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Post by LaFille on Oct 27, 2007 0:07:38 GMT
Nematode The nematodes or roundworms (Phylum Nematoda from Greek νῆμα (nema): "thread" + -ώδη -ode "like") are one of the most common phyla of animals, with over 80,000 different described species (over 15,000 are parasitic). They are ubiquitous in freshwater, marine, and terrestrial environments, where they often outnumber other animals in both individual and species counts, and are found in locations as diverse as Antarctica and oceanic trenches. Further, there are a great many parasitic forms, including pathogens in most plants, animals, and also in humans.
Of the pseudocoelomates, the Nematodes are the most common. Nematodes have successfully adapted to nearly every niche from marine to fresh water, from the polar regions to the tropics, as well as the highest to the lowest of elevations. Though 20,000 species have been classified it is estimated that this number might be upwards of 500,000 if all were known. In certain fertile areas the topsoil is estimated to contain in the billions of nematodes per acre.
In free-living species, development usually consists of four molts of the cuticle during growth. Different species feed on materials as varied as algae, fungi, small animals, fecal matter, dead organisms and living tissues. Free-living marine nematodes are important and abundant members of the meiobenthos. They play an important role in the decomposition process, aid in recycling of nutrients in marine environments and are sensitive to changes in the environment caused by pollution. One roundworm of note is Caenorhabditis elegans, which lives in the soil and has found much use as a model organism. C. elegans has had its entire genome sequenced, as well as the developmental fate of every cell determined, and every neuron mapped.
Some Nematodes can undergo cryptobiosis.
Parasitic forms often have quite complicated life cycles, moving between several different hosts or locations in the host's body. Infection occurs variously by eating uncooked meat with larvae in it, by entrance into unprotected cuts or directly through the skin, by transfer via blood-sucking insects, and so forth.
Nematodes commonly parasitic on humans include whipworms, hookworms, pinworms, ascarids, and filarids. The species Trichinella spiralis, commonly known as the trichina worm, occurs in rats, pigs, and humans, and is responsible for the disease trichinosis. Baylisascaris usually infests wild animals but can be deadly to humans as well. Haemonchus contortus is one of the most abundant infectious agents in sheep around the world, causing great economic damage to sheep farms. In contrast, entomopathogenic nematodes parasitize insects and are considered by humans to be beneficial.
The largest nematode ever recorded, Placentonema gigantissima, was discovered parasitizing the placenta of a sperm whale, measuring 8.5 m in length with a diameter of 0.3 mm, and containing 32 ovaries (Gubanov, 1951).
Other large nematodes include: Dioctophyma renale, the giant kidney worm, a parasite most commonly found in mink but also in dogs and humans, that can reach up to 103 cm in length.Yum, yum. ;D
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Post by Galadriel on Oct 30, 2007 22:09:06 GMT
Ugh Fille, that nematode is a mean looking bastard ;D
Oyster The common name oyster is used for a number of different groups of bivalve mollusks, most of which live in marine or brackish water. The shell consists of two usually highly calcified valves which surround a soft body. Gills filter plankton from the water, and strong adductor muscles are used to hold the shell closed.
Some of the groups known as oysters (true oysters) are highly prized as food, both raw and cooked, but some other groups that are called oysters (such as the pearl oysters) are not widely eaten, at least not in recent times. True (edible) oysters are in fact incapable of making gem-quality pearls, although the opposite idea is a commonly-encountered misapprehension, often seen in illustrations or photographs where an edible oyster shell is mistakenly paired with a gem-quality pearl.
The oyster is used as a metaphor in an idiomatic saying, "The world is your oyster", which means that the whole world is laid out before you like a wonderful living buffet.
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Post by LaFille on Oct 31, 2007 1:41:02 GMT
Porifera (sponges) The sponges or poriferans are animals of the phylum Porifera. Porifera translates to "Pore-bearer". They are primitive, sessile, mostly marine, water dwelling, filter feeders that pump water through their bodies to filter out particles of food matter. Sponges also excrete sperm cells through these holes. Sponges represent the simplest of animals. With no true tissues (parazoa), they lack muscles, nerves, and internal organs. Their similarity to colonial choanoflagellates shows the probable evolutionary jump from unicellular to multicellular organisms. There are over 5,000 modern species of sponges known, and they can be found attached to surfaces anywhere from the intertidal zone to as deep as 8,500 m (29,000 feet) or further. Though the fossil record of sponges dates back to the Neoproterozoic Era, new species are still commonly discovered.
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Post by Glance A'Lot on Nov 5, 2007 10:44:16 GMT
Quail The Common Quail, Coturnix coturnix, is from the pheasant family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes, gallinaceous birds. Upon attaining an age of 6-8 weeks, this quail breeds on open arable farmland and grassland across most of Europe and Asia, laying 6-18 eggs in a ground nest. The eggs take from 16-18 days to hatch. It is a strongly migratory bird, unlike most of the gamebirds, and winters in Africa. It is a small (17 cm) rotund bird, essentially streaked brown with a white eyestripe, and, in the male, a black chin. As befits its migratory nature, it has long wings, unlike most typically short-winged gamebirds. This is a terrestrial species, feeding on seeds and insects on the ground. It is notoriously difficult to see, keeping hidden in crops, and reluctant to fly, preferring to creep away instead. Even when flushed, it keeps low and soon drops back into cover. Often the only indication of its presence is the distinctive "wet-my-lips" repetitive song of the male. The call is uttered mostly in the mornings, evenings and sometimes at night. It is heavily hunted as game on passage through the Mediterranean area. This species over recent years has seen an increase in its propagation in the United States and Europe, however most of this increase is with hobbyists. {side note: Tasty!}
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Post by LaFille on Nov 6, 2007 1:40:54 GMT
It better be tasty, as there really isn't a lot in amount to enjoy tasting on these... ReptileReptiles are tetrapods and amniotes, animals whose embryos are surrounded by an amniotic membrane, and members of the class Sauropsida. Today they are represented by four surviving orders:
* Crocodilia (crocodiles, gharials, caimans and alligators): 23 species * Sphenodontia (tuataras from New Zealand): 2 species * Squamata (lizards, snakes and amphisbaenids ("worm-lizards")): approximately 7,900 species * Testudines (turtles and tortoises): approximately 300 species
Modern reptiles inhabit every continent except for Antarctica, although their main distribution comprises the tropics and subtropics. Though all cellular metabolism produces some heat, most modern species of reptiles do not generate enough to maintain a constant body temperature and are thus referred to as "cold-blooded" or ectothermic (the Leatherback Sea Turtle might be an exception, see also gigantothermy). Instead, they rely on gathering and losing heat from the environment to regulate their internal temperature, e.g, by moving between sun and shade, or by preferential circulation — moving warmed blood into the body core, while pushing cool blood to the periphery. In their natural habitats, most species are adept at this, and can usually maintain core body temperatures within a fairly narrow range. Reptiles are thick-skinned; unlike amphibians, they do not need to absorb water. While this lack of adequate internal heating imposes costs relative to temperature regulation through behavior, it also provides a large benefit by allowing reptiles to survive on much less food than comparably-sized mammals and birds, who burn much of their food for warmth. While warm-blooded animals move faster in general, an attacking lizard, snake or crocodile moves very quickly.
Except for a few members of the Testudines, all reptiles are covered by scales.
Most reptile species are oviparous (egg-laying). Many species of squamates, however, are capable of giving live birth. This is achieved, either through ovoviviparity (egg retention), or viviparity (offspring born without use of calcified eggs). Many of the viviparous species feed their fetuses through various forms of placenta analogous to those of mammals (Pianka & Vitt, 2003 pgs: 116-118). They often provide considerable initial care for their hatchlings.
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Post by Galadriel on Nov 6, 2007 10:28:50 GMT
Lets stay in the reptile section with the Snake A snake is a scaly, limbless, elongate reptile from the order Squamata. A literary word for snake is serpent (a Middle English word which comes from Old French, and ultimately from *serp-, "to creep"); in modern usage this usually refers to a mythic or symbolic snake, and information about such creatures can be found under serpent (symbolism). This article deals mostly with the biology of snakes. Spotted Python
of snakes is poorly known because snake skeletons are typically small and fragile, making fossilization unlikely. It has however been generally agreed, on the basis of morphology, that snakes descended from lizard-like ancestors. Recent research based on genetics and biochemistry confirms this; snakes form a venom clade with several extant lizard families, such as monitor lizards.
Fossil evidence suggests that snakes directly evolved from burrowing lizards, either varanids or some other group. An early fossil snake, Najash rionegrina, was a two-legged burrowing animal with a sacrum, fully terrestrial. One extant analog of these putative ancestors is the earless monitor Lanthanotus of Borneo, although it also is semi-aquatic. As these ancestors became more subterranean, they lost their limbs and became more streamlined for burrowing. Features such as the transparent, fused eyelids (brille) and loss of external ears, according to this hypothesis, evolved to combat subterranean conditions (scratched corneas, dirt in the ears). According to this hypothesis, snakes re-emerged onto the surface of the land much as they are today. Other primitive snakes are known to have possessed hindlimbs but lacked a direct connection of the pelvic bones to the vertebrae, including Haasiophis, Pachyrhachis and Eupodophis) which are slightly older than Najash'.
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Post by Glance A'Lot on Nov 6, 2007 14:54:10 GMT
T... what? {twisting around the game }
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Post by LaFille on Nov 7, 2007 4:22:33 GMT
Good idea. Yours is a tapir; and a member of the following. ;D U... *bleep* (meaning roughly "being hoofed" or "hoofed animal") are several groups of mammals most of which use the tips of their toes, usually hoofed, to sustain their whole bodyweight while moving. They make up several orders of mammals, of which six to eight survive. There is some dispute as to whether *bleep* should be treated as an actual cladistic (evolution-based) group, or merely a phenetic group (similar, but not necessarily related), in light of the fact that all *bleep* do not appear to be as closely related as once believed. *bleep*a was formerly considered an order which has been split into Perissodactyla, Artiodactyla, Tubulidentata, Hyracoidea, Sirenia, and Proboscidea. Members of the three orders Perissodactyla, Artiodactyla, and Cetacea are called the 'true *bleep*' to distinguish them from 'sub*bleep*' (paenungulata) which include members from the Proboscidea, Sirenia, Hyracoidea, and Tubulidentata orders.
Some commonly known examples of *bleep* living today are the horse, zebra, donkey, cow, rhinoceros, camel, hippopotamus, goat, pig, sheep, giraffe, deer, antelope, and gazelle.
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Post by Galadriel on Nov 7, 2007 10:53:09 GMT
What a twist in the game, the animal you showed is the Ungulate or the Llama.
V... A *bleep* is any plant of genus *bleep* (the *bleep* plants) or, by extension, any similar climbing or trailing plant. The word, derived from Latin *bleep*, referred to the *bleep*-bearing variety. The modern extended sense is restricted to North American English, which uses *bleep* to refer to the *bleep*-bearing *bleep* species. (British English tends to use climber to refer to the broader category, including, for example, ivy.)
This article uses the term *bleep* in its broader, North American sense.
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Post by LaFille on Nov 9, 2007 2:25:57 GMT
Ungulate. Yours is vine? W... It's only showing a little part on the picture; otherwise it would be too easy. ;D The *bleep* is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous circumpolar distribution in the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere.
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Post by Glance A'Lot on Nov 9, 2007 8:49:14 GMT
...alrus Now why would that little fish be under X...?
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