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.

petromyzon marinus
en: sea lamprey | de: meerneunauge
more photos: lateral view, google

[more...]

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. ;)

animation: anatomical drawing of an earthworm (lumbricus terrestris)

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.
…
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.
…
The vote, 550 to 49 with 41 abstentions, was welcomed by animal welfare groups that have fought the seal hunts for decades.
…
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…

animation: a venus flytrap (dionaea muscipula) closes

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.

[view photos: venus flytrap]

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.

male zebra spider (salticus scenicus)

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.

animation: globular embryo (arrow) in an ovule of capsella bursa-pastoris.
differencial interference contrast microscopy and herr-prepared specimen

there are lots more pictures available, i’ll hope to find the time to upload them.

Kakapo chick rushed into surgery
It’s been a busy time, with one chick having to be rushed to Invercargill’s Elles Road Vets for emergency surgery after being attacked in its nest on Codfish Island/Whenua Hou last weekend.

The male kakapo’s (Arab) aggressive attack left a 20-day-old kakapo chick (nicknamed Bluster) with a 7cm tear down its side, a 2cm gash to its head and both ends of its big toe missing.
“The gash down its side was almost as big as the chick,” Professor Paul-Murphy said. Elles Road vet nurse Tracey Jennings and clinic owner Sandy Cooper assisted the surgery.

It was the first time Miss Jennings had anaesthetised such a rare bird. “It was pretty nerve-racking but it was amazing too, to be working so closely with a kakapo chick,” she said.

Dr Cooper said her clinic had been helping the recovery team during breeding seasons for the past 30 years.
This year had been particularly busy because it was the highest number of chicks ever to hatch (36 hatched and 33 have survived).

source: stuff.co.nz

Kakapo chicks relocate to lnvercargill
26 kakapo chicks (last update: april 20, 2009) have been taken to a special hand-rearing facility in Invercargill to secure their chances of survival.

The chicks are among the 34 which hatched on Whenua Hou/Codfish Island this breeding season, bringing the critically endangered kakapo population to 125.
Kakapo recovery team leader Deidre Vercoe said unfortunately not enough rimu fruit had ripened on the island for all 27 mothers to feed their chicks on.

Ms Vercoe said some mothers were struggling to keep up with the demands of their hungry offspring, so in order to ensure their survival some of the chicks are being hand-raised.

source: kakaporecovery.org.nz