The post Australia’s Marine Life Shines Brighter Than Ever Through Araceli Adams’ Art appeared first on Our Funny Little Site.
]]>Adams currently runs her small studio Casa Adams Fine Wares from Sydney, but she was actually born in Spain. She was always impressed by her family’s cherished collection of hand-painted antique pottery growing up, so it’s not a surprise she wanted to learn more about pottery in later years.
She learned more about porcelain during her time at NYC’s Greenwich House Pottery, embracing a unique approach to her craft. Her body of work pays homage to the hand-colored 18th-century natural history copperplate engravings, and her illustrations are mono-printed onto the porcelain pieces, with watercolor-like washes of underglaze.
Another common thread that connects all of Adams’ creations is her commitment to capture the wonder and joy of Australia’s biodiversity through her art. The rich biodiverse world of the Land Down Under takes center stage in her work, and many of her pieces feature lobsters, crabs, corals, and fishes inhabiting Australia’s shores and oceans.
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]]>The post Kelly O’Dell is Paying Homage to Extinct Marine Life Through Her Glass Art appeared first on Our Funny Little Site.
]]>The term ammonites or ammonoids refers to extinct spiral-shelled cephalopods, connected to such living marine animals as octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish. They are fossilized forms of long-extinct marine lifeforms and O’Dell became fascinated by them because they tell a unique tale about what we leave behind once we’re gone.
O’Dell spent most of her early years living in Hawai’i, and her journey as an artist was informed by its geological beauty. She grew up around rumbling earthquakes and gurgling volcanoes, and they helped her develop an obsession with her own mortality, which she’s now exploring through her art.
“It is fascinating and devastating that our existence has so much impact on the delicate balance of life. I hope my artwork could serve as a reminder, or ‘memento’ of our borrowed time,” O’Dell told Colossal.
In addition to bringing extinct creatures back to life, O’Dell’s art explores the themes of extinction, preservation, and origin, reminding us of the amazing transformations that Mother Nature went through over the years.
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]]>The post Did You Know That Some Fish Can Switch Sex? appeared first on Our Funny Little Site.
]]>This species lives in groups. Males are large and dominant leaders of their groups and they defend smaller females. When a male dies or gets eaten, the largest female in the group starts to change sex and takes up his role. She only needs a few minutes to take up the leading roles, in a few days her starts changing color, and around 10 days after, her ovaries turn into testes.
The fish can successfully breed as a female and then breed again as a male after the sex change. In a way, they get “the best of both worlds,” according to the co-first author of the study, Erica Todd, who works as a molecular ecologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
This is the first study that explains what happens in the fish’s body in order to make the change possible, which has been a mystery for decades.
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]]>The post Do Fish Get Thirsty? appeared first on Our Funny Little Site.
]]>“It’s impossible to know what a non-human animal truly experiences,” he told How Stuff Works in an email interview.
@_markfitz
It’s easy for us to tell when we’re thirsty. We first experience dry mouth, which can lead to fatigue and lightheadedness, and if we don’t drink water for a very long time, we can start craving it and become unable to think about anything else. But we can’t know if fish experience thirst. “I think of thirst as a cognitive response to hydration and it’s hard to get inside a fish’s brain,” Boston College assistant biology professor Christopher Kenaley told the outlet. One thing is sure — without hydration, fish would die. They use a process called osmoregulation to regulate water balance.
The process is not the same for saltwater and freshwater fish, but their bodies are perfectly capable to maintain a healthy relation of blood and salt at all times.
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]]>The post Underwater Footage Captures Rare Multi-Colored Octopus appeared first on Our Funny Little Site.
]]>“A close up of the Blanket Octopus during a blackwater dive with The Three P diving club, Romblon Island, Philippines,” reads the description of the video Elayani posted on his Youtube channel. “Two female Blanket octopus surprised us and gave us a rare and unforgettable sight. Size: 1 meter (with an open blanket about 2 meters) Depth: 9-22 meters”
See the video below.
If you want to see the full video Elayani shot while diving at the Romblon Pass, click play below.
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]]>The post These Amazing Underwater Photos Raise Awareness to Our Oceans appeared first on Our Funny Little Site.
]]>Ocean Conservancy has teamed up with millions of volunteers from all over the world, on our International Coastal Cleanup that they’ve been doing for more than 30 years.
“A healthy ocean means more than beautiful coasts and vibrant ocean wildlife. If the ocean isn’t healthy, neither are we. Because the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we’re breathing this very second comes from our ocean,” reads their website.
“Our work is focused on solving some of the greatest threats facing our ocean today. From the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, we bring people, science and policy together, to champion innovative solutions and fight for a sustainable ocean.”
The organization also use their Instagram account to raise awareness about the beauty of the ocean and its marine life and to encourage everyone to help them save it.
Sea stars lack a number of fishy anatomical features, including gills, scales or fins. Categorized in the phylum Echinodermata, they’re invertebrates, and are related to sand dollars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers and sea lilies. Since they aren’t fish, scientists tend to get a little irked when people call them “starfish,” so “sea stars” is a more appropriate term. The biggest fact to illuminate this difference? They don’t have fins, so they can’t swim around like fish can! Click the link in our bio to learn more about why these creatures are out of this world 
= Erik Lukas/Coral Reef Image Bank
They don’t call Great Whites “great” for nothing; they can grow to be more than 20 feet long and weigh over 2.5 tons. That makes them the largest predatory fish in the world! 
Spectacular photo by Ron Daniel of @greatwhitedivers 
And he brought you a flower?! 
Thoughtful, too! 
Photo taken by the incredibly talented @birdtog 
Incredible footage by @dolphindronedom 
An all-new shark species has been encountered by scientists on the beaches of Florida! Noted to be quite smol compared to others in its suborder; recorded to have emitted alarmingly strange bork noises. Still most definitely a fintastically cute specimen—what should we name it? Leave your answer in the comments! 
(#aprilfools, ocean lovers—this adorably menacing pup photo was taken by @narcosis27! 
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#SeabirdSaturday! 
This stunning Brown pelican was photographed in the Gulf of Mexico by @rafeedhussain 
How happy do these little guys seem to look? 
Take a look at these festive species and find out some fascinating fun facts about them! 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Believe it or not, the correct plural form of "octopus" is actually octopuses! Click the link in our bio to learn more about these fantastic creatures 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ These animals fall under the Phylum Cnidaria and the Subphylum Medusozoa. While they are popularly called “jellyfish,” many marine biologists prefer the terms “jelly” or “sea jelly” to avoid confusion. Click the link in our bio to learn more about sea jellies! 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The post These Amazing Underwater Photos Raise Awareness to Our Oceans appeared first on Our Funny Little Site.
]]>The post Colorful Sea Slugs Steal “Weapons” to Attack Predators appeared first on Our Funny Little Site.
]]>Sea slugs can “steal weapons” from another creature – hydroid. Hydroid looks like seaweed, but it’s actually a relative of jellyfish that’s covered in venomous stingers. When a sea slug feels threatened, it deploys these stingers to the enemy.
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]]>The post Killer Whales Can Learn How to Speak “Dolphin language” appeared first on Our Funny Little Site.
]]>We know that most animals can communicate among their species with innate sounds, but species that can imitate new sounds and use them properly in social situations are not that common. This ability is called vocal learning and is a trait of humans, bats, some birds, and cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises).
According to a recent study, killer whales (Orcinus orca) are able to learn vocalizations from other species, such as dolphins. When socialized with dolphins, killer whales changed the type of sounds they made and started “talking dolphin” instead.
“There’s been an idea for a long time that killer whales learn their dialect, but it isn’t enough to say they all have different dialects so therefore they learn,” says study researcher Ann Bowles, a senior research scientist at Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute in Carlsbad, California. “There needs to be some experimental proof so you can say how well they learn and what context promotes learning.”
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]]>The post Campaign Shows the Sad Consequences of Plastic Pollution on Marine Life appeared first on Our Funny Little Site.
]]>An international NGO focused on the conservation of marine wildlife, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, teamed up with Tribal Worldwide Brazil and DDB Guatemala to launch a shocking plastic awareness campaign this month.
The message of the campaign is: “The plastic you use once tortures the oceans forever”. They released 3D posters that depict two marine animals, a turtle and a seal, suffering in extreme agony from the consequences of carelessly discarded plastics.
“Unfortunately, a small and thoughtless action in our daily life can cause huge damage to nature without us even realizing it. In this campaign, we aim to remedy this by reaching the largest number of people possible, bringing awareness to the fact that with small and easy steps, we can ensure that terrible scenes like these do not happen”, says Guiga Giacomo, Executive Creative Director at Tribal Worldwide São Paulo.
There are many ways we can help our planet by reducing our bad habits to a minimum, and not a single excuse for not doing that today!
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]]>The post This is How Garden Eels Eat appeared first on Our Funny Little Site.
]]>Apparently, they anchor themselves to the ocean floor using their own mucus, and contort into strange shapes and positions to catch plankton.
Click play to see yourself how garden eels feed themselves (and how cute they look while doing so!)
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