A group of wasps (European hornets, Vespa crabro) built their nest on this guy’s window and now he’s documenting the construction process, capturing an insider’s perspective you may have never seen before. He is uploading the fascinating videos to his YouTube channel. I included a newer video below where he added an external microphone.…
Scientists have discovered that spiders can do something extraordinary with their webs: They can “tune” them like musical instruments. It’s an incredible revelation for a creature that can already weave complex structures. Not only can spiders tighten or loosen silk strands to alter the tension and the way each string resonates, but they can…
Ukrainian photographer Vyacheslav Mishchenko uses macro photography to bring the unseen and hidden beauty of the miniature world to life. What makes his close-up portraits so riveting is the sharpness and detail of his subjects, combined with the soft and ‘fantasy like’ backgrounds they are shot against. The photographer’s passion for wildlife started at…
The son of a gearhead and grandson to a railroad man, artist Justin Gershenson-Gates has always been surrounded by all things mechanical. A self-proclaimed tinkerer and disassembler, Justin now takes apart old watches and other discarded objects and turns them into recycled mechanical sculptures and jewellery. As he states on his profile page: “My…
Tsuneaki Hiramatsu is an amateur photographer currently living in Okayama, Japan. For the last few years, Tsuneaki has ventured outside of the city centre into the forests of Japan to capture the flight paths of fireflies at night. To achieve the dreamlike images, Tsuneaki takes a series of 8 second long exposure photographs. He…
FROSTED SPIDER WEB Photograph by shivs1147 on reddit Seen here is a spider web in -23 C temperature (-10 F). The photo was taken and submitted to reddit by shivs1147 last week. According to the wikipedia entry on spider webs there are several classifications of webs and different types of silk are…
When Edouard Martinet was 10, one of his teachers introduced his pupils to insects. Subliminally, the fascination sunk in to the young French boy. Fast-forward 40 years, and Martinet has become the art world’s virtuoso insectophile, transforming bits and pieces of cast-off junk culled from flea markets and car boot sales into exquisitely executed…
SNAIL WITH SEMI-TRANSPARENT SHELL DISCOVERED Photograph by Jana Bedek In a paper published on 30 August 2013 by the International Society for Subterranean Biology, Dr Alexander Weigand of Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany, has described a new species of cave-dwelling snail from the Lukina Jama–Trojama cave system. The new species, Zospeum tholussum, is a…
An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton (external skeleton), a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Arthropods include all insects, arachnids, and crustaceans. Their body plan consists of repeated segments, each with a pair of appendages. Their versatility has enabled them to become one of the most species-rich members on the planet. [Source]…
Photograph by TROY ALEXANDER Rainforest Expeditions | Tambopata Research Center Chemical ecologist Troy Alexander recently returned to the US after a 3-month volunteer position for the Macaw Project. The project was based out of the Tambopata Research Center (a joint research center/tourist lodge run by Rainforest Expeditions), one of the most remote Amazon Rainforest…