Spotted and filmed by kayaker Stephanie Latimer from the shallow river 60m below, a Mexican Black Bear and her cubs scale the sheer rock face of the the Santa Elena Canyon at the Big Bend National Park in Texas.
Category Archives: Nature
Bill’s Kills
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Bill Gates. Hates the mozzies.
A 25x magnification photograph of Hawaii seawater taken by David Littschwager and published by National Geographic in 2007 shows the huge variety of life in what appears to be clear brine. To wit:
A dipperful of seawater can reveal a hodgepodge of tiny free-swimmers and nebulous drifters that fog the water column. Many are microscopic. Others would be visible except they’re virtually transparent. Gelatinous shape-shifters lazily ride the currents. Familiar forms in miniature—wide-eyed fish larvae, baby squid and octopuses—dart freely. Their lives are precarious. Some wear shells or exude toxins against predators; others are active only after dark. But untold numbers succumb to hungry mouths—each other’s or those of bigger foe.
Full what-the-hell-is-that guide at Dive Shield.
Wild Ireland
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Ireland’s remaining uninhabited zones, extrapolated from ROI and NI census 2011 data.
Huge, hi-res image here.
(Thanks Michael Cushen)
SciShow’s Hank Green explains how avian eyesight is enhanced by various breed-specific adaptations.
Macro World
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Indonesia-based photographer Nordin Seruyan’s macro studies of the insect life of Southeast Asia.
More here
Rialtodome
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Richie Breevil tweetz:
Rialto, just now. Hash tag no filters
Liar, Liar
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Photographer Olivier Grunewald’s shots of molten sulphur igniting and burning with eerie blue flames at Kawah Ijen volcano in Indonesia.
Cavernous
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The Cave Of Swallows at San Luis Potosi, Mexico. 333m deep, 135m wide. A sinkhole at the base goes down another 512m.
Vast, yes. Now consider this:
The cave floor is covered with a thick layer of debris and guano on which millipedes, insects, snakes, and scorpions live.
BBC’s Planet Earth explored the massive caves of the world back in 2006. Clips of the cave of Swallows which featured in the programme are not currently available online but if massive insect-infested guano piles are your thing, check out this excerpt from the programme featuring the base of Gomantong Caves in Borneo.
(Pix: imgur/Wikimedia Commons)