in the forests of venezuela, there’s a rare frog that offers views i never dreamt of: the glass frog (cochranella antisthenesi) is partly transparent and lets you see directly into its interior.
in this picture by h. & h.j. koch, you can see a female and her eggs.
more information on the family of glass frogs (wikipedia): de, en
everybody knows that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but i think many beholders will agree to call these critters what scientists refer to as …”pretty ugly”. ;)
here’s a list of the ugliest and/or creepiest little creatures i’ve come across.
in german:
schönheit liegt bekanntermaßen im auge des betrachters, aber ich denke, dass so mancher betrachter diese tierchen für das hält, was wissenschafter als “ziemlich hässlich” bezeichnen würden. ;)
es folgt eine liste der hässlichsten/eigenartigsten kreaturen, die mir bisher untergekommen sind.
this little animation shows the development of an anatomical drawing that i did during a zoology class a few years ago. the reconstruction is part of a university project for the biology younglings. ;)
earlier this year, i wrote about the then-upcoming EU vote to ban seal products from “commercially harvested seals”. it took place last tuesday, and the bill passed with an overwhelming majority .
Europeans Limit Seal Imports, as Canadian Officials Protest
In a blunt challenge to Canada and thousands of Canadian seal hunters, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to ban the importing or sale of furs and other products from commercially harvested seals.
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Canadian officials immediately criticized the ban, which could take effect within several weeks, for not exempting countries like Canada that have guidelines requiring humane, sustainable hunts1.
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The vote, 550 to 49 with 41 abstentions, was welcomed by animal welfare groups that have fought the seal hunts for decades.
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The European ban would not cover products from seals killed in subsistence hunts by the Inuit and other indigenous northern communities.
source: nytimes.com.
more information: press release of the european parliament
the regulation will be effective 3 weeks from now.
it feels good to be a european!
this animation was done as a request. a friend needed such a file for her presentation, but couldn’t find one on the internets…
venus flytraps belong to the interesting family of droseraceae, which consists of carnivorous plants.
in order to attract prey, the traps are usually of a reddish color and contain nectar producing glands.
as soon as an insect lands on the traps and stimulates a one of the trigger hairs, the lobes are closed. trying to escape, the trapped insect further stimulates the inner surface of the lobes, and the plant starts to produce digestive enzymes.
in their wild habitats (bogs, wet svannahs), venus flytraps and other carnivorous plants find hardly any nutrients (especially nitrogen), so they have evolved to actually catch and digest insects.
i’m beginning to wonder what else is going to show up in my room…
this zebra spider was quickly moving over the inside (!) of my insect screen.
after caroline’s comment on the naming of alfred, i decided to call this one junior.
reading up on zebra spiders, i found out that this is a male (it has strongly elongated chelicerae.1)
this species is part of the salticidae family (jumping spiders), whose jumps are very precise and cover distances up to 20 times their own body size.
most (all?) salticid spiders have 8 eyes, 4 of which are sitting on the front of the head like huge headlights. the central pair of these is bigger and is equivalent to telezoom lenses: the retinas are movable so it is possible to focus on any object, and even change the visual angle without moving the body.
the zebra spider is very common on housefronts, in houses and on rocks or gardenfences. male spiders are usually only seen between may and july.
while i was taking pictures, junior sometimes suddenly disappeared from the viewfinder, and i found him sitting on the outer rim of the camera lense. cool strategy: if something big supposedly wants to eat you, jump right at its eye!
nature often keeps me busy concentrating to not just stare at something with an open mouth.
in a recent class, we looked at developmental stages of plant embryos, from the zygote to a fully grown embryo inside a mature seed.
the animation below shows a young embryo that is being formed inside the ovule (entire structure). it will grow from a single cell to a complete, viable plant embryo, and the surrounding space will be filled with nutrients and storage substances that will give the little germinating seed the best chances possible.
there are lots more pictures available, i’ll hope to find the time to upload them.
