Category Archives: Amphiban

Amphiban

Three-toed Amphiuma (Amphiuma tridactylum)

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Three-toed Amphiuma (Amphiuma tridactylum)

According to Wikipedia (2016), quoting T. Ryan Gregory (2008), quoting D. E. Comings (1972) who may or may not quoting anyone because he said it in a book instead of the Internet, the amphiuma has 25 times as much DNA as a human.

I have no idea how this is measured. It seems to me that it has to be based on a body size ratio, because an adult amphiuma averages 450g and an adult human averages 65,000g … a tad bit more. So, if it’s ratio based, is it amount of DNA material vs body mass? DNA material vs the rest of a cell? If so, which type of cell? DNA material vs material in the nucleus?

Maybe it’s just a chromosome count. Maybe it’s total amount of genes. Maybe it’s based on the length of the DNA “threads”. Maybe it’s a count of the total number of atoms in all of the DNA in an average representational nucleus.

Anyway, this is why you either need to be more careful when quoting things or put your source material where everyone can get it.

Amphiban

Blue Poison Dart

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Blue Poison Dart Frog_3

It is very hard to get the lighting right so that these frog’s eyes don’t look solid black. Too little flash, and they look like a vast bottomless pit … a window into the complete absence of a soul. Too much flash, and the entire thing glares over, making them look like blind zombie frogs (which also would be soulless, I suppose.)

Amphiban

Peru 2015 – Frog

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Frog_14

As the trip was largely boat-based, going from the big boat where we slept to little skiffs for excursions, and back, the opportunity to see animals on land was rare. So I was lucky to finally see one of the frogs with transparent stomach skin. I wish I’d been able to move it into a better position, but it hopped away really quickly and I only had the time for two shots.