Chicken-eating Spider

There are around 800 species of Tarantula spider in the world - at least those are the ones that have been discovered. It is estimated that there could be just as many unknown species in the rainforests, tropical scrublands and savannas around the world. The Chicken-eating Spider has been confirmed as one of these new species (second article here), identified as being within the genus Pamphobeteus. It is called the Chicken Eating spider because eye witnesses claim to have seen it dragging chickens into its burrow on the edge of jungle clearings. Estimates put it at around 10 inches from one hairy foot to another.

As well as being new to science, the Chicken Spider has thrown into doubt many of the accepted truths about tarantulas that have been held for almost a century. For instance, tarantulas are supposed to be strictly solitary creatures. Usually baby spiders - or spiderlings - quickly disperse once they emerge from the nest. This is because a mother tarantula's maternal instincts don't last long once the spiderlings have hatched. She starts looking for food, having fasted during the incubation period. Any spiderlings remaining in the nest find themselves on the menu. This solitary behaviour also minimizes competition for food. Tarantulas are ambush predators and stay very close to their burrows at all times, waiting for their prey to pass close by. With more than one spider in the same burrow there is less food to go around and one would expect smaller spiders and compromised populations.

The Chicken Spider, not only tolerates its offspring shortly after they have hatched, it shares its burrow with several generations of its progeny. Up to 50 spiders in one burrow and a thriving, healthy population in the surrounding forest. Here is evidence that this remarkable spider subdues any aggressive responses to its fellow burrow inhabitants and has actually learned to cooperate in prey capture, allowing for the predation of larger animals than would be possible if it were alone.

Vegetable Sculptures

Below are some examples from this neat gallery of vegetable/animal sculptures:

Parrot developmental pictures

Some examples from this photo gallery documenting the growth of a parrot:

World's largest fossil forest found in Illinois coal mine

Illinois geologists have discovered the remains of one of the world's oldest tropical rainforests, preserved in the ceiling of a coal mine 250 feet below the surface. The fossil forest encompasses four square miles, which is the largest find ever.

Plant fossils are common in coal beds, as coal is the compacted result of peaty plant material. But scientists are surprised by the size of this fossil bed, which they suspect came about because of a freak event: an earthquake that flooded and buried the forest. The vast extent of the fossil forest, which existed in a swampy time of giant dragonflies and tree ferns, has allowed the scientists to infer subtle ecological changes across the ancient landscape.

These are the remnants of extinct plants from a geological period 300 million years ago, called the Carboniferous, when the world was covered in a riot of green. Illinois was near the equator and much warmer and wetter. It was also a time before flowering plants had evolved, and so the plants would seem bizarre to modern eyes.

Giant tree ferns would have formed a lower canopy 30 feet high. Poking up through the ferns would have been 100-foot-tall clubmosses — asparagus-like poles that sprouted crowns full of spores. It was the age of insects, with 6-foot-long millipedes and dragonflies with yard-long wingspans.

When the ancient earthquake hit, a sudden flooding in the submerged block killed the rainforest. Mud and silt rushed into the depression, preserving the stumps and logs in a layer that eventually became shale.