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nature
From
National Geographic News.
Captured just before midnight on November 13 by fishers in Cambodia, this Mekong giant catfish is 8 feet long (2.4 meters long) ands weighs 450 pounds (204 kilograms).
"This is the only giant catfish that has been caught this year so far, making it the worst year on record for catch of giant fish species," said Zeb Hogan (far right), a fisheries biologist at the University of Reno in Nevada.
After collecting data on the fish, Hogan released it unharmed.
Giant catfish were once plentiful throughout Southeast Asia's Mekong River watershed, including the Tonle Sap River—home of the fish in these exclusive pictures taken near Phnom Penh.
But in the last century the Mekong giant catfish population has declined by 95 to 99 percent, scientists say. Only a few hundred adult giant catfish may remain.
Earlier this year Hogan launched the three-year Megafishes Project to document the world's giant freshwater fish.
Listed as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union, the Mekong giant catfish is big but toothless, as shown in this exclusive photo.
"For the Mekong giant catfish, northern Thailand is a spawning ground, whereas the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia is a rearing area," said U.S. biologist Zeb Hogan, who studied the fish pictured for his Megafishes Project, which is documenting the world's giant freshwater fish.
Related:
Yangtze River Dolphin now Extinct.
The Legendary Hoan Kiem Lake Turtle.
Tags:
Photos,
nature,
extinction,
Fish
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Photos ,
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Animals
Posted by skyleecm at
00:30 AM
A scorpion giving live birth. (John Bokma)
Baby scorpions ride on the back of their mother for the first week or so.
Tags:
nature,
Photos
Posted in
Animals ,
Photos
Posted by skyleecm at
23:37 PM
From
Daily Mail.
A new species of wild pig previously unknown to science has been discovered in the Brazilian jungle.
The large creature grows to a length of more than four feet and is almost twice as heavy as its nearest relative.
Named the 'giant peccary', (photo) the creature was unknown until the skins and bones of animals killed by local hunters came to the attention of Dutch biologist Marc van Roosmalen.
The animal, only known to live along the remote banks of the Aripuana river, is thought to be endangered by the illegal timber trade and road building.
Local tribes call it "Caitetu Munde", which means "great peccary which lives in pairs" and may have been spotted by an American rubber-cutter, John Yungjohann, who worked in the Amazon from 1906 to 1919.
While other peccaries dig up the ground in search of seeds and roots, this one mostly lives off freshly fallen fruit.
They have recommended that the giant peccary be placed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources' Red List of threatened species.
Photo (National Geographic)
Related:
Rare Smiling Bird.
Tags:
nature,
extinction,
Photos,
Amazon
Posted in
Animals ,
Photos
Posted by skyleecm at
23:46 PM
From
Sawse. (25 photos)
Tags:
bird,
Photos,
Fish,
nature
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Animals ,
Photos ,
Fish
Posted by skyleecm at
16:05 PM
From
The Independent by Steve Connor.
King Solomon is said to have told sluggards to look to the hard-working ant and be wise. Aesop, too, extolled the virtues of the humble ant in his fable explaining why the insect's constant toiling through the summer months would make for an easier winter compared with the fortunes of the lazy, singing grasshopper.
Now there is another reason to admire the tiny, colonial denizens of the insect world. Ants not only work hard and are prepared to lay down their lives for their fellow ants, they also take bigger risks for the good of the colony as they get older – and they can even assess how much time they have left in life.
It is well established that worker ants tend to take greater risks as they get older. Scientists have shown that this behavioural trait benefits the colony because certain risky activities, such as foraging far from the nest, are best done by ants coming to the end of their useful lives – it doesn't pay to put young workers in high-risk jobs.
One remaining question, however, was whether ants had some internal mechanism that told them how old they were and how much time they had left before dying.
Dr Moron believed that it might be possible to manipulate an ant's lifespan artificially, and to observe changes to its risk-taking behaviour as a result. His study, published in the latest issue of the journal Animal Behaviour, did just this by increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in a chamber housing an ant's nest. High concentrations of carbon dioxide increase the acidity of the blood and curtail an ant's lifespan.
As the scientists predicted, the worker ants in the colony began to forage further afield earlier than they would have done if they had been brought up in a low carbon dioxide atmosphere. The findings are further evidence of the apparent altruism of the ant. These workers are not only prepared to sacrifice their lives to serve and protect their queen, they also have the ability to make careful calculations of just how much risk they should take based on their current life expectancy.
Many different kinds of animals, other than ants, are known to be altruistic and the issue of how this could evolve in a world of selfish genes remained unresolved until about 40 years ago with the work of the late William Hamilton of Oxford University. It was Hamilton who showed that the altruism seen in ants and other social insects could be explained by something called kin selection.
But would the altruism of the simple ant explain human altruism? Most people show the greatest kindness to their own children, followed by the children of their closest relatives. It cannot explain the more conscious acts of true altruism that people often show to complete strangers. Human altruism may be far more complex, but the humble ant has at least given us a hint of how our own unselfish behaviour first evolved.
Related:
Ants Plug Holes to Smooth Journey.
Tags:
behavior,
natural-selection,
nature,
altruism,
insect,
aging
Posted in
Science ,
Animals
Posted by skyleecm at
23:34 PM
From
designboom. (photos)
the natural environment still manages to fill us with a sense
of awe and amazement. despite the amount of scientific
knowledge mankind has gathered, nature still holds great
mysteries that we may never be able to unravel.
this complexity has continually daunted man. in frustration, we
try to control nature by enforcing order. as a result,
we have distanced ourselves from the earth, even though
our survival is completely dependent on it. we are now trying
to regain our close connection to nature.
there is an emerging art movement that is exploring mankind's
desire to reconnect to the earth, through the built environment.
referred to as 'natural architecture', it aims to create a new,
more harmonious, relationship between man and nature by
exploring what it means to design with nature in mind.
the core concept of the movement is that mankind can live
harmoniously with nature, using it for our needs while
respecting its importance.
all of the works in the movement share a central ethos that
demonstrates a respect and appreciation for nature.
these works are meant to comment on architecture and provide
a new framework to approach buildings and structures.
they aim to infuse new ideas into architecture by subverting
the idea that architecture should shelter nature. instead,
the structures deliberately expose the natural materials used
in the building process.
the designers aren't suggesting that architecture must conform
to their vision, they are just providing ideas that they hope will
inspire us all to rethink the relationship between nature and the
built environment.
natural architecture (the book) by alessandro rocca.
Tags:
art,
Photos,
nature,
design,
relationships,
book,
environment
Posted in
Photos ,
World
Posted by skyleecm at
12:36 PM
View at
Young Gallery.
Beautiful photos in black & white 8)
Nick Brandt's first book of photographs, "
On This Earth", was published in October 2005, by Chronicle Books.
Tags:
book,
nature,
Photos,
wildlife
Posted in
Animals ,
Photos
Posted by skyleecm at
21:16 PM
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