♍︎ Aquatic Ghost ♍︎

The crabs will force the anemones to clone themselves if one dies OR steal others’ anemones if both die

They haven’t found these anemones in their free-living form, so, as far as we know, this anemone species is these crabs’ slave species—it’s only known in association with pom pom crabs

Cool paper on this: Schnytzer, Y., Giman, Y., Karplus, I., & Achituv, Y. (2017). Boxer crabs induce asexual reproduction of their associated sea anemones by splitting and intraspecific theft. PeerJ, 5, e2954. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2954

Their anemones aren’t a unique species, they are only visually distinct because the crab farms them in a very specific way - making a fragment of a larger hawaiian anemone, or finding a newly spawned one. When they carry it around, they force the anemone to adapt to an entire new lifestyle. The crab’s nocturnal behavior slowly kills the anemone’s photosynthetic symbionts, from which it gets its color. After that, the crab can control how much food the anemone actually gets by using it to mop up food off the sea floor, and take excess out of its mouth. Since it doesnt have to reach for sunlight, or reach to catch food, this encourages dense, but short tentacles.

The shortcoming of this study was just that its very hard to get the anemone away from the crab without killing both, and its equally hard to get an anemone to bounce back from this state.

Look, man, it's my clown name. The kiddos love it.

Frecklebelly Madtom (Noturus munitus)

Tennessee and Alabama, USA

Neosho Madtom Noturus placidus

Historically, the Neosho madtom was found in the Neosho, Cottonwood, Spring, and Illinois Rivers in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. It is believed to be no longer present in the Illinois River and scattered through the rest of its historic range. Neosho madtoms are short-lived fish, only occasionally surviving more than three years. Adults bury themselves in the gravel during the day and come out to feed at night.

Oh? Flower?

Keeping fish of the Genus Priscacara at Home

Looking for a fish for your home aquarium? One that you won’t just find in any old pond? One that’s interesting, low maintenance, and very hard-y? The fish of the genus Priscacara may be just what you are looking for. This should give you an idea of how to keep these fish, though really you may find yourself having to dig up more on your own.