Hainan Daily reporter Wang Yingchun
As one of the three major ecosystem types, the ocean is like a strange and huge blue empire, with a huge variety of organisms. In a long time, the primitive marine life has been continuously evolved and evolved so far, the "sentient beings" under the blue are so glittering: unlike the irradiated symmetrical coelenterates, the characteristics of arthropods such as shrimp soldier crabs are symmetrical on both sides and heterogeneous segments; abalone, snails, shellfish and other molluscs are very close to human life, as the second phyla, the number of mollusks is the largest in the ocean; echinoderms including starfish and sea urchins are important benthic animals and have a strong regenerative ability. The Phylum Chordata is the highest class in the animal kingdom, and the "famous" sharks, turtles, sea snakes, etc. all belong to this category...
Walking into the tropical marine biological resources exhibition hall in the Haikou Tropical Agricultural Science and Technology Expo Park, pure and vast blue becomes the main color in front of you. In this marine science popularization base that mainly displays various marine animal resources in the South China Sea, the more than 600 kinds of marine animal specimens on display will really make people who swim in it feel that they have dived into the seabed for 20,000 miles.
Little Shell University asked
Running on the beach, most of the surprises under your feet come from the colorful "little guys". The hard shell is wrapped around the soft flesh, and although the space is a little cramped, this "home" that can be carried with you is the best umbrella for this type of mollusk.
"We often refer to snails to the shells of gastropods and cephalopods, and shells in the narrow sense refer to the shells of bivalves. Shells in the broad sense refer to the shells of all mollusks, but in Hainan they are also called snails. Huang Shengzhuo, an associate researcher at the Institute of Tropical Biotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, is a senior collector of marine biological specimens.
In fact, whether it is a snail shell or a shell, it is essentially the shell of a mollusk. Mollusks are animals with soft bodies and no bones in their bodies, and they have a "mantle membrane" that evolves from skin folds and partially or completely wraps around the body, which is very important for mollusks.
The mantle membrane of some mollusks secretes calcareous matter, which in turn forms the shell of the shell. The rich patterns, brilliant colors, and colorful shapes on the shell make up the magical shell world.
Breaking Bad
Beautiful things always have a natural attraction for people, and the snails that are carved by nature so exquisitely and exquisitely are the "deadly poisoners" in the ocean, and under these beautiful and dizzying patterns, there are infinite killing machines.
Brocade taro snail.
Taro snail, also known as "chicken heart snail", the snail body is inverted cone-shaped and extremely strong, the front thickness and back fine shape is like the chicken heart or taro, but also because of the rich and colorful pattern of the shell surface and highly ornamental. The taro snail family is a unique landscape in the exhibition hall, and the dozens of taro snail specimens in the glass display cabinet are dazzling: the black and white black taro snail is cold and advanced, the character code taro snail is lined with mysterious code terms, and the brocade taro snail on the side seems to be covered with brocade woven by skilled craftsmen...
Black taro snail.
But it is this palm-sized beautiful snail that has gradually evolved into a frightening poison king. The snail has a long tubular structure that was originally used for water flowing in and out, but the snail transformed it into an "arrow barrel" – there are many small "arrows" in the sac at the base of the pipe. They tend to lie in ambush in the sand, and when the prey approaches, the "poisonous arrow" filled with venom is shot into the prey like a bullet through the contraction of the muscles, and the venom can instantly paralyze the small fish and wait until the prey is anesthetized before swallowing it.
Shell coin traceability
Colorful and polished shells may be just ornaments today, but shellfish that have gone through the vicissitudes of time have played an extremely important role in social and economic development.
Originally small, colorful, and durable shellfish only existed as a favorite ornament of the original social residents, but the characteristics of moderate size, easy to carry, easy to count, etc. made natural shellfish gradually serve as the general equivalent of commodity exchange.
The original shellfish coin originated in the Shang Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago, this shellfish currency processed from natural sea shellfish is the ancestor of the coin, excavated in Henan Yin Ruins Women's Good Tomb and other places, dating back to about 3500 years ago. These common tooth shells of the Shang Dynasty, the back of which is often smoothed out, or drilled a perforation, is easy to carry, and the scientific name is cargo shell. In China, many words related to money, such as wealth, capital, goods, gifts, fees, greed, earnings, compensation, bribery and other words, are headed by the word shell.
Venus Comb
The delicate shell is covered with long, comb-like spines, and in the "Great World" of the Tropical Marine Biological Resources Exhibition Hall, the "high-profile" ctenophoric snail can be regarded as a strange shape. The "chestnut" is a comb with long and dense teeth, while the "thorn" is a long, sharp thorn that graphically describes the shape of this marine creature.
On the shell, three thick ribs of bulging are arranged at a nearly perfect 120° angle, extending from the top of the shell to the lowest layer of the shell and ending at the base of the long front water pipe. Each thick rib has a row of thick spines that look like a comb with three teeth. Perhaps only the god of beauty born from the sea is worthy of this miraculous comb, and the ctenophore snail is also known as the "comb of Venus".
Despite its dreamy name, the Venus bone snail is a ferocious carnivorous animal that often inhabits shallow seas between sediment, rocks or coral reefs, and prefers shellfish. When hunting, they will cover the prey with long, comb-like spines, and then eat the flesh of the shell of the mollusk with a kiss through it, thus causing some harm to shellfish farming.
Undersea Rhapsody
The deep and rich marine world is not only the source of life, but also the strange and changeable creatures on the seabed have also given many inspirations for human beings to "rhapsody". Whether it is a sponge that "witnesses love" or a sea urchin that is "beautiful alone", it is the ultimate romance.
With the old cave
To be old with the son, to live and die together, is to "accompany the old man to the same cave". In the dictionary of marine biologists, "with the old cave" refers to a sponge animal, this romantic creature from the deep sea is one of the collections of the Tropical Marine Life Resources Exhibition Hall.
This slender, soft sponge is surrounded by small holes and has a delicate white mesh-like shape. Glass-like siliceous bone needles form its skeleton, with a cluster of fibers attached to the substrate of the seabed, standing quietly a few kilometers below sea level. The name "KaiLao Tong Cave" is derived from a small shrimp that parasitizes the body of the sponge. This pair of male and female green plum bamboo horses burrowed through the small holes of the sponge at a very young age and entered the sponge body to inhabit. When the body grows up, it is "trapped" inside until it dies of old age.
This is actually a phenomenon of "partial-advantage symbiosis" in the biological world, that is, an interspecific interaction that has no effect on one party but is beneficial to the other. For example, sponges provide shrimp with an environment to be food-rich and hide from predators, while shrimp have no special effect on sponges.
The pairs of shrimp in the sponge body, because of this "cage" life, the white head and the old age, until death, have also become a symbol of loyal love. Japanese people often give them as wedding gifts to the couple, and the small shrimp are also called "li shrimp". The life of the shrimp ends, and the sponge stands still, like the "flower basket of Venus".
Stone pen sea urchin.
Stone pen sea urchin
The traditional impression of sea urchins is almost the same as the thorn ball, but in the tropical coral reef caves along the coast of China's Xisha and Nansha coasts, or fiery red or dark red "flowers" bloom in a demonic way, this is the stone pen sea urchin.
The thick shell of the stone pen sea urchin is ellipsoidal in shape, and the whole body is covered with radial spines of different lengths. The large spines can be up to seven to eight centimeters long, the lower part is cylindrical, the upper end is expanded into a club or triangular shape, and the base is also covered with fleshy warts, often inhabiting coral reef caves with smaller openings and larger inner chambers, and its large spines are usually straight, so it is not easy to pull it out of the hole. And when it comes up with itself, the large spines shrink the body by folding up the warts that play a joint role, so that the stone pen sea urchin can freely enter and exit the narrow hole, because its spines are thick and can be used as a mouthpiece, so it is also called a mouthpiece sea urchin.
Such "star sea urchins" are also "monitors" of water quality, and stone pen sea urchins are very sensitive to copper-containing drugs and cannot tolerate high nitrate environments, so if their spines begin to fall off, it usually means that the water quality has deteriorated. In addition, the dried spines of stone pen sea urchin also have the effect of clearing heat and anti-inflammatory, and can be used for otitis media in an appropriate amount after being medicated.
"What we want to do is not just a simple exhibition of marine life specimens, but also to dig up the stories behind the creatures, so that the specimens in the exhibition hall can also become cultural carriers." When the application scenario becomes richer, the imagination space of tourists will also be more abundant. Yu Shuhua, executive deputy director of the Operation and Management Center of Haikou Thermal Science Park, believes that there is still a large "blue ocean market" in the tourism road of the tropical marine biological resources exhibition hall.
The crab thing of the ocean
In the traditional sense, crabs seem to exist only to satisfy our appetites. Sea and land amphibious, they are clad in hard "armor", wielding a pair of majestic clawed feet, and stepping out of a domineering posture. However, in the fantasy ocean world, the crab that usually gets on the table is only the most unremarkable "passerby" in the crab family. The hundreds of crab specimens with different shapes and shapes in the Tropical Marine Biological Resources Exhibition Hall seem to come from another world, and such a visual feast is difficult for imaginative people to imagine.
Body Type Champion
If you only talk about heroes by body shape, then the huge crab with a body width of 41 centimeters and a weight of more than 13.5 kilograms is definitely the king.
This hard carapace and stout "Emperor Crab" is undoubtedly the treasure of the town hall in the museum, and it is the general existence of the crab "aircraft carrier". The smooth red-and-white carapace adds a seductive look to the giant, but the dark pincer fingers look quite "fierce". The pair of cray feet of the male giant quasi-coastal crab vary in size, and the large claws can be used to attract females in addition to predation and defense. Smaller claws, while not as powerful as larger claws, are also sharp.
Giant coastal crabs are predators of a variety of organisms, and the giant claws have amazing power to crush small shells with ease. However, the "high-end players" of this food chain can not escape the fate of being brought to the table, and the strong crab meat and rich fat reserves make it an object of pursuit by diners.
Specimens of coconut crabs are placed in display cases on the wall, and the coconut crab, known as the "tree climbing master", is a hermit crab that can grow up to one meter long. It is large and hard-shelled, and is particularly good at climbing straight coconut trees, even to the top of trees. Two powerful giant claws are able to peel off the hard coconut shell, so named because they eat the coconut flesh in it. Coconut crabs live in tropical woods by the sea, returning to the sea during the breeding season, and their larvae grow in the seawater. Incredibly, adult coconut crabs, though fierce, can drown in the sea, and land overlords who can tear coconuts by hand have deadly weaknesses.
Like a man in the body
A spider-like crab stands out in a glass display case. Unlike the giant pseudo-coastal crab, its advantage is not in its large size, but in eight extraordinary "big legs", this Baqi flat spider crab belongs to the spider crab family, because of its appearance like a spider. The superior leg proportions coupled with the white and blood-colored shell make the ornamental value of the flat spider crab also very high. However, if you take a closer look, you are likely to be startled by the spikes on the "long legs". These jagged spikes escort their slender and weak breasts and feet, and the naked eye alone can make people feel "painful".
Chestnut-like stone crab.
Speaking of thorns, people with "dense phobias" are best to bypass the chestnut-like stone crab in the museum. The appearance of the whole body full of spikes makes people almost nowhere to start, and the density of the spikes is comparable to the burrs outside the chestnut shell, making them automatically reject people thousands of miles away. This kind of talent that scares off opponents visually is not something that crabs can possess.
Human face crab heart
Imagine how "weird" it is to have a crab with a face-like appearance, and this imaginative name can definitely make a face crab on the list of "Top Ten Strange Crabs". When you see specimens of giant claws and oriental crabs lying in the display case, you will unconsciously lament the ingenuity of nature's creations. The bulge on the crab shell resembles a sealed human face, and the eyes, nose and mouth can be faintly recognized.
A pair of Dan phoenix eyes, two crouching silkworm eyebrows, not angry and arrogant. Guan Gong crab is shaped as its name suggests, with large wart-like protrusions and many grooves on the back, which resemble the Guan Gong face in classical Chinese opera. Although this small crab is related to the appearance of the gong, it does not have the ability to guan gong. The tiny claws are downwind on the enemy's weapons, and only two of the four pairs of foot-feet are more developed. In order to save their lives, they usually live under the fence, and shells are often the choice of Guan Gong crabs. When encountering the enemy, he should not fight, but he has studied various tricks and escape techniques to avoid the enemy, and even automatically gives up the appendages that are caught, becoming a coward in the ocean.
Jade is there
Among the all-encompassing crab families, there are many different looks, and the rough "stone" and warm "jade" can be found in the crab specimens in the museum. The former has a "stone crab", scientifically known as the rough erosion crab. This crab has a high and ancient appearance, a mottled and uneven surface, such as lava flowing all over the body, and prefers to live in the shallow water of the seabed and coral reefs with silt or shells, and its appearance alone is extremely powerful.
Bow-backed Yi jade crab
The jade crab family is often crab as its name suggests, and the transparent and delicate "texture" is simply another extreme. Among the several jade crabs on display, the bow-backed Yi jade crab is really carved out of jade, and the head cover jade crab, which is almost the size of a finger, is even more delicate.
(Photo courtesy of Haikou Thermal Science Park)
Original title: Appreciate the rare treasures and explore the new knowledge into the seabed for 20,000 miles