Nina Byers 11/14/11
AP Biology Article review
Recent findings have uncovered at least two species of cephalopod that are capable of clever camouflage. In the article written by Ritchie King, “Cloaks of Invisibility, Switched in a Flash,” he discusses two, rather interesting, cephalopods. Cephalopod is the species under which Squids and Octopi fall and the Japetella octopus and an Onychoteuthis squid have a peculiar ability to switch rapidly between being completely transparent and completely dark. Scientists believe that this cloaking ability evolved through hiding from predators. For example, the hatchet fish hunt by, “diving deeper and looking upward for silhouettes of potential food” and the deep-sea dragonfish catch prey by using, “biological searchlights that reflect off of clear flesh.” Thus, the Japetella and Onychoteuthis developed the ability cloak themselves in an instant. These two cephalopods depend on sacs of black pigment distributed throughout their body. When the cephalopods wish to be transparent, they can twitch the sacs, like a muscle, and create very compact spheres that just allows the “glassy flesh” to be visible. If they wish to be completely darkened, the sacs flatten and stretch to form a shroud about the animal. Both of these happen within a second.
This discovery of such an organism is crucial to the concept of evolution. They demonstrate how defensive mechanisms can develop according to their environment. In this case, we see them shielding themselves from a hatchet fish and deep-sea dragonfish. We can take this information in examining other “peculiar” organisms to understand why they may have developed biological phenomena. This finding is incredibly interesting and just demonstrates that we will constantly be uncovering new and strange life on our one planet.
Overall, the author did an impressive job of review. King is to the point and uses good language; I particularly like his choice of, “camouflage conundrum.” The author accounts for the reasons for the Cephalopod phenomena in a comprehensive manner in describing the different predators that cause the Cephalopods to react the way they do. Though the article is short, it is to the point and easy to grasp. I hope to see more on these little Cephalopods and if there are any more like them!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/science/cloaks-of-invisibility-switched-in-a-flash.html?_r=1&ref=animals
After reading Nina’s review of the article “Cloaks of Invisibility, Switched in a Flash” it was clear that Nina did a great job at explaining what cephalopods are and how they utilize their camouflage abilities. Nina did a great job at describing why such organisms are crucial to evolution. She explained that they demonstrate how defense mechanisms can develop according to their environment. A third thing Nina did very well in her review was she rated King’s knowledge and overall presentation of the article. This helps show a reader of her review that she understood what the article was saying and was able to explain it properly.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I would have liked Nina to do was to compare her article to another article that she may have read in class. This could have given the reader another source to focus on and relate to within this particular article. Also, I think Nina should have given more pros and cons about the author based on his beliefs and discoveries in his article.
One thing I found interesting was that by camouflaging themselves to create less attention to hatchet fish and dragon fish, the cephalopods are able to prove themselves as important species to evolution.
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ReplyDeleteNina Byer’s review of the article “Cloaks of Invisibility, Switched in a Flash” by Richie King was well written and conveyed the facilities of these Cephalpods quite accurately. Descriptions of the movement of sacs of black pigment are especially visceral and informative. For example, the sentence, “If they wish to be completely darkened, the sacs flatten and stretch to form a shroud about the animal.” greatly emphasizes this fact. Another well presented portion of the review was on the significance of the discovery, which she presents with gusto.
Along with these points, I would like to make a few suggestions that would make this review even better. A description on the time frame of these discoveries would make the review more sound. Also, a clarification on the differences between the two species described in the article, the Japetella octopus and the Onychoteuthis squid, would aid the presentation as well.
I learned, from this article, how these cloaking mechanisms found in many Cephalpods has a great impact as further evidence of evolution. The fact that these organisms have such complex camouflage systems, as a method of evading predators, has many implications on the theory of evolution.
Nina's review of "Cloaks of Invisibility was very informative and easy to understand. Her description about Cephalopods helps the reader understand the background information of this article. Also, Nina's description of the the Japetella octopus and an Onychoteuthis squid's cloaking was well explained and helped the reader to understand how this evolution evolved because of the hatchet fish's evolution. Finally, Nina does a nice job of explaining how cloaking is possible.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would have liked to have known how these two new species were discovered since they are practically impossible to spot. Also, I would have gone into the differences between the two newly discovered Cephalopods and I would have like to have known how similar their evolutions are.
From this article, I learned that these newly discovered Cephalopods could contribute to the understanding of evolution profoundly. In addition, I learned how these Cephalopods camouflage.
After reading Nina's review it was very obvious that Nina did a great job articulating the camouflage capabilities. Her description of this application helped me understand the article and because she referenced specific species, Japetella octopus, the information presented was more applicable. Lastly, I think that nina did a great job at describing why such organisms are crucial to evolution because she stated that the environment that these species are surrounded in heavily influences certain defense mechanisms that have evolved over centuries.
ReplyDeleteIf there was one thing that i wish nina could improve on i would ask her to give other examples of defensive mechanisms that other species use. This comparison could have given the reader a more interesting read. Also i would recommend nina to provide more background information on Cephalopods.
I found it very interesting that the cephalopods depend on sacs of black pigment that are distributed throughout their body. When the cephalopods wish to be transparent, they can twitch the sacs, like a muscle, and create very compact spheres that just allows the “glassy flesh” to be visible. If they wish to be completely darkened, the sacs flatten and stretch to form a shroud about the animal. Such an intricate defensive mechanism only proves the theory of evolution and makes me further interested on how this can be improve or adapted to other environments
Nina's review of "Cloaks of Invisibility, Switched in a Flash" was both informative and engaging. She clearly knew what she was talking about and her knowledge of cephalopods was extensive to say the least. Nina did an excellent job describing all of the different ways that camouflage is important. Another thing that Nina did well was mention extremely specific species, such as the Onychoteuthis octopus, that really drove her point home. Finally, Nina did a great job of describing what role camouflage plays in evolution.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that Nina could have done better was explained how this ability has developed over the years and what caused this to happen. Secondly, Nina could have also given us some background information on what cephalopods actually are.
The thing that I found most interesting about this article was how the cephalopods are able to almost flex a muscle that releases this black pigment throughout their bodies. Thus in a fraction of a second the fish can completely change its transparency. Overall Nina did an excellent job reviewing this article and it will be interesting to see if these camouflage abilities exist in any other species.
I think that Nina did a very good job reviewing the interesting article “Cloaks of Invisibility, Switched in a Flash.” One aspect of Nina’s review that she did especially well was that she gave a very in depth analysis of everything the article discussed. This is important because by giving the reader more details it gives her arguments more credibility and it also makes her review easier to understand. She gives details such as how the cephalopods are able to camouflage themselves, which was very interesting. Another thing Nina did very well in her review was explaining what this ability shows and why it’s important. She wrote about how this clearly shows Darwin’s theory of Evolution and this helps the readers understand the implications of this amazing ability. One final aspect of Nina’s review that was done very well was that she expressed her opinion very clearly. I think that this is an important part of the review to help establish any biases she might have.
ReplyDeleteWhile Nina did do a very good job reviewing her article, she could have expanded her explanation to talk about how other animals who are able to camouflage themselves are able to do it. What I mean is that she could have compared the ability of these cephalopods to the abilities of other animals with camouflage abilities. One other thing that Nina could have done in her review is to explain if this finding could have any human implications. For example, could this help humans develop new forms of camouflage or something else?
The most interesting part of this article to me was when Nina explained how the cephalopods camouflage themselves, because I found it to be fascinating. Overall, Nina did a very good review.
I think Nina did a good job at explaining just what the article discussed. She clearly explained what the author was trying to explain and managed to show just how detailed and credible the article really was. She also helped to understand the facts of the article by going into critical details and important points on cephalopods making them both informative and interesting. Finally Nina did best was explain why it is important. She did this by discussing the theory of evolution and helping the reader understand just how critical this ability of basically going invisible was to the evolution of the cephalopods.
ReplyDeleteWhile Nina did an excellent job at summarizing and explaining the article she did have trouble going into detail of where this discovery could have implications outside of the lives of the actual cephalopods. She could have gone into detail on how other animals have developed this ability or how learning of the camouflage could impact human life. She also made it difficult to understand exactly how the cephalopods went through there processes.
The most interesting thing about this article was that cephalopods are able to going basically invisible which has been seen as insane and basically impossible for almost out entire lives.
Nina’s review of the article, “Cloaks of Invisibility, Switched in a Flash,” did many things well. First, she did a good job of explaining what a Cephalopod was and how the two cephalopods Japetella octopus and an Onychoteuthis squid are able to quickly camouflage themselves. She then went on to explain the consequences of these creatures’ ability to camouflage, and how it helps them to survive. Third, Nina did a good job of pointing out how crucial these organisms are to the study of evolution and how evolution is able to give these organisms such amazing abilities. One thing that Nina could have done better would be to go further into how these creatures were discovered and who had found them. Nina also could have drawn more comparisons between these two Cephalopods and offered more evidence as to how they had undergone the same kind of evolution. Overall, the most interesting thing I learned from this article is simply the presence of such complex organisms that can camouflage so readily on our planet.
ReplyDeleteI think that Nina did a fantastic review of her article about the camouflage capabilities. First of all she did an excellent job of explain what Cephalopod is, and which specific octopi of the species have the ability to cloak. She also did an excellent job of explain how they cloak. The cephalopods depend on sacs of black pigment that are distributed throughout their body. When the cephalopods wish to be transparent, they can twitch the sacs, like a muscle, and create very compact spheres that just allows the “glassy flesh” to be visible. If they wish to be completely darkened, the sacs flatten and stretch to form a shroud about the animal. I also liked how she related these findings to the larger scope of evolution, and how animals over generations adapt to the environment by having the naturally fit animals survive and reproduce.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Nina did do a very good job reviewing her article, there are a few things that she could have improved on. For one, she could have expanded on the description of the species. Are they large in population size, or are these just a couple of mutants that are nearly insignificant in numbers. Nina also did not state where we could find these creatures and what type of environment they can live in and how the environment affects their cloaking ability. She could have also related these creatures to other camouflageable creatures, such as jellyfish and chameleons, and how they vary in their abilities.
One interesting point in her review was simply the fact that these animals can camouflage. It is an amazing ability and it would be incredible to witness. It would be interesting to learn more about these in the future.
Nina did a very good job summarizing a very interesting article about camouflaging deep sea creatures. Nina made the article easier to understand by defining key terms like cephalopods. She also was successful in providing a lot of specific detail on how the octopus type creatures are able to manipulate their sacks to become transparent or opaque. I also liked Nina’s critique of the article, it was clear and insightful. To improve the article Nina might want to add more information on how all of this was discovered, and where the research happened. Her great summery could have been made even better if she brought linked in a video or a picture on the cephalopods. Overall I think this subject is interesting. I think it goes to show that humans have a lot more to learn about our fellow animals, and even more to learn from them.
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