Nature Is Lit

Who you fuckin' with, dumb ass?

Today's Deep Time Discussion

A short demo of concepts.

Questions?

Today's Bugs

Dragonhead Caterpillar:

Nawab Butterflies:

Today's New Thing

Stuff that fascinates me.

Cats have a precise method of walking called direct registering. Their hind paws fall inside the place of their forepaws, minimizing noise and visible tracks, while ensuring more stable footing.

We're In It Now

I'll say it again:

This is not about saving the planet. The planet is fine, and may well be in the process of solving its own problem by eliminating humans.

This is about saving ourselves.

Today's Critters

I could spend a good long time thinking about it, and not come up with anything worse than dead hippo farts.

Today's Video

Let's try this one again.

Singing

Where do you supposed we humans got our ideas about music as a way to communicate?

Mexican gray wolf Hélène

Today's Video

Wild animals are not to be fucked with - they are to be respected and admired from a distance.

But damn - it's hard to resist the urge to just wade right in.

Let's be careful out there.

A Predator

Lacrymaria Olor on a successful hunt.

Lacrymaria olor is a species of ciliates, typically 100 micrometres (0.10 mm) long, that is found in freshwater ponds. Its name means "swan tear" in Latin, and refers to its general shape: namely, a teardrop-shaped cell with a small "head" at the end of a long slender "neck". The protist is notable for its ability to extend the anterior end of the cell up to 7 times its body length, and manipulate in many directions — even around obstacles — in order to capture its food. For that reason it is a popular subject for amateur microscopists. The classification has been attributed to Müller (1786).

The protist usually has two macronuclei and a single micronucleus. Its entire cell body is covered with cilia arranged in spirals. It has two contractile vacuoles, one at each end of the body. It contains small birefringent crystals.

Lacrymaria olor can be easily reproduced in vitro, but cultivated populations are difficult to maintain for long. It can reproduce sexually, with each individual assuming either of two mating types ("sexes") at various times of the day. It can also reproduce asexually, possibly after an internal rearrangement of its genome; but there is evidence that this mechanism stops working after a certain number of consecutive asexual generations. It can also regenerate a new head within minutes, if the original is cut off.

Lacrymaria feed primarily on smaller organisms such as other ciliates, flagellates, and amoeba, but may sometimes tear chunks out of larger ciliates.

Nature Is Metal

Sweet dreams, kids.

Nature Is Metal

Ultimately, we are all prey animals.

Fibonacci, Anyone?

Humbacks harvesting

A Storm

Posted on Imgur

Today's Science Lab

Paraphrasing Ron Weasley: 

You're scary, Nature. Brilliant - but scary.

What We're Losing

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Today I Learned

The mating process of bees is interesting and a little shocking.

First of all, candidates for Queen Bee are selected and worker bees feed them a special jelly concoction, and the virgin Queen Bee which survives to adulthood without being killed by her rivals will take a mating flight with a dozen or so male drones, selected from the tens of thousands of eligible bachelor bees in the colony.

The drones which do mate with the queen bee are not the lucky ones because during sex when the male bee reaches climax its testicles explode and it dies.

And his genitals remain inside the Queen.

Millipede Walking

Fishing

A Green Heron doin' his thang.

Persuasion

"Once you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow." --Teddy Roosevelt(?)

(as made famous by Dick Nixon's Chief Counsel Chuck Colson)

And btw, just cuz it's a natural thing don't make it a good thing for humans.