AMPHIBIAN WOLVERINE
If you are familiar with the movie X-Men or Wolverine then this animal’s superpower will not be so strange to you. Its weird to think that the marvel superhero movie character (wolverine) was inspired by the hairy frog. In the movie wolverine has the ability to make his bones protrude through his skin to fight off people. Well the hairy frog can do just that.
Trichobatrachus robustus as it is scientifically known actively breaks its own bones to produce claws that puncture their way out of the frog’s toe pads, probably when it is threatened.
Researchers at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, think the gruesome behaviour is a defence mechanism.
The feature is also found in nine of the 11 frogs belonging to the Astylosternus genus, most of which live in Cameroon.
Some other frogs have bony spines that project from their wrist, but in those species, it appears that the bones grow through the skin rather than pierce it when needed for defence.
At rest, the claws of T. robustus, found on the hind feet only, are nestled inside a mass of connective tissue. A chunk of collagen forms a bond between the claw’s sharp point and a small piece of bone at the tip of the frog’s toe.
The other end of the claw is connected to a muscle. Researchers believe that when the animal is attacked, it contracts this muscle, which pulls the claw downwards. The sharp point then breaks away from the bony tip and cuts through the toe pad, emerging on the underside.
The end result may look like a cat’s claw, but the breaking and cutting mechanism is very different and unique among vertebrates. Also unique is the fact that the claw is just bone and does not have an outer coating of keratin like other claws do.
Because only dead samples have been studied it is not know what happens when the claw retracts ,or even how it retracts. It does not appear to have a muscle to pull it back inside so the team think it may passively slide back into the toe pad when its muscle relaxes.
“Being amphibians, it would not be surprising if some parts of the wound heal and the tissue is regenerated,” says Blackburn, a Harvard university researcher.
Males of the species, which grows to about 11 centimetres, also produce long hair-like strands of skin and arteries when they breed (see first image). It is thought that the “hairs” allow them to take in more oxygen through their skin while they take care of their brood (young ones).
INFRARED VISION
Snakes can 'see' in the dark thanks to protein channels that are activated by heat from the bodies of their prey.
Vipers, pythons and boas have holes on their faces called pit organs, which contain a membrane that can detect infrared radiation from warm bodies up to one metre away. At night, the pit organs allow snakes to 'see' an image of their predator or prey,as an infrared camera does ,giving them a unique extra sense.
A study by US researchers, published online in Nature, has now revealed how this works at a molecular level. Nerve cells in the pit organ contain an ion channel called TRPA1 ,an infrared receptor that detects infrared radiation as heat, rather than as light. With that said it makes it almost impossible to hide from such reptiles. Your best escape would be getting into a freezer.
KILLER PUNCH
The mantis shrimp, packs a mean punch, smashing its victims’ shells with the force of a 22 caliber bullet. But that’s not because it has particularly powerful muscles – instead of big biceps, it has arms that are naturally spring-loaded, allowing it to swing its fistlike clubs to speeds up to 23 metres per second.
The key part of a mantis shrimp’s punch is a saddle-shaped structure on the arm just above the shrimp’s club. This shape works a bit like a bow and arrow, the muscles pull on the saddle to bend it like an archer’s bow, and when it is released that energy transfers into the club. Researchers also found that the saddle shape itself is important: a strip cut out of a mantis shrimp saddle could not store nearly as much energy, and the strain was concentrated in certain spots rather than spread out evenly. The saddle had a smooth distribution of strain, so no single spot was more likely to break.
SOLID TO LIQUID
If you're like me then the ability to fit into tight spaces will be one of the most amazing abilities I would like to have. Being able to fit my whole body just through a key hole will save me so time trying to open a jammed door lock or escaping danger.
However, the sea cucumber, Holothuroidea, is a master of turning its body into a giant puddle. It can turn its tissue from solid into liquid, allowing it to slip into cracks in rocks that dot the sea bed. Sea cucumbers come in various sizes and colour but all of them can perform the incredible fit. There are 1200 species of sea cucumbers.
An interesting, not-as-super side power of the sea cucumber is the ability to eject its internal organs. Regenerating them later, we can only imagine the sea cucumber does this as some sort of party trick.
GUNSLINGER
The greatest, smoothest gunslinger of all time is Clint Eastwood’s Man aka Blondie, of Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti westerns. I mean, at a public hanging the guy sat back and sniped the rope to free the accused, then blasted off the hats of the men in attendance. Because let’s be real: Wearing a hat to an execution is bad form.
But the greatest real-life gunslingers have to be the pistol shrimp, Alpheus heterochaelisaka the snapping shrimp, hundreds of species with an enormous claw they use to fire bullets of bubbles at foes, knocking them out cold or even killing them. The resulting sound is an incredible 210 decibels, far louder than an actual gunshot, which averages around 150.
The pistol shrimp has two claws, a small pincer and an enormous snapper. The snapper, which can grow to up to half the length of the shrimp’s body, does not have two symmetrical halves like the pincer. Instead, half of it is immobile, called a propus, which has a socket. The other half, called a dactyl, is the mobile part. It has a plunger that fits into this socket. The shrimp opens the dactyl by co-contracting both an opener and closer muscle. This builds tension until another closer muscle contracts, setting the whole thing off with incredible force.
When the plunger slams into this socket it displaces water that jets out at 105 feet a second (32 metres/second), a velocity so high that its pressure drops below the vapor pressure of water. Tiny bubbles already present in the water suddenly swell in this low pressure, then collapse when the pressure climbs again.
More importantly, the collapse of the bubble generates, for a split second, temperatures of 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit (4427 degrees Celcius), nearly as hot as the surface of the sun, and also, oddly, a flash of light. The resulting shockwave bombards the shrimp’s prey, which if it’s lucky will die instantly because it’s then dragged into the pistol shrimp’s burrow and consumed. That's not so fun if you're half-conscious (see the awesome BBC video below). It’s such a powerful blast that some species use it to drill into solid basalt rock, snap after snap, to make a comfy little home.
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