Its Not Funny Anymore, Golden Wheel Spider
by Becky Crew
A spider has to work pretty hard to be considered almost cute, and one particular African desert spider is literally turning cartwheels to do it.
The golden wheel spider (Carparachne aureoflava) is a species native to the steep sand dunes of the Namib Desert in Southern Africa. It belongs to the huntsman family, which means it likes warm climates, does not build a web and is an extremely nimble hunter. Though only little, at around 20 mm in size, the golden wheel spider can build silk-lined burrows that extend 40 to 50 cm below the surface of the sand dunes, and with no web to snare its prey, will wander through the night in search of insects. Which of course makes it vulnerable to being preyed upon itself, particularly by its archnemesis, the parasitic Pompilid wasp.
Also known as spider wasps, Pompilids are a family of large, strong, solitary-living wasps who have a tendency to prey on spiders, sometimes even bigger than themselves. They can sniff out a golden wheel spider in its burrow, and can shift up to 10 litres of sand – that’s equivalent to 80,000 times its own body weight – to get to it. The wasp will then paralyse the spider with its venomous stinger, before dragging it into a burrow and laying a single egg in its abdomen. The spider and the egg will be sealed in the burrow, and when the egg hatches, the larva will have an enormous supply of food waiting for it. Severely paralysed but not yet dead, the spider will be eaten alive from the inside out…
(read more: Scientific American) (image: Wikimedia Commons)
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Filamentous Algae
Captured in a microscope photograph submitted to National Geographic’s My Shot photo community by U.K.-based Greg Parker, two strands of the snaking Spirogyra algae sexually reproduce. So-called conjugation tubes link the strands’ cells, allowing them to exchange genetic information.
Often seen floating in thin strands on freshwater streams and ponds, Spirogyra cells are filled with chloroplasts—packets of chlorophyll that allow the plants to generate energy via photosynthesis—whose spiraling shapes give the genus its name.
(via: National Geo) (image: Greg Parker - UK)
umzoology asked: Dear Paxon, I'm a big fan of your blog. I realize you must get this a lot, but would you mind checking out my blog? I volunteer for, and blog about my campus zoological museum: we are trying to get some publicity because our jarred fish collection partially collapsed a few weeks ago. We are asking around politely for donations in case anyone would care do help us replace a few glass jars. Perhaps some of your many followers would be eager to help a natural history collection? Best, Emily
HEY GUYS,
The University of Monatna’s zoology museum could really use your help. Please go check out their blog here…
and if you are feeling generous, please make a donation here:
http://umzoology.tumblr.com/donate
Greater Adjutant Storks crowd a garbage dump as a woman hunts for rags to sell in Guwahati, India, on May 10th, 2012. Overall, though, it’s the storks that are being crowded out, as development drains wetlands that have long made Guwahati home to the world’s largest concentration of the species.
(via: National Geo) (image: European Press Agency)
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Climate Change Causing Hummingbird Missed Connections
by Live Science staff
Missed connection: Me, a broad-tailed, red-throated hummingbird. You, a delicate yellow flower full of nectar. I flew all the way from Central America to find you, but you’d withered away. Why did you bloom so early?
Okay, so hummingbirds may not be posting plaintive ads on Craigslist anytime soon, but new research finds that they are struggling to sync up their schedules with those they hold dear. Glacier lilies, flowering plants that bloom in mountain meadows in western North America, help sustain broad-tailed hummingbirds during breeding seasons. But a new study finds that these plants are blooming 17 days earlier than they did in the 1970s, thanks to climate change.
“In some years, the lilies have already bloomed by the time the first hummingbird lands,” study researcher Amy McKinney of the University of Maryland said in a statement…
(read more: Live Science) (photo: Dec Hogan)
The Sea Toad
This fish belongs to a group of anglerfishes known as lophiiformes. This species, along with other anglerfishes, has a modified dorsal-fin spine, usually on the tip of the snout, which serves as a lure for capturing prey. Researchers with the Smithsonian’s Deep Reef Observation Project snapped this photo while on a collecting expedition in a submersible.
(via: Smithsonian Ocean Portal) (photo: Bruce Brandt / Substation Curacao)
Alcedo atthis, (Common) Kingfisher. I’m very happy with this drawing, and probably it marked a new “style” in my way of painting birds.
Done with watercolour, coloured pencils, markers and ink. And graphite. Going to be used for a bird guide.
(via scientificillustration)
insectlove:projectsentinel: Wavy Maplet (Chersonesia rahria), India
Marbled Scorpion, Lychas marmoreus.
One of the more venomous of Australian scorpions, of which there are twenty-nine species in six genera.
The family Buthidae is that largest of the Scorpiones order, with over 800 species in 80 genera, worldwide.
fairy-wren: Helmet Vanga (Euryceros prevostii), Madagascar
(photo by yeeyan)
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