Animal Poop: More Fun, Tasty, and Aromatic Than You Thought!

If you're a fan of Bob's Burgers, you might remember the Season 4 episode entitled "Ambergris" (check out the full episode HERE), in which the Belcher children discover a strange, aromatic hunk of...something...on the beach.  This something turns out to be an interesting byproduct produced by the sperm whale: and even a small hunk of it can be worth thousands of dollars to the right buyer.  But what exactly is the stuff?

Much like the title of the episode, this hunk of surprisingly expensive junk is called "ambergris," and scientists believe its production is related to the sperm whale's diet.  Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) love to eat giant squid who, despite their relatively squishy nature, possess a very tough beak, a feature seen in other cephalopods such as octopi and nautilus.  In my opinion, the cephalopods can be some of the most fascinating animals ever.  Period.  We can delve deeper into why these creatures are so fascinating some other time, but for now, I leave you with this video of the ultimate in animal spy-gadgetry that would make even James Bond sea-sick with envy.  (To see the full Ted-Talk that this video clip is taken from, click HERE.)

Another thing that I think is really cool about animals such as the octopus and the squid is that they have an extraordinarily tough beak.  Partially composed of keratin (the same thing your fingernails, hair, porcupine quills, whale baleen plates, claws of reptiles and mammals, horns,* etc.), this beak very closely resembles beaks seen in some types of birds, and is often referred to as a "horny, parrot-like beak."**  To truly understand the close resemblance, check out the pictures below!

Now, if you've ever tried to digest a bit of antelope horn or Komodo dragon claw, you might have noticed that it doesn't go down very easy, and comes out the other end with even less easy involved.***  For whales, most of the squid is pretty easily digestible, as they don't have to worry about scales or claws, feathers or hair.  That is, other than that tough, keratinous beak.  So what does the sperm whale do with this sharp section of squid structure?  The answer to that is kind of cool, albeit still poorly understood.

Here's what scientists think happens.  In order to keep the squid beak from harming the sperm whale from the inside, the whale somehow surrounds the tough bits of indigestible material (including the squid beak), to keep any sharp edges from being exposed.  That part seems to be fairly widely agreed upon, although it seems that the exact methods are still not terribly well understood.  Sources differ on how the ambergris leaves the whale's body, however.  One Scientific American article states that the whale passes the ambergris with its feces because "it smells more like the back end than the front" when it is first cast out of the body.  However, other sources explain that whale feces are liquidy, and hard matter could be difficult for the whale to process.  Instead, these sources state that ambergris builds up in the whale over the course of its lifetime, and are released when the animal dies.

So why is ambergris so poorly understood?  Well, researching whales, and sperm whales in particular, can be extraordinarily difficult.  You need the proper equipment, you need the money, and you need to be able to find the whales.  Sperm whales can also be more tough to study than other whales because of their natural behavior.  They will dive thousands of feet deep in search of their prey, and spend most of their time beneath the ocean's surface.  When they do protrude above the surface, it can still be difficult to find them, as they often don't protrude very far, and their spout of water released upon surfacing is much smaller than in many other whales.

Because of these and other factors, sperm whales remain poorly understood.  Ambergris is only known to form in the sperm whale and the related pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps), both of which are very hard to study.  Furthermore, studies have found that ambergris is only found in 1-5% of these whales, making the substance even rarer still!****  Because it is so rare, no one has ever seen ambergris expelled from a sperm whale, and the association is only known because of dead sperm whale bodies with ambergris discovered inside.

In spite of this rarity, or perhaps because of it, ambergris is something of a hot commodity, and apparently has been for thousands of years.  The Scientific American article quoted above cites the use of ambergris in many different ancient cultures, including the ancient Egyptians, Middle Easterners, and the Chinese.  It seems to have been regarded as a "cure-all" in some cultures, including Britain during the Middle Ages.  More recently, it was commonly used in perfumes, to fix odors and make the smells hang around for a longer period of time.  Although synthesized replacements have taken the place of ambergris in many scenarios, there apparently still is quite a market for the stuff, and even a relatively small hunk of it can fetch a price of several thousand dollars from the right buyer!

As an interesting side-note, fossilized ambergris has been discovered in 1.75 million years old Pleistocene deposits in Italy.  Some of these fossils, which apparently number more than 25, are even about two feet high and four feet wide!  The abstract of the article (link HERE) describe these fossils as "the only known example of Pleistocene sperm whale coprolites," indicating that the authors of the article consider ambergris to be a poopy product of the sperm whale.  Within the fossilized ambergris, parts of squid beak and "altered organic matter" have been found.

So yes, ladies, long story short, it is possible (although unlikely) that you have sprayed yourself with squid beak byproduct that was somehow expelled from a sperm whale at some point in your life.  If you feel slightly foolish, just remember: you can be sure that you never drank any coffee that was created from the partially digested excretions that came from the hindquarters of the Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), or freshened up with the assistance of the male musk of the the aptly named musk deer (Moschus moschiferus), a scent which the females of the species find most alluring.

Oh wait, you might have done both of those.  Coffee made from animal poop....I have no doubt that Gene Belcher would love to have a cup.  Just remember on your next date, it's not coffee breath or a lack of perfume you have to worry about: its civet-butt breath and a lack of musk deer scent and whale byproduct.  You just better hope that there aren't any female musk deer around....

*Note that antlers are different from horns, and are not made out of keratin.  For a more in-depth discussion regarding the differences between antlers and horns, click HERE and HERE.
**Not that kind of horny.
***Based on speculation on the part of the author, and NOT personal experience.  Please do not try this at home without the supervision of a parent or guardian who has been trained in such matters.
****This statistic comes from the following source: http://www.environment.gov.au/node/18363.  It doesn't actually say how this statistic was determined, but I assume from analysis of whale carcasses.  I don't think many people have tried to look at the digestive systems of whales that are still alive.
*****Yes that kind of horny.

Works Cited:

The Truth Behind the "Truth" Behind Megalodon

Today, the great white shark rules the seas and haunts our imaginations.  After the release of the 1975 movie "Jaws," the great white shark and other sharks were feared and loathed more than they already were, although much of this fear was unbiased.  Ever since Jaws, hundreds of books, movies, television programs, and more have all capitalized on the shark craze, producing everything from the fantastic Steve Irwin Crocodile Hunter specials to the recent TV movie Sharknado.  One of the most popular shark-related features in the media is Discovery Channels "Shark Week," an annual event that features a week of shark-related programs.  Although many of these programs, as is to be expected for television programs nowadays, push the limits of reality, I think that the premiere of this year's Shark Week went too far, and I'm not the only one who thinks that, either.

First off, let's meet the star of this program: megalodon.  Estimates of the size of megalodon have varied widely and wildly, with some older estimates as high as about 100 feet long.  Today, however, most scientists agree that the largest megalodon could grow to around 60 feet long.  Which is still pretty massive, given that most great white sharks don't exceed lengths of around 20 feet, and look at how much people are afraid of them!  megalodon would have easily been able to swallow the average human in one bite: just take a look at those reconstructed jaws, below!  Also, below that picture, make sure to check out the size of just one megalodon tooth.  Suffice it to say, this shark was one massive bruiser.  This shark WAS one massive bruiser.  Notice how I emphasized the "was?"  Well, that's because megalodon went extinct about two million years ago.

Pyg encounters a mid-sized megalodon tooth, graciously donated to my collection of fossils and things that I take to local schools by local paleontologist Wayne Itano

Megalodon sounds pretty awesome, right?  I mean, to be honest, it's one of those extinct animals that just doesn't need to be "sci-fied up," because it's already cool enough as is, on par with other animals such as Tyrannosaurus, Spinosaurus, and Utahraptor.  Well, just because it didn't NEED to be sci-fied up doesn't mean that television networks didn't do it anyways.  And this years Shark Week premiere was the culprit.  Discovery Channel aired a two hour "documentary" showing "biologists" on the hunt for a megalodon.  Today.  In the present.

One of those extinct animals that just doesn't need to be "Hollywoodized!"  Meet Stan, the resident Tyrannosaurus rex at the Morrison Natural History Museum!  You can see Pig seated in the bottom jaw for scale!  Yeah, this guy was huge.

We have no evidence to indicate that megalodon is alive and with us today, and the "evidence" included in the "documentary" was very clearly doctored.  For example, below is a picture of a whale that has supposedly been bitten in half by a megalodon:

And here is a photo "uncovered from Nazi archives" of a giant shark fin surfacing behind a pair of U-Boats:

The first picture just screams CG.  And the second one....really?  Nazi's? Very Indiana Jones-esque.  OK then, Discovery.

The "documentary" starts off with "found footage" of a "boat capsizing off the coast of South Africa and several people being eaten, but whose bodies were never recovered."  Already, this reeks of a typical television plot.  Especially given the fact that a quick Google search of this supposed incident, as well as any of the "biologists" in the "documentary," yields diddly-squat.  Apparently the prospect of a giant shark brutally attacking and destroying a fishing boat just wasn't exciting enough to make it to the news, despite the fact that every news story relating to sharks and shark attacks spreads like wildfire.  Perhaps the South African press was just busy that day?

People refute our naysaying by pointing out that "we know more about the surface of the moon than the ocean," and "the coelacanth (which you can learn more about by clicking HERE) and the giant squid were only discovered recently!"  Yeah, that's true.  But megalodon is very different from a giant cephalopod or a five or six foot long fish.  We are talking about an active, 60 foot long predator that's feeding on much, much bigger prey than the giant squid or coelacanth would.  The giant squid and coelacanth eat a lot of fish, and are considered to be primarily piscivorous.  The giant squid, although very large, is by no means at the top of its food chain, and is fed upon by the largest of the toothed whales, the 60 to 70 foot long sperm whale.  And two million years ago, megalodon would have made up the final link in this food chain, feeding on the 60 to 70 foot long sperm whale.

Am I saying that there is no possibility that more giant animals exist in the deepest depths of the ocean, just waiting to be discovered?  No, I most definitely am not.  I do, however, encourage you to consider the ecological resources that would be needed by such a massive animal.  With no evidence of mutilated whale carcasses that could be attributed to such a massive animal, and an equal amount of evidence from first-hand accounts....I think that the conclusion should speak for itself.

The biggest issue that I have with all of this is not that a television program was made that packages myths, untruths, and exaggerations: it was with the fact that they packaged it as a documentary, no quotations this time.  Discovery tried to balance out the fact that they blatantly made stuff up to appease some of their viewers by pointing out that they included disclaimers in the show.  Yeah, true, there were disclaimers: but click HERE to see how short and hazy these disclaimers really were.  The disclaimers read:

None of the institutions or agencies that appear in the film are affiliated with it in any way, nor have approved its contents. Though certain events and characters in this film have been dramatized, sightings of "Submarine" continue to this day. Megalodon was a real shark. Legends of giant sharks persist all over the world. There is still debate about what they might be.

Notice how they never really say that none of it was true.  When he gave a press release, the executive producer of Shark Week, Michael Sorensen, said that “With a whole week of Shark Week programming ahead of us, we wanted to explore the possibilities of megalodon.  It’s one of the most debated shark discussions of all time, can megalodon exist today? It’s Ultimate Shark Week fantasy. The stories have been out there for years and with 95 percent of the ocean unexplored, who really knows?”  The part that bugs me the very, very most about that statement is the line "It's one of the most debated shark discussions of all time."  It isn't, I promise you.  It really, really isn't.  I have never heard of any paleontologist who seriously believes that megalodon swims the oceans today.  There might be some paleontologists who won't discount the possibility, which is fine.  Science changes all the time.  But with a complete and total lack of evidence, no serious scientist will really debate that sort of thing.

There's many more issues that people have had with this presentation, varying from thousands of people on social media voicing their complaints, all the way to actor Wil Wheaton, who wrote about the megalodon fiasco on his blog, which you can read HERE.  Others, such as popular paleo writer Brian Switek, went to Twitter:

I do hope that this backlash will cause the people at Discovery, as well as at other television stations, to reconsider what they make into a television program, and consider the possibility that, just maybe, there's a significant chunk of people out there who don't want to be fed this garbage.  I do hope that this causes some changes in any future programming, and if we are all really lucky, this event might spawn a South Park episode.  You have to admit, it'd be pretty perfect.  Let's just cross our fingers, shall we?

Whales In Music: An Interview With Alex Shapiro, Composer

So a month or two ago, I went down to Greeley, Colorado to see my good friend Masaki Kleinkopf perfom in the All State Concert Band.  One of the songs that they played there was a piece by composer Alex Shapiro entitled "Immersion."  One of the movements in the piece was entitled "Beneath," and it was particularly interesting!  In it, the band played with one of the most musical animals in the world: the whale!  I was very interested in this piece and the work that went into it, so I contacted the composer and asked her a few questions, and she was kind enough to oblige!  I found her answers very, very interesting, and I hope you guys find them as interesting too!

Alex Shapiro!  Photo Credit: Paul Chepikian

The Natural World:  What made you decide on including whale song in the piece?

Alex Shapiro:  Interestingly, the choice wasn't pre-meditated; the song found me, and I welcomed it in unexpectedly. To back-track for a moment, BENEATH-- for symphonic wind band and prerecorded electronics-- was originally a far more intimate piece for contrabass flute and that very same prerecorded electronic track, titled BELOW. Anyone curious can hear excerpts from both versions of the music: the original solo piece for contrabass flute and prerecorded electronics, BELOW:

http://www.alexshapiro.org/Belowpg1.html

And the version I later created, using the exact same track, for symphonic wind band, titled BENEATH:

http://www.alexshapiro.org/Immersionpg1.html

Around the same time that I was beginning to think about a commission from the wonderful flutist Peter Sheridan for what ended up becoming BELOW, I happened to be poking around on the NOAA Vents Program website (http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/index.html), fascinated by the sounds from our oceans. If I weren't a musician, I might have become a marine biologist, and I also have a fascination with the geology of the ocean floor. I found-- and ended up using to open and close the piece-- a recording of a volcanic eruption from the floor of the Pacific. Perusing the NOAA website, I clicked through to the area with whale songs (http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/sounds_whales.html) and from there, I found my way to many other websites with marine mammal audio files. And that's how I discovered the whale who I realized would be a perfect duet partner with Peter. The song was so haunting, I just had to use it as the centerpiece of the music.

TNW:  What specific whale did you choose?

AS:  The recording I use is that of a male Pacific Humpback whale; I'm told that they're the ones who do the best singing. I actually listened to a couple of hundred whale songs from seven or eight different kinds of whales before I came across this heart-wrenchingly beautiful song. I became adept at hearing the differences in the vocalizations of each species, and could identify a Minke from a Blue from a Sperm just from the audio. Orcas-- the most familiar whales where I live on San Juan Island, Washington, are easy to discern because, as members of the dolphin family, they make high-pitched chirps. Like the Orcas, many whales don't have a song that lends itself as well to human composition needs when it comes to melody (I place the blame for this on the limitation of our musical language, not theirs!). Too many short blasts, pulses, and other non-linear sounds (all of which are great for rhythm, though!). But the Humpback really does sound much more like a human voice, and when I found this particular song, I was mesmerized. I went over to my piano and began improvising with it. Amazingly, the whale was perfectly pitched with my well-tempered instrument, and I immediately found harmonies that worked beautifully (thus making it a whale-tempered piece!). The only audio editing I needed to do was to use filters and equalization to "clean up" the sound of the audio file, so that the blanket of low-humming water noises picked up by the hydrophones that recorded the animal, didn't overpower the higher pitch of the song itself.

TNW:  Are you planning on incorporating nature motifs into any later pieces?

AS:  Absolutely! I'm often recording the sounds around me-- from nature, and even from my travels through and across nature, such as last week when I was on the ferry from Friday Harbor to Anacortes, on Fidalgo Island, and used my iPhone to capture a hypnotic rhythmic passage created by the boat engine that I'll use in an upcoming work. And one of my upcoming 2014 symphonic wind band commissions will be centered around recording the sounds of the state of Wyoming, and using them in the digital audio track I create to accompany the band. The possibilities are endless, and inspiring.

TNW: Where did you get the idea to do a piece about Wyoming? Have you already come up with the ideas for the sounds you are going to use?

AS: The piece is an upcoming commission for wind band and prerecorded electronics, commissioned in part by a grant from The Biodiversity Institute, a division of the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming, to be premiered by conductor Bob Belser and the University of Wyoming Symphonic Band, that will entail me returning to Wyoming to capture the sonic essence of the environment. U of Wyoming gave a beautiful performance of IMMERSION last year (the piece that includes BENEATH, with the whale), and and you can imagine, this new piece is a perfect fit for me!

And again, anyone curious can hear excerpts from both versions of the music: the original solo piece for contrabass flute and prerecorded electronics, BELOW:

http://www.alexshapiro.org/Belowpg1.html

And the version I later created, using the exact same track, for symphonic wind band, titled BENEATH:

http://www.alexshapiro.org/Immersionpg1.html

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ms. Shapiro for taking the time out of her busy schedule to chat with me!  Hopefully we can ask a few more questions for her once her Wyoming piece is released!  I feel as if I speak for all of us when I say we look forward to hearing more from her in the future, both blog-wise and music-wise!

Aquarium Spotlight: Georgia Aquarium

In 2006, my family and I visited what would soon become my most favorite aquarium I have ever been to: the Georgia Aquarium!  It was fantastic, and they had a ton of really cool animals that I had never seen before!  So join us for this Aquarium Spotlight on the Georgia Aquarium, with a bunch of pictures that my mother took while we were there!  Let's start off with the penguins.  The Georgia Aquarium has a colony of adorable African penguins there, sure to be a favorite on your trip!

Another animal that is sure to be a favorite is the whale shark.  The largest shark and, for that matter, largest fish, still alive today, the whale shark behaves more like a whale than a shark, being a filter-feeder, consuming copious quantities of krill.  (Like that alliteration back there?)

Now, the photo below I originally thought was a whale shark, but it looks like its tail might move up and down like that of a whale, dolphin, or porpoise as opposed to side-to-side like that of a whale shark, so I'm not really sure what the heck that is!

The four whale sharks are all in an enormous tank with a ton of other animals, such as large schools of fish, stingrays, and guitarfish, amongst others.  Something that seems to be pretty standard in aquariums these days is the circular walkway thing (pictured below), but, in my opinion, that never gets old!

 

 A stingray

A guitarfish (left) and a stingray (right)

Another fast-favorite will undoubtedly be the beluga, one of my favorite animals of all time!

 

Another smaller and more unassuming creature that is just as interesting as the African penguin, whale shark, or beluga is the leafy sea dragon, THE SUBJECT OF A PREVIOUS ANIMAL SPOTLIGHT. 

 

Another really cool animal was the giant Japanese spider crab!  Inhabiting the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean near Japan between 150 and 1000 feet below the surface of the ocean, the giant Japanese spider crab has evolved to be able to cope with the extreme cold and lack of light experienced so far down in the ocean.

A sea turtle swimming around.

 

 

Greatly interactive, the Georgia Aquarium also has a number of touch tanks for a hands-on experience!

 

Finally, some jellyfish!

Jasper on Dwellable

Skunk in the Showers!

On our California driving trip in 2010, my family and I stayed a few nights in a cute little campsite on the coast, sort of near Monterey in Santa Cruz.  We had heard that you could see whales there sometimes, but unfortunately we saw none.  However, on one fine morning, my mother and sister did see a skunk!  It was just kind of chilling over in the outdoor showers, and looked deceptively cuddly!  Here are some pictures!

The skunk in the shower!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

The skunk in the shower!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

The skunk in the shower!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

The skunk in the shower!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

On the same trip, our family was camping in Big Sur, and my dad and I were outside of our tent reading, when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye.  I looked, and there was a skunk, so close to me that I could have easily reached out to touch it!  Fortunately I didn't startle it or anything, as it moved off without spraying us.  The next morning (I remember this, but strangely enough, no one else in my family does), we also saw a mother skunk cross our dirt driveway with three or four baby skunks in tow!

The Sounds of Star Wars

The dog that was once owned by George Lucas has gone down in history in more ways than one.  One very famous example stems from the dogs name: Indiana.  This inspired the first name of the swashbuckling adventure hero "Indiana Jones" from the film franchise of the same name.  Another very important legacy of Indiana (the dog) stems more from appearance.  Apparently, the idea for Chewbacca, the lovable Wookiee from the Star Wars franchise, came to Lucas when he saw Indiana sitting up in the passenger seat of Lucas's own car!  In fact, the name "Chewbacca" apparently is derived from the Russian and Ukrainian word "собака," which means dog.

Ben Burtt, the sound editor for all six Star Wars movies, recorded a number of bear sounds for the purpose of creating Chewbacca's speech.  Along with bears, cats such as the lion and the mountain lion were also recorded.  Camels were used in addition to these fiercer companions.  These were by no means the only contributions by the animal world to the sounds of Star Wars, however!  For example, when it came to the patrons in the Mos Eisley Cantina in Episode IV: A New Hope, many different tactics were utilized.  Synthesized Latin and chopped-up Swahili served for two of the customers, but animals were used as well.  One patron's laughter stemmed from a hippopotamus, while anothers came from a spring peeper tree frog.

That's not all when it comes to the Cantina scene, however!  Ponda Baba was the Aqualish alien, below, who, along with his friend Dr. Evazan, picked a fight with Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi.  He was "voiced" by a walrus.  Meanwhile, besides "dogs growling and bats squeaking," the "laughter" of hyenas was also used for the laughter of some of the Cantina's other patrons. 


Here are some more sounds, and what kind of animals contributed to their creation:

Geonosians:  Here is what Matthew Wood, the actor who brought the voice of the famous and much-loved General Grievous to life, has to say regarding the sounds made by the Geonosians:

"I recorded the mating calls of penguins as they came back from the Antarctic to little Phillip Island in Melbourne.  Other sounds came from when I was up in the rain forest; I was in a flying fox area, and they let me get close to these two flying foxes.  One of them had a banana, but the other one wanted some of it, so they started fighting.  They were really mad, and I recorded that whole thing.  So, for the Geonosians, Ben [Burtt] combined mating penguins and fruit bats fighting over a banana."

The penguins that he is referring to are the korora, commonly called the little blue penguins, discussed in a recent post.  They would also not have been returning "from the Antarctic," as these birds, the smallest known penguin, past or present, are not cold-weather birds, and really stick pretty close to Australia.

Boga:  One of my absolute favorite characters (yes, I know, technically she is just an animal, but still) was voiced by a combination of one of my favorite REAL animals, the Tasmanian devil, along with a few yelps from dogs and coyotes.

Wampa scream: An elephant bellow, overlied by the squawk of a sea lion.

Mynocks:  The whinny of a horse played backwards at half the normal speed, beginning with the bark of a seal.

Ugnaughts:  The noises made by these pig-like aliens were primarily from the pups of an arctic fox, as well as the mother, but a bit of "raccoons in a bathtub" was mixed in.

Rancor Noises:  The dachshund owned by the neighbors of Ben Burtt, the Syllas, barking, growling, and hissing.

The Sando Aqua Monster:  The deep growls that this massive creature from Episode I: The Phantom Menace makes were actually from the throat of Burtt's then-three month old daughter, named Emma.  "At one point, she had a growl in her voice when she was crying.  I thought, I can use this!  So I recorded that and then lowered the pitch way down in the computer."

 Kaadu:  The snorts of the kaadu were recorded from the sounds a whale made out of its blowhole when surfacing at San Diego's Marine World.

Kaadu/Gamorrean Guard:  Both of these creatures (the grunts of the kaadu, and everything for the Gamorrean Guard) were recorded from pigs.  Unsurprising, at least for the Gamorrean, given his appearance!

Poggle the Lesser - The leader of the geonosians (that is, until Queen Karina the Great is revealed in season two of the Clone Wars) was voiced in a number of different ways, but partially through "Swahili-type vocal clicks."

Acklay:  This creatures noises and shrieks were created from reworked dolphin noises, as well as a few pig sounds.

Octuparra Droids:  The sounds from these massive droids from the Clone Wars were partially created by cows.

Gor:  Pet of the aforementioned General Grievous, Gor was voiced by a mixture of a lion and a vulture.

Gundark:  This creature, first mentioned in the original trilogy ("You look strong enough to pull the ears off a gundark," said Han Solo to Luke Skywalker after his traumatic ordeal at the hands [haha irony (because the wampa gets his hands cut off)] of the wampa) was created from a conglomerate of a horse and a shrieking parrot.

I have to say, I think one of the coolest places to visit would be Skywalker Sound, the place where all of the sound and stuff for the Star Wars movies and tons of other movies are made, organized, edited, and such.  If they gave tours, then I would totally make the trip out there!  To take a tour of Skywalker Ranch would be absolutely fantastic!

Top Ten: Extinct Sea Monsters (Part 4 of 5)

7.  Archelon - Archelon is the largest sea turtle that has been discovered to date, the closest living relative that Archelon has is the "Critically Endangered" leatherback sea turtle, the largest sea turtle alive today.  Living in the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway between 75-65 MYA, Archelon has been discovered in the states of South Dakota, Wyoming and Kansas. 

8.  Leedsichthys - Often cited as the largest fish known to humankind, the largest Leedsichthys had an estimated length of 72 feet, but some researchers believe that it could have grown to sizes that would rival those seen in the blue whale, the largest known animal ever to live on planet Earth.   Although Leedsichthys swam the seas only during the Jurassic Period, the group that it belonged to survived until the end of the Cretaceous Period.  Remains of this filter feeder have been uncovered in England, France, Germany, and Chile.  


COMING UP NEXT WE HAVE:

9.  Tanystropheus
10. Tylosaurus

This post is part of the "Top Ten: Extinct Sea Monsters" series.  For the rest of the posts in this series, click HERE.  

Top Ten: Extinct Sea Monsters (Part 1 of 5)

Since ya'll kinda get gypped on Wednesdays with the "What Is It?" challenge, I decided that, when I do do the challenge, I will also include a "Top Ten" list.  I mean, come on now, who doesn't like lists?  I know some of my friends would be absolutely and completely lost without them!  So for today's "Top Ten," we are going to take a look at some of the world's most amazing, extinct sea monsters.  This is also up for debate, so if you disagree, just give me a holler!  Also, they are not in any particular order, I just kind of threw them all in there!  So without further ado, here we go, with our "Top Ten:  Extinct Sea Monsters!"

1.  Megalodon - This gigantic relative of the extant great white shark was thought to be simply massive: perhaps even sixty feet in length!  Living the world over, Megalodon stalked the seas during the Miocene and Pliocene Epochs, and only died out during the current Pleistocene Epoch, around two million years ago.  It is thought that Megalodon evolved to such gigantic proportions in order to be able to attack the massive whales that had started to evolve in the cooler seas of the Miocene and Pliocene.  Remember now: if it's a shark, then it's a fish!

A tooth fragment from Megalodon at this excellent restaurant called The Crab Shack on Tybee Island off of the coast of Savannah, Georgia. 

2.  Basilosaurus - A massive, predatory whale (and, therefore, a mammal) that cruised the seas in the Late Eocene Epoch, 40 to 34 MYA, fossil discoveries of this massive animal were reportedly so common in the southern United States during the early 19th century, that bones of Basilosaurus would be used as furniture!  It was first discovered in Louisiana, and is the state fossil of both Mississippi and Alabama.  Basilosaurus has also been found in Egypt and Pakistan.  At around sixty feet in length, the same estimated length of Megalodon, Basilosaurus is thought to have been the biggest creature alive at the time.

COMING UP:

3.  Liopleurodon
4.  Shonisaurus
5. Elasmosaurus
6.  Dunkleosteus
7.  Archelon
8.  Leedsichthys
9.  Tanystropheus
10. Tylosaurus

This post is part of the "Top Ten: Extinct Sea Monsters" series.  For the rest of the posts in this series, click HERE. 

The Fauna of South Carolina: Cetaceans

This post was originally going to be a part of today's earlier post, previously entitled "The Fauna of South Carolina:  Cetaceans, Foxes and Otters."  However, when I tried to upload all of the pictures of the cetaceans, foxes and otters, the computer slowed to a crawl.  So I decided just to split the post into two parts, and just pretend like it was one.  So without further ado, I present to you...."The Fauna of South Carolina:  Cetaceans."

Bottlenose Dolphins at "The Inlet"

If you recall, a few weeks ago I posted about another fascinating creature that I learned about when we visited South Carolina in June, called THE BLACK SKIMMER.  We saw it hunting while we were in a small coastal inlet, which we shall henceforth refer to as "The Inlet."  Our main purpose for our visit to "The Inlet" was to see dolphins.  We had seen them last time we had gone to South Carolina at the same place, and we lucked out again.  We saw a group of at least three, but possibly four bottlenose dolphins swimming through the area.  My mom was able to snap a couple of pictures, but it was very difficult to predict where they would next surface.

Dolphin going under.  What you see in the picture is its tail.

 Although all four of these pictures of the dolphins were taken at "The Inlet," we saw dolphins a couple of other times as well; I believe I saw them on four other occasions, all while out on our friends boat.

Dolphin dorsal fin, the same fin that strikes fear into people who have seen Jaws too many times.

By far the most memorable occasion was out in Charleston Harbor.  We were just on our way back from buzzing around Fort Sumter (the starting point of the Civil War).  We had been (boating?  driving?  floating?) for a few minutes when Captain Jim stopped the boat: he had spotted dolphins.  A pod of dolphins was swimming around our boat.  None of them got closer than twenty-five or so feet, but that was still pretty close!  We knocked on the side of the boat to try to draw them closer, as dolphins are very curious, like the polar bear, but nothing doing.  They stayed nearby our boat for awhile, and they didn't seem to be hunting or anything, so my guess is that they were probably curious, but a little nervous about getting too close.  Or perhaps they were getting close, and we just couldn't see them under the water!  Or, perhaps they were just, as today's urban youth says, "Chillin'." 

Another shot of the dolphin dorsal fin

Later on, we went to an excellent restaurant called "The Crab Shack" (scroll down to the "Alligator" part of the post), and they had a small display of local fossils.  I took a picture of a few of the more interesting ones, seen below.

Dolphin vertebrae

A whale bone

These large bones help the whales to "see" via echolocation at the deeper, darker levels of the ocean, where seeing with your eyes is virtually impossible without massive eyes, like those seen in the giant squid.

On our last two nights of our vacation, we stayed at a little place called Tybee Island, near Savannah, Georgia.  On one of those days, we joined a local ecologist named Dr. Joe Richardson on an ecology tour.  It was a lot of fun, and I hope to devote a post to him and his tour later on.  Also on the island was a small museum, called the "Tybee Island Marine Science Center" (TIMSC), which was also very cool.  I know for a fact that I will have at least one post later on about an amusing incident that took place at the center, and probably mention it in passing a few times as well.  But for now, all you need to know is that they had a few bones of a sperm whale that had washed up on the beach there a few years back, I think perhaps in 2002.  Take a look below!

Sperm whale bone, I don't remember what bone this was.  If anyone has any idea, shoot me an email! 

Sperm whale ribs

Sperm whale vertebrae

Finally, on our last night there, we stopped at a small shop.  I had gone down to South Carolina in the hopes of nabbing a Megalodon tooth or two (I know you're tired of hearing this, but a later post!) but I had been foiled.  I did find a couple of really cool fossils, including other sharks teeth, a few fossils belonging to stingrays, as well as a fossilized horse molar!  A lot of what I have is unidentified at this point, but I will keep you posted as I find out more.  But I decided to buy two whale bones at this fossil shop, and below are two pictures.  The Rupee is there for comparison.

Fossil whale vertebrae

Fossil whale bone, I believe it to be a jawbone.

This post is part of "The Fauna of South Carolina" series.  For the rest of the posts in this series, click HERE.

South Beach on Dwellable

What Is It? The Weekly Challenge #2 Answer

 Hello again!  Thank you to our guessers for this week: surprisingly, one of you got it exactly right!  Congratulations to Kristie C., who guessed this weeks mystery animal 100% correct!  The correct animal was Pakicetus, an ancient ancestor of the cetaceans, or the whales, dolphins and porpoises.  Around 53 MYA, Pakicetus lived in a world that was gradually becoming what we see today.  At this time, what we now know as India was its own special island continent, moving steadily northwards until, eventually, India crashed into Asia.  This crash resulted in the largest mountains we have today, the Himalayas. 

However, 53 MYA, during the Eocene Epoch, India hadn't quite reached Asia, a small sea separating the two, the remains of the vast Tethys Ocean.  The Tethys Sea was high in saline, which is incredibly good for life.  Microscopic organisms like plankton flourished, sending reverberations up the food chain, all of the way to the fish, which exploded in numbers as well.  And on the shore of this Tethys Sea, in what today is Pakistan, stood Pakicetus. 

As Pakicetus watched the gread abundnace of fish in the waters, he began to take short fishing trips into the water.  Over millennia, as Pakicetus took more and more fishing trips, of longer and longer duration, adaptations that proved beneficial for hunting fish in the water occurred, like a more streamlined shape, most likely webbed feet, and nostrils placed further back on the head.  Over a few million years, Pakicetus evolved into another ancient whale, called Ambulocetus.

Check back in a few hours for your next "What Is It?" challenge?  I promise you, after the last two, this one should seem like a piece of cake!  See you all then!