Week Two: Valley Fever

Common Name: Valley Fever

Scientific Name: Coccidioides immitis

Not-So-Fun Fact: When inhaled, the fungus Coccidioides causes a severe lung infection called Coccidioidomycosis, or Valley Fever.

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Fungus

Phylum: Ascomycota

Class: Euascomycetes

Order: Onygenales

Family: Onygenaceae

Genus: Coccidioides

Species: C. immitis

Description: Coccidioides is a long, chainlike fungus resembling a jewelry chain studded with square-shaped beads. The symptoms of the disease it causes resemble influenza, and often are confined to the lungs. If it forms spores, however, it can be spread by the victim’s own bloodstream to other parts of the body, including the brain and nervous system. Because it is “dimorphic”, it can change shape to evade the body’s immune system. Other symptoms of Valley Fever include fatigue, rash, headache, muscle ache, cough, and fever.

Environment: This fungus normally rests in the soils of Central America, South America, the southwestern United States, and Washington State. It is spread by inhalation of fungal spores. About 40% of those people who inhale the spores do not suffer the symptoms of Valley Fever. Residents of areas in which the fungus also resides should avoid a large amount of soil inhalation.

Reproduction & Development: Coccidioides reproduces by forming spores and spreading through the air or through the bloodstream. The fungus can reproduce sexually or asexually, though very little is known about the sexual reproduction of this species. Please regard the “Description” for the development of Coccidioides.

Nutrition: Coccidioides is a parasite that feeds off the human body, but also lies in the soil. It cannot survive on the surface of the soil in extremely hot, dry, or wet conditions and prefers a mild climate. Its preferred soil is full of carbonized organic material and various types of salt.

 

Week One: Peacock Flower

Common Names: Peacock Flower, Red Bird of Paradise, Barbados Pride, Ayoowiri, Flos Pavonis

Scientific Name: Caesalpinia pulcherrima syn. Poinciana pulcherrima

 

Not-So-Fun Fact (in fact, a terribly tragic one): The peacock flower, among other common toxic houseplants, was used during the days of brutal slavery in the Americas by oppressed and enslaved women. The women hoped that by ingesting the extremely poisonous seeds, they would either miscarry any children that would be born into a similarly miserable life or be killed themselves.

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida

Order: Fabales

Family: Fabaceae

Genus: Caesalpinia syn. Poinciana

Species: C. pulcherrima syn. P. pulcherrima

Description: The peacock flower is a beautiful shrub featuring long branches rimmed with small, fine leaves. Its also features bright red, orange, or yellow flowers which transform into poisonous flat brown seedpods. In favorable conditions it may reach twenty feet in height. Its bark is covered in sharp spines to discourage contact by non-pollinators.

Environment: The plant is indigenous to the islands of the Caribbean. It thrives in steamy tropical and subtropical climates, such as lowland and highland rainforest. It is also grown as an ornamental shrub, which gave its desperate users easy access while working in the domiciles of wealthy, botanically-minded slave owners.

Reproduction & Development: The peacock flower’s eye-catching blossoms are used to attract its favorite pollinator, the hummingbird, which feeds on the nectar and distributes pollen in summer. During the fall, the plants lose their flowers and grow seedpods which fall to the ground, their toxic seeds germinating into new plants.

Nutrition: Peacock flowers enjoy very wet and warm climates. They absorb nutrients from the soil and are autotrophic, like most plants.

 

Week One, Year Two: Angler Fish

Common Name: Triple-Wart Sea Devil Angler Fish

Scientific Name: Cryptopasaras couesi

Fun Fact: The bioluminescent lure dangling from a female anglerfish’s forehead is lit by millions of resident bacteria, which produce the natural light.

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Actinopterygii

Order: Lophiiformes

The above taxonomy and below sections describe all anglerfish. The following taxonomy deals with the triple-wart sea devil anglerfish in particular.

Family: Ceratiidae

Genus: Cryptopasaras

Species: C. couesi

Description: An anglerfish is a bulbous-bodied deep sea fish. It possesses a gaping mouth filled with long, razor-sharp teeth that prevent it from fully closing its lips. The anglerfish is usually colored dark reddish brown. The female of the species is much larger than the male and features a protrusion of fleshy spine tissue from its forehead which ends in a bioluminescent “lure”. Adult anglerfish can grow from eight inches to more than three feet in length and weigh up to 110 pounds.

Environment: Anglerfish live in the abyss, the deepest level of the ocean. All of their characteristics have evolved over time to suite this unusual, lightless, cold, and nearly barren habitat.

Reproduction & Development: Because of the difficulty of finding mates in the abyss, the male anglerfish latches onto the first female he finds using his teeth. For the rest of his life, he will rely on her bloodstream for nutrients. His bloodstream fuses with hers, and over time his body and internal organs will dissolve until he has been entirely absorbed by the female. More than six males may perform this process with any individual female anglerfish. The number of males affects the number of fertilized eggs the female may produce.

Nutrition: Anglerfish are carnivorous and feed on almost any prey they can find in their desolate environment. The female’s glowing lure is used to attract fish, which swim toward the light hanging from the anglerfish’s forehead and are devoured by the mouth beneath. This mouth is so large in comparison to the rest of the fish’s body that it may swallow prey up to twice its body size.

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.