blue dragon: a beautiful bad-ass nudibranch
on a recent beach stroll on the northern new south wales coast, i came across small weird-looking blue-and-white creatures with lots of appendages. having washed ashore, they looked more like […]
small things
bioluminescent fungi in a tropical rainforest
i’ve always been fascinated by bioluminescent phenomena. in a relatively wide range of organisms, evolution at some point produced species that can produce light, from marine plankton in warm seas, […]
epidermal bladder cells on a tiny desert-plant seedling in south africa [photo]
the tiny plant below is a stone plant seedling (aizoaceae), growing in the harsh conditions of the “knersvlakte” quartz gravel landscape in north-eastern south africa. the seedling has only formed […]
stellate parenchyma [photo and animation]
stellate parenchyma is a form of aeration tissue (aerenchyma) in plants, which helps with internal air circulation in plants. the tissue is typical of aquatic and wetland plants, and consists […]
photo: common smoothcap moss (atrichum undulatum)
the common smoothcap moss (atrichum undulatum) features transversely undulate leaves, but its most prominent feature are the long, distinctly beaked capsules that are borne on 3 cm long, reddish setae. […]
photo: spider wasp in action – when the hunter becomes the prey
spider wasps (pompilidae) are – in a nutshell – really badass insects. to provide food for their larvae, these wasps go hunting for spiders that are usually bigger than themselves. […]
photo: lichen scramble
here’s a picture from the stubai alps, taken recently near oberiss in tirol. it shows a mosaic of crustose lichens, fighting for space on silicate rock. lichen identification can be […]