Indonesia mimic octopus imitates toxic flatfish for defense

How about this for an impersonation… Watch video of the Indonesian Mimic Octopus impersonating a toxic flatfish – sometimes the best form of defense really is to attack!

The Indonesian mimic octopus has the extraordinary ability to pass itself off as many of the toxic fishes or sea snakes that share its habitat.

Instead of blending into the background, the animal impersonator often uses a daredevil strategy of making itself more conspicuous to predators. Scientists believe the behaviour evolved to scare other animals.

By flattening its head and arms, using a bold brown and white colour display and adopting an undulating swimming technique T. mimicus can fool predators that it is, in fact, a poisonous flatfish rather than a tasty meal.

From the BBC. Watch full video HERE.

BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill effects

Now that the media hype surrounding the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill has largely died down, we think it would be of interest to track news & findings about the effects of this environmental disaster that might not make it into mainstream consciousness.

The lasting impression we had from the last batch of news released was that, as big as the disaster was (some 5 million barrels of crude oil leaked), there remained hope, even some considerable confidence, that naturally occurring microbes were busy seeing-off much of the oil that leaked into the Gulf of Mexico.

It would now appear that previous US government reports on which this “news” was based have to be reconsidered in light of a 22-mile (35-kilometer) long oil-plume that has been discovered:

from National Geographic:

A giant plume from BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been confirmed deep in the ocean—and there are signs that it may stick around, a new study says.

Many scientists had predicted that oil-eating bacteria—already common in the Gulf due to natural oil seeps—would process much of the crude leaked from BP’s Deepwater Horizon wellhead, which was capped July 15.

But new evidence shows that a 22-mile-long (35-kilometer-long), 650-foot-high (200-meter-high) pocket of oil has persisted for months at depths of 3,600 feet (1,100 meters), according to a team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts.

Read full article HERE