The Venomous Saltwater Catfish

Came across this fella dead at the tide pools yesterday:

It was about 26 inches long. It looked like a catfish: you can clearly see the barbels around the mouth. I never knew there were saltwater catfish, but hey, what do I know?

Much, much weirder: The head looked like a catfish, but it had one long fin that went from its back, around its pointy tail, to its belly—like an eel. That's weird. Was it an eel? Was it a catfish? Was I hallucinating?

Here's a good shot of the tail. (Click on pic to enlarge.) The pink spots are where the fish had been chewed on by something.

Christine and I did some googling when we got home. After that we did some research. (Ba dum.) We found the Cobbler fish, or Eel-tail catfish:

Cnidoglanis macrocephalus

The cobbler is yellow to dark brown with pale mottling over the back and sides, usually progressively darker towards the tail. It has a large flattened head and a long eel-like body that tapers to a pointed tail, with continuous dorsal, caudal and anal fins, attaining a maximum length of up to 91 centimetres. The broad mouth is surrounded by four pairs of barbells (feeler-like tentacles), with a fifth pair of barbells present above the snout...

You can actually see the fifth set of barbels, up there on top of is head in the first pic.

More:

...and venomous serrated spines at the front of the pectoral and dorsal fins, which can inflict a painful wound.

I had picked that fish up before I read that. Note to self: Don't pick things up. Just don't.

A little more about those spines, and catfish in general:

All catfish, except members of Malapteruridae (electric catfish), possess a strong, hollow, bonified leading spine-like ray on their dorsal and pectoral fins. As a defense, these spines may be locked into place so that they stick outwards, which can inflict severe wounds. In several species catfish can use these fin rays to deliver a stinging protein if the fish is irritated. This venom is produced by glandular cells in the epidermal tissue covering the spines. In members of the family Plotosidae, and of the genus Heteropneustes, this protein is so strong it may hospitalize humans, those unfortunate enough to receive a sting; in Plotosus lineatus, the stings may result in death.

The Cobbler fish is, of course, from the family Plotosidae.

We can even get a look at those bony spines on our fish:

You see that white spike out its back that looks like someone stuck a plastic toothpick in him or something? That's the dorsal fin's venom delivery spine. On this shot, of the fish's underbellly, you can see one of the pectoral spikes, and you can even see the serrated edge:

Here's a closeup of the spike:

A few more picks. Full fish:

Belly, with what might be eggs poking out:

And that strange mouth. (That's top-side-up.):

Australia's Deadly Jack Jumper Ants

I was sitting on a trail in a very thick wild area north of Sydney last week when I noticed large, kind of iridescent, blue-green ants around me. A closer look revealed some impressive yellow mandibles (jaws, or pincers):

Here's a short video of one washing its pincers:




Christine did a bit of researching, and while they appear to come in a variety of colors, the huge yellow mandibles point toward these being Jack Jumper ants, also known as a Hopper or Skipper ants, a type of bull ant from the primitive genus Myrmecia, which is found only in Australia (well, one of the ninety or so species is found in New Caledonia):

The Jack Jumper Ant is a large species of Bulldog Ant. They have a jumping motion when disturbed which gives them their common name. The workers are black with yellow mandibles, antennae, and lower parts of the legs. The head is slightly broader than it is long and mandibles are slightly shorter than the head. The mandibles have four large sharp teeth with a smaller tooth in between each large one. The queen is similar in colour to the workers but is larger and more robust.

That pretty much describes the guy in the photo above, although the "black" in this case is more bluish, and the legs aren't quite as yellow as the photos I'm seeing, but nature is not that consistent.

I looked back at the several videos I took of them, and I even saw one jumping. (It happens very quick in this short video.)



The special thing about these ants is their sting. They don't bite, they sting, like wasps (which ants and bees are related to). And it's a very powerful sting:

A program to desensitise people to the potentially fatal jack jumper ant in Tasmania has been declared a success.

At less than a centimetre long with bright orange pincers, the jack jumper ant may be small but its sting can be deadly.

Allergic reactions can be more severe than those to bee stings, ranging from a rash and swelling, to unconsciousness and even death.

Of course. It's Australia. More:

In areas where Jack Jumper ants are common, population surveys have shown that between 2 and 3 per cent of people have had generalised allergic reactions, and in around half of these people the reactions can be life threatening. Deaths from Jack Jumper ant stings and anaphylaxis have occurred in Australia, with several recorded cases in recent years. Since allergy as a cause of death can be difficult to detect at post mortem, it is conceivable that deaths due to sting allergy are under reported.

An extra fact:

The jack jumper ant genome is contained on a single pair of chromosomes (males have just one chromosome as they are haploid), the lowest number known (or even possible) for any animal.

Lots more photos at Ants Down Under.

My First Aussie Fish Catch

I went fishing last night, at dusk, and then into the dark, in a light rain. You just don't know how good it is to stand in the surf up to your ankles or nipples for a few hours, especially while doing something like fishing, which has its own kinds of goodness.

Anyway, I caught my first fish. Even in the dark I could tell it was a flathead, which is supposedly a great eating fish. Mine was unfortunately a small one, about 8 inches (they need to be 26 centimeters, which is like 8 feet I think). Unfortunately again the combination of it being dark and the fact that the little bugger nearly swallowed the hook made it impossible to get the hook free without messing the fish up pretty bad. I was trying and trying and the spines on the fish's gills kept stabbing me in the hands and I'm cussing up a storm in the rain trying to get the goddamn hook out. Blech. Made me feel like shit. I finally got it and put the guy back in the ocean. He swam off.

I hope the little fella lived and grows to a really good size and gets caught on my hook one day so I can eat him.

How to Preserve Snowflakes

I may as well rip off my own old blog for whatever good bits it has. This is definitely one.

Ever wanted to catch a snowflake and keep it forever? You can. This is a photograph of a snowflake that fell in January 1979, but it isn’t a 27-year-old photo. It is a recent shot of a snowflake that’s been sitting in chemist Tryggvi Emilsson’s desk for 27 years, locked in a drop of that miracle of modern chemistry we call superglue.

The photo:

Cockatoos at the Beach

Foggy morning on the beach, cockatooos seemed to want a rest:

And again:

Australia Day, and Kangaroo Snags

January 26, Australia Day, marks that glorious day in 1788 when the glorious "First Fleet" sailed into glorious Sydney Cove with a glorious load of stinky, wretched, and terrified prisoners. So Australia was born.

There will be festivities. There will be barbecues. There will be champagne. There will fireworks. There will be thong-throwing contests. (Not at all what it sounds like.)

I started off the festivities myself last night, with a couple kanga bangas (click on pic to enlarge):

They're sausages (snags) made with kangaroo meat. Australia: the only country where they eat their national symbol.

Happy Australia Day everybody!

Royalties

I've been getting a bunch of mechanical royalty payments from Rhapsody lately. The latest: $0.00168121. Look out whale-penis-leather seats!

Surf Fishing and Cunjavoi

Christine and I went to Fishermans Beach two evenings ago. The tide was very low, and a huge, flat section of what is usually sea-floor was exposed. Christine noticed gaping, purplish mouth-like things attached to rocks here and there.

They look like shells, but are actually a bit flexible, and very soft and smooth inside:




They're what remains of very curious creatures known as cunjavoi (Pyura Stolonifera), a type of sea squirt:

The Cunjevoi is a sea squirt found around the edge of the low-tide mark that often forms mats over the rocks. It is sometimes covered in green or brown algae and has a tough brown exterior or 'tunic'. During high tide, the Cunjevoi feeds on plankton as water is pumped in and out of its siphons. As the tide recedes, it holds water to keep from drying out and, like all sea squirts, squirts a jet of water like a water pistol when squeezed or trodden on at low tide.

They're normally very rough-loooking, but we're seeing cunjavoi that have been scooped:

Cunjevoi is an Aboriginal name and the animals were once a common food source for Sydney's Aboriginal people. Today, the Cunjevoi is popularly used as fishing bait. People cut the Cunjevoi, scoop out its soft insides and leave the hard tunic attached to the rock. However, the Cunjevoi is a protected species in some parts (marine reserves) of Sydney Harbour.

Their most bizarre characteristic, at least in my opinion, is that in the early stage of their life, they're free-swimming:

After spending their larval stage as a free swimming tadpole like larvae, with a distinctive nerve chord, adult animals are filter feeders that live permanently attached to the lower section of rocky shores.

But I was there to do some work—some fishing work. My first ever cast in Australia:



This made for a happy Thom (with an Aussie flag in the background):

Christine snapped some more fishing shots:

My favorite:

Christine took a shot of our pretty little street:

Soon we'll get some snorkeling shots. Soon:

I've Got a 12-foot Fishing Rod

And I'm not afraid to use it:

I'm going beach fishing, which entails standing on the beach and throwing a weight and bait into the surf. There's an art to it, of course, and you have to learn to look for gutters:

A surf gutter is formed by an outer submerged sand bank running parallel to the beach. Variable in length, the channel in between can have an outlet at one or both of the ends. Long featureless gutters are not as productive as smaller, shorter or narrower ones. Holes are formed at the gutter's outlet to the sea. Waves breaking on the outer bank, spread a layer of foam and broken water across the inner channel. Referred to by fishermen as white water, this disturbed water offers cover to fish and stirs up the bottom exposing food.

[...]

Fish will often be found where a gutter empties to the sea. The surge of water in and out, stirs up the sand and with it food. Position yourself near the mouth and allow the bait to drift with the run from the gutter. Potholes are the small indentations which form in the shallower water, often near the edge of the beach. Anglers often wade through them, not knowing that they can offer some geed fishing. Whiting, Dart and Flathead actively feed in this shallow water, so it often pays to try these areas before disturbing them.

Little Pied Cormorant, Cat's Eye Sea Shell

We went walking around the tide pools the other day. Saw a Little Pied Cormorant:

The Little Pied Cormorant is entirely black above and white below. The face is dusky and, in adult birds, the white of the underside extends to above the eye. Immature birds resemble the adults except there is no white above the eye.

You can tell them from the Pied cormorant…

The Little Pied Cormorant resembles the Pied Cormorant, Phalacrocorax varius, but is easily distinguished by its smaller size and proportionately shorter bill The Pied Cormorant also has an orange-yellow face patch and black thighs.

A little closer:

He took off shortly after posing for us and went diving for fish.

Christine went for a stroll to show off her lustrous shoulders:

She beckons to me:

She has found something:



It's a Cat's Eye shell (not Tiger's Eye, as is mentioned). We left it there in its little pool, because we thought it was a living snail. When we got home we found out it's actually an operculum, or "doorway," of a snail:

The operculum is attached to the upper surface of the foot and in its most complete state, it serves as a sort of "trapdoor" to close the aperture of the shell when the soft parts of the animal are retracted.

Ones like this are usually, my research says, from the Turbo genus of sea snails.

We went back to the pools to get it. Luckily it was still there.

It's a little hard to see, but it has some beautiful, subtle coloring. (Click on photo to em-biggen.)

Tip For Americans: The Corniolis Effect

Americans coming to Australia have to give their bodies time to adjust not just to the significant time difference, but to the new way that their bodies are processing food. You see, in Australia, and in the Southern Hemisphere in general, food travels through the esophagus and intestines in a counter-clockwise motion—the opposite of how food travels in the Northern Hemisphere. It also exits your body in this manner, which is actually helpful, giving the whole "toilets flush the other way" business.

This is due to something called the Corniolis Effect, named for something I won't go into here, but let's just say it has to do with the manner in which corn digests (or doesn't), which aided in the Effect's discovery.

The best way to deal with this new manner of digestion is to drink lots of beer—that's why the Aussies do it.

This has been another "Tips For Americans," from Little Australia. You're welcome.

Sea Hare

The tide pools at Collaroy are really something. Christine made a remarkable find yesterday (more later, on the Cat's Eye), and not long ago we got photos and video of strange snaillike creature:

I think it might be a sea hare, a type of sea slug:

Sea hares have large flaps covering their backs and gills. They also have large 'ears' for which they are called 'hares'. They also have large mouth flaps with which they can explore a wide swath for edible weeds. Being so vulnerable without a large protective shell, they are nonetheless not predated upon, presumably because they taste foul. All sea hares are voracious grazers and prolific spawners. Like octopus, sea hares can squirt ink when frightened. All sea hares carry a remnant of a shell under their folds. By opening the folds gently while sliding one's finger over its skin, one can feel the thin shell. If the sea hare co-operates, it can even be seen.

I'm not sure if it's a sea hare, the colors and body shapes seem to vary greatly, but you can really sea the "ears" in the  photos, and what appears to be flaps on its back.

Here's some video of one munching on some algae:

A Fossil, A Fish, and a Sign

Christine and I were strolling around the rock pools at Collaroy yesterday, beside stunning, water- and wind-carved cliffs:

Christine walked straight up to a tiny fossil:

A little research tells that pretty little plant may be a Dicroidium zuberi, a type of seed fern that died and got rock-squeezed roughly 245 million years ago. How cool is that?

I spotted a tiny fish with yellow and black stripes:

And this I found the other day, while hiking a national park nearby, caught in the rain, sore and some miles to go:

A little welcome for me, from the protectors of this big sunburnt country.

Night Lake

This photo makes me want to play with flashes and water. This is a nighttime image of Narrabeen Lake (Northern Beaches, Sydeny), and that is very clear water. With the flash it appears to be dirty and milky.

And we apparently have two small moons down here.

Bug [updated III]

Christine found a very cool bug on the veranda. Even cooler close up:

Closer upper:

Click to enlarge the photos and really see the amazing patterns, especially in the one exposed wing.

And a little video, to show the brilliant orange, if just for a second, under its wings:




I'll try to find out what it is. Reminds of an Oregon bug we used to call "f*ck bugs," because you'd so often see two of them flying around in flagrante. (Those ones are box elder bugs. That ought to help me find them.)

Update: This is very fun. Because they look like box elders, I googled the genus of box elders, Boisea, with "Australia." I got nothing, in both "web" and "images". So I moved back on the taxonomical ladder, to the family, Rhopalidae. I got this:

You can see especially in the bug on the right the similarities in the triangular wing cover patterns, and especially in the big wing sticking out—clearly just one wing visible, giving it a one-sided look—just like our bug. So I think I'm on the right track.

Update II: Closer...

Update III: Almost there:

That's it! It's the Eucalytus Tip Bug, Amorbus alternatus. Success!

They have lots of other names, apparently, including squash bugs, and come in a variety of colors.

And check out this sentence:

Scentless Plantbugs in Family Rhopalidae are closely related with Coreidae but lacking well-developed scent glands.

Coreidae is the family of our bug here, and it's closely related to the Rhopalidae family I used to search. So my internet sleuthing technique worked!

Christine Says Hello, and Brushtail Possum

Christine with a short and sweet video:

And another. There's a tiny bit of speaking at the beginning, and you can just shut your eyes and listen for a while to the sound we go to sleep with every night, if you are so inclined:

And last night I woke up at 12:30 a.m. and decided it was time for a good nighttime walk. I headed north, took a left down a street of no particular significance, and ran into the body of water known as Narrabeen Lakes. Nice.

Then I saw it: a brushtail possum. (Also called brush-tailed.) Fast as a cat. I used my uncanny photography skills to capture forever an image of the rascal:

Hmmm. Something must have been wrong with the camera. I tried again:

I was actually kicked by a passing kangaroo right when that shot was taken. Swear to god. One more time:

Now that's a bit better, but as you can probably tell I cropped it, and it's not very sharp. But look at those ears! It looks like Piglet.

Okay, now I'm going to get it:

Oh well, close enough for folk music.

That's two Australian possum species so far, loads to go.

Sackrilege

Sackrilege: The violation and/or injurious treatment of a man's testicles.

(This, you may find it hard to believe, is part of a series. Hit "new words" in the tags below the post to see more. Original post, with rules, here.)

Priminal

Priminal: Someone so unswervingly uptight they should be locked in a prison full of unkempt, naked yodelers.

More here.

Shark Egg

From my old collection here:

Took this photo at Hans and Kellie's house in Dee Why. It's a shark egg. They lay them near kelp beds and the eggs get lost and tangled up therein and so are protected from the eight gazillion things in the ocean that would love to eat them.

You can find the dried up and hard shells, if you're lucky, washed up on certain beaches. (Hans found it at a nearby beach.)

At the top you see the beginning of the long curly stringer that comes off the top of the egg - about seven inches long. It allows the egg to attach to the kelp. (Sorry or the lack of focus here.)

We didn't know what kind of shark it came from, but a little googling tells me it may be from a Crested Horn Shark. (Fact at bottom.) And this is cool.

Bonus: This one never hatched. You can feel the weight of the little shark embryo inside.

"And then five cannibals burst out of the bush..."

A liter, a story, a city.

(The Rocks, Sydney.)

Ralphabet soup

Ralphabet soup: The chunky stuff in the toilet after you puke.

Haate crime

The Washington Post had a word contest years ago in which they invited readers to take a word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition for the word. I've got a few hundred of them. (I was bored one week. Sue me.) I'll be posting them randomly here to fill in the time when I don't have anything beautiful to say or a great example of my photography to share.

Here's one now:

Haate crime: What Dutch Nazis get charged with.

Booze in Australia

The cheapest bottle of booze I can find in Sydney costs $28 for a fifth. That's for cheap scotch. (I'm no scotch expert, but I have had tasted some of the good stuff now and then, tasted it in my mouth, my eyeballs, and suddenly three feet over the top of my head—that's when I understood the scotch thing—and this is not the "good stuff.") There's a sign for "Two cases for $80!" for a fairly normal beer at the local liquor store, although I have found cases of good beer for $32. I'm sure (I hope) I'll find better deals by a bit down the road, but good god amighty, Australia. A cheap but passable bottle of bourbon in the States costs $9. A bottle of Knob Creek costs I think $25. And a case of decent cheap beer goes for $15. $32 will get you some very good beer.

I'm going to have to talk to somebody about this…

Al Grierson

I can't help but think about my old friend Al Grierson these days. Al dragged my protesting ass to the best folk festival in the country, the Kerrville Folk Festival, in 1995, and quite literally changed my life. I will always be very grateful for that. Al lost his life in a flash flood in Texas in 2000. He was a damn good person, and I miss him.

Here's to you, Al, and to the girls.


More here.


And here's a song Jack Hardy wrote to Al.

St. Andrew's Cross Spider

These are very common spiders around Sydney, and throughout eastern Australia. They're named for the pattern they weave into their webs:

St Andrew's Cross Spiders are named for their bright web decorations - zig-zag ribbons of bluish-white silk that form a full or partial cross through the centre of the orb web.

I don't know who gave it the name "St. Andrew's Cross"; although you can see why it got the name. As you can see in the photo, these spiders arrange their legs in pairs, so it almost looks like they have four, and they commonly position themselves in the center of their webs, holding their legs aligned with the white cross in their webs. Which is just cool.

As with most spider species, female St. Andrew's Cross spiders are larger and more colorful than the males. This one, which I came across in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, is the largest one I've seen. She seems to have been a bit lazy, as only one leg of the cross is present.

Scientific name: Argiope keyserlingi, in honor of German arachnologist Eugene von Keyserling.

Gippsland Water Dragon

I maintained a blog for some years, off and on, called Boxing Kangaroos. It was inspired by a 2006 trip to Australia. I forgot how much cool stuff got posted there, like this:

Gippsland Water Dragon, Tidbinbilla Nature Preserve, east of Canberra, October, 2006. If you're in the area, go. Very much worth it. Saw a Red-Bellied Black Snake there. Venomous. Beautiful.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

On the roof of the building next door, from our veranda:

Cockatoos are from the family Cacatuidae, one of three that make up the order Psittaciformes, the parrots. Wikipedia has this to say about what distinguishes them from the other two families:

The Cacatuidae are quite distinct, having a movable head crest, a different arrangement of the carotid arteries, a gall bladder, differences in the skull bones, and lack the Dyck texture feathers which, in the Psittacidae, scatters light in such a way as to produce the vibrant colours of so many parrots.

They live up to 40 years in the wild, up to 70 in captivity. And they are incredibly loud, and not in a pretty way:

While a flock is feeding, a few birds will remain in the tops of the trees, on the lookout for danger. If they spot a predator such as a large kite or a snake, they give a harsh, explosive cry of warning, and the other birds will immediately take to the air, squealing and screeching hoarsely in a cacophony of protest.

Birds that are at rest, moving among the branches high in a tree, nipping off leaves and twigs, often make a high-pitched screeching cry, like badly worn wheel bearings.

When flying home to their evening roost, they call loudly and incessantly, making a grating, querulous cawing noise. In flocks of over a hundred birds, jostling for a perch among the trees, these cries can become deafening.

Like other parrots, pet Cockatoos can mimic all sorts of sounds, learning to imitate human speech, barking dogs, power tools, and other household noises.

I'll try to get a gallery of the different calls.

Opossums, Possums, and the Art of Photography

I saw my first possum since coming to Australia nearly a month ago. Finally.

Aussie possums are very different from American opossums. (We spell it both ways; Australians don't spell it with the "o.") American opossums come in just one variety, the Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana). They are slow—I've heard a top speed of 1.8 mph; they are omnivorous, meaning they eat just about anything; they have hairless tails; and they have the ability to "play possum," meaning they have an involuntary defense mechanism that sees them going into a comalike state when in danger. Aussie possums, which are only very distantly related*, come in 27 different species; they're all quick and nimble; they're herbivores; almost all have fur-covered tails; and they don't have the playing possum defense mechanism. They are, in other words, very different creatures.

Australian possums are in fact only called "possums" because they were deemed to be similar to America opossums when first encountered by Europeans in the 1700s.

My possum came silently along the top of the fence between our building and the next. I rushed to get my camera, and, in my usual artistic style, I got a great shot of it:

Brilliant!

I was however, able to identify the little bugger:

Like all ringtail possums, the common ringtail possum has a strongly prehensile tail which acts as a fifth limb, and which is carried tightly coiled when not being used. It can be distinguished from the brushtail by the light covering of fur on its tail, as well as the white tail tip.

The picture shows the white tail tip, which can be quite long.

* All marsupials on the planet are believed to have descended from a marsupial creature that first appeared some 100 million years ago (maybe many more) on land that later became North America. (It was still attached to Europe and Asia at the time.) The creature prospered and migrated to South America, which then migrated itself, south to the supercontinent Gondwana, of which Australia was still a part. Over the millennia the marsupials expanded into Australia, which later broke off and became its own continent. Over the eons they evolved to become the 220-odd different marsupials that populate the continent today, which means that all those Aussie possum species, and all its other marsupials, even the mighty kangaroo—and our Virginia opossum as well—evolved from that small, long ago North American marsupial. (And there are still 13 species of marsupial in South America.)

Now here's a bonus pic of the Christine looking very Parisian on our veranda: