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Firefly Squid
The firefly squid (''Watasenia scintillans''), also commonly known as the sparkling enope squid or hotaru-ika in Japan, is a species of squid A squid (: squid) is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight cephalopod limb, arms, and two tentacles in the orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, and Bathyteuthida (though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also ... in the family Enoploteuthidae. ''W. scintillans'' is the sole species in the monotypic genus ''Watasenia''. These tiny squid are found on the shores of Japan in Spring (season), springtime during Spawn (biology), spawning season, but spend most of their lives in deeper Water, waters between . They are bioluminescence, bioluminescent organisms and emit blue light from Photophore, photophores, which some scientists have hypothesized could be used for communication, camouflage, or attracting food, but it is still unclear in the scientific community exactly how this species uses their biolumines ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Chiyomatsu Ishikawa
was a Japanese biologist, zoologist, evolutionary theorist, and ichthyologist at the Naples Zoological Station starting 1887. He was responsible for disseminating Darwin's ideas on evolution in Japan. Biography Ishikawa Chiyomatsu was born in Edo as a son of a high-ranking samurai, a Hatamoto. But the Meiji Restoration occurred and when the Tokugawa shogunate collapsed, he moved to Sunpu (Shizuoka prefecture) in 1867. In 1872, he returned to Tokyo and studied English. He entered the Tokyo Kaisei Gakko, which was a high education college belonging Ministry of Education in 1876. His was taught by Montague Arthur Fenton, which influenced Chiyomatsu to start a collection of butterflies. Chiyomatsu entered the Tokyo Imperial University in 1878, and studied under Edward S. Morse. After Morse left Japan, his teachers were Charles Otis Whitman and Kakichi Mitsukuri. After graduating from the Tokyo Imperial University, he studied in Germany under eminent evolutionary theorist August ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Squid
A squid (: squid) is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight cephalopod limb, arms, and two tentacles in the orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, and Bathyteuthida (though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also called ''squid'' despite not strictly fitting these criteria). Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, Symmetry (biology)#Bilateral symmetry, bilateral symmetry, and a mantle (mollusc), mantle. They are mainly soft-bodied, like octopuses, but have a small internal skeleton in the form of a rod-like gladius (cephalopod), gladius or pen, made of chitin. Squid diverged from other cephalopods during the Jurassic and occupy a similar Ecological niche, role to teleost fish as open-water predators of similar size and behaviour. They play an important role in the open-water food web. The two long tentacles are used to grab prey and the eight arms to hold and control it. The beak then cuts the food into suitable size chunks for swal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Squid Counterillumination
A squid (: squid) is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight arms, and two tentacles in the orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, and Bathyteuthida (though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also called ''squid'' despite not strictly fitting these criteria). Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, and a mantle. They are mainly soft-bodied, like octopuses, but have a small internal skeleton in the form of a rod-like gladius or pen, made of chitin. Squid diverged from other cephalopods during the Jurassic and occupy a similar role to teleost fish as open-water predators of similar size and behaviour. They play an important role in the open-water food web. The two long tentacles are used to grab prey and the eight arms to hold and control it. The beak then cuts the food into suitable size chunks for swallowing. Squid are rapid swimmers, moving by jet propulsion, and largely locate their prey by sight. They are amo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Counter-illumination
Counter-illumination is a method of active camouflage seen in marine animals such as firefly squid and midshipman fish, and in military prototypes, producing light to match their backgrounds in both brightness and wavelength. Marine animals of the mesopelagic (mid-water) zone tend to appear dark against the bright water surface when seen from below. They can camouflage themselves, often anti-predator adaptation, from predators but also from their prey, by producing light with bioluminescence, bioluminescent photophores on their downward-facing surfaces, reducing the contrast of their silhouettes against the background. The light may be produced by the animals themselves, or by mutualism (biology), symbiotic bacteria, often ''Aliivibrio fischeri''. Counter-illumination differs from countershading, which uses only pigments such as melanin to reduce the appearance of shadows. It is one of the dominant types of aquatic camouflage, along with transparency and silvering (camouflage), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Toyama Bay
is a bay located on the northern shores of the Hokuriku region of Honshu, Japan on the Sea of Japan. The bay borders Toyama and Ishikawa prefectures. The bay is known for the mirages on the horizon during the winter months and for being a spawning ground for the firefly squid. It is also one of Japan's three largest bays. Parts of the bay are within the borders of the Noto Hantō Quasi-National Park. Toyama shrimp are found in Toyama bay, which they are named after. Geography Border communities ;Toyama Prefecture : Kurobe, Uozu, Namerikawa, Toyama, Imizu, Takaoka, Himi ;Ishikawa Prefecture : Nanao Rivers Kurobe River, Jōganji River, Jinzū River, Shō River The has its source in Mount Eboshi (烏帽子岳 ''Eboshigatake'') in the Shōkawa-chō area of Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. After flowing for through the northern part of Gifu Prefecture and the western part of Toyama Prefecture, it emp ..., etc. References {{Authority control Bays of Japan Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Diel Vertical Migration
Diel vertical migration (DVM), also known as diurnal vertical migration, is a pattern of movement used by some organisms, such as copepods, living in the ocean and in lakes. The adjective "diel" ( IPA: , ) comes from , and refers to a 24-hour period. The migration occurs when organisms move up to the uppermost layer of the water at night and return to the bottom of the daylight zone of the oceans or to the dense, bottom layer of lakes during the day. DVM is important to the functioning of deep-sea food webs and the biologically-driven sequestration of carbon. In terms of biomass, DVM is the largest synchronous migration in the world. It is not restricted to any one taxon, as examples are known from crustaceans (copepods), molluscs (squid), and ray-finned fishes (trout). The phenomenon may be advantageous for a number of reasons, most typically to access food and to avoid predators. It is triggered by various stimuli, the most prominent being changes in light-inte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Photophore
A photophore is a specialized anatomical structure found in a variety of organisms that emits light through the process of boluminescence. This light may be produced endogenously by the organism itself (symbiotic) or generated through a mutualistic relationship with bioluminescent bacteria (non-symbiotic), resulting in light production on a glandular organ of animals. Light organs are most commonly found in marine animals, including many species of fish and cephalopods. The organ can be simple, or as complex as the human eye, equipped with lenses, shutters, color filters, and reflectors; unlike an eye, however, it is optimized to produce light, not absorb it. In the context of developmental biology, light organs form through precise genetic regulation and, in some cases, microbial colonization during specific stages of an organism's life cycle. They play a crucial evolutionary role in enabling species to adapt to low-light or dark environments, particularly in the deep sea. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Oegopsida
Oegopsida is one of the four orders of squid in the superorder Decapodiformes, in the class Cephalopoda. Together with the Myopsina, it was formerly considered to be a suborder of the order Teuthida, in which case it was known as Oegopsina. This reclassification is due to Oegopsina and Myopsina not being demonstrated to form a clade. The Oegopsida are an often pelagic squid, with some nerito-oceanic species associated with sea mounts. They consist of 24 families and 69 genera. They have these characters in common: the head is without tentacle pockets, eyes lack a corneal covering, arms and tentacle clubs may have hooks, the buccal supports are without suckers, and oviducts in females are paired. Two families, the Bathyteuthidae and Chtenopterygidae, which have features characteristic of the Myopsida while retaining others common to the Oegopsina, were formerly placed in the family, but are now placed in their own order Bathyteuthida. The Oegopsida differ from the coastal My ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Tentacle
In zoology, a tentacle is a flexible, mobile, and elongated organ present in some species of animals, most of them invertebrates. In animal anatomy, tentacles usually occur in one or more pairs. Anatomically, the tentacles of animals work mainly like muscular hydrostats. Most forms of tentacles are used for grasping and feeding. Many are sensory organs, variously receptive to touch, vision, or to the smell or taste of particular foods or threats. Examples of such tentacles are the eyestalks of various kinds of snails. Some kinds of tentacles have both sensory and manipulatory functions. A tentacle is similar to a cirrus, but a cirrus is an organ that usually lacks the tentacle's strength, size, flexibility, or sensitivity. A nautilus has cirri, but a squid has tentacles. Invertebrates Molluscs Many molluscs have tentacles of one form or another. The most familiar are those of the pulmonate land snails, which usually have two sets of tentacles on the head: when ext ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Chitin
Chitin (carbon, C8hydrogen, H13oxygen, O5nitrogen, N)n ( ) is a long-chain polymer of N-Acetylglucosamine, ''N''-acetylglucosamine, an amide derivative of glucose. Chitin is the second most abundant polysaccharide in nature (behind only cellulose); an estimated 1 billion tons of chitin are produced each year in the biosphere. It is a primary component of cell walls in fungi (especially filamentous and mushroom-forming fungi), the exoskeletons of arthropods such as crustaceans and insects, the radulae, cephalopod beaks and Gladius (cephalopod), gladii of molluscs and in some nematodes and diatoms. It is also synthesised by at least some fish and lissamphibians. Commercially, chitin is extracted from the shells of crabs, shrimps, shellfish and lobsters, which are major by-products of the seafood industry. The structure of chitin is comparable to cellulose, forming crystalline nanofibrils or whiskers. It is functionally comparable to the protein keratin. Chitin has proved useful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Symmetry In Biology
Symmetry in biology refers to the symmetry observed in organisms, including plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria. External symmetry can be easily seen by just looking at an organism. For example, the face of a human being has a plane of symmetry down its centre, or a pine cone displays a clear symmetrical spiral pattern. Internal features can also show symmetry, for example the tubes in the human body (responsible for transporting gases, nutrients, and waste products) which are cylindrical and have several planes of symmetry. Biological symmetry can be thought of as a balanced distribution of duplicate body parts or shapes within the body of an organism. Importantly, unlike in mathematics, symmetry in biology is always approximate. For example, plant leaves – while considered symmetrical – rarely match up exactly when folded in half. Symmetry is one class of patterns in nature whereby there is near-repetition of the pattern element, either by reflection or rotation. W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Mantle (mollusc)
The mantle (also known by the Latin language, Latin word pallium meaning mantle, robe or cloak, adjective pallial) is a significant part of the anatomy of molluscs: it is the dorsum (biology), dorsal body wall which covers the visceral mass and usually protrudes in the form of flaps well beyond the visceral mass itself. In many species of molluscs the Epidermis (skin), epidermis of the mantle secretes calcium carbonate and conchiolin, and creates a mollusc shell, shell. In sea slugs there is a progressive loss of the shell and the mantle becomes the dorsal surface of the animal. The words mantle and pallium both originally meant ‘cloak’ or ‘cape’; see mantle (vesture). This anatomical structure in molluscs often resembles a cloak because in many groups the edges of the mantle, usually referred to as the ''mantle margin'', extend far beyond the main part of the body, forming flaps, double-layered structures which have been adapted for many different uses, including for e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |