> The pom-pom crab, the scientists speculated, is perhaps the only animal on the planet that controls another species’ growth, feeding and asexual reproduction.
Speaking about controlling another species, this story [1] where a wasp performs brain-surgery on a cockroach also seems pretty interesting.
I believe that that sentence could be written from the point of view of the anemone. The situation is unique in that the species of anemone itself may not exist outside of the "captivity" of this species of crab. I could be wrong, but all farm animals and pets are still related to some species of animal outside of human captivity. The closest analog of which I can think is the avocado plant whose seeds, as far as we know, can only be spread via human intervention.
Is it possible that the only remaining population of these particular anemones is in the claws of these crabs? That the only mechanism they have left for propagating is precisely the fighting and splitting seen in the tests? That would be wild. Could be checked by seeing if they're all clones. (Wouldn't necessarily be proof but it would be evidence.)
I'm pretty sure they are fairly prolific outside of the crabs use.
In the reef keeping world you can actually keep Pom Pom crabs in your aquarium with their anemones. If they lose the anemone for some reason, they often will find another anemone or even some coral to use.
Or it could have gone the other way, and the pom-pom anenomes divergently evolved under pressure the only survivors were the ones that continued to divide well under the crab provided environmental conditions.
"The pom-pom crab, the scientists speculated, is perhaps the only animal on the planet that controls another species’ growth, feeding and asexual reproduction."
Another interesting crustacean is the Mantis Shrimp - it's got a fast and powerful punch that reaches 73 feet per second (50 miles per hour) within 3 milliseconds - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtNAqK_V-lg
Those eyes are crazy. I'm jealous of all of the animals that have a greater range of color perception than us. If I could trade for any trait, it'd be that.
My understanding is human lens is a filter - removes ultraviolet. Early replacements didn't filter, some old folks could see colors the rest of us don't know about!
Ah, thanks. I'm surprised I haven't heard of body modders getting that done so they can see UV, that sounds like a neat superpower akin to people who get magnets embedded in their fingers. Going to research risks now..
There are some substances that can put you there (at least in mindset) for some period of time. Noticing the beauty of a color you have seen thousands of times is an interesting thing.
I guess you could have cameras that pick up the extra colours linked to something like a Microsoft hololens and displayed somehow like a shimmer for UV say.
that was the most interesting bit of the article for me, so i went to see what the anemone wikipedia page said and i found
> Triactis producta is found in shallow waters of the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean, its range extending from the Red Sea and Mozambique to Hawaii and French Polynesia. It is inconspicuous, often growing in crevices and concealed among the branches of stony corals. It often occurs in dense clusters of what are probably cloned individuals.
i really wonder how that quote got into the article - was schnytzer somehow misquoted? was he talking about years ago when the anemones were seen on the crabs but not yet found in the corals? it seems unlikely that he would simply be wrong about scientists not having found out where the anemones lived in the wild.
Food and/or drugs. When two animal species have an intimately codependent relationship like this it's called symbiosis, and it's a very interesting field. Some ants keep herds of aphids, a tiny insect whose secretions apparently taste like delicious caek.
Speaking about controlling another species, this story [1] where a wasp performs brain-surgery on a cockroach also seems pretty interesting.
[1] https://www.wired.com/2014/02/absurd-creature-of-the-week-je...