Creature Feature #6

Sparkly and colorful!

Remember when I said I wouldn’t post about the outside world? Surprise! It’s Valentine’s Day, so you’re getting the prettiest sea creature in all the land plus an amphibian that looks like jewels. Plz enjoy some shiny Valentine sparklies of the creature kind.

First my beloved Strawberry Squid! Living in the mesopelagic aka twilight zone of the sea, about 1,000 meters down, she’s the most lovely and shiny creature (the sparkly bits are photophores- a kind of light producing organ):

AND she has mismatched eyes, with one smaller eye to look down deeper into the sea, and one bubble shaped extra large eye to look upward. The bubble eye has a colored lens that fluoresces, as it’s tinted to (in theory) help these squid discern their prey against the filtered light above. You can’t really tell in that first photo, but this screengrab I snagged from an MBARI video shows it off a bit better:

Glowing orb eye! The little eye that looks downward searches for bioluminescence that might indicate predators or prey. Wait. GUESS WHAT I JUST FOUND. While I was looking for that glowy-eye pic, I discovered a delightful squid art tutorial!

And finally here’s a quick gif to show how shiny this little squid can be:

This is just a top tier squid! Please note she’s also a delicious food source for sea critters like sperm whales. Stay shiny, squid friend! Final important squid news: you can text 1-833-724-8398 to get a free squid fact from Skype a Scientist. I highly recommend this! Also they have t-shirts featuring the strawberry squid and I want one:

Okay, next for your next creature we have some poison frogs, the jewelry-est amphibians I could think of. They come in lots of colors, and they’re bright and pretty! Also some are poisonous, so don’t lick them, you weirdos. Here’s one I particularly love:

Look how vibrant and shiny and painted it looks! Also they are extra good parents, guarding their young and even bringing them food which is pretty unusual for froggles. But aside from being lovely parents, they come in sooo many colors. Like blue and yellow!

Or mottled green!

Or stripey orange!

Anyway, I just think they’re neat. The poison on a few varieties (like, 4, I think?) has been used by some indigenous people to coat darts that they can then use for hunting small game. But if you look at enough cute frogs, it’s kind of like looking into a sparkly jewel box, except with cute eyes that look back at you.

Okay, I hope you all have a lovely Friday or whatever day you find yourself reading this! And happy Valentine’s Day, have some of the animal themed Valentines I’ve saved over the years. This one is by author and artist Ursula Vernon:

This one is just a dorky otter pun, I may have gotten it from an aquarium’s tumblr account? I don’t know and I don’t feel like searching but anyway it is cute:

And here’s a cat one for good measure, definitely from tumblr:

OKAY. Bye.

Sources:

1. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute - Strawberry squid

2. Deep Sea News - Little strawberry squid

3. Snopes - Are you squidding me

4. Henry Vilas Zoo - Yellow and blue poison dart frog

5. Elmwood Park Zoo - Amphibians

6. Los Angeles Zoo - Poison frogs

7. San Diego Zoo - Poison frogs also