Anti-Caturday post

I vividly recall the first time I encountered a cicada killer, the amazing huge solitary wasp. I was in eighth grade; I was bumming about in our backyard, not doing much of anything, when I heard this loud clattering buzz overhead, looked up, and saw this giant beast slowly cruising towards our apple tree. It looked like something that ought to be accompanied by Flight of the Valkyries, an armored predatory monster determinedly homing in on its helpless prey. It disappeared into the foliage and then reappeared a moment later carrying a cicada that looked to be twice its size, and it landed on a branch overhead and started chomping. I could hear its jaws cracking open the bug from the ground. It just shredded its meal — and it wasn’t tidy, either. Bits of dead cicada came fluttering down around me. I was frantically looking about the yard for something I could use as a club in case it turned its dead glittering eyes on me.

And ever since that day it has been my dream to grow up and become a Sphecius wasp, a cold, brutal killer capable of rending my enemies into shattered fragments with heedless indifference, inspiring terror in all who behold me. Until now. A new species of wasp has been discovered in the fierce jungles of Indonesia.

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Behold the dreaded killer of Sulawesi.

The male measures about two-and-a-half-inches long, Kimsey said. “Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male’s front legs. I don’t know how it can walk.”

Its jaws are longer than its legs. Awesome. I’m in love.

(via Bug Girl)

(Also on FtB)

Magnificent momma

This is one beautiful plesiosaur, Polycotylus latippinus.

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(Click for larger image)
(A) Photograph and (B) interpretive drawing of LACM 129639, as mounted. Adult elements are light brown, embryonic material is dark brown, and reconstructed bones are white. lc indicates left coracoid; lf, left femur; lh, left humerus; li, left ischium; lp, left pubis; rc, right coracoid; rf, right femur; rh, right humerus; ri, right ischium; and rp, right pubis.

The unique aspect of this specimen is that it’s the only pregnant plesiosaur found; the fore and hind limbs bracket a jumble of bones from a juvenile or embryonic Polycotylus. It’s thought to actually be a fetal plesiosaur, rather than an overstuffed cannibal plesiosaur, because 1) the smaller skeleton is still partially articulated, and it’s large enough that it is unlikely it could have been swallowed whole, 2) the two sets are of the same distinctive species, 3) the juvenile is incompletely ossified and doesn’t resemble a post-partum animal, 4) the bones aren’t chewed, etched by acids, or accompanied by gastroliths. I think we can now confidently say that plesiosaurs were viviparous, which is what everyone expected.

There are other surprising details. The fetus is huge relative to the parent, and there’s only one — so plesiosaurs had small brood sizes and invested heavily in their offspring.

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(Click for larger image)
Reconstructions of female P. latippinus and newborn young. Gastralia were present in both animals but have been omitted for clarity.

The authors speculate beyond this a bit, but it’s all reasonable speculation. That degree of parental investment in fetal development makes it likely that there would have been extended maternal care after birth, and rather more tenuously, that they may also have lived in larger social groups. The authors suggest that their lifestyle may have resembled that of modern social marine mammals — picture a pod of dolphins, only long-necked and lizardy.

O’Keefe FR, Chiappe LM (2011) Viviparity and K-Selected Life History in a Mesozoic Marine Plesiosaur (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) Science 333 (6044): 870-873.

(Also on FtB)