Week Thirteen: Paederus Beetle

Common Name: Paederus Beetle, Nairobi Fly
Scientific Name: referring to all of genus Paederus

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order:  Coleoptera

Family: Staphylinidae   

Genus: Paederus

Not-So-Fun Fact: The Paederus beetle is highly attracted to light, which leads it into homes and other buildings. When these lights turn off, the beetle often drops onto the inhabitants of the buildings, causing them to crush the insect’s body in their haste to rid themselves of the pest. When crushed, however, it releases a potentially rash-causing and even blinding toxin called pederin.

Description: This insect warns potential predators about its toxicity by its bright coloring. Its body segments feature alternating colors of black and red or black and orange. Though it is a beetle, it has very short wings and only some species of the genus are capable of flight. The body of a Paederus beetle is long, narrow, and quite small.

Environment: The Paederus beetle inhabits very hot and damp climates across the globe, enjoying swampy woodland areas. Particular regions impacted by this pest include Nairobi and the Iraqi desert.

Reproduction & Development: Paederus beetle larvae are staphyliniform in shape and hatch from small white eggs. Over the course of a few days to a few weeks, they hatch, grow, and pupate into fully grown adults, which live for a relatively long time for a species of beetle. These beetles reproduce sexually.

Nutrition: Paederus beetles eat rotting vegetables, worms, decaying meat, and smaller insects. Their diet classifies them as omnivores. Other than their poisonous excretions when crushed, they are generally harmless in their feeding habits to larger organism, though they may sometimes damage food supplies by their feeding on vegetables and meat stored for consumption by humans.

 

 

Week Twelve: Corpse Flower

Common Name: Corpse Flower, Titan Arum

Scientific Name: Amorphophallus titanium

Note: Many species of the Rafflesia genus are also referred to as “corpse flower”. Here I am researching the titan arum, a specific species of the Amorphophallus genus.

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta

Class: Monocotyledons

Order: Alismatales

Family: Araceae

Genus: Amorphophallus

Species: A. titanium

Fun(?) Fact: The corpse flower is so vividly named because of its terrible stench, which reminded its taxonomists of rotting flesh. This stench is used by the flower to attract its favored pollinators, which include carrion- and feces-eating beetles. 

Description: The corpse flower is an extremely large plant for a regular angiosperm. The flower itself may be five to ten feet tall and features a bulbous central structure known as the spathe, which stores the plant’s new seeds. The petals form a dull pinkish-red bell-shape and fan out elegantly around the pale spathe.

Environment: The exotic corpse flower is indigenous to the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where its preferred habitat is rainforest.

Reproduction & Development: The corpse flower is differentiated as well by its unusual growth and sexual development. Anywhere from two years to ten years may elapse between a single plant’s blooms, as it requires specific environmental conditions to perform this activity. Between blooms the plant retreats to its underground body and root system, called the corm.  When blooming, its stench attracts its beetle pollinators, which become trapped inside the spathe and then are released coated with corpse-flower pollen, which will hopefully be carried inside another blooming plant that has managed to hoodwink the unfortunate beetles.

Nutrition: The corpse flower is a vascular plant, which means it pumps nutrients and water from the soil. Like most other plants, it also produces energy using photosynthesis. Unlike many of my other posts here, it is not deadly at all, merely unpleasantly scented.

Week Eleven: Hagfish

Common Name: Hagfish, Myxini

Scientific Name: Family Myxinidae

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Myxini

Order: Myxiniformes

Family: Myxinidae (this post covers all species; a primary genus of this family is genus Myxine.)

Description: I chose to put hagfish on this blog not because they are especially dangerous but because they are some of the most horrendous-looking creatures on this planet. Their bodies are long, fleshy, and whip-like, colored a dark pinkish-brown. Their mouths are jawless leeching suckers ringed by rasps that are similar but differ from teeth. This orifice is ringed by a set of sensory tentacles

Environment: Hagfish live on the seabed and in the twilit depths of the ocean. Here they encounter their already-decomposing food. The habitats they prefer are occur in very cold water, and are usually very dark, though still with some rays of sunlight. Hagfish crowd these environments, as they have a very high population. It is postulated that this is due to a low mortality rate as opposed to a high birth rate, because hagfish do not lay many eggs at a time.

Reproduction & Development: Hagfish hatch from one-inch-long eggs that occur in small numbers. At birth, they are hermaphroditic and for the most part miniature adults. As they develop they will only grow and form a definite sex, which may change over different breeding seasons. This process of foregoing a larval or nymph stage is known as “direct development”.

Nutrition: The main food source of the hagfish is polychaete worms and undersea carrion, especially the corpses of large marine animals which fall from higher levels of the ocean. Swarms of the creatures will latch onto gargantuan cadavers and rend strips of flesh using their tooth-like rasping suckers. Smaller swarms or singular hagfish eat decaying fish in the same way, and the animal is also known to capture and devour small marine invertebrates.

Week Ten: Platypus

Common Name: Duck-billed Platypus

Scientific Name: Ornithorhynchus anatinus
 
Fun Fact: The platypus is typically considered an adorable, if absurdly constructed, animal. However, the male of the species conceals a set of venomous spurs in his heels.

 

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Monotremata

Family: Ornithorhynchidae

Genus: Ornithorhynchus

Species: O. anatinus

Description: When scientists were first presented with a platypus corpse, they thought that they had been given a taxidermist’s joke: a mammal’s body sewn to a duck’s bill. However, the platypus’s absurd anatomy evolved just like any other animal’s body: through natural selection. Its “duck’s bill” is extremely sensitive to aquatic vibrations and is used to detect underwater prey, and its short, waddling, webbed feet are used for swimming. The platypus is covered in thick, glossy brown fur.

Environment: The platypus is indigenous to Australia, and inhabits environments that include bodies of freshwater including rivers and lakes. The typical home of a platypus is a small burrow in the earth, often located in the banks of the lake or river which it frequents.

Reproduction & Development: The platypus belongs to a unique group of mammals know as monotremes, which lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young. They are still considered mammals, however, because they produce milk and are covered in fur. The young platypus is raised by its mother in her burrow after hatching from its egg, which usually spends ten days outside of the mother’s body before hatching. The young nurses for on average seven months after birth, and will become sexually mature in their second year of life.

Nutrition: The platypus mostly relies on freshwater invertebrates and fish for its food supply. It hunts by swimming underwater with eyes closed, relying only on the nerve endings in its bill for sensory perception of its prey.

 

Week Nine: The Black Plague

Common Name: Black Plague, Bubonic Plague

Scientific Name: Yersinia pestis

Not-So-Fun Fact: Yersinia pestis is the bacterium which causes bubonic plague, and was briefly discussed in association with the Oriental Rat Flea. This bacterium builds up in the gut of the flea and causes it to regurgitate the colony into the bloodstream of its victim, spreading the disease. Bubonic plague can cause swollen lymph nodes, necrosis of the flesh, weakness, chills, and death.

Black Plague

Yersinia pestis

Domain: Bacteria

Kingdom: Prokaryotae

Phylum: Proteobacteria

Class: Gammaproteobacteria

Order: Enterobacteriales

Family: Enterobacteriaceae

Genus: Yersinia

Species: Y. pestis

Description: The bacterium itself is a rod-shaped organism that lives in the gut of a flea. For the description of the flea, see Week Five: Oriental Rat Flea.

Environment: The area of the United States inhabited by the hosts of this bacterium is primarily rural areas west of the Rockies. The bacteria usually circulate in an enzootic system among rat and flea populations, spreading to other species only occasionally. Humans usually contract the disease from flea bites contaminated by the pathogen. Once present in the human body, the bacterium moves from the bloodstream to the lymphatic system, where it causes the formation of buboes.

Reproduction & Development: This bacterium undergoes asexual reproduction through the process of binary fission. This quick, simple method of reproduction allows the infamous technique of “blocking” the gut of a flea with the bacterial colony, which forces the partial regurgitation of the colony into the bloodstream of the flea’s victim. During the bacterium’s development it may be passed between fleas and their mammalian hosts many times.

Nutrition: The Black Plague bacterium is a parasite that feeds primarily on fleas and their host rodents, using fleas—usually the Oriental Rat Flea—as a carrier. Rats are the main hosts, but many other species may fall victim to the organism, including squirrels, mice, and chipmunks. Humans are not the preferred host, and especially not for the fleas, but when sudden die-offs of rats occur, the fleas have no choice but to feed off of humans, thus spreading the bacterium to humans. Yersinia pestis is known as a chemoheterotroph, which refers to its reliance on foreign organic molecules for nutrition.

 

Week Eight: Nile Crocodile

Common Name: Nile Crocodile

Scientific Name: Crocodylus niloticus

Fun Fact: From birth, Nile crocodiles are voracious carnivores who will kill and devour any living prey in their vicinity by biting and/or drowning the unfortunate creature.

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Reptilia

Order: Crocodylia

Family: Crocodylidae

Genus: Crocodylus

Species: C. niloticus

Description: The Nile crocodile is the largest reptile in Africa, at twenty feet in length and weighing more than 1,980 pounds. Its head tapers to a triangular snout, and its scales are for the most part olive green, with a yellowish underbelly and mouth.

Environment: This species of crocodile can be found in almost any amicable habitat in Africa, from the Nile River to Madagascar. It requires a ready body of freshwater and is therefore vulnerable to drought. It may briefly survive in saltwater estuaries, such as the Nile delta, but prefers rivers, lakes, waterholes, and reservoirs.

Reproduction & Development: During the dry season, Nile crocodiles breed and the females lay anywhere from 25 to 100 eggs. The female guards and cares for these eggs until they hatch, at which point she will assist in their escape from their eggs and lead them to the water. The female crocodile is a caring mother, who guards her offspring carefully from predators of all species, including her own. These offspring will become sexually mature at 7 to 15 years of age and live for up to 100 years.

Nutrition: Nile crocodiles are carnivores and eat nearly any animal prey available, including large game and juveniles of its own species.

Week Seven: Mala Mujer

Common Name: Mala Mujer

Scientific Name: Cnidoscolus angustidens

Not-So-Fun Fact: Mala mujer translates from the Spanish into "bad woman" and refers to the nettle-like stinging hairs combined with toxic sap that cause a painful, inflamed rash on the skin of anyone who comes into contact with the plant.


Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida

Order: Euphorbiales

Family: Euphorbiaceae

Genus: Cnidoscolus

Species: C. angustidens

Description: Mala mujer is a two-foot-tall perennial shrub that sports diminutive white flowers. Its white-spotted leaves are covered in fine nettle-like hairs that inject themselves into the skin. Despite these needle-like hairs, mala mujer is classified not as a nettle of the Urticaceae family but a toxic-sap-spurting spurge of the Euphorbiaceae family.

Environment: Mala mujer is generally found in the Sonoran desert of the southern United States and northern Mexico. It prefers hot and very dry climates.

Reproduction & Development: Mala mujer is a flowering angiosperm, which means it reproduces using flowers that must be pollinated and must turn into fruits. This form of reproduction is sexual.

Nutrition: Mala mujer requires very little water or nutrients but much sunlight, as it is a desert plant. Its roots are succulent, which means that they retain much water for the plant underground.

 

Week Six: Ergot

Common Name: Ergot

Scientific Name: Claviceps purpura

Not-So-Fun Fact: If ingested due to their presence in rye bread, ergot spores can lead to ergotism, a type of poisoning that constricts blood vessels. The symptoms of this condition include seizures, nausea, hysteria, hallucinations, burning sensations on the skin, and, if left untreated, gangrene and death.

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Fungi

Phylum-Ascomycota

Class-Sordariomycetes

Order-Hypocreales

Family: Clavicipitaceae

Genus: Claviceps

Species: C. purpura

Description: Ergot parasitizes rye grass, and manifests as a hard growth called a sclerotium that exactly mimics a stalk of rye.

Environment: Ergot is found attached to rye in temperate regions. The fungus prefers a chilly, damp environment.

Reproduction & Development:  Ergot is capable of reproducing sexually or asexually, and grows from spores released by the parent fungus. Ergot attaches itself to a neighboring rye plant. Once attached, the fungus grows into a new imitation of the host plant and releases its own spores.

Nutrition: Ergot feeds off of its host cereal grain plant, leeching nutrients from the real rye stalk it has mimicked.

 

Week Five: Oriental Rat Flea

Common Name: Oriental Rat Flea

Scientific Name: Xenopsylla cheopis

Not-So-Fun Fact: Oriental rat fleas are the primary host of the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which when introduced into the human bloodstream causes bubonic plague. At dozens of instances in human history, the fleas have bitten and infected individual humans and in turn created massive epidemics of the plague in Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Siphonaptera

Family: Pulicidae

Genus: Xenopsylla

Species: X. cheopis

Description: Oriental rat fleas have flattened, bulbous bodies and long, powerful, hairy legs. They are the usual semi-translucent brown color common among fleas. Their mouthparts are specifically adapted for the ingestion of blood, and are very complex. Their digestive tracts are easily blocked by bacterial masses.

Environment: Both this species of flea and its deadly parasite originated in central Asia, specifically in Mongolia and China. The flea is now found wherever its primary host, the rat, can be found. Other, less preferable hosts include cats, dogs, chickens, and humans.

Reproduction & Development: Like many more benign insects, Oriental rat fleas go through four main life cycle stages. After two to twelve days, the egg hatches into a larval form. The larva will go through three molts before spinning a cocoon and becoming a pupa. The flea then emerges as an adult. Any one of the temporary stages may be prolonged by environmental factors, and indeed the speed of pupal development is entirely dependent upon its surroundings.

Nutrition: The flea survives off of the blood of its host, which is sucked through its sharp proboscis. This process is sometimes hindered by the large quantities of plague bacteria which can block the gut of the flea and eventually starve it to death after a period in which the flea bites as many host animals as possible in its desperate quest to properly slake its thirst for blood.
 

 

Week Four: Oleander

Not-So-Fun Fact: All parts of the oleander shrub have been infamous since classical times as a lethal poison.

Common Name: Oleander

Scientific Name: Nerium oleander

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida

Order: Gentianales

Family: Apocynaceae

Genus: Nerium

Species: N. oleander

Description: Oleander is a large woody-stemmed shrub covered by five-petaled blossoms in shades of red, yellow, pink, or white. All parts of the plant contain oleandrin, a cardiac glycoside named after the plant.

Environment: Oleander prefers warm, dry, sunny climates in temperate and tropical regions across the globe. It originated in the Mediterranean, where it was described by such prominent naturalists as Pliny the Elder.

Reproduction & Development: Oleander is an angiosperm, which means that it reproduces sexually by way of pollination of its flowers. It is capable of self-pollination, which is fortunate, since oleander is rarely visited by its insect pollinators. Those flowers that are pollinated produce spores that disperse themselves, and from these grow new shrubs. Oleander is a perennial evergreen.

Nutrition: Oleander prefers dry, sunny locations, though the young seedlings do require more water than the adults. Like all plants, it uses photosynthesis to produce sugars, which are stored in the plant; and oxygen, which is released as a waste product.

 

Week Three: Zaire Ebolavirus

Not-So-Fun Fact: This particular organism is currently wreaking havoc in Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Therefore, let us understand it further by its biological characteristics.

Common Name: Zaire Ebola Virus

Scientific Name: Ebolavirus zaire

Ebola is known to be a virus. The classification of a virus as an organism is currently being debated among biologists and taxonomists. The taxonomy pertaining to Zaire Ebolavirus is listed below, after the grouping Virus.

Class: ssRNA negative-strand viruses

Order: Mononegavirales

Family: Filoviridae

Genus: Ebolavirus

Species: E. zaire

Description: The virus itself is encapsulated by a membrane built from the stolen cell membrane of its parent’s host cell. Inside this membrane is a set of nuclear proteins and a single string of RNA—the precursor to DNA—which documents the virus’s genetic code. The viral capsule measures 920 nanometers in length and 80 nanometers in diameter.

Environment: Ebolavirus must inhabit a host animal. It is found in the host’s bodily fluids. Its natural host is the fruit bat of the Pteropodidae family, but primates, including humans, have become accidental hosts. Many other animals have also been found to carry Ebola Virus Disease.

Reproduction & Development: Ebolavirus reproduces by invading an animal cell and stealing phospholipids and proteins to duplicate itself. The new ebolavirus units escape into the rest of the host to do the same to other cells. In humans the incubation period of Ebola is 2-21 days.

Nutrition: Ebola, like many viruses, feeds off of its host. It steals material from the cells of its host to help itself grow and replicate. The host cell’s cell membrane is especially damaged in the virus’s feeding frenzy.

Week Two: Human

Common Name: Human

Scientific Name: Homo sapiens

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Primates

Family: Apes

Genus: Homo

Species: H. sapiens

 

Description: Humans are bipedal apes, with fine hair over most of their bodies. On the crown of the head and on the brow grows denser hair, used to block the rays of the sun. Like most apes they do not have tails, but do possess five-fingered hands with one finger jointed as a “thumb.” Humans walk vertically, with the head as the highest point and the hind set of feet—a set of apelike hands that have lost their ability to grip—as the lowest point.

Environment: Humans are found worldwide, and some individuals have even temporarily inhabited Antarctica. Humans are opportunistic and easily adapt to any new environment using tools. This species can be found in any biome.

Reproduction & Development: Humans reach maturity at around twelve to sixteen years of age. If the female has children, they will gestate for approximately forty weeks before being born. Single births are most common, but some females may give birth to two, three, or even more infants at one time. The average lifespan for a human is about eighty years of age, which has roughly doubled from its original estimate. Some humans can live for over one hundred years of age. Most human females cease being able to reproduce at around fifty years of age, though human males may continue for longer.

Nutrition: Humans are omnivores, and may eat fruit, vegetables, meat, and other animal products. Many fruits and vegetables are poisonous to the human, however. Humans are very opportunistic feeders, but their diets are self-restricted for unknown reasons.

Fun Fact: Humans are one of the most dangerous animals on earth. They even cause harm to themselves by willingly exposing themselves to or even ingesting toxins that they have created. Humans pose a severe threat to the environments they inhabit.

Week One: Assassin Bug

Common Name: Assassin Bug

Scientific Name: Triatoma infestans

 

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Hemiptera

Family: Reduviidae

Genus: Triatoma

Species: T. infestans

Description: Darwin described the assassin bug—of which he was a victim—as a “wingless…great black bug,” but in fact the assassin bug does possess a pair of dark wings folded demurely on its long abdomen. The bugs are oval in shape, with the typical insect arrangement of six long legs, three distinct body segments, and a pair of antennae. The head is small and elongated and has a slight resemblance to a black horse or cow skull, with a long, curved proboscis like an ibis’s beak. The body measures about 25 millimeters in length.

Environment: T. infestans lives in the rainforests of South America and may be found either in the dwelling of the victim or in the fronds of palm trees.

Reproduction & Development: The mature female insect may lay between 100-600 eggs, depending on how much blood she ingests and therefore how much nutrition she has to spare.

Nutrition: the main food of the assassin bug is the blood of birds, rodents, bats, and humans. The insects typically are the uninvited guests of their hosts’ dwellings.

Not-So-Fun Fact: Assassin bugs carry Chagas disease, which is most often fatal and causes symptoms including sores, fever, swollen lymph nodes, and damage to the major organs. The disease is transmitted when the feces of the insect, deposited near the feeding site, is scratched by the victim into the bite and therefore into the bloodstream.

 

 

Week One: King Cobra

Common Name: King Cobra

Scientific Name: Ophiophagus Hannah

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Reptiles

Order: Squamata

Family: Elapidae

Genus: Ophiophagus

Species: O. hannah

 

Description: The king cobra may grow to a length of 16 feet, but on average it is only 13 feet long. It has a distinctive “hood” on its neck which it spreads when feeling threatened. This hood is black or a dusty olive and usually sports a double chevron marking in cream or yellow. To blend in with its habitat the cobra’s scales and skin are colored in shades of olive-green, tan, and black. Its underside is creamy yellow.

Environment: The king cobra inhabits dense, undisturbed forests and bamboo groves in Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The bamboo groves are used to provide shelter and concealment for the cobra and its eggs. Individuals are often found by humans in abandoned rural buildings and in forests in the process of being cleared, which puts both the cobra and the human in danger due to the snake’s venomous and potentially lethal bite.

Reproduction & Development: Cobras mate in January and the females lay between forty and fifty eggs approximately one month later. The eggs will gestate for seventy to seventy-seven days after they are laid in a nest on the ground. During this time they are fiercely protected by the mother, although after the eggs hatch the newborn cobras are left to fend for themselves. After about four years the cobras are ready to reproduce themselves, and may live to the age of twenty.

Nutrition: King cobras eat snakes and lizards. After the reptile has succumbed to its venom the cobra dislocates its jaw and swallows its victim whole. It uses its bite only to kill prey, and bites other animals only in self-defense.

Fun Fact: The family to which the king cobra belongs—Elapidae—also includes the equally infamous and venomous coral snake, death adder, and green mamba.

 

Week One: Black Fly

Common Name: Black Fly

Scientific Name: Simulium Damnosum

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Diptera

Family: Simuliidae

Genus: Simulium

Species: S. damnosum

Description: Black flies follow the generic design of the diptera order, which includes common houseflies and the more rotund blowfly. Unlike these cousins, however, the black fly has a distinctly divided head and thorax. The head is oriented downward toward the flesh on which it can often be found, and features large vertical oval eyes. The abdomen is fat and segmented. The wings, following the fashion of the dipteran, are colorless and transparent and two in number (“di”=two, “ptera”=wing). The black fly typically measures from 2-5 millimeters.

Environment: S. damnosum is mainly found in the fertile river valleys of West Africa. Black flies congregate in biting swarms around rivers and riverbanks, and attack any warm-blooded animal unlucky enough to stumble into a swarm. Determined swarms have been known to kill their victims by sheer exsanguination.

Reproduction & Development: Once mature, female black flies mate and afterward begin feeding on as much blood as they are able to extract from their victims. Over a month’s time they lay eggs on the surface of swiftly flowing rivers and then die. These eggs will hatch into larvae—maggots—that live in the mud of the river’s banks until they undergo metamorphosis.

Nutritional Requirements: Black flies are opportunistic and feed on the blood of any warm-blooded animal they are able to find.

Not-So-Fun Fact: West African black flies carry the nematode whose scientific name is Onchocerca volvulus. This worm’s larvae, called microfiliae, cause onchocerciasis, which is often referred to as “river blindness.” The microfiliae’s wanderings inside a human host cause infection and blindness in the eyes and provoke lesions, rashes, depigmentation, and severe irritation of the skin.

New blog!

Welcome to Organism of the Week!
Perhaps you are someone besides my professor--it sounds more sophisticated when you say professor--checking to see if I have completed this week's assignment. If you are, then you may be some combination of bored and awesome.
Thanks for reading.
This blog will post one entry most every week on an organism of my choice. These organisms will often be poisonous/venomous/disease-carrying little vectors of hate. If you are interested in microbiology and/or toxicology and/or epidemiology, then this is a good blog for you. Or maybe you just like factoids.
Or maybe you're just checking to see if I've done my homework. (Hi there Ms. L!)
--Lily