The Oyster’s Garter

Four severed sneaker-clad right feet have washed up in British Columbia just this year, and Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer is on the case. He’s an expert in marine debris, most famous for his work with the wandering rubber duckies. But Dr. Ebbesmeyer also knows how bodies come apart! Is the mild mannered scientist really just a cover for the crime fighter within?

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer based in Seattle, Wash., said when a human body submerged in the ocean, the main parts like arms, legs, hands, feet and the head are usually what come off the body.

But he’s still baffled by how the exact same part — a right foot — could wash up repeatedly.

“It’s not unusual for body parts to wash up along the United States or Canada,” he said. “There’s so many accidents, like boating. That’s not unusual. It is unusual to find four bodies over the course of the year and just right feet.”

He said his theory is that the feet came along as a result of an accident that might have happened up along the Fraser River, that washed down and spread out along the Straight of Georgia.

Ebbesmeyer said he would urge the police to trace the shoes back to the store they were purchased.

“There’s a lot you can do with the serial number of a shoe and I’m assuming the RCMP are doing that,” he said.

I was innocently collecting water samples when this peculiar fish started trying to snuggle:

Having no idea what it was, I ignored it until I finished my work. But it followed me back to shore, swimming just underneath my legs:

When we surfaced (the fish still with us), my dive buddy told me that my not so little friend was a remora, and that it was trying to attach to me. AIEEEEEE! Remoras usually hitch rides on sharks or turtles using the suction provided by the plate on their head. The ridges are movable and create a vacuum.

Remoras are thought to be harmless hitchhikers, eating the parasites off its host and whatever else comes by. (Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better - that remora was not so small.) There’s also some neat mythology around them. According to this website:

The ancient Greeks and Romans had written widely about Remoras and had ascribed to them many magical powers such as the ability to cause an abortion if handled in a certain way. Shamans in Madagascar to this day attach portions of the Remora’s suction disk to the necks of wives to assure faithfulness in their husbands absence.

The ancient Romans actually attributed the death of Emperor Caligula to Remoras. They were believed to be fastened onto his ship, holding it back and allowing the enemy ships to overtake it.The Latin name Remora actually means “holding back” (McClane 1998).

Apparently remoras do sometimes attach to divers. Is this because of the drastic decline of shark worldwide, and especially in the Caribbean? Was my remora lonely and desperate? Is this a remora shifting baseline - shark & turtle riders now forced to ride mere divers? Or did my remora and I just have a special moment? Since the remora a) didn’t speak English; and b) swam back out to sea once I got out of the water, the mystery remains.

It’s Coral Week over at Deep Sea News, and I have many coral-related thoughts. Unfortunately, I have been bitten by something poisonous and tropical and my right hand is the size of a grapefruit, which really cuts down on the typing speed. So please enjoy DSN’s many coralline delights and stay tuned. There’s lots of pretty pictures on the way once the swelling goes down.

This Nature News profile of whale anatomist Joy Reidenberg has it all: how to get your dead dolphin into Manhattan (through the Lincoln Tunnel, of course), how to move a table-sized pharynx (a forklift) and bit of an elegy for the dying art of anatomy (hard to publish, no support). Reidenberg’s scientific work is on cetacean voice evolution and mammalian pharynx anatomy, but the amazing part of this profile is her utter joy in dissecting rotting bus-sized cetaceans. Please enjoy selected quotes:

“I had to fold the front seat over on the passenger’s side and shove the bottlenose dolphin’s face out of the front passenger window to fit the thing in the car,” says Joy Reidenberg, almost losing her breath in laughter at the memory. “And so coming in through the Lincoln Tunnel, they’re saying ‘What do you have as a passenger?’”

—–

“To bring back a larynx the size of this table,” she says, thumping on a conference room table, “takes six people, a tug-of-war, and maybe a backhoe and a crane.”

—–

“The two words that have usually sent me into near heart attack have been the words ‘mass stranding’. To her, this is one of the greatest excitements in the world,” he [the department chair] says. “I, on the other hand, have the wonders of explaining to the institutions, the boards, the loading dock, the security people the wonderful material that comes in — trying to stand there with a straight face and say, ‘Odour? What odour?’

And anyone else who loves roadkill gets a double-A+ awesomeness rating in my book:

Once, at about age eight, she decided one of her few dolls needed a fur coat. Rather than asking her mother for one, she went out and found a dead chipmunk. She flayed it and was drying the hide when, to her horror, a raccoon took her prize.

Go read the full profile before Nature takes it out of the free zone.

Best part? This was displayed at the Waldorf Astoria.

Horrific sexual hijinks are taking place beneath the majestic redwoods of central California! I’m not talking about San Francisco - the Fulton Street Fair looks like a Bible Belt county fair compared to this. No, I speak of the unspeakable sexual habits of the lovely banana slug.

The banana slug, so called for its fetching yellow color with occasional black spots, is the second-largest slug in the world (and the mascot of UC Santa Cruz). For most of its life, it crawls about the Pacific redwood forest in the normal sluggy fashion, munching upon rotting leaves, mushrooms, animal droppings, and other detritus. But if a slug crosses the pheremone-soaked slime trail of a fellow slug, prolonged tantric slug-sex ensues…and ends in a most ghastly fashion.

Before we get to the juicy bits (slimy bits?), you need to know a bit about slug anatomy. Most slugs are simultaneous hermaphrodites and have both a penis and a genital opening, so that when they have sex they both fertilize and are fertilized. (They then both lay eggs somewhere damp and out of the way, and that is it for parental care.) Also, due to the vagaries of evolution, the genitalia and anus of slugs are located on the right side of their heads. This is because slugs are descended from snails with spiraling shells - the snails needed to move their naughty bits down in order to extend outside the shell, so they put them on their head. Even though slugs have since lost their shells, they have retained this feature of snail anatomy. So most gastropods actually poop on their own heads - ain’t nature grand?

So, slug-sex begins with head-waving and gentle biting of the other slug’s genital opening. Once they get to the Big Deed, the slugs both insert their penises into the other’s genital opening (remember, both are on the right side of their head) and go at it for hours and hours. And hours and hours and hours. And then…sometimes…one or both slugs will CHEW OFF THE OTHER’S PENIS. Yep, they rasp with their radula until the penis comes off. Then they slurp down the penis like spaghetti.

I bet your very first reaction was, “Boy, I sure hope there is a video of sexy slug cannibalism!” Of course there is, gentle reader! If you still want more, have some auto-apophallation (isn’t that a great bit of jargon?) - this is a video [warning: big file] of a slug chewing off its own penis.

Do not fear too much for the penis-less slug. While the penis does not grow back, the slug is not condemned to a lonely sexless life. It can still enjoy slug-sex as the receiving party. But perhaps the more educated banana slugs contemplate the theories of Freud and shake their tentacles in rage at the cruel hand of Fate. Or at least the cruel radula of their ex.

This post was inspired by the slugs in flagrante in the above photo, which I met near the Little Sur River this past weekend. (The openings you see are not their genitals, but their pneumatostome, which is how they breathe.) It is unknown if any penis-gnawing ensued, as the slugs were still making the sweet yin-yang of love amidst the flowers when I left.

This is an art film about…about…well, zits. And the people who pop them. Watching it, in fact, is just like popping a zit - repellent yet strangely enjoyable.

Via Boing Boing

The Schmidt Sting Pain Index rates, well, the pain of insect strings. It’s compiled by one extremely dedicated and perhaps a tad masochistic scientist, Dr. Justin O. Schmidt. Zooillogix reported a couple months back in the index’s palette of pain:

1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

These descriptions are terrifyingly vivid, like a lightning strike to the eyeball! Doesn’t it make you wonder about the man behind the stings? Wonder no more - Zooillogix nabbed an interview with Dr. Schmidt. Sample question:

Was there a point that you regretted letting a particular insect sting you?

I never directly “let myself be stung” by anything particularly painful. Those that are really painful are quite good at stinging one without help. The worst stinging I received was probably by some black wasps (Polybia simillima) in Costa Rica. It was the only time I have ever seen that species, was ill-equipped at the time to collect the large nest, did not realize how good they were at penetrating bees suits and other barriers, and I absolutely needed that nest. The result was lots of nasty burning stings and a few irate colleagues who were nearby. Incidentally, most of my nasty stinging events are similar - they were serendipitous discoveries of a wonderful species that I needed and had no choice: grasp the moment, or lose it.

Apparently grasping the moment feels like burning (perhaps like a paring knife to a lemon-juice covered fingertip).

Parasite fans (and I know you’re out there) NEED to check out Deep Sea News’ excellent rhizocephalan pics. You might remember rhizocephalans from this post (they’re the crab-bot zombie barnacles), but never before have you seen them this up close and personal. Maybe I Can Haz Cheezburger needs some of that LOLRhizocephalan?

The Oyster’s Garter does not endorse putting bivalves in beer. This is rank heresy! Obviously, perfectly good bivalves should be breaded, buttered, and fried.