) in 1918. In this paper, we report on the recovery actions undertaken for this critically endangered species since its rediscovery. Monitoring of the small surviving population on Balls Pyramid has shown it to fluctuate between about 9 and 35 adult individuals. As a safeguard against extinction, two adult pairs were removed from Balls Pyramid in February 2003 to establish captive populations in Melbourne and Sydney. Although all four founders bred readily in captivity, one pair died only a month after capture. The second female would have also died soon after capture had it not been for veterinary intervention using novel untested techniques. The single surviving pair bred successfully but the hatch rate of eggs was poor. For the next generation, both fecundity and hatch rates were low. The lack of knowledge regarding the specific husbandry requirements of this particular species undoubtedly contributed to these problems. Careful management, together with a cautious scientific approach, eventually led to all problems being resolved. Presently, there are more than 700 individuals and 14 000 eggs in captivity. Approximately 80% of incubated eggs are expected to hatch. To establish additional captive colonies, adults and eggs have been sent to other institutions, both within Australia and overseas. Now that the species is reasonably secure in captivity, the opportunity exists to reintroduce this iconic insect back onto Lord Howe Island, but this can occur only after the introduced rodents have been removed. A programme to eradicate both the Ship Rat and the House Mouse (Mus musculus) from Lord Howe Island is currently being developed."

Sea Worm Rediscovery

A species of sea worm not seen since 1913 on an Irish beach, has been rediscovered off the coast of Spain. (News source.)

Giant NJ Leech Described

It's been known for several years, but finally the researchers have named and described the giant NJ leech as Haemopis ottorum. (News source.)

Aussie Inverts

850 new invertebrates have been described by Australian researchers from caves and other underground habitats. (News source.) Via Kevin Stewart.

Ice Jellies

Some details and interesting pics of jellyfish from the deep Arctic ocean, here.

Some New Discoveries

A few new invertebrates were discovered "during a cave diving expedition to explore the Tunnel de la Atlantida, the world's longest submarine lava tube on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands..." (News source.)

The "green bomber" is a new marine annelid that casts off glowing green appendages to fool predators. (News source.)

Several interesting fossils, including "stone tools, a remarkably preserved primate skull and the claws, jawbone and other bones of several species of Caribbean sloths" were discovered in an underwater cave in the Dominican Republic. (News source.)

A new pitviper (not rattlesnake, as the news account states) was discovered in Cao Bang province, Vietnam. (News source.)

Deep Sea Discovery

A new crinoid was discovered in the Bahamas. (News source.)

Catching Giant Earthworms

A Wired article notes some of the techniques being used to locate giant Palouse earthworms.

Searching for Evidence

A wing was all that was known of an Ethiopian nightjar, Caprimulgus solala, but adventurous birdwatchers managed to spot it, though they weren't able to capture it. (News source.)

A US FWS researcher is looking for the Charleston ant, Lasius nevadensis, in Nevada, which hasn't been seen since the 1950s. (News source.)

Strange Life

Sightings of "hammerhead worms" (actually terrestrial planarians) up to 14 inches in length are freaking out some Alabama folk. (News source.)

A strange "blob" in the ocean off Alaska's northern coast turns out to be mostly marine algae. (News source.)

And, some videos here on a moth that clicks to jam bat sonar.

Giant Nudibranchs

Mention is made of some strange, as yet unidentified, giant sea slugs "at the mouth of the Red Sea at Bab el-Mandeb" near Djibouti. First spotted in 1990, "to this day, it is uncertain whether the ‘Djibouti Giants’ are a giant form of the Red Sea Spanish Dancer Hexabranchus sanguineus or a species new to science." (News source.)

Sewer Creature Identified

A "sewer creature" in North Carolina turned out to be a colony of Tubifex worms. (News source.)

Parasites Lost

This isn't new, but I just ran across mention of this article from 2002, reprinted on biologist Rob Dunn's website, on the lice of the extinct passenger pigeon.

Red Hairy Snail Hunt

A biologist is surveying King Island (off Tasmania) for red hairy snails after recent fires. The snails were rediscovered in 1996, thought extinct before then for some decades. (News source.)

Ecuador: Possible New (Small) Species

A team from Conservation International has come up with a number of possible new reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates in the forested mountains of Cordillera del Condor. Photos here. (Via Kevin Stewart)

Name a Jellyfish

You can submit suggestions for the species name of the Bonaire Banded Box Jellyfish. (News source.)

Different Worms Look the Same

The common segmented worm Lumbriculus variegatus is actually two separate species that often live side by side. (Press release.)

Big Sea Worm

A UK aquarium discovered a 4-foot polychaete worm that was wreaking havoc on one display. It has been moved to its own exhibit. (News source.)

Worm?

Trace fossils from the UK stir speculation on a "large" extinct worm. (News source.)

New Amphipod in Ohio

A new species of amphipod (a small crustacean) may have been discovered in a cave pool in Summit County, Ohio. Research is underway. (News source.)

Millipede-Eating Dung Beetle

A new paper:

From coprophagy to predation: a dung beetle that kills millipedes
Trond H. Larsen, et al.
Biology Letters (Tuesday, January 20, 2009)
Published online

Abstract:
The dung beetle subfamily Scarabaeinae is a cosmopolitan group of insects that feed primarily on dung. We describe the first case of an obligate predatory dung beetle and contrast its behaviour and morphology with those of its coprophagous sympatric congeners. Deltochilum valgum Burmeister killed and consumed millipedes in lowland rainforest in Peru. Ancestral ball-rolling behaviour shared by other canthonine species is abandoned, and the head, hind tibiae and pygidium of D. valgum are modified for novel functions during millipede predation. Millipedes were killed by disarticulation, often through decapitation, using the clypeus as a lever. Beetles killed millipedes much larger than themselves. In pitfall traps, D. valgum was attracted exclusively to millipedes, and preferred injured over uninjured millipedes. Morphological similarities placing D. valgum in the same subgenus with non-predatory dung-feeding species suggest a major and potentially rapid behavioural shift from coprophagy to predation. Ecological transitions enabling the exploitation of dramatically atypical niches, which may be more likely to occur when competition is intense, may help explain the evolution of novel ecological guilds and the diversification of exceptionally species-rich groups such as insects.

Snow Worms

Mystery "snow worms" in a South Kitsap, Washington, yard have been generally identified as oligochaetes. No answer as to why they were in the snow. (News source.)

Giant Irukandji Described

A "giant" in the dangerously venomous Irukandji jellyfish family has been described. Morbakkafenneri has a body up to 15 cm and tentacles up to a meter long. The species was discovered in 1985, but hasn't been officially described until now. (News source.)

Tree Lobsters Split

Three Pacific island stick insects, including the endangered Lord Howe Island stick insect, are distinct species, new genetic investigation shows. (News source.)

Photosynthetic Sea Slugs

An interesting relationship between Elysia chlorotica and algae... (Research news.)

Water Monster Rumors

Small "water monsters" subject to rumors and stories (and online videos) from North Jakarta (Indonesia) have been identified as aquatic isopods. (News source.)

OOP Slug

A "Chocolate Arion" slug, almost five inches long, was found outside of its range, up in Canada. Canadian authorities aren't concerned, as the habitat isn't conducive for a slug invasion. (News source.)

Land Crab Find

A rarely seen land crab was discovered in a new region of Taiwan. (News source.)

New Giant Clam

Researchers have discovered a new species of living giant clam, Tridacna costata, in the Red Sea. Fossil evidence suggests that the species once accounted for 80% of giant clams in the Red Sea, but now makes up less than 1% and is probably endangered. (Eurekalert.)

Those California Tarantulas...

The Anomalist notes: "Meanwhile, they haven't announced plans for a survey yet, but state entomologists have already concluded Tarantulas Have 'Invaded' Southern California." Not sure if they realized this, difficult to tell from a blurb, but the tarantulas noted are a native species to North America. (The article mentions a Chilean rosehair, but that's not the species that is swarming San Diego County; it's just noted as a lab worker's pet.) We've got several species of tarantulas in the southwestern states, this just happens to be breeding season.

Now, we do, as noted previously here, have invasive tarantulas in southern Florida. Several years back, some guy down there emailed me to say he had found large black scorpions (either emperors or Asian forests) introduced into one region; but he wouldn't disclose the location as it was his "skunk ape" research area.

Three Mussels Extinct?

Three mussels formerly found in Arkansas, Alabama, and Tennessee are likely extinct, according to the USFWS. These include the turgid-blossom pearly mussel, the yellowblossom pearly mussel, and the green-blossom pearly mussel. (News source.)

UK Slug Invasion

A few specimens of a worm-eating eyeless white "ghost" slug normally found in central Asia have turned up in the UK. (News source.)

New Mollusk Genus

A Key West predatory bivalve turns out to be a new genus of mollusk. (News source.)

Mystery Larvae

From the Eurekalert:

"First identified in 1899, y-larvae have been one of the greatest zoological mysteries for over a century. No one has ever found an adult of these puzzling crustaceans, despite the plethora of these larvae in plankton, leading generations of marine zoologists to wonder just what y- larvae grow up to be. A study published in BioMed Central’s open access journal, BMC Biology, reports the transformation of the larvae into a previously unseen, wholly un-crustacean-like, parasitic form.

"Y larvae, or facetotectans, are found amongst marine plankton in oceans from the poles to the tropics. In coral reef areas they occur dizzying diversity, even though they are ubiquitous and similar to the larvae of barnacles, not one adult y-organism has been identified in over 100 years of considerable searching.

"'Facetotectans are the only crustacean group with a taxonomy based solely on larval stages', say Henrik Glenner and Jens Hoeg (University of Copenhagen) and colleagues from Japan 'but the great species diversity indicates that the adults play an important ecological role.' Supported by the Carlsberg Foundation in Denmark and the Lake Biwa Museum in Japan, the study authors collected the study authors collected over 40 species of y larvae from one site at Sesoko Island near Okinawa, Japan, and exposed many of them to a crustacean moulting-hormone to encourage them to mature. The free-swimming y-larvae shed their articulated exoskeleton, and a simple, slug- like, pulsing mass of cells emerged.

"The authors explain 'The musculature and compound eyes that you might expect to see in adult crustaceans were in a state of degeneration, and from our observations of the live, and also preserved specimens, we conclude that the adults of these larvae must be parasites – but of what we do not know.'"

Flatworm-like Jellyfish

A new species of jellyfish was found in the seahorse tank at the Townsville Aquarium in Australia. (News source.) It is described:

"'It's up to about a centimetre long, it doesn't swim, it glides along the bottom,' she said.
"'It's found on algae and seagrass and it's just a real thin film, real mucusy like a flatworm but it's got these two tentacles sticking out and it's actually genetically a jellyfish that looks like a flatworm.'"

Giant Earthworm Expands Range

Two new localities are now suspected for the rare giant Palouse earthworm. Specimens are thought probable for this species, though not conclusively identified. (News source.)

Antarctic Discoveries

More marine discoveries from the Antarctic (fish and invertebrates):

Nat Geo gallery

Daily Mail

Giant Crayfish in Tennessee

Biologists are trying to monitor the giant crayfish, Barbicambarus cornutus, in Tennessee. It gets up to about 9 inches in length. (News source.)

More on Giant Earthworm

Here's an interesting article on the continuing search for the rare giant Palouse earthworm.

Endangered Species Profile: the Crab Louse?

A Dutch natural history museum is looking for a specimen of the crab louse for its collection, but hasn't been able to locate any. Even if it is a declining species, that just leads to a whole new batch of conservation issues... (News source.)

Celebes Sea Expedition

Notes on a recent 2007 expedition to the Celebes Sea, with plenty of photos.

Earthworm Denied

USFWS has denied the addition of the giant Palouse earthworm to the endangered/threatened species list, because there isn't enough scientific information to determine whether threats listed in the petition are actually cause for concern. The petitioners plan to continue their fight. (News source.)