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naturalplastic
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23 May 2020, 12:27 am

dragonsanddemons wrote:
PhosphorusDecree wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:

There are thousands of kind of wasps, some of them are actuallly quite useful...there are even specific fig wasps that the figs need. Also wasps are a relative of bees, bees are basically wasps that evolved to drink nectar rather than eat other bugs.


There's a small nature reserve near my house, and I've spotted about a dozen different kinds of ichneumon wasp in the neighbourhood. Well, I can't identify them on species level, but whenever I see a hyperactive little mad waspy thing, the closest match in my little book of insects is usually on the ichneumon wasp page. They're incredibly diverse. I rescued a dainty 3mm long wasp from my window once. At the other extreme was a kind of stretch-wasp: black and yellow, 5 centimeters long, but only half a centimeter wide. I figure it's a good sign for the health of the local environment. There must be a good variety of flowering plants for all the different adult wasps to feed on. And also a good variety of caterpillars for the larvae to go all "Alien" chestburster on. (Yes, that's where they got the idea from.) Wasps are cool. Disturbing, but cool.


Once, a year or two ago, while I was attempting to tame some weeds, I came across a caterpillar that had a bunch of larvae of some kind bunched in one spot on its side. I picked the larvae off as gently as I could :shudder: then let it go, and decided I’d had quite enough of nature for one day. Never did manage to identify either the caterpillar or the larvae, though.

At a summer camp I go to, we get a lot of carpenter bees, which don’t appear to have any yellow on them. They bore into wood, but I have been assured they don’t sting (though I don’t know if that’s because they are usually gentle or because they actually lack stingers). Also lots of swallow nests in places with an outdoor roof. Just don’t mix those up with the occasional mud dauber nests we get, as well.


Yes. There are wasps that lay their eggs inside the bodies of live caterpillar. The larvae grow and ...eat up the living catepillars from within, and then burst out of the catepillers and fly away.

Carpenter bees are common here in the DC area. At first glance they look like bumble bees because they are stubby brawny and black. But instead of being furry like bumble bees they are shiny and metallic looking -like the fuel tank on a black Harley. They are so called because they love to chow down on your wooden house. We used to actually hear them chomping away when we picknicked out on the deck in the summer. And you would see their nests in the eves. Little holes surrounded by sawdust. Though the damage they do LOOKS and SOUNDS alarming its actually trivial. Nothing like the serious damage that termites can do.



Wolfram87
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24 May 2020, 9:29 am

Image

This is a Little Barrier giant Weta (Deinacrida Heteracantha), a relative of grasshoppers and the like. They are they heaviest insects in the world (a record female carrying eggs weighed in at 71 grams, or 2,5 ounces) and are capable of being deep-frozen and thawed out again with no ill effects.


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naturalplastic
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24 May 2020, 9:56 am

Those things live on a little island off of New Zealand.

Islands often get both giantism and dwarfism among animals.



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26 May 2020, 1:57 pm

Hummingbirds are tiny birds, who can fly forwards, hover, and are the only known birds to fly backwards as well.



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26 May 2020, 8:04 pm

Jellyfish do not have brains per se, but they have enough of a nervous system to actually be able to see through four clusters of eyes spread around the rim of their bells. They can avoid obstacles and actively hunt prey, they don’t always just drift aimlessly and eat whatever happens to get caught in their tentacles.

Pretty sure the one that got my dad and me across the back of the knees in South Carolina when I was about four was aimlessly drifting, though, not trying to attack us. Don’t know what kind it was, but it was not one of the dangerous ones - though I still sure remember how much it hurt. I harbor no ill will toward the creatures, though, I find them fascinating.


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28 May 2020, 3:17 pm

I was down by my creek a few minutes ago and spotted an unusual turtle. It was about 12 inches long head-to-tail. What immediately caught my attentions was how flat the shell was. It was very round and flat. The shell had a shimmer to it almost like plastic. As it moved, it appeared that the shell was also somewhat flexible. I wondered if turtles regrow shells as they age, like a snake grows a new skin.

Well it looked a little like this "Soft Shelled Turtle".
Image

I should have paid more attention to the shape of its head.


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Last edited by jimmy m on 28 May 2020, 3:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

magz
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28 May 2020, 3:21 pm

jimmy m wrote:
I was down by my creek a few minutes ago and spotted an unusual turtle. It was about 12 inches long head-to-tail. What immediately caught my attentions was how flat the shell was. It was very round and flat. The shell had a shimmer to it almost like plastic. As it moved, it appeared that the shell was also somewhat flexible. I wondered if turtles regrow shells as they age, like a snake grows a new skin.

A softshell? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiny_softshell_turtle

And for your question:
Quote:
Turtles do not molt their skins all at once as snakes do, but continuously in small pieces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle#Skin_and_molting


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28 May 2020, 3:42 pm

Not all house cats hate water. Some really enjoy it, and I’ve even heard of cats who will hop in the shower with their humans.

Neither of the two cats we’ve had are/were that kind of cat, though. I’ve had both of them accidentally fall in while I was taking a bath, and boy, did they scramble to get out!

KC, our old cat, was one of the rare cats who are completely unaffected by catnip. We even brought some fresh catnip from a neighbor’s garden, and not even that affected her behavior at all. Arthur, our new cat, rubs his face in it for a little bit and then just tries to eat it.


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29 May 2020, 12:51 pm

Relative to its body size, the barnacle has the largest penis in the world.


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29 May 2020, 2:53 pm

inspite of ferocious appearance , believe it to be a fact that tyrannosaurus Rex was a herbavore.?


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Wolfram87
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29 May 2020, 3:00 pm

Jakki wrote:
inspite of ferocious appearance , believe it to be a fact that tyrannosaurus Rex was a herbavore.?


No.


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29 May 2020, 4:26 pm

Star-nosed moles are excellent swimmers. Despite their poor vision, they regularly hunt underwater. Emerging from tunnel mouths below the waterline, they find prey by using their nose-tentacles to produce a directed stream of tiny bubbles. They then sniff the bubbles back up, inhaling scent molecules from them in the process. The main purpose of the 22 tentacles is as touch receptors- they're covered with tens of thousands of ultra-sensative touch sensors called "Eimer's Organs," which are only found in moles.


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naturalplastic
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01 Jun 2020, 4:51 pm

Jakki wrote:
inspite of ferocious appearance , believe it to be a fact that tyrannosaurus Rex was a herbavore.?


Are you asking us this? Or are you telling us that you believe this?



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01 Jun 2020, 5:02 pm

There has been some debate as to whether T.rex was actually a predator, or merely a scavenger (predator all the way, eye positioning!). The only ones saying it was a herbivore that I've seen were christian fundamentalists who believed all animals were herbivores before the fall or something like that.


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02 Jun 2020, 3:12 pm

Wolfram87 wrote:
There has been some debate as to whether T.rex was actually a predator, or merely a scavenger (predator all the way, eye positioning!).

Teeth are probably a better indicator. Compare the eye position of the hammerhead shark to that of the bushbaby.
Image

Image



Wolfram87
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02 Jun 2020, 3:54 pm

I'd agree, but the reasoning was something along the lines of it habitually stealing fresh kills from smaller predators, thus explaining the teeth. While the eyes of the T-rex are relatively small (and so probably didn't rely heavily on sight), they are still the forward-facing binocular vision of an animal that hunts.

Also, your examples are both highly specialized; the bushbaby for night vision and the hammerhead not even for vision at all but rather for sensing the electric fields of potential prey via Ampullae of Lorenzini.


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