400. Slytherins are incredibly good at identifying abusers, both physical and emotional. They have avoided plenty of dangerous relationships, and saved their friends from abusive relationships
Contrary to popular belief, the slow loris is not actually a venomous primate. Rather, the animal produces an allergen (Fel d1) from a gland in its armpit, which is transferred to the mouth when licked. When the loris then bites, this chemical doesn’t elicit a response because of toxicity; some individuals just have a strong allergic reaction. Quite astoundingly, this allergen is the same as that produced by the domestic cat. So in effect, if a slow loris is venomous, then so is the common house cat!
On a side note, can you see the small second tongue? It’s called a sublingua, and most likely functions to remove hair and debris from between the teeth – it’s basically a built in tooth pick!
Photo by David Haring (CC)
See: Krane S., (2003) “Venom” of the slow loris: sequence similarity of prosimian skin gland protein and Fel d 1 cat allergen
Although this image just looks like a rock formation, pictured here is actually a species of chiton, Acanthopleura granulata. Recent research on this animal identified functional eye-like structures on each of the shell plates. Rather than being formed from proteins, these “eyes” are actually composed of aragonite, a carbonate mineral. Interestingly, the team of researchers concluded that aragonite can be used to form a lens effective both above and below water.
Photo by Hans Hillewaert (CC)
See: Speiser, D. et al, (2011), A Chiton Uses Aragonite Lenses to Form Images, Current Biology, 21: 8, pp 665-670.
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