Fun biology facts: the world’s longest animal

November 28, 2012 • 12:37 pm

I bet you thought it was the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), didn’t you?—a beast that can be up to 30 meters (98 feet) long.  Well, there’s something that’s even longer, though way thinner: the bootlace worm Lineus longissimus.  According to a book I read on my trip, The Animal Kingdom: A Very Short Introduction, by Peter Holland, the worm can “certainly reach 30 meters, but claims in excess of 50 meters have been made.” I found that hard to believe, but checking Wikipedia (link above) I see that it can grow up to 55 meters (180 feet!).  Other sites substantiate that. The thing is, the worm is skinny (there’s a slight discrepancy here, since Holland says “the body of the worm is never more than a few millimeters wide” while Wikipedia says that the beast can be 5-10 mm wide). It’s in the phylum Nemertea, or ribbon worms.

At any rate, here’s some details and two photos:

Most likely present all around Britain and Ireland, except perhaps eastern Scotland and England.

Lineus longissimus is found on the lower shore coiled in writhing knots beneath boulders and on muddy sand. This species can often be found in rockpools entangled amongst Laminaria holdfasts or in rock fissures. In deeper sub-littoral areas, it occurs on muddy, sandy, stony or shelly substrata.

Lineus longissimus is an unsegmented, elongated ribbon worm. Young specimens range from dark olive brown to chocolate brown whereas adults are blackish brown to black. Epidermal cilia give the body a purplish irridescence. This species is the longest nemertean known. It is usually 5-15 m in length but can be over 30 m, usually 5 mm in width. The body is often streaked with pale longitudinal lines, especially on the anterior dorsal surface. The rectangular head has deep slits and ends in a pale colour tip. A row of up to 20 deep set reddish-brown or black eyes may be present either side of the snout. Pink or red cerebral ganglia may be seen through the epidermis.

© Copyright Malcolm Storey 2011-2112

From, oddly enough, Hawaii Dematology:

The species’ distribution from the Marine Life Information Network:

Wikipedia adds this:

The body is brown with lighter (longitudinal) stripes. Its mucus contains a relatively strong neurotoxin which it uses as a defence against predators.

When handled it produces large amounts of thick mucus with a faint pungent smell. A specimen washed ashore in the aftermath of a severe storm by St Andrews, Scotland, in 1864, had a length of more than 55 metres (180 ft),[2] longer than the longest known Lion’s mane jellyfish, the animal which is often considered to be the longest in the world. However records of extreme length should be taken with caution, because the bodies of nemerteans are flexible and can easily stretch to much more than their usual length.

Like other nemerteans, Lineus longissimus feeds using its eversible proboscis. As it is in the class Anopla, their proboscis is not armed with a barbed stylet. Instead they have a cluster of sticky filaments at the end of their proboscis that they use to immobilize prey.

Professor Ceiling Cat’s Big Question: Why is the damn thing so long? I’m a biologist but I have no idea why an animal that lives under rocks should be over 100 feet long.  That is, what’s the adaptive advantage of such a length? I suppose Larry Moran would say that it might be due to genetic drift (I don’t believe that, though), or it could be a byproduct of some other adaptation (I don’t believe that, either). Perhaps some worm-knowing readers could offer suggestions.

Although a book called The Animal Kingdom may seem dry, this one is short (120 small pages), up to date (how many animal phyla do you think there are now?), and packed with cool information.  I’ll highlight a few interesting animals from it in the next week or so.

And let me put in a good word for the Oxford University Press’s “Very Short Introduction” (VSI) series: there are about 300 now, each covering one field of inquiry; each short but well written and composed by an expert in the field. It’s the best way I know to get up to speed in areas like Quantum Mechanics, Animal Rights, Socrates, Developmental Biology, and so on.  I haven’t yet read the VSI Atheism book, by Julian Baggini, and, sadly, the VSI on Science and Religion, by Thomas Dixon, isn’t very good: it’s way too accommodationist.  But every other one I’ve read has been good. And they’re only about ten dollars each. Peruse the series and see if your interest isn’t piqued.

Nicholas Wade’s ridiculous prescription for curing creationism

November 28, 2012 • 7:38 am

Nicholas Wade is a science writer for the New York Times, and not one whom I much admire. Funded by the Templeton Foundation, he wrote a book on the origin of religion, The Faith Instinct, that I was asked to blurb but refused on the grounds that the contents were apparently vetted and approved by Templeton before publication (see my post on this).

Well, Wade has done himself proud again (at least in the view of Templeton) by publishing—in the Times‘s “Science” section, no less—an execrable discussion of creationism,”Between rock of ages and a hard place.” It starts off okay, with a criticism of Senator Rubio for his dumb statements on the age of the Earth:

The real mystery is how a highly intelligent politician got himself into the position of suggesting that the two estimates are of equal value, or that theologians are still the best interpreters of the physical world.

Catholics and Jews have always emphasized their priests’ interpretations of the Bible, not the text itself; Protestants, starting with Martin Luther, insisted the Bible was the literal truth and the sole dependable source of divine knowledge, a belief the Puritans implanted firmly in American soil. Then, in the 19th century, German textual critics like Julius Wellhausen showed that the Bible was not the inerrant product of divine inspiration but had been cobbled together by many hands whose editing was all too evident.

So far, so good. But of course a Times science writer can hardly do other than criticize someone who suggests that kids be taught the “alternative” of a young Earth in science class.  And then Wade puts his foot in it in two ways.

  • He blames atheists for the persistence of creationism.  I quote:

The inevitable clash with science, particularly in the teaching of evolution, has continued to this day. Militant atheists like the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins beat the believers about the head, accomplishing nothing; fundamentalist Christians naturally defend their religion and values to the hilt, whatever science may say.

There’s that word “militant” again!  How, exactly, is Dawkins “militant”?  It’s as if the word “militant” has become an ineluctable adjective in conjunction with “atheism.” In fact, people like Wade think that all atheism, so long as it is expressed verbally or in writing, and the reasons given, is “militant.”

And, of course, Dawkins has accomplished plenty in getting people to accept evolution. As I repeatedly say, just go look at his “Converts’ Corner” to see how many people he has turned both against religion and toward evolution. In contrast—and [Formerly Uncle] Karl Giberson agrees with me on this—there are almost no cases in which a fundamentalist has said something like, “I would have accepted evolution, but that strident old Richard Dawkins, with his hatred of religion, has rendered me impervious to Darwinism.”

But it gets worse when Wade proposes a “solution” to Americans’ resistance to evolution:

  • Wade suggests that creationism can be dispelled by characterizing evolution not as a fact, but as a “theory.”  I quote again:

A scientific statesman, if there were such a person, would try to defuse the situation by professing respect for all religions and making a grand yet also trivial concession about the status of evolution.

Like those electrons that can be waves or particles, evolution is both a theory and a fact. In historical terms, evolution has certainly occurred and no fact is better attested. But in terms of the intellectual structure of science, evolution is a theory; no one talks about Darwin’s “fact of evolution.”

Unlike a fact, a theory cannot be absolutely true. All scientific theories are subject to change and replacement, just as Newton’s theory of gravitation was replaced by Einstein’s. The theory of evolution, though it has no present rivals, is still under substantial construction.

Evolutionary biologists are furiously debating whether or not natural selection can operate on groups of individuals, as Darwin thought was likely but most modern evolutionists doubt. So which version of evolution is the true one?

By allowing that evolution is a theory, scientists would hand fundamentalists the fig leaf they need to insist, at least among themselves, that the majestic words of the first chapter of Genesis are literal, not metaphorical, truths. They in return should make no objection to the teaching of evolution in science classes as a theory, which indeed it is.

And rudderless politicians like Senator Rubio wouldn’t have to throw 15 back flips and a hissy fit when asked a simple question like how old is the earth.

Unfortunately, Wade, who dimly realizes that evolution is a fact and a theory, nevertheless makes a bad argument here: that scientific “facts” aren’t absolutely true either!  Facts are always provisional in science, even though some of them, like the molecular formula of water, seem unlikely to be overturned. Remember that three Nobel Prizes have been given for “facts” that were later overturned (one of them was finding the germ that caused cancer).  In fact, in my talk in Glasgow, I gave a long list of possible observations that could overturn the “fact” of evolution (Precambrian human fossils, adaptations in one species that benefit ONLY a second species, etc.). Needless to say, none of those observations have been made.

Another error: the theory of evolution is being seriously revised. Wrong. The five main tenets proposed by Darwin—the fact of evolution, its gradualism, the splitting of lineages (speciation), common ancestry (the reverse side of the speciation coin), and natural selection as the cause of “adaptive” features—have stood the test of time. Yes, we are still arguing about stuff like group selection, but that’s the sign of a healthy paradigm, which is a fruitful paradigm.

As for handing creationists a fig leaf (an unfortunate metaphor), it’s not going to work. As we know, and as BioLogos has found out to its chagrin, saying that evolution is a “theory” will have absolutely zero effect on increasing public acceptance of evolution. If the facts of evolution themselves don’t move creationists, why would calling the organizing structure that explains those facts a “theory and not a fact” work differently?  We all know well that trying to tell creationists that Genesis is only a metaphor rarely works, if for no reason other than if Adam and Eve are metaphors, then Jesus died for a metaphor.

Wade is completely clueless when it comes to prescribing how to get rid of creationism. The best way, I maintain, is not to “profess respect for all religions and make a grand yet also trivial concession about the status of evolution.” The best way is to weaken the grasp of religion on the American mind, for religion is the sole source of creationism.

And why, exactly, are scientists supposed to accord “respect” to a bunch of ancient fables that are not only ludicrous on their face, but motivate so much opposition to science?

UPDATE: Evolutionist Lee Dugatkin from the University of Louisville sent me an email detailing his critique of Wade’s piece on Facebook. I asked if I could quote it here, and he gave me permission. Here’s his take:

Thought I would share four problems I list with Wade’s piece. I am cutting and pasting from my Facebook thread here:

1) “Unlike a fact, a theory cannot be absolutely true…”. Yeah, sure, but this misrepresents what a scientific theory is. There are lots of definitions, but here is a good one from National Academy of Sciences, USA — “The formal scientific definition of theory is quite different from the everyday meaning of the word. It refers to a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence.” For more see the National Academies statement on the status of evolution.

2) “The theory of evolution, though it has no present rivals, is still under substantial construction.”. Again, ok, but that kind of language is so subject to misappropriation from charlatan creationists. No “present rival”?? NOTHING even COMES CLOSE to descent with modification in terms of explaining the history and diversity of life!

3) “Evolutionary biologists are furiously debating whether or not natural selection can operate on groups of individuals, as Darwin thought was likely but most modern evolutionists doubt. So which version of evolution is the true one?”

Ok, I can even let the loose language of “which version of evolution is the true one” slide. But to say that “Evolutionary biologists are furiously debating” the levels of selection argument is misleading. No such furious debate is going on. What is happening is that evolutionary biologists are simply explaining why EO Wilson’s recent rants are so misguided.

4) Here is aonther quote from this piece that is correct, but oh so misleading “All scientific theories are subject to change and replacement, just as Newton’s theory of gravitation was replaced by Einstein’s.” Again, ok, sure. But the situations is SO different. I am not a physicist, but my understanding is that the more physicists were able to study and measure things, the less Newton’s theory of gravitation seemed to be an all encompassing theory. BUT the opposite is true for evolutionary biology. The more scientists can measure things at all levels, the more support there is for descent with modification as the theory to explain the history and diversity of life.

A LOLWade

E. V. Rieu revealed!

November 27, 2012 • 10:29 am

by Matthew Cobb

Thanks to the diligent efforts of Tom Holland, and courtesy of Penguin Books, here is a genuine photo of E. V. Rieu, translator of Homer, together with a pile of what look like his black-spined Penguin translations. And he doesn’t look a bit like Chekhov. See here and here for the previous episodes in this story.

E. V. Rieu (c) Penguin Books.

Island in the sky

November 27, 2012 • 7:37 am

by Matthew Cobb

Fantastic timelapse film by Christoph Malin from the top of La Palma, on the Canary islands out in the Atlantic. Press the full-screen button and enjoy.

On his Vimeo page, Christoph describes the process involved in making the film:

This short film, a hommage to the beautiful Island of La Palma – “Europe’s Hawaii” – seemed like a never ending project for me. More than one and a half years of work…. photographing, processing, re-processing, selecting and de-selecting footage, some weeks filming, more than 1 TB worth of RAW data…

I had certain pictures in mind – the scenes, the locations, the moods. Every interesting location I had spotted during many stays over the years on the Island while Hiking or guiding Bike Groups was considered.

As often as possible I returned to Palma to let those images I had in mind get reality, but more than once got thrown back – bad weather, equipment malfunction or whatever. Hiked up the many spots, stayed up all night on stormy volcano ridges, slept like a dead on the beach next morning. Pre-processed nights footage at the Appartement, to check what scenes worked and not, thus needed to be repeated. Moved back up the mountains before dawn for new setups. Watched the clouds and stars move. Feeling small in the universe. And tired and dizzy.

Night-Timelapse filming is a passion, hard to live from, tough on your biorhythm – there is a lot of love, passion and dedication involved. Passion for the work, an open eye for the location. Love for nature and being out alone in the night. Dedication and endurance in front of my workstations when returning and working trough the RAW data.

Which is the toughest part for me – I am not the office guy. Although a friend once said “you have a Mac network that Cupertino would be proud of”, and really enjoy working with these clever designed, efficient machines, I hate sitting in front of the screen too much. And that you do. NO current workstation or server PC has enough power to process timelapse sequences fast. It takes hours, hours, hours.

Endless nights rendering and processing sometimes take their toll – there is no automatism and the machines need to be fed with data… also I usually do not finish until a scene is perfect. On some key scenes of this film I have worked over several months, pulling them out, color-reprocessing, iterating them many times, trying variations. And I am still not sure if they are right now. You judge.

Felid Face of the Day

November 26, 2012 • 11:09 pm

by Greg Mayer

Not only did we find much commendable in Andrew Sullivan’s coverage of the pollsters vs. pundits dispute, but Andrew has now taken to posting felid pictures, too! He’s always been a diehard goggieophile.

A cat gazes upward toward cichlid fish caught in Lake Managua, Nicaragua on 26 Nov. 2012. By Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images.

Plus, there’s relevance to readers of WEIT, or, even more so, Jerry’s first book, with Allen Orr, Speciation: the cichlid fishes of the Nicaraguan Great Lakes have undergone rapid diversification, and are the subject of studies of the process of speciation.

h/t Andrew Sullivan

2 Luxury Teacakes and other English noms

November 26, 2012 • 9:51 pm

As I’m leaving very early today (i.e., the 6 a.m. train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, and then a ride to the airport), I decided to purchase some noms to consume along the way. In the Queens Street railway station in Glasgow, I found these comestibles in the Marks and Spencer shop where people buy food for the journey. These “2 Luxury Teacakes” cost me all of £1.05.

The label notes that “we enrich our moist teacakes with juicy sultanas, currants, & tangy citrus peel to give then a sweet indulgent fruitiness.”

Pondering the incipient noms, it struck me that almost no foods in the U.S. are labelled “luxury.”  We don’t, for example, have “luxury cookies” or “luxury candies,” yet in Britain many foods have that label. I have seen, for example, luxury biscuits” (cookies), “luxury chocolates,” “luxury Christmas puddings,” “luxury jams,” and so on. There are even “luxury cheese and port hampers.”

The word “luxury” is ubiquitous in the UK, but not in the U.S. Why the difference? I don’t think it’s simply a matter of linguistic differences. Rather, I propose that it’s a vestigial remnant of the British class system, which once distinguished classes of people by their dress, their accents, and their manners. Those were the days of British “ladies” and “gentlemen”, of “toffs” and “swells.”

If you want to see what it was once like, read George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London or The Road to Wigan Pier. Orwell, of course, was slumming when he experienced the lower-class side of British life, but the class distinctions he portrays so clearly were real—and invidious.

My theory, then, which is mine, is that “luxury” is a holdover from those old days when the “lower classes” could pretend for a time that they were toffs— by buying fancy chocolates or other foods (usually “luxury” chocolates aren’t so fancy, though!), or having a holiday by the seaside. If you couldn’t go into a club, or had the wrong accent, you could still engage in a fancied form of upper-classness.

That at least, is my theory, which may well be wrong.

I do note that McVities, which makes the best biscuit in the world, the Dark Chocolate Digestive, also makes a Luxury Victoria Biscuit.  Forget those, and indulge in the ones shown below, which I always do when visiting the UK (see many reviews here and here):

This is the world’s greatest biscuit.

And, of course, an ad:

The British make the finest “biscuits” in the world; I’ve written about them previously, and you can peruse the selection at The Great British Diet or at the apotheosis of biscuit websites, A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down.

I wrote about some of my favorite British biscuits nearly two years ago, and they remain the same. And, by the way, Orwell also wrote one of the best essays ever on British food, “In defense of English cooking.” Go read it: it’s free, it’s short, and it’s still true. An excerpt:

It is commonly said, even by the English themselves, that English cooking is the worst in the world. It is supposed to be not merely incompetent, but also imitative, and I even read quite recently, in a book by a French writer, the remark: ‘The best English cooking is, of course, simply French cooking.’

Now that is simply not true, as anyone who has lived long abroad will know, there is a whole host of delicacies which it is quite impossible to obtain outside the English-speaking countries. No doubt the list could be added to, but here are some of the things that I myself have sought for in foreign countries and failed to find.

First of all, kippers, Yorkshire pudding, Devonshire cream, muffins and crumpets. Then a list of puddings that would be interminable if I gave it in full: I will pick out for special mention Christmas pudding, treacle tart and apple dumplings. Then an almost equally long list of cakes: for instance, dark plum cake (such as you used to get at Buzzard’s before the war), short-bread and saffron buns. Also innumerable kinds of biscuit, which exist, of course, elsewhere, but are generally admitted to be better and crisper in England.

Then there are the various ways of cooking potatoes that are peculiar to our own country. Where else do you see potatoes roasted under the joint, which is far and away the best way of cooking them? Or the delicious potato cakes that you get in the north of England? And it is far better to cook new potatoes in the English way — that is, boiled with mint and then served with a little melted butter or margarine — than to fry them as is done in most countries.

Then there are the various sauces peculiar to England. For instance, bread sauce, horse-radish sauce, mint sauce and apple sauce; not to mention redcurrant jelly, which is excellent with mutton as well as with hare, and various kinds of sweet pickle, which we seem to have in greater profusion than most countries.

Crumpets! Treacle pudding! Lamb with mint jelly! Cheese and Branston pickle sandwiches! Bring ’em on!

I’m curious which foods my expat British readers (or those who have visited the UK) miss the most.

Cheetahs on the hoof

November 26, 2012 • 9:28 pm

This extraordinary bit of film “Cheetahs on the edge: the director’s cut,” is described by National Geographic:

Cheetahs are the fastest runners on the planet. Combining the resources of National Geographic and the Cincinnati Zoo, and drawing on the skills of a Hollywood action movie crew, we documented these amazing cats in a way that’s never been done before.

Using a Phantom camera filming at 1200 frames per second while zooming beside a sprinting cheetah, the team captured every nuance of the cat’s movement as it reached top speeds of 60+ miles per hour.

The extraordinary footage that follows is a compilation of multiple runs by five cheetahs during three days of filming.

For more information about cheetah conservation, visit causeanuproar.com/

h/t: daveau