Nature Photography

A few examples from this gallery:

Leaf Mimics

Below are several examples from this collection of creatures that have adapted to mimic leaves. Leaf mimics employ this form of camouflage to evade detection from predators or prey. These animals make use of extraordinary color patterns, in addition to modified exoskeletons, skin, scales, and behavior to take camouflage to another level.









Here are a few additional mimics from this gallery, which seem to have adapted quite well in order to survive in a human world! (Well, perhaps with a little help from some software).





Original (real) article here.

Singles Bar for Great White Sharks

Great white sharks travel huge distances and mysteriously spend up to six months gathered at an isolated spot in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii. Satellite tagging has revealed that male and female sharks make frequent and repetitive dives together, which may be linked to courtship.

The stretch of ocean the sharks make for - from both California and Mexico - is not a particularly rich feeding ground but it may act as a "singles bar" where they can find a mate.

The discovery was one of thousands to emerge from the "Census of Marine Life" -- an attempt to compile the first comprehensive survey of life in the world's oceans.

Original article here.

Killer Whales are Picky Eaters

A killer whale's favorite meal is king salmon, according to a new study that found these predators scan wide ocean regions listening for their favorite fish. Echolocation, which involves creating a sound in order to produce an echo, allows the whales to zone in on king salmon, also known as Chinook salmon, at distances up to half a mile.

But why do killer whales go to so much trouble to hunt down king salmon, picking them out even when they represent just 5-10% of the available salmon population? Because salmon are not equally nutritious -- Chinook salmon have the highest concentration of lipids, or fats, that the whales seem to prefer.

Although these fish look similar to human eyes, the study showed the echo structure created by each type of salmon was unique and could be used by killer whales to discriminate among the various species. "Fish gas" appears key to the process, as the study revealed echolocation tuned especially well into information released by each salmon's swim bladder. Swim bladders are gas bags within a fish that help the fish to be buoyant at any specific depth. They are probably the best reflector of acoustic energy underwater.

Original article here.

Mice Cloned After 16 Year Freeze

Cells taken from mice frozen 16 years ago have grown into healthy clones, raising the possibility of reproducing long-dead animals and even resurrecting extinct species.

The accomplishmen represents a large step forward in animal cloning. Earlier clones have required tissues taken from living animals or carefully-preserved cells, rather than an entire frozen animal.

Scientists thought that freezing would damage cells beyond repair. But the scientists salvaged intact nuclei from the neurons of their mice. These were inserted into living mice eggs, forming an embryo that developed until embryonic stem cells could be harvested. The stem cells were then used to make healthy mouse pups.

According to scientists, the new technique might someday be used to clone "extinct animals frozen in permafrost, or specimens collected opportunistically from endangered species in the field without access to sophisticated laboratory facilities."

Original article here.

Rainforest Fungus Naturally Synthesizes Diesel

A fungus that lives inside trees in the Patagonian rain forest naturally makes a mix of hydrocarbons that bears a striking resemblance to diesel. And the fungus can grow on cellulose, a major component of tree trunks, blades of grass and stalks that is the most abundant carbon-based plant material on Earth.

While genetic engineers have been trying a variety of techniques and genes to get microbes to create fuel out of sugars and starches, almost all commercial biofuel production today uses the century-old dry mill grain process. Existing ethanol plants ferment corn ears into alcohol, which is simple, but wastes the vast majority of the biomatter of the corn plant.

Using the cellulose from plants — the stalk instead of the ear, or simply wood from poplars — to make liquid fuel is a long-held dream because it would be more environmentally efficient and cheaper, but is far more difficult.

First, the cellulose must be broken down into its constituent parts — sugars bearing carbon — and then those pieces must be synthesized into more complex hydrocarbons. Both steps have proven difficult to do without applying large amounts of heat, pressure or chemicals.

What's exciting about the Gliocladium roseum fungus, however, is that it can both break down cellulose and synthesize the liquid fuel.

(Note that other technologies such as biomass gasification combined with the Fischer-Tropsch process have been developed to efficiently produce carbon based fuels using any carbon-based feedstock, such as wood waste, without the need to break down cellulose. This eliminates many of the difficulties associated specifically with "cellulosic" biofuels.)

But beyond the biofuel implications, scientists say that because the fungus can manufacture what we would normally think of as components of crude oil, it casts some doubt on the idea that crude oil is a fossil fuel. It may be the case that organisms like this produced some — maybe not all — of the world's crude oil.

Original article here.

Feathers Predated Flight in Dinosaur-Bird Hybrid

A part-bird, part-dinosaur described in the journal Nature didn't have feathers for flying, but did possess ornamental plumage, including four tailfeathers three times longer than its pigeon-sized body.

Epidexipteryx lived during the middle-to-late Jurassic, predating the famed Archaeoptryx, and represents an alternative evolutionary pathway from dinosaurs to birds.

The discovery by the Chinese Academy of Sciences adds complexity to the presumed road from T-rex to turkey vulture because the creature looks like a mythological chimera. And that, in the words of the authors of the paper, is "bizarre".

Original article here.

World's Longest Insect Found

The world's longest insect, a 22-inch long stick-insect from Borneo, was revealed at the U.K. Natural History Museum.

This species is new to science and has recently been named Phobaeticus chani (Chan's Megastick is the common name). Only three specimens of the new insect have been found so far, all from the Malaysian State of Sabah on the island of Borneo.

This specimen is more than 1cm longer than the previous record holder for overall length, which was a stick-insect called Phobaeticus serratipes found in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Although virtually nothing is known about the biology and ecology of this super-sized insect, it is thought that it probably lives in the canopy of the rainforest, making it especially hard to find. In addition to its size, its eggs may also be unique in the insect world. Each egg capsule has wing-like extensions on either side like a miniature golden snitch, allowing them to drift in the wind when the female drops them, thereby helping the species to spread.

Original article here.

Blue Lobster Found

A blue lobster was recently caught in Canada. Scientists say it is a one-in-two-million occurrence. Click the picture below to see a video of the lobster.

Second Confirmed Shark "Virgin Birth"

As a follow up to this post from last year, scientists have confirmed the second-ever case of a 'virgin birth' in a shark, further confirming that female sharks can reproduce without mating and that many female sharks may have this incredible capacity. The scientists have proven through DNA testing that the offspring of a female blacktip shark named 'Tidbit' contained no genetic material from a father.

The phenomenon of 'virgin birth' occurs when a baby is conceived without male sperm having first fertilized the female's eggs, and has been proven in some bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. In the type of parthenogenesis seen in these sharks, known as automictic parthenogenesis, the newly forming pup acquires one set of chromosomes when the mother's chromosomes split during egg development.

But instead of uniting with similarly split chromosomes from sperm, as occurs in sexual reproduction, the mother's set is paired with a copy of itself. This results in offspring of reduced genetic diversity who may be at a disadvantage for surviving in the wild.



Source article here.