Natural History in Unexpected Places: WONDERFEST-Japanese Science Fiction Toy Show!

JAPAN! So many amazing things! Sometimes in unexpected places!!

Today, an unusual post. As many of you know I'm currently visiting Japan to study the Sea Stars of Japan at the National Museum of Nature and Science. 

In a happy coincidence with this year's visit, my trip took place at the same time as the massive Japanese science fiction/toy and model-kit show called Wonder Festival.  I have a uh... passing interest in Japanese pop culture.. Godzilla, Ultraman, so forth...and so, why not? I've never been to one.. I wonder what its like??

HUGE. A massive space with a massive crowd! 

Much of it was pretty much what you would expect. Renditions of everyone's favorite Japanese monsters, robots and so on...

But one of the things I had NOT expected was to see how this incredible pool of artists, craftsmakers, modellers, and even retailers were heavily influenced by Natural History! 

In other words: BIOLOGY. ZOOLOGY. FISH! INVERTEBRATES! Even ROCKS!!

Here in this enclave of fantasy were an innumerable number of items which were inspired by the natural world!!  I saw everything from actual animal skulls for sale to various figure kits and monsters inspired by insects, sea stars and more!

I don't know if I should have been surprised but I was VERY impressed by how creative and frankly, f*cking STUNNING some of the art and displays were... and yes much of it for sale.

I've mentioned in other posts, how the Japanese apparently have a pretty huge appreciation for natural history and an inordinate fondness, if not outright obsession with various marine invertebrates.. 

Here was a post from last year about various Invertebrate Zoology toys...

and this one was all about the Giant Isopod stuff seen from Japanese social media..

But pictures were encouraged and so here's a cross-sample of things that caught my eye. I'll be honest and say that at the time I didn't think to capture the names of the companies and artists who created these items. And so, the omission of their names is my fault... but knowing how much of these things exist is a pretty awesome fact in and of itself...

A steampunk Fangtooth Fish! My pictures don't do it justice..

 

A real one for comparison...

and here is a nice Steampunk rendition of what I believe is Sternoptyx, aka the hatchetfish! another resident of the deep-sea

But steampunk fish were not the only fish in attendance. Actual fish skeletons were also to be had! Here are some cool preps in tiny glass/plastic boxes!!

And one closeup of a particularly cool one...

Invertebrates were also well-represented!! Here are some resin or porcelin (not sure I remember) highly detailed STOMATOPOD figures! Each about 2 inches (6 cm) long. 

Origami has a LONG history in Japan..and so a good representation of paper craft displaying various marine animals was on display...

But MY favorite??? The paper craft model of the Cambrian predator Anomalocaris!! 

STEAM PUNK CEPHALOPODS!!!

Some interesting snails with a skull motif!! 

I don't honestly remember what these figures were made of but they were visually AMAZING.

Here.. some horseshoe crabs that have never looked better! 

Some colorful but more conventional crabs...

Some Coelacanth action! 

A rockin' green lobster! 

And then, there was this guy, who had metal casts of various crabs in various sizes... these are parthenopids I believe (elbow crabs).

One guy was selling these stunning Bismuth samples!! The surface oxidizes giving it these brilliant colors

and of course, you always got the classic: Paleozoic Anomalocaris and Dunkleosteus vinyl figures! 

Spiny, Dangerous Sea Urchins and the Fish that Love them!

(Figure 2 from Moore & Auster, 2009)

Today, a neat bit of natural history from a short paper by Jon Moore at Florida Atlantic University and Peter Auster at the University of Connecticut published in the Peabody Museum of Natural History 50(2): 381-386 in 2009!

The paper is based on submersible (ROV) observations by the authors on three North Atlantic seamounts in the deep-sea (1410 to 1475 meters). The paper highlights an association that you simply wouldn't have seen if you had dredged these up in a net.

The observations are focused on deep-sea "pancake" urchins aka members of the Echinothurioidea! I wrote up a post on these years ago as one of Deep-Sea News' "best" Deep Sea species.. here. But the short version is this:

-Body Soft and collapses into flat shape when out of water (hence the term "pancake" urchin).

-Poisonous spines on top!

-Very old and were recognized from the fossil record before they were identified from living animals!

check ? Okay...

It turns out that in addition to all of that? Some FISH actually like to live on and around them! Specifically, baby CUSK eels! (family Ophidiidae).

(Figure 2 from Moore & Auster, 2009)

This pic shows the juvenile eel identified as Barathrites living in relationship with the echinothurioid urchin Hygrosoma petersi at 1488 m at Yakutat Seamount.

The urchin here is about 17 cm in diameter (fish is about 9 cm long).

Usually, these associations were of single eels living in and around the urchins, pecking at food and bits in the sediment-while swimming in and out around the spines and such.

 

(Figure 3 from Moore & Auster, 2009)

Moore and Auster believe that this is sort of a commensal relationship. The fish presumably gets some protection while it safely eats and forages. The urchin doesn't seem to get any obvious benefit..but doesn't seem too perturbed by the fish either...

Not every urchin gets some freeloading fish living in and around them!

Moore and Auster report that of the 37 urchins they observed, 89% of them (i.e., 33 urchins) did NOT have commensals.

(Figure 4 from Moore & Auster, 2009)

However there WERE different taxa that played host to baby cusk eels.. Their figure 4 shows a tiny little fish in association with another genus, Araeosoma fenestratum. Note that this is the proper name for the animal in their Fig. 4! Thanks to Dave Pawson. for the information!

Its important to point out that its only the juvenile cusk eels that seem to practice this "hiding among the sea urchins" type of behavior. Adult cusk eels apparently get quite big (62 cm in length! that's about 2 feet long!)..and yeah, no one's seen them hiding behind a 17 cm sea urchin!

What's kind of interesting about this behavior is how you see a similar KIND of behavior among completely unrelated fish in shallow water! Poisonous sea urchin spines just got that somethin' somethin'!!!

Shallow Water fish relationships

To compare, here is Diademichthys lineatus a relatively familiar shallow-water clingfish that lives in and around the spines of the well-known Diadema.

How closely associated are these fish? The name "diadem" refers to a spiny crown (i.e., the sea urchin) whereas "ichthys" refers to fish and "lineata" refers to the pattern on the body.. But their name is literally tied to their habitat!

According to a paper by Hiroko Sakashita in 1992, which was written about them here the relationship between this shallow-water species and their hosts are a bit more exploitive with juveniles feeding on body parts (pedicellariae and sphaeridia) as well as copepods that also lived as commensals..

As the animals grow into adults, their diet changes and they go after food that is more independent of the sea urchin.. clams and other small invertebrates elsewhere...

So..in both cases..it seems as if the fish get what they will out of it but then "outgrow" their hosts as they mature.

Bah! Isn't that just like a fish?