Its all in the name!

So real life has been keeping me busy lately, and I have neglected this place somewhat. Things are still going to be a bit busy for me over the next couple of weeks, as I prepare to move towns, but hopefully once I'm set up in my new place, I'll have a bit more time to focus on getting things organised here.

In the meantime, it was my turn to organise and run the impromptu session at the latest meeting of the public speaking group I belong to. The task I gave them was this....

Imagine you are a brave explorer traveling through uncharted territory... swinging through vines deep in the jungle, or surfing sand dunes miles into the desert, or diving into the ocean's depths, or perhaps just searching your backyard with a magnifying glass... when all of a sudden you see something unusual, different or unfamiliar, and realise you've discovered a new creature, never before seen by human eyes. Your recent discovery has brought you fame, and tonight you are to stand before this gathering of curious fans and tell them about the species you discovered during your adventures. 

Each member was then invited to come up and select a piece of paper from the bowl on the table at the front of the room. Each piece of paper had the scientific name of an organism (and an approximate pronunciation guide, as long latin names can be daunting for the best of us). They then had 90 seconds to tell us about their species. After their speech, I briefly told them what their organism really was. As you can imagine, this was a lot of fun and we were all in fits of laugher at various moments... Indeed it was difficult to read out some of the real descriptions of the species while keeping a straight face.

Although you weren't there to witness the things the other members of the public speaking group came up with, I still thought some of the species names and their descriptions might give you a good giggle :) And you might learn something new ;). Some I chose because they are funny, some I chose for other reasons. I also cannot guarantee my pronunciation guide is 100% correct - it was simply my attempt at how I would pronounce them - the focus of the evening was not on pronouncing them correctly. Anyway, Enjoy!!

•  Chlorocebus tantalus (Chloro-see-bus tan-ta-lus)

I had to include this one because this monkey was the subject of my Master's thesis. It is widespread throughout West and Central Africa, where it feeds primarily on fruits. While they are important seed dispersers, they are considered a pest by many locals, as they like to help themselves to their crops. 

•  Apteryx australis (Ap-ter-rix aus-tra-lis)

The Southern Brown Kiwi. When New Zealand's early explorers first sent reports of the kiwi back to Europe, the people did not believe them. It was only once they were able to send some kiwi pelts back that they realised that such an usual bird really did exist.

• Pieza kake (Pees-a cake)

A small furry fly found in Brazil. Its siblings are Pieza pi, Pieza rhea and Pieza deresistans. The taxonomist who named these flies apparently liked his pizza!

• Oedipus complex (Oh-dee-pus complex)

Also known as the Gamboa worm salamander, it is a species of lungless salamander, found from Costa rica through to Colombia and Ecuador.

• Carmenelectra shechisme (Car-men-ee-leck-tra she-kis-me)

A very small fossil fly found from Baltic amber. It was named after television, film and magazine personality, Carmen Elecktra. The taxonomist apparently explained his choice of name, saying "Both namesakes exemplify splendid somal (body) structure for their respective taxa. The species-group epithet (i.e the second part of the name) is an arbitrary combination of letters."

• Calponia harrisonfordi (Kal-pone-ee-a harrison-ford-eye)

A Californian spider discovered in 1993. Not much is known about it, but it is thought to eat other spiders. It was named after Harrison Ford to thank him for narrating a documentary for the Natural History Museum in London.

• Agathidium bushi (Ag-a-thid-ee-um bush-eye)

A beetle named after President George W. Bush. Bush's vice-president and defence secretary also got beetles named after them - A. cheneyi and A. rumsfeldi. To quote the website, from which I discovered such beetles existed, "Admittedly, the beetles in question eat slime mould, which caused a few titters among taxonomists of a Democrat persuasion, but it is clearly an act of gross speciesism to criticise the dining habits of other organisms."

• Aha ha (A-ha ha)

An Australian wasp, named by one Arnold Menke in 1977. Apparently, Menke described how, when he recieved a package from a colleague containing the insect specimens, he exclaimed, "Aha!" The name was also used for the number plate of Menke's car.

• La Cucaracha (La Koo-ka-ra-cha)

While la cucaracha is the Spanish word for cockroach, this is actually a species of moth. It was named for the Spanish folk song by the same name that became popular during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920.

• Hebejeebie trifida (Hee-bee-jee-bee tri-fi-da)

A small native shrub, up to 20 cm tall found in Central Otago and Southland. It lives in alpine areas, in meltwater seepages below summer snow banks. (And related to the Hebe's, incase you were wondering).

• Balaenoptera musculus (Bay-leen-opt-er-a mus-cue-lus)

The largest species known to ever have lived on planet earth... the blue whale. The second part of the name - musculus could mean 'muscular', but can also be interpreted as 'little mouse'. Linneaus may well have known this and, given his sense of humour, may have intended the ironic double meaning.

• Mirza zaza (Mer-za za-za)

The northern giant mouse lemur which lives in the North Western dry forests of Madagascar. It is smaller than the closely related M. coquereli, reflected by the name zaza, which is Malagasy for 'child'.

• Circus approximans (Cir-cus approx-ee-mans)

The Australasian harrier that is commonly observed feeding on roadkill on rural roads. It is named for the wide circular flight paths it uses when searching open country for its next meal.

• Euphoria herbacea (Euphoria herb-ae-see-ae)

Is a scarab beetle from North America that visits flowers to feed on nectar and pollen.

• Mops mops (Mops mops)

The Malayan free tailed bat is found in Malaysia and Indonesia. They are insectivorous, and are capable of agile flight manoeuvres rivaling those of insectivorous birds such as swallows.

• Piper nigrum (Pie-per nigh-grum)

Native to southern India, this is the black pepper plant. Its fruits have been used as a spice since antiquity and it is the world's most traded spice.

• Unicorn catleyi (Unicorn cat-ley-eye)

No, the mythical horse-like creature doesn't secretly exist!! This is actually the high mountain goblin spider. This spider lives in the high-altitude semi-desert regions of Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.

• Rhizophora mangle (Rye-zo-for-a mangle)

The red mangrove, a common estuarine plant in tropical and subtropical regions. In some regions, such as Florida, Lousiana and Texas it forms an important part of the coastal ecosystems, threatened by other invasive plants. Yet, in other regions, such as Hawaii, it has itself become an invasive pest.

• Onthophagus hippopotamus (On-tho-fay-gus hippo-pot-amus)

This is a dung beetle from Mexico, so its a little odd that it should be named after the hippopotamus from Africa. Perhaps the beetle is of a large size?

• Glycine max (Gly-cine max)

Is the soybean plant. Native to east Asia, the US is now both the biggest producer and the biggest consumer of soybean products.

• Chaos carolinensis (Chaos carol-eye-nen-sis)

A protozoan, or single celled organism, resembling a giant amoeba, up to 5 mm across. It feeds on bacteria, algae and even small multicellular invertebrates.

• Abra cadabra (Ab-ra ka-dab-ra)

A fossil clam that lived in the seas of the Middle East. Unfortunately, as it is now extinct, it appears it might not have the magical powers suggested by its name.


I hope you've had a good laugh, and gained a little appreciation for the vast array of intriguing organisms we share the planet with :)


* I gathered the species information on this page from wikipedia, curious taxonomy and oddee.com

Different yet Familiar

Hi Everyone :)

Its been over a month since I last posted, so I thought I'd better let you all know I'm still alive. I have a bit of a housekeeping post coming up, with some questions for you, but I'm not there yet. So for now I leave you with something a little different, yet quite familiar to many of you...

For anyone who may not recognise the image above, it is a drawing I did recently, from this photo taken December 2008, during my stay in Nigeria.

Beach Goodies

Well I said I'd share some of the other things I found at the beach, so I'd better do it! On this particular day there was quite a lot of seaweed washed up on the beach, so not surprisingly a lot of the things I found have to do with seaweeds.

The blue bottle, also known as Portugese man O'war is a blue coloured jelly fish with a nasty sting. Fortunately the ones I found looked pretty dead and only one showed any sign of still having tentacles. Interestingly is not a true jelly fish, but the 'jelly fish' is made up of many individuals of a colonial hydrozooid. In this photo the blue bottle has become entangled with a piece of Neptune's necklace.

Here are some goose barnacles that were living on the end of a piece of kelp that I found washed ashore. They are filter feeders that feed on plankton in the water column.














Sandhoppers are group of amphipods (little crustaceans) that feed on rotting seaweed that gets washed ashore. With their laterally flattened bodies and hopping movement they resemble large fleas, and are also known as sand fleas, but they are not true fleas.









Mussel's beard looks a bit like golden hair. It is a colonial hydroid, forming chains of tiny polyps (similar to corals) on mussel shells (front of photo).

Neptune's necklace (left of photo) is a seaweed endemic to New Zealand and parts of Australia. The little 'beads' are hollow and filled with water and gas, which causes the seaweed to float. They are also fun to pop and squirt each other with!

Sea lettuce is a bright green seaweed that when alive and healthy looks a bit like a leafy lettuce. The pieces I found though had washed ashore and didn't look very appetising (green bit in the middle of the photo).

Bladder kelp (right of photo) is New Zealand's largest seaweed and grow to 50m in length. It has air filled 'bladders' that help to keep the leaves upright in the water.

So there are plenty of things to find at the beach, or where ever you are, if you just stop and take the time to look :)

Ice at the Beach

The weather is warming up and it is beginning to feel like summer. So I went to the beach a few days ago, and went for a walk to see what interesting things I could find. I found that the ice plant was in bloom. So today I'm sharing with you some photos of ice plant and its flowers. I don't know why its called ice plant, its an odd name. 

Ice plant is a succulent that grows on coastal rocks, cliffs and sand dunes.

There are two species of ice plant in New Zealand - the native Disphyma australe and the introduced Carpobrotus edulis.

I think these photos are of C. edulis. C. edulis has leaves about 7 cm long while the native D. australe has leaves about 4 cm long.

C. edulis, also known as the Hottentot fig, was introduced to New Zealand (and other parts of the world) from South Africa.

The ice plant (both varieties) are edible. One can eat the fruits and the pickled leaves.

This is a flower bud, not a fruit! I didn't see any fruits.

The fruits are apparently (according to Andrew Crowe in his book "A field guide to native edible plants of New Zealand") quite salty, but the inner part is sweeter and more palatable, but has a rather slimey texture. 

The flowers come in yellow as well as pink

 Maybe I should give them a try sometime... 

The flowers seem popular with the bumble bees

C. edulis was planted on sand dunes in order to help stabilise them, but has since gone wild. According to www.biosecurity.govt.nz C. edulis is now considered an 'unwanted organism', because it displaces other sand dune plants and hybridises with the native ice plant species.   

It is a pity that C. edulis is becoming a pest, because it is such a pretty plant.

I'll share some of the other interesting things I found on my walk at the beach soon. 

Calendars :)

Thank you to those of you who offered suggestions for photos. I have now chosen 12 for the calendar and uploaded thumbnails below.

The calendars will be available for NZ$15 each + postage.

To order please contact me at amgrassham@hotmail.co.nz. I will need to know how many you would like and an address to post them to. I have set up a paypal account to accept payments. If you encounter any problems, please contact me and we can work something out.

Please allow a couple of weeks for printing.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Exciting News!

I have some exciting news for you!

As I stated in my first post here, I want to share the beauty I see in the natural world with you. Many of you have been encouraging and supportive of my photography over the last few years, thank you! So I thought I'd give you a little heads up on a project I'm working on. I am proposing to get some 2013 calendars printed and I am wondering how much interest there is. I am currently in the process of selecting which images to use, but will upload thumbnails soon as I'm done.

I could use your help! Are there any particular photos (or sorts of photos) you'd like to see in the calendar? I'd love to hear your suggestions! I can't promise to use them, as there are some restrictions in terms of size and layout etc, but I will definitely consider them. I also have some ideas for future projects too - so if any suggestions are unsuitable for the calendar, perhaps they can be used in other ways instead :)

I will provide more details as soon as things are finalised. Feel free to leave any questions or comments. You may comment below, or email me at amgrassham@hotmail.co.nz.

Thank you!

Visual Field Map

It is school holiday time here in NZ, so I thought for something a little different I'd share with you a fun activity - one I enjoyed from biology class in my own school days. Equally, curious adults might enjoy participating just as much!

You may remember a couple of previous posts that talked a little about some of the amazing visual capabilities of creatures like the mantis shrimp. Well, today we are going to explore a little about our own vision and create our own map of our very own visual field.

You will need:

• an A3 piece of paper (or two A4 pieces with their long edges taped together, but only tape it on one side as you'll need to write on the paper)
• a selection of coloured pencils (or felt tip pens)
• a HB pencil 
• a ruler 
• a helper
• a piece of wall without pictures on it, furniture in front of it etc.
• blue tack, or some other means of affixing the paper to the wall
• a protractor (optional)

Instructions:

• Draw a dot in the centre of your piece of A3 paper with the HB pencil (if using two A4 pieces, make sure the dot is on the side without cellotape)

• Rule a bunch of lines radiating out to the edge of the paper from the centre dot. We made our lines at approximately 15 degree intervals, and I would suggest this as a minimum (it doesn't matter if they aren't exactly 15 degrees, so if you don't have a protractor its fine to just estimate). Lines that are closer together are fine, and will give a more accurate map of your visual field.

Your piece of paper should now look like this...

• Next attach the piece of paper to the wall, landscape orientation, so that when you stand against the wall, facing it, the tip of your nose is on the central dot. 

• Give your helper the coloured pencils, and looking straight ahead with your nose touching the central dot, ask them to pick one pencil and starting at the edge of the paper, slide the pencil along one of the lines (you should not know which colour pencil they have or which line it is coming down).

• As soon as you can see the pencil, tell your helper to stop, and make a mark on the paper where the end of the pencil is. Repeat until each line has been used. For this first part of the map, the same pencil may be used on all the lines if you wish. Once there is a mark for each line, use a ruler to join them together. This will map the edge of your peripheral vision. 

The map of your peripheral visual field should look something like this...

The human retina consists of two different types of photoreceptor cells - rods and cones. There are some 120 million rods in the human retina that detect changes in light intensity, shape and movement. Rods are distributed across the surface of the retina and it is these cells we use in our peripheral vision. Rods allow us to see in low light conditions but because they are not sensitive to colour, we have a hard time seeing colour in such situations. The same is true with the coloured pencil. Because it is detected first by the rods in our peripheral vision, we see it without knowing what colour it is...

• Repeat the exercise in the bullet point above, but this time make sure your helper mixes up which colour pencil is being used (Your helper may reuse a pencil if they need to, but make sure you don't know what colour they are about to use). This time don't mark where you can first see the pencil, but where you are first able to tell what colour it is. This will map your colour visual field. 

Your map should now look something like this...

The area of your colour visual field should be smaller than the area of your peripheral vision. This is because the second type of photoreceptor - the cones - are sensitive to colour, but they are concentrated near the centre of the retina, so the pencil has to pass further into your visual field before you are able to detect its colour. Each of the 6 million cone cells in your retina is sensitive to one of three pigments (unless you are colour blind, in which case one or more pigments is missing) - blue, green or red, and it is the combination of those pigments being stimulated within the eye that allows us to see the whole array of colours we see. They allow us to see the scene in front of us in detail, while the rods in our peripheral vision allow us to detect to if something is going on there, e.g. movement, so we can then turn our head to focus on what was there in more detail.

• Finally, don't forget to swap places with your helper so that they can have a turn!