xsimona
Aug 12, '10, 11:17am
Find my last argos !!
http://picasaweb.google.es/argonautiluspicasa/ARGONAUTAARGOSANTFELIU
Xavier
Level_Head
Sep 06, '10, 4:14pm
Here's a bit of news in the popular press (http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0903/At-last-scientists-solve-the-mystery-of-the-floating-octopus) about Argonauta and air bubbles in the shells (already known here):
As far back as Aristotle, naturalists have wondered why the females of a strange group of octopuses sport a thin, papery shell when plenty of their tentacled cousins are essentially naked, letting all their slime hang out.
Now, observations indicate the so-called Argonaut octopus uses the outer shell to trap an air bubble, allowing her to control her buoyancy in open water and move along with ease.
http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/0903-argonaut-octopus/8584349-1-eng-US/0903-argonaut-octopus_full_380.jpg
To determine how female argonauts used their shells to capture air from the surface beforediving deeper in the ocean, Julian Finn, the study's lead author and a researcher at the Museum Victoria in Australia, went scuba diving with three female argonauts, caught unintentionally in Japanese fishing nets. (Male argonauts and immature females do not have shells.)