Please, please, National Geographic — get a more serious narrator and some non-cheesy commentary. Otherwise, though, this movie about romantic arthropods is very nice.

My wife says I need to diversify, and ought to make an occasional nod to these strange organisms called ‘non-animals’. Weird. So she sends me this photo by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and reminds me of those days in our youth when we’d find these whiplike kelp washed up on the beaches…I think it was a hint.

Nereocystis luetkeana

It was tough being a biologist during my kids’ brief Pokemon craze. What kind of animals were those? What was this business of stuffing them into balls? And what a horrible mangling of evolution was portrayed in those transformations! Ick, ick, ick. The game just annoyed me in principle.

Those wild and crazy guys at the World’s Fair have had an idea: redo the whole Pokemon concept with real animals. It’s going to be called Phylomon. They’ve just started assembling a few bits and pieces — not only do they need to flesh out a game, but they also need to gather user-submitted illustrations. If you’ve got ideas for game design, or are an artist, check out their site and send in ideas.

Right now, they’ve got a simple request: Name your five favorite organisms and why, and pass it on to the Phylomon art community. Easy.

• Vampyroteuthis infernalis
• Architeuthis dux
• Dosidicus gigas
• Sepia latimanus
• Enteroctopus dofleini

Why? Because they’re awesome. And anything would be better than Squirtle and Pikachu.

Last week’s metazoan was a walrus, which many people mistook for a manatee. This meant that my inbox was flooded with outraged email from the manatee community, which was deeply offended at the confusion. So, today, here is a portrait of one of the handsomer representatives of the fine warm-water aquatic mammals that were insulted.

As you can plainly see, there is no resemblance at all.

(via National Geographic)

She says these guys (it’s a WALRUS, not a manatee) really like molluscs, too.

(via National Geographic)