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Chun Kwang Young produces sculptural compositions made from small, hand-cut bits of Styrofoam wrapped in antique mulberry paper sourced from Korean periodicals and academic texts that have been tinted with teas, fruits and flowers. Often massive in scale, Chun’s highly tactile sculptures and three-dimensional canvasses are embedded with Korean tradition and history while articulated in a contemporary visual language. Although he began his career as a painter, Chun started to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with conceptual freedom he experienced during Western education.
Cicadas are insects belonging to the family Cicadidae in the order Hemiptera. Cicadas are recognizable by their large size (body length of usually about 1 inch in length or longer) and clear wings held rooflike over the abdomen. Most cicadas are strong fliers that spend their time high in the trees, so they are rarely seen or captured. Their life cycles are long, usually involving multiple years spent underground as juveniles, followed by a brief (roughly 2 - 6 weeks) adult life above ground.
Common habitats for Tibicen canicularis are mixed and deciduous woods in Canada and the eastern United States. Geographic range includes the northern United States and southern Canada, east of the Rocky Mountains.
When mature Tibicen canicularis is recognizable by being mostly black with brown or green markings on its body. The body size is typically 1 - 1.3 inches (27-33 mm) long and the wingspan can reach 3.22 inches (82 mm). The wings are interlaced with green veins which are especially noticeable near the base. While nymphs of the species commonly feed on pine juice and the roots of pine and oak, the adults are not known to eat at all.
As adults, males produce a loud species-specific mate-attracting song using specialized sound-producing organs called tymbals. These sounds are among the loudest produced by any insects. In some species, the male calling song attracts both males and females to mating aggregations, while in other species males remain dispersed. Female cicadas do not have tymbals, but in some species the females produce clicking or snapping sounds with their wings.
Their song is often described as being a loud, high-pitched whine much like a power saw. It fades within 10 - 20 seconds, and starts again after a few seconds of silence. From my observation Tibicen canicularis tends to be the most vocal mid to late morning and then again late afternoon. It's common not to hear them during mid-day. At the peak of the season in late summer they can almost be deafening. To hear the sound of these cicadas, which was taped here in Indiana, please click on the below link...
www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/harry/bio/zoo/dogday.htm
After mating, females lay eggs in bark or twigs; the eggs hatch later in the season and the new nymphs burrow underground and begin feeding on roots. Tibicen canicularis spends most of it's life cycle underground as nymphs feeding on root juice. Typically 2 - 3 years. When it comes time to emerge and molt into an adult it uses its strong front legs for digging to the surface. Unlike periodical cicadas, whose swarms occur at 13 or 17 year intervals, Tibicen species can be seen every year, hence their other nickname "Annual Cicadas".
ISO800, aperture f/10, exposure .008 seconds (1/100) focal length 300mm
Finally found some Ivy Bees (Colletes hederae) today. They weren't in Staffordshire (where I've been searching recently), but over the border in Shropshire.
A friend of mine at the Camera Club told me that he'd seen some near Venus Pool, so we set of this afternoon to see what we could find. There were reasonable numbers foraging on Ivy flowers. We also found an aggregation of nests nearby. There were several dozen females digging nest burrows and flying-in with full pollen loads. The one pictured here is a male. So pleased to have finally found some this year!
Chun Kwang Young produces sculptural compositions made from small, hand-cut bits of Styrofoam wrapped in antique mulberry paper sourced from Korean periodicals and academic texts that have been tinted with teas, fruits and flowers. Often massive in scale, Chun’s highly tactile sculptures and three-dimensional canvasses are embedded with Korean tradition and history while articulated in a contemporary visual language. Although he began his career as a painter, Chun started to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with conceptual freedom he experienced during Western education.
The Mount Elliott Mining Complex is an aggregation of the remnants of copper mining and smelting operations from the early 20th century and the associated former mining township of Selwyn. The earliest copper mining at Mount Elliott was in 1906 with smelting operations commencing shortly after. Significant upgrades to the mining and smelting operations occurred under the management of W.R. Corbould during 1909 - 1910. Following these upgrades and increases in production, the Selwyn Township grew quickly and had 1500 residents by 1918. The Mount Elliott Company took over other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s, including the Mount Cuthbert and Kuridala smelters. Mount Elliott operations were taken over by Mount Isa Mines in 1943 to ensure the supply of copper during World War Two. The Mount Elliott Company was eventually liquidated in 1953.
The Mount Elliott Smelter:
The existence of copper in the Leichhardt River area of north western Queensland had been known since Ernest Henry discovered the Great Australia Mine in 1867 at Cloncurry. In 1899 James Elliott discovered copper on the conical hill that became Mount Elliott, but having no capital to develop the mine, he sold an interest to James Morphett, a pastoralist of Fort Constantine station near Cloncurry. Morphett, being drought stricken, in turn sold out to John Moffat of Irvinebank, the most successful mining promoter in Queensland at the time.
Plentiful capital and cheap transport were prerequisites for developing the Cloncurry field, which had stagnated for forty years. Without capital it was impossible to explore and prove ore-bodies; without proof of large reserves of wealth it was futile to build a railway; and without a railway it was hazardous to invest capital in finding large reserves of ore. The mining investor or the railway builder had to break the impasse.
In 1906 - 1907 copper averaged £87 a ton on the London market, the highest price for thirty years, and the Cloncurry field grew. The railway was extended west of Richmond in 1905 - 1906 by the Government and mines were floated on the Melbourne Stock Exchange. At Mount Elliott a prospecting shaft had been sunk and on the 1st of August 1906 a Cornish boiler and winding plant were installed on the site.
Mount Elliott Limited was floated in Melbourne on the 13th of July 1906. In 1907 it was taken over by British and French interests and restructured. Combining with its competitor, Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited, Mount Elliott formed a special company to finance and construct the railway from Cloncurry to Malbon, Kuridala (then Friezeland) and Mount Elliott (later Selwyn). This new company then entered into an agreement with the Queensland Railways Department in July 1908.
The railway, which was known as the 'Syndicate Railway', aroused opposition in 1908 from the trade unions and Labor movement generally, who contended that railways should be State-owned. However, the Hampden-Mount Elliott Railway Bill was passed by the Queensland Parliament and assented to on the 21st of April 1908; construction finished in December 1910. The railway terminated at the Mount Elliott smelter.
By 1907 the main underlie shaft had been sunk and construction of the smelters was underway using a second-hand water-jacket blast furnace and converters. At this time, W.H. Corbould was appointed general manager of Mount Elliott Limited.
The second-hand blast furnace and converters were commissioned or 'blown in' in May 1909, but were problematic causing hold-ups. Corbould referred to the equipment in use as being the 'worst collection of worn-out junk he had ever come across'. Corbould soon convinced his directors to scrap the plant and let him design new works.
Corbould was a metallurgist and geologist as well as mine/smelter manager. He foresaw a need to obtain control and thereby ensure a reliable supply of ore from a cross-section of mines in the region. He also saw a need to implement an effective strategy to manage the economies of smelting low-grade ore. Smelting operations in the region were made difficult by the technical and economic problems posed by the deterioration in the grade of ore. Corbould resolved the issue by a process of blending ores with different chemical properties, increasing the throughput capacity of the smelter and by championing the unification of smelting operations in the region. In 1912, Corbould acquired Hampden Consols Mine at Kuridala for Mount Elliott Limited, followed with the purchases of other small mines in the district.
Walkers Limited of Maryborough was commissioned to manufacture a new 200 ton water jacket furnace for the smelters. An air compressor and blower for the smelters were constructed in the powerhouse and an electric motor and dynamo provided power for the crane and lighting for the smelter and mine.
The new smelter was blown in September 1910, a month after the first train arrived, and it ran well, producing 2040 tons of blister copper by the end of the year. The new smelting plant made it possible to cope with low-grade sulphide ores at Mount Elliott. The use of 1000 tons of low-grade sulphide ores bought from the Hampden Consols Mine in 1911 made it clear that if a supply of higher sulphur ore could be obtained and blended, performance, and economy would improve. Accordingly, the company bought a number of smaller mines in the district in 1912.
Corbould mined with cut and fill stoping but a young Mines Inspector condemned the system, ordered it dismantled and replaced with square set timbering. In 1911, after gradual movement in stopes on the No. 3 level, the smelter was closed for two months. Nevertheless, 5447 tons of blister copper was produced in 1911, rising to 6690 tons in 1912 - the company's best year. Many of the surviving structures at the site were built at this time.
Troubles for Mount Elliott started in 1913. In February, a fire at the Consols Mine closed it for months. In June, a thirteen week strike closed the whole operation, severely depleting the workforce. The year 1913 was also bad for industrial accidents in the area, possibly due to inexperienced people replacing the strikers. Nevertheless, the company paid generous dividends that year.
At the end of 1914 smelting ceased for more than a year due to shortage of ore. Although 3200 tons of blister copper was produced in 1913, production fell to 1840 tons in 1914 and the workforce dwindled to only 40 men. For the second half of 1915 and early 1916 the smelter treated ore railed south from Mount Cuthbert. At the end of July 1916 the smelting plant at Selwyn was dismantled except for the flue chambers and stacks. A new furnace with a capacity of 500 tons per day was built, a large amount of second-hand equipment was obtained and the converters were increased in size.
After the enlarged furnace was commissioned in June 1917, continuing industrial unrest retarded production which amounted to only 1000 tons of copper that year. The point of contention was the efficiency of the new smelter which processed twice as much ore while employing fewer men. The company decided to close down the smelter in October and reduce the size of the furnace, the largest in Australia, from 6.5m to 5.5m. In the meantime the price of copper had almost doubled from 1916 due to wartime consumption of munitions.
The new furnace commenced on the 16th of January 1918 and 77,482 tons of ore were smelted yielding 3580 tons of blister copper which were sent to the Bowen refinery before export to Britain. Local coal and coke supply was a problem and materials were being sourced from the distant Bowen Colliery. The smelter had a good run for almost a year except for a strike in July and another in December, which caused Corbould to close down the plant until New Year. In 1919, following relaxation of wartime controls by the British Metal Corporation, the copper price plunged from about £110 per ton at the start of the year to £75 per ton in April, dashing the company's optimism regarding treatment of low grade ores. The smelter finally closed after two months operation and most employees were laid off.
For much of the period 1919 to 1922, Corbould was in England trying to raise capital to reorganise the company's operations but he failed and resigned from the company in 1922. The Mount Elliott Company took over the assets of the other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s - Mount Cuthbert in 1925 and Kuridala in 1926. Mount Isa Mines bought the Mount Elliott plant and machinery, including the three smelters, in 1943 for £2,300, enabling them to start copper production in the middle of the Second World War. The Mount Elliott Company was finally liquidated in 1953.
In 1950 A.E. Powell took up the Mount Elliott Reward Claim at Selwyn and worked close to the old smelter buildings. An open cut mine commenced at Starra, south of Mount Elliott and Selwyn, in 1988 and is Australia's third largest copper producer producing copper-gold concentrates from flotation and gold bullion from carbon-in-leach processing.
Profitable copper-gold ore bodies were recently proved at depth beneath the Mount Elliott smelter and old underground workings by Cyprus Gold Australia Pty Ltd. These deposits were subsequently acquired by Arimco Mining Pty Ltd for underground development which commenced in July 1993. A decline tunnel portal, ore and overburden dumps now occupy a large area of the Maggie Creek valley south-west of the smelter which was formerly the site of early miner's camps.
The Old Selwyn Township:
In 1907, the first hotel, run by H. Williams, was opened at the site. The township was surveyed later, around 1910, by the Mines Department. The town was to be situated north of the mine and smelter operations adjacent the railway, about 1.5km distant. It took its name from the nearby Selwyn Ranges which were named, during Burke's expedition, after the Victorian Government Geologist, A.R. Selwyn. The town has also been known by the name of Mount Elliott, after the nearby mines and smelter.
Many of the residents either worked at the Mount Elliott Mine and Smelter or worked in the service industries which grew around the mining and smelting operations. Little documentation exists about the everyday life of the town's residents. Surrounding sheep and cattle stations, however, meant that meat was available cheaply and vegetables grown in the area were delivered to the township by horse and cart. Imported commodities were, however, expensive.
By 1910 the town had four hotels. There was also an aerated water manufacturer, three stores, four fruiterers, a butcher, baker, saddler, garage, police, hospital, banks, post office (officially from 1906 to 1928, then unofficially until 1975) and a railway station. There was even an orchestra of ten players in 1912. The population of Selwyn rose from 1000 in 1911 to 1500 in 1918, before gradually declining.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
Chauliognathus lugubris
Family: Cantharidae
Order: Coleoptera
The Green Soldier Beetle was sometimes referred to as the Plague Beetle. It will occasionally turn up in large quantities in mating aggregations on a particular tree - then disappearing from sight a few days later!
Soldier beetles exude a white viscous fluid from abdominal glands as a defence against infection and as a deterrent to potential predators. The chemicals in this fluid include an exotic fatty acid called dihydromatricaria acid, or DHMA, which is one of a group of chemicals called polyynes that are known to have anti-microbial properties and which have promise as anticancer drugs.
This particular individual was on his own in bushland at Tidbinbilla, ACT, Australia.
DSC05315
Among hundreds in a pre-migration feeding aggregation at Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive, Orange County, FL.
This little shark seemed a bit lost - surrounded by mating aggregations of a similar species, the Port Jackson shark, it really didn't know which way to look. Henry Head
A crewmember on the joint STS-135/Expediton 28 aggregation photographed this image of parts of Mexico, including Baja California the Gulf of Cortez. Ten astronauts and cosmonauts are currently aboard the joint Atlantis/station complex sharing chores. This photo opportunity presented itself on July 12 -- a very busy spacewalk day.
Image credit: NASA
Original image:
spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-28/html/...
More about space station research:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html
There's a Flickr group about Space Station Research. Please feel welcome to join! www.flickr.com/groups/stationscience/
I just had a most rewarding session of photography. We have a nesting aggregation of Buffish Mining Bees (Andrena nigroaenea) in our Staffordshire garden and I've noticed that as they emerge from their nest burrows, they climb up neighbouring plant stems to warm-up before flying off. I was determined to be ready for this today.
By 09.30 there were plenty appearing, so I started snapping away and got some good shots. Then I noticed that there were Nomada goodeniana cuckoo-bees emerging too. These bees parasitise the nests of Buffish Mining Bees. I got some good shots of those too. As I was photographing a male Nomada on a bluebell stem, I noticed an Andrena male climbing up the same stem. I must admit that I was somewhat excited. What would happen? Would I be able to capture it?
Well, I focused on the Nomada and waited. I saw the Andrena appear in the frame. There was a rapid flurry of activity and I fired off a couple of shots. I couldn't wait to look at them on the computer. This is the best shot. There is a little motion blur, but I reckon this is one of the best wildlife shots I've ever taken!
Among hundreds in a pre-migration feeding aggregation at Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive, Orange County, FL.
"The Flip" ...
I was not using a motor drive since there were so many kites and I was taking a lot of images even without the motor drive. This was a one image shutter release and at the very instant I pressed the shutter the kite flipped. I was very lucky to get the image in this pose.
PROJECT:
Rules of Six
PHOTO CREDIT:
Aranda\Lasch
commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art for the exhibition Design and the Elastic Mind, curated by Paola Antonelli
New York, NY, USA
2008
Giant green anemones and soft coral Discophyton rudyi, joined by a couple of Ochre stars, in a low intertidal cave.
Among hundreds in a pre-migration feeding aggregation at Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive, Orange County, FL.
Chun Kwang Young produces sculptural compositions made from small, hand-cut bits of Styrofoam wrapped in antique mulberry paper sourced from Korean periodicals and academic texts that have been tinted with teas, fruits and flowers. Often massive in scale, Chun’s highly tactile sculptures and three-dimensional canvasses are embedded with Korean tradition and history while articulated in a contemporary visual language. Although he began his career as a painter, Chun started to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with conceptual freedom he experienced during Western education.
This gorgeous little animal made me jump when it suddenly ran past me through the grasses and plants. I think my senses were on extra alert, as we were walking through bear country! As it turned out, a bit further on the trail, a guy who was unknown to us let us know that there was a Grizzly sow with two young cubs on the distant mountain slope. I was able to get a few very distant shots and may post one of them, just for the record. The following day, we were driving on the same road at the same location when we saw a sow and one cub, mainly hidden among the trees and bushes. Wondering if it was the same sow with only one of her black cubs visible to us. With only a poor view, I think this sow may have been a Cinnamon Black Bear, whereas we had been told that the very distant ones on the mountain slope were Grizzlies. So, I'm not sure if we actually saw five or seven different bears over the weekend. A thrill to have seen any bears at all.
"The thirteen-lined ground squirrel is strictly diurnal and is especially active on warm days. A solitary or only somewhat colonial hibernator, it often occurs in aggregations in suitable habitats.
In late summer, it puts on a heavy layer of fat and stores some food in its burrow. It enters its nest in October (some adults retire much earlier), rolls into a stiff ball, and decreases its respiration from between 100 and 200 breaths per minute to one breath about every five minutes. It emerges in March or early April.
The burrow may be 15 to 20 feet (4.6 to 6.1 metres) long, with several side passages. Most of the burrow is within one to two feet (about half a meter) of the surface, with only the hibernation nest in a special deeper section. Shorter burrows are dug as hiding places. This ground squirrel's home range is two to three acres (0.8 to 1.2 ha).
Its primary diet includes grass and weed seeds, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and crickets, but it may also eat mice and shrews; it will viciously attack and consume cicadas if able to catch them. This squirrel sometimes damages gardens by digging burrows and eating vegetables, but also devours weed seeds and harmful insects.
It is well known for standing upright to survey its domain, diving down into its burrow when it senses danger, then sometimes poking out its nose and giving a bird-like trill. It has a maximum running speed of 8 mph (13 km/h) and reverses direction if chased." From Wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen-lined_ground_squirrel
Two days ago, late afternoon, (I think around 5:15 pm), on 10 July 2015, I arrived back home from my holiday of the year - a two and a half day trip to Waterton National Park. It was wonderful to again be surrounded by such magnificent scenery, go on a few pleasantly slow walks/hikes with plenty of time to look for, and photograph, wildflowers, insects, and a few birds and animals. Lots of great company with (22) people I already knew and lots of new faces, too. The trip was organized by Nature Calgary. Everyone was free to go wherever they wanted each day, but for the two nights, we stayed at the very basic Canyon Church Camp, off the Red Rock Parkway. Dorm-style cabins (about which I will say nothing, lol!), but they do have showers and even flush toilets at the camp. We were fed so well - lots of variety and good food. We were given two breakfasts and two suppers, plus a packed lunch for the two days. Our thanks go out to the lady (can't remember her name, sorry, but she was also there for us in July 2015) who cooked and prepared these meals for us! They were so much enjoyed and greatly appreciated!
Thank you SO much, Janet, for driving your friend and me to and from Calgary and around the park some of the time, too. To say that I appreciated it is a huge understatement!! Our thanks, too, to Andrew for organizing this trip so brilliantly, as usual! A great time was had by all. And I am SO happy and relieved that you were finally able to find a bear (and her cub) - yes, we came across the same ones shortly after you saw them. Not sure if they were two of the three I had seen at more or less the same location the previous morning, 9 July 2016. If it was the same female, then her second cub must have been really well hidden in the tangle of bushes and trees yesterday. We didn't get a good view, though I did take a handful of photos, including when the cub looked towards us for a split second. I had never seen such a young cub before, so I was thrilled to bits. Can't forget to add my huge thanks for finding me a Lazuli Bunting yesterday, too, at some unearthly hour (well, 7:30 am). No idea how on earth you managed to spot such a small bird from so far away - just a tiny speck in the far, far distance. Also was delighted that you found two Nighthawks flying high overhead at the Nature Conservancy area. So, I guess you and I both returned to Calgary feeling really happy : )
Lipotriches , Plain Sweat Bee , collected in Australia
This is one of the bees in which the males are known to form sleeping aggregations – small groups to dozens of individuals clustering together on the same twig late in the afternoon and remaining there until after dawn. There may be quite a lot of “jockeying for position” as males alight too close to another individual with low key aggressive interactions. Some clusters might contain more than one species. There has been little research on the reason for this aggregating behavior, although safety in numbers might play a role.
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All photographs are public domain, feel free to download and use as you wish.
Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200
Further in Summer than the Birds
Pathetic from the Grass
A minor Nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive Mass.
No Ordinance be seen
So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness.
Antiquest felt at Noon
When August burning low
Arise this spectral Canticle
Repose to typify
Remit as yet no Grace
No Furrow on the Glow
Yet a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now
-- Emily Dickinson
Want some Useful Links to the Techniques We Use? Well now here you go Citizen:
Basic USGSBIML set up:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY
USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdmx_8zqvN4
PDF of Basic USGSBIML Photography Set Up:
ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/er/md/laurel/Droege/How%20to%20Take%20MacroPhotographs%20of%20Insects%20BIML%20Lab2.pdf
Google Hangout Demonstration of Techniques:
plus.google.com/events/c5569losvskrv2nu606ltof8odo
or
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c15neFttoU
Excellent Technical Form on Stacking:
Contact information:
Sam Droege
sdroege@usgs.gov
301 497 5840
The Mount Elliott Mining Complex is an aggregation of the remnants of copper mining and smelting operations from the early 20th century and the associated former mining township of Selwyn. The earliest copper mining at Mount Elliott was in 1906 with smelting operations commencing shortly after. Significant upgrades to the mining and smelting operations occurred under the management of W.R. Corbould during 1909 - 1910. Following these upgrades and increases in production, the Selwyn Township grew quickly and had 1500 residents by 1918. The Mount Elliott Company took over other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s, including the Mount Cuthbert and Kuridala smelters. Mount Elliott operations were taken over by Mount Isa Mines in 1943 to ensure the supply of copper during World War Two. The Mount Elliott Company was eventually liquidated in 1953.
The Mount Elliott Smelter:
The existence of copper in the Leichhardt River area of north western Queensland had been known since Ernest Henry discovered the Great Australia Mine in 1867 at Cloncurry. In 1899 James Elliott discovered copper on the conical hill that became Mount Elliott, but having no capital to develop the mine, he sold an interest to James Morphett, a pastoralist of Fort Constantine station near Cloncurry. Morphett, being drought stricken, in turn sold out to John Moffat of Irvinebank, the most successful mining promoter in Queensland at the time.
Plentiful capital and cheap transport were prerequisites for developing the Cloncurry field, which had stagnated for forty years. Without capital it was impossible to explore and prove ore-bodies; without proof of large reserves of wealth it was futile to build a railway; and without a railway it was hazardous to invest capital in finding large reserves of ore. The mining investor or the railway builder had to break the impasse.
In 1906 - 1907 copper averaged £87 a ton on the London market, the highest price for thirty years, and the Cloncurry field grew. The railway was extended west of Richmond in 1905 - 1906 by the Government and mines were floated on the Melbourne Stock Exchange. At Mount Elliott a prospecting shaft had been sunk and on the 1st of August 1906 a Cornish boiler and winding plant were installed on the site.
Mount Elliott Limited was floated in Melbourne on the 13th of July 1906. In 1907 it was taken over by British and French interests and restructured. Combining with its competitor, Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited, Mount Elliott formed a special company to finance and construct the railway from Cloncurry to Malbon, Kuridala (then Friezeland) and Mount Elliott (later Selwyn). This new company then entered into an agreement with the Queensland Railways Department in July 1908.
The railway, which was known as the 'Syndicate Railway', aroused opposition in 1908 from the trade unions and Labor movement generally, who contended that railways should be State-owned. However, the Hampden-Mount Elliott Railway Bill was passed by the Queensland Parliament and assented to on the 21st of April 1908; construction finished in December 1910. The railway terminated at the Mount Elliott smelter.
By 1907 the main underlie shaft had been sunk and construction of the smelters was underway using a second-hand water-jacket blast furnace and converters. At this time, W.H. Corbould was appointed general manager of Mount Elliott Limited.
The second-hand blast furnace and converters were commissioned or 'blown in' in May 1909, but were problematic causing hold-ups. Corbould referred to the equipment in use as being the 'worst collection of worn-out junk he had ever come across'. Corbould soon convinced his directors to scrap the plant and let him design new works.
Corbould was a metallurgist and geologist as well as mine/smelter manager. He foresaw a need to obtain control and thereby ensure a reliable supply of ore from a cross-section of mines in the region. He also saw a need to implement an effective strategy to manage the economies of smelting low-grade ore. Smelting operations in the region were made difficult by the technical and economic problems posed by the deterioration in the grade of ore. Corbould resolved the issue by a process of blending ores with different chemical properties, increasing the throughput capacity of the smelter and by championing the unification of smelting operations in the region. In 1912, Corbould acquired Hampden Consols Mine at Kuridala for Mount Elliott Limited, followed with the purchases of other small mines in the district.
Walkers Limited of Maryborough was commissioned to manufacture a new 200 ton water jacket furnace for the smelters. An air compressor and blower for the smelters were constructed in the powerhouse and an electric motor and dynamo provided power for the crane and lighting for the smelter and mine.
The new smelter was blown in September 1910, a month after the first train arrived, and it ran well, producing 2040 tons of blister copper by the end of the year. The new smelting plant made it possible to cope with low-grade sulphide ores at Mount Elliott. The use of 1000 tons of low-grade sulphide ores bought from the Hampden Consols Mine in 1911 made it clear that if a supply of higher sulphur ore could be obtained and blended, performance, and economy would improve. Accordingly, the company bought a number of smaller mines in the district in 1912.
Corbould mined with cut and fill stoping but a young Mines Inspector condemned the system, ordered it dismantled and replaced with square set timbering. In 1911, after gradual movement in stopes on the No. 3 level, the smelter was closed for two months. Nevertheless, 5447 tons of blister copper was produced in 1911, rising to 6690 tons in 1912 - the company's best year. Many of the surviving structures at the site were built at this time.
Troubles for Mount Elliott started in 1913. In February, a fire at the Consols Mine closed it for months. In June, a thirteen week strike closed the whole operation, severely depleting the workforce. The year 1913 was also bad for industrial accidents in the area, possibly due to inexperienced people replacing the strikers. Nevertheless, the company paid generous dividends that year.
At the end of 1914 smelting ceased for more than a year due to shortage of ore. Although 3200 tons of blister copper was produced in 1913, production fell to 1840 tons in 1914 and the workforce dwindled to only 40 men. For the second half of 1915 and early 1916 the smelter treated ore railed south from Mount Cuthbert. At the end of July 1916 the smelting plant at Selwyn was dismantled except for the flue chambers and stacks. A new furnace with a capacity of 500 tons per day was built, a large amount of second-hand equipment was obtained and the converters were increased in size.
After the enlarged furnace was commissioned in June 1917, continuing industrial unrest retarded production which amounted to only 1000 tons of copper that year. The point of contention was the efficiency of the new smelter which processed twice as much ore while employing fewer men. The company decided to close down the smelter in October and reduce the size of the furnace, the largest in Australia, from 6.5m to 5.5m. In the meantime the price of copper had almost doubled from 1916 due to wartime consumption of munitions.
The new furnace commenced on the 16th of January 1918 and 77,482 tons of ore were smelted yielding 3580 tons of blister copper which were sent to the Bowen refinery before export to Britain. Local coal and coke supply was a problem and materials were being sourced from the distant Bowen Colliery. The smelter had a good run for almost a year except for a strike in July and another in December, which caused Corbould to close down the plant until New Year. In 1919, following relaxation of wartime controls by the British Metal Corporation, the copper price plunged from about £110 per ton at the start of the year to £75 per ton in April, dashing the company's optimism regarding treatment of low grade ores. The smelter finally closed after two months operation and most employees were laid off.
For much of the period 1919 to 1922, Corbould was in England trying to raise capital to reorganise the company's operations but he failed and resigned from the company in 1922. The Mount Elliott Company took over the assets of the other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s - Mount Cuthbert in 1925 and Kuridala in 1926. Mount Isa Mines bought the Mount Elliott plant and machinery, including the three smelters, in 1943 for £2,300, enabling them to start copper production in the middle of the Second World War. The Mount Elliott Company was finally liquidated in 1953.
In 1950 A.E. Powell took up the Mount Elliott Reward Claim at Selwyn and worked close to the old smelter buildings. An open cut mine commenced at Starra, south of Mount Elliott and Selwyn, in 1988 and is Australia's third largest copper producer producing copper-gold concentrates from flotation and gold bullion from carbon-in-leach processing.
Profitable copper-gold ore bodies were recently proved at depth beneath the Mount Elliott smelter and old underground workings by Cyprus Gold Australia Pty Ltd. These deposits were subsequently acquired by Arimco Mining Pty Ltd for underground development which commenced in July 1993. A decline tunnel portal, ore and overburden dumps now occupy a large area of the Maggie Creek valley south-west of the smelter which was formerly the site of early miner's camps.
The Old Selwyn Township:
In 1907, the first hotel, run by H. Williams, was opened at the site. The township was surveyed later, around 1910, by the Mines Department. The town was to be situated north of the mine and smelter operations adjacent the railway, about 1.5km distant. It took its name from the nearby Selwyn Ranges which were named, during Burke's expedition, after the Victorian Government Geologist, A.R. Selwyn. The town has also been known by the name of Mount Elliott, after the nearby mines and smelter.
Many of the residents either worked at the Mount Elliott Mine and Smelter or worked in the service industries which grew around the mining and smelting operations. Little documentation exists about the everyday life of the town's residents. Surrounding sheep and cattle stations, however, meant that meat was available cheaply and vegetables grown in the area were delivered to the township by horse and cart. Imported commodities were, however, expensive.
By 1910 the town had four hotels. There was also an aerated water manufacturer, three stores, four fruiterers, a butcher, baker, saddler, garage, police, hospital, banks, post office (officially from 1906 to 1928, then unofficially until 1975) and a railway station. There was even an orchestra of ten players in 1912. The population of Selwyn rose from 1000 in 1911 to 1500 in 1918, before gradually declining.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
A group of cottonmouths scavenge dead and dying mosquito fish from a drying pool in the basin of a dome swamp.
"Mud-puddling is the phenomenon mostly seen in butterflies and involves their aggregation on substrates like wet soil, dung and carrion to obtain nutrients such as salts and amino acids. This behaviour has also been seen in some other insects, notably the leafhoppers.
Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are diverse in their strategies to gather liquid nutrients. Typically, mud-puddling behavior takes place on wet soil. But even sweat on human skin may be attractive to butterflies. The most unusual sources include blood and tears
This behaviour is restricted to males in many species, and in some like Battus philenor the presence of an assembly of butterflies on the ground acts as a stimulus to join the presumptive mud-puddling flock"
Chun Kwang Young produces sculptural compositions made from small, hand-cut bits of Styrofoam wrapped in antique mulberry paper sourced from Korean periodicals and academic texts that have been tinted with teas, fruits and flowers. Often massive in scale, Chun’s highly tactile sculptures and three-dimensional canvasses are embedded with Korean tradition and history while articulated in a contemporary visual language. Although he began his career as a painter, Chun started to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with conceptual freedom he experienced during Western education.
Giraffe
Kruger National Park is one of the largest game reserves in Africa. It covers an area of 19,485 km2 (7,523 sq mi) in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, and extends 360 km (220 mi) from north to south and 65 km (40 mi) from east to west. The administrative headquarters are in Skukuza. Areas of the park were first protected by the government of the South African Republic in 1898, and it became South Africa's first national park in 1926.
To the west and south of the Kruger National Park are the two South African provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga. In the north is Zimbabwe, and to the east is Mozambique. It is now part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, a peace park that links Kruger National Park with the Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, and with the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique.
The park is part of the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere an area designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as an International Man and Biosphere Reserve (the "Biosphere").
The park has nine main gates allowing entrance to the different camps.
(Wikipedia)
The giraffe (Giraffa) is an African artiodactyl mammal, the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant. It is traditionally considered to be one species, Giraffa camelopardalis, with nine subspecies. However, the existence of up to eight extant giraffe species has been described, based upon research into the mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, as well as morphological measurements of Giraffa. Seven other species are extinct, prehistoric species known from fossils.
The giraffe's chief distinguishing characteristics are its extremely long neck and legs, its horn-like ossicones, and its distinctive coat patterns. It is classified under the family Giraffidae, along with its closest extant relative, the okapi. Its scattered range extends from Chad in the north to South Africa in the south, and from Niger in the west to Somalia in the east. Giraffes usually inhabit savannahs and woodlands. Their food source is leaves, fruits and flowers of woody plants, primarily acacia species, which they browse at heights most other herbivores cannot reach. They may be preyed on by lions, leopards, spotted hyenas and African wild dogs. Giraffes live in herds of related females and their offspring, or bachelor herds of unrelated adult males, but are gregarious and may gather in large aggregations. Males establish social hierarchies through "necking", which are combat bouts where the neck is used as a weapon. Dominant males gain mating access to females, which bear the sole responsibility for raising the young.
The giraffe has intrigued various cultures, both ancient and modern, for its peculiar appearance, and has often been featured in paintings, books, and cartoons. It is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as vulnerable to extinction, and has been extirpated from many parts of its former range. Giraffes are still found in numerous national parks and game reserves but estimates as of 2016 indicate that there are approximately 97,500 members of Giraffa in the wild. More than 1,600 were kept in zoos in 2010.
The name "giraffe" has its earliest known origins in the Arabic word zarāfah (زرافة), perhaps borrowed from the animal's Somali name geri. The Arab name is translated as "fast-walker". There were several Middle English spellings, such as jarraf, ziraph, and gerfauntz. The Italian form giraffa arose in the 1590s. The modern English form developed around 1600 from the French girafe. "Camelopard" is an archaic English name for the giraffe deriving from the Ancient Greek for camel and leopard, referring to its camel-like shape and its leopard-like colouring.
Fully grown giraffes stand 4.3–5.7 m (14.1–18.7 ft) tall, with males taller than females. The tallest recorded male was 5.88 m (19.3 ft) and the tallest recorded female was 5.17 m (17.0 ft) tall. The average weight is 1,192 kg (2,628 lb) for an adult male and 828 kg (1,825 lb) for an adult female with maximum weights of 1,930 kg (4,250 lb) and 1,180 kg (2,600 lb) having been recorded for males and females, respectively. Despite its long neck and legs, the giraffe's body is relatively short. Located at both sides of the head, the giraffe's large, bulging eyes give it good all-round vision from its great height. Giraffes see in colour and their senses of hearing and smell are also sharp. The animal can close its muscular nostrils to protect against sandstorms and ants.
The giraffe's prehensile tongue is about 45 cm (18 in) long. It is purplish-black in colour, perhaps to protect against sunburn, and is useful for grasping foliage, as well as for grooming and cleaning the animal's nose. The upper lip of the giraffe is also prehensile and useful when foraging and is covered in hair to protect against thorns. The tongue, and inside of the mouth are covered in papillae.
The coat has dark blotches or patches (which can be orange, chestnut, brown, or nearly black in colour) separated by light hair (usually white or cream in colour). Male giraffes become darker as they age. The coat pattern has been claimed to serve as camouflage in the light and shade patterns of savannah woodlands. Giraffe calves inherit some spot pattern traits from their mothers, and variation in some spot traits are correlated with neonatal survival. The skin underneath the dark areas may serve as windows for thermoregulation, being sites for complex blood vessel systems and large sweat glands. Each individual giraffe has a unique coat pattern.
The skin of a giraffe is mostly gray. Its thickness allows the animal to run through thorn bushes without being punctured. The fur may serve as a chemical defence, as its parasite repellents give the animal a characteristic scent. At least 11 main aromatic chemicals are in the fur, although indole and 3-methylindole are responsible for most of the smell. Because the males have a stronger odour than the females, the odour may also have sexual function. Along the animal's neck is a mane made of short, erect hairs. The one-metre (3.3-ft) tail ends in a long, dark tuft of hair and is used as a defense against insects.
Giraffes usually inhabit savannahs and open woodlands. They prefer Acacieae, Commiphora, Combretum and open Terminalia woodlands over denser environments like Brachystegia woodlands.The Angolan giraffe can be found in desert environments. Giraffes browse on the twigs of trees, preferring trees of the subfamily Acacieae and the genera Commiphora and Terminalia, which are important sources of calcium and protein to sustain the giraffe's growth rate. They also feed on shrubs, grass and fruit. A giraffe eats around 34 kg (75 lb) of foliage daily. When stressed, giraffes may chew the bark off branches. Although herbivorous, the giraffe has been known to visit carcasses and lick dried meat off bones.
During the wet season, food is abundant and giraffes are more spread out, while during the dry season, they gather around the remaining evergreen trees and bushes. Mothers tend to feed in open areas, presumably to make it easier to detect predators, although this may reduce their feeding efficiency. As a ruminant, the giraffe first chews its food, then swallows it for processing and then visibly passes the half-digested cud up the neck and back into the mouth to chew again. It is common for a giraffe to salivate while feeding. The giraffe requires less food than many other herbivores because the foliage it eats has more concentrated nutrients and it has a more efficient digestive system. The animal's faeces come in the form of small pellets. When it has access to water, a giraffe drinks at intervals no longer than three days.
Giraffes have a great effect on the trees that they feed on, delaying the growth of young trees for some years and giving "waistlines" to trees that are too tall. Feeding is at its highest during the first and last hours of daytime. Between these hours, giraffes mostly stand and ruminate. Rumination is the dominant activity during the night, when it is mostly done lying down.
Giraffes are usually found in groups that vary in size and composition according to ecological, anthropogenic, temporal, and social factors. Traditionally, the composition of these groups had been described as open and ever-changing. For research purposes, a "group" has been defined as "a collection of individuals that are less than a kilometre apart and moving in the same general direction." More recent studies have found that giraffes have long-term social associations and may form groups or pairs based on kinship, sex or other factors. These groups may regularly associate with one another in larger communities or sub-communities within a fission–fusion society. The number of giraffes in a group can range up to 66 individuals.
Giraffe groups tend to be sex-segregated although mixed-sex groups made of adult females and young males are known to occur. Particularly stable giraffe groups are those made of mothers and their young, which can last weeks or months. Social cohesion in these groups is maintained by the bonds formed between calves. Female association appears to be based on space-use and individuals may be matrilineally related. In general, females are more selective than males in who they associate with in regards to individuals of the same sex. Young males also form groups and will engage in playfights. However, as they get older males become more solitary but may also associate in pairs or with female groups. Giraffes are not territorial, but they have home ranges that vary according to rainfall and proximity to human settlements. Male giraffes occasionally wander far from areas that they normally frequent.
Although generally quiet and non-vocal, giraffes have been heard to communicate using various sounds. During courtship, males emit loud coughs. Females call their young by bellowing. Calves will emit snorts, bleats, mooing and mewing sounds. Giraffes also snore, hiss, moan, grunt and make flute-like sounds. During nighttime, giraffes appear to hum to each other above the infrasound range for purposes which are unclear.
(Wikipedia)
Der Kruger-Nationalpark (deutsch häufig falsch Krüger-Nationalpark) ist das größte Wildschutzgebiet Südafrikas. Er liegt im Nordosten des Landes in der Landschaft des Lowveld auf dem Gebiet der Provinz Limpopo sowie des östlichen Abschnitts von Mpumalanga. Seine Fläche erstreckt sich vom Crocodile-River im Süden bis zum Limpopo, dem Grenzfluss zu Simbabwe, im Norden. Die Nord-Süd-Ausdehnung beträgt etwa 350 km, in Ost-West-Richtung ist der Park durchschnittlich 54 km breit und umfasst eine Fläche von rund 20.000 Quadratkilometern. Damit gehört er zu den größten Nationalparks in Afrika.
Das Schutzgebiet wurde am 26. März 1898 unter dem Präsidenten Paul Kruger als Sabie Game Reserve zum Schutz der Wildnis gegründet. 1926 erhielt das Gebiet den Status Nationalpark und wurde in seinen heutigen Namen umbenannt. Im Park leben 147 Säugetierarten inklusive der „Big Five“, außerdem etwa 507 Vogelarten und 114 Reptilienarten, 49 Fischarten und 34 Amphibienarten.
(Wikipedia)
Die Giraffen (Giraffa) sind eine Gattung der Säugetiere aus der Ordnung der Paarhufer. Ursprünglich wurde ihr mit Giraffa camelopardalis und der Trivialbezeichnung „Giraffe“ nur eine einzige Art zugewiesen. Molekulargenetische Untersuchungen aus dem Jahr 2016 zeigen jedoch, dass die Gattung wenigstens vier Arten mit sieben eigenständigen Populationen umfasst. Die Giraffen stellen die höchsten landlebenden Tiere der Welt. Zur Unterscheidung vom verwandten Okapi (sogenannte „Waldgiraffe“) werden sie auch als Steppengiraffen bezeichnet.
Männchen (Bullen) werden bis zu 6 Meter hoch und wiegen durchschnittlich rund 1600 Kilogramm. Weibchen (Kühe) werden bis zu 4,5 Meter hoch und wiegen etwa 830 Kilogramm bei einer Schulterhöhe zwischen 2 und 3,5 Metern.
Der Hals der Giraffen ist außergewöhnlich lang. Wie bei fast allen Säugetieren besteht die Halswirbelsäule gleichwohl aus nur sieben Halswirbeln, die aber stark verlängert sind. Der Hals wird von einer einzigen, sehr starken Sehne in einem Winkel von etwa 55° gehalten. Die Sehne verläuft vom Hinterkopf der Giraffe bis zum Steiß und ist für den „Höcker“ zwischen Hals und Körper verantwortlich. Der Ruhezustand hält Hals und Kopf in der aufrechten Position; um den Kopf nach unten zu bewegen, z. B. zum Trinken, muss die Giraffe Muskelarbeit aufbringen. Die Zunge kann 50 Zentimeter lang werden. Sie ist zum Greifen befähigt und im vorderen Bereich zum Schutz vor Sonnenbrand stark pigmentiert.
Das Muster des Haarkleids besteht aus dunklen Flecken, die sich von der helleren Grundfarbe abheben. Je nach Art variieren Form und Farbe der Flecken. Die Unterseite ist hell und ungefleckt. Die Flecken dienen der Tarnung und der Regulierung der Körpertemperatur. Im Unterhautgewebe verläuft um jeden Flecken eine ringförmige Arterie, die Äste in den Flecken hinein aussendet. Über eine stärkere Durchblutung kann die Giraffe so mehr Körperwärme abgeben und ist nicht auf Schatten angewiesen. Vor allem bei männlichen Giraffen werden die Flecken mit zunehmenden Alter dunkler. Dies geschieht jedoch nicht bei allen Individuen im gleichen Maß oder in der gleichen Intensität, so dass hellere und dunklere Tiere in derselben Altersklasse auftreten. Nach Untersuchungen an Tieren aus dem Etosha-Nationalpark sind dunklere Altbullen häufig einzelgängerisch und zeichnen sich durch ein dominantes Auftreten gegenüber Geschlechtsgenossen bei der Fortpflanzung aus. Gleichalte hellere Individuen führen dagegen häufig ein Leben im Verband und sind weniger dominant, was zu geringeren Erfolgen in der Verpaarung mit Kühen führt. Demnach gibt die Fellfarbe den sozialen Status eines Individuums wieder.
Der Geruch des Haarkleids ist für den Menschen unangenehm. Giraffenbullen riechen stärker als -kühe. An Fäkalien erinnern speziell die Stoffe Indol und Skatol, darüber hinaus finden sich Octan, Benzaldehyd, Heptanal, Octanal, Nonanal, p-Kresol, Tetradecan- und Hexadecansäure im Fell. Die meisten dieser Verbindungen hemmen das Wachstum von Bakterien oder Pilzen, wie sie auf der Haut von Säugetieren vorkommen. Der Gehalt von p-Kresol im Giraffenhaar ist ausreichend, um Zecken abzuschrecken.
Zwei zapfenartige Hörner sitzen bei beiden Geschlechtern dem Kopf auf. In seltenen Fällen wächst dahinter ein weiteres Hornpaar. Manche Giraffen haben zudem einen knochigen Höcker zwischen den Augen, der ähnlich wie die Hörner strukturiert ist.
Giraffen erreichen eine Spitzengeschwindigkeit von 55 km/h. Die langen Beine können die Giraffe aber nur auf festem Untergrund tragen. Sumpfige Gegenden werden von den Tieren daher gemieden.
Giraffen verständigen sich im für Menschen nicht hörbaren Infraschallbereich mit Frequenzen unter 20 Hertz.
Giraffen sind in afrikanischen Savannen verbreitet. Heute leben sie nur noch südlich der Sahara, vor allem in den Grassteppen Ost- und Südafrikas. Die Bestände nördlich der Sahara wurden frühzeitig durch den Menschen ausgerottet: während des frühen Altertums im Niltal und etwa im 7. Jahrhundert in den Küstenebenen Marokkos und Algeriens. Im 20. Jahrhundert verschwanden Giraffen aus vielen weiteren Bereichen ihres Verbreitungsgebiets.
Giraffen beweiden bevorzugt Akazien. Dabei greifen die Tiere einen Zweig mit ihrer bis zu 50 cm langen Zunge, ziehen ihn ins Maul und streifen durch Zurückziehen des Kopfes die Blätter ab. Zunge und Lippen sind so beschaffen, dass sie trotz der dornigen Äste keinen Schaden nehmen. Durch die hohe Bisskraft und die massiven Mahlzähne können die Äste, Blätter und Zweige zügig kleingemahlen werden und rutschen innerhalb kürzester Zeit den bis zu 2,5 Meter langen Hals herab. Jeden Tag nimmt eine Giraffe etwa 30 kg Nahrung auf; hierfür benötigt sie sechzehn bis zwanzig Stunden. Der Flüssigkeitsbedarf wird größtenteils aus der Nahrung gedeckt, so dass Giraffen wochenlang ohne zu trinken auskommen können. Wenn sie doch trinken, müssen sie die Vorderbeine weit spreizen, um den Kopf weit genug zur Wasserquelle herabsenken zu können; ebenso verfahren sie, wenn sie Nahrung vom Boden aufnehmen, was sie allerdings nur unter sehr ungünstigen Umständen tun.
Giraffen leben einzelgängerisch oder in losen Verbänden. Dabei hängt das Sozialverhalten vom Geschlecht ab: Weibchen tun sich stets zu Herden von 4 bis 32 Tieren zusammen, die jedoch immer wieder in der Zusammensetzung wechseln. Junge oder weniger dominante Männchen formen eigene Verbände, sogenannte Junggesellengruppen, dominante Altbullen sind meist Einzelgänger. Die Gruppengröße ist abhängig vom Lebensraum und wird nicht durch die Anwesenheit größerer Beutegreifer beeinflusst. Auffälligerweise finden sich Kühe mit Nachwuchs häufiger in kleineren Gruppen zusammen. In der Namib im südwestlichen Afrika bilden gemischte Gruppen zumeist größere Verbände als eingeschlechtige Gruppen, wodurch die Geschlechterzusammensetzung einen wichtigen Einfluss darstellt. Demgegenüber nehmen Herden mit Jungtieren nicht an Größe zu, was den Schluss zulässt, dass bei den Giraffen der Schutz des Nachwuchses vor Bejagung nicht über die Gruppengröße gesteuert wird. Einen weiteren wichtigen Faktor bei der Herdenbildung stellt die räumliche Verfügbarkeit von Nahrung dar. Dieser greift aber nicht über die Jahreszeiten hinweg, wodurch Herden als relativ stabil angesehen werden können. Fluktuationen in der Herdengröße sind demnach vom Nahrungsangebot abhängig und können über Tage deutlich schwanken. So kommt es häufig in den Morgen- und Abendstunden zu größeren Zusammenschlüssen, die der gemeinsamen Nahrungsaufnahme dienen.
Treffen zwei Bullen aufeinander, kommt es meistens zu einem ritualisierten Kampf, bei dem die Tiere nebeneinander stehen und ihren Kopf gegen den Hals des Konkurrenten schlagen. Zur Paarungszeit können solche Kämpfe aggressiver ausfallen und eine Heftigkeit annehmen, bei der einer der Konkurrenten bewusstlos geschlagen wird.
Entgegen weit verbreiteter Meinung fressen Giraffen, vor allem in der Trockenzeit, von niedrigen Büschen bzw. auf halber Körperhöhe. Aus diesem Grund wird mittlerweile angezweifelt, dass die Giraffen ihren langen Hals nur aufgrund von Nahrungsauswahl haben. Ein Argument, das gegen die Nahrungsaufnahme-Theorie spricht, ist, dass Giraffen im Laufe der Evolution stärker ihren Hals verlängert haben als ihre Beine. Längere Beine wären jedoch energetisch günstiger, wenn es nur um Höhengewinn gehen würde. Eine aktuelle Theorie für den langen Hals sieht daher den Kampf der Giraffen-Männchen um Dominanz und Weibchen als einen Hauptgrund. Ein langer Hals ist dabei im Kampf vorteilhaft.
Giraffen schlafen mehrmals innerhalb eines 24-Stunden-Tages, dabei liegen sie mit angezogenen Beinen auf dem Bauch, mit dem Kopf nach hinten auf dem Körper. Der Schlaf dauert in der Regel nur kurze Zeit, in mehr als der Hälfte aller Beobachtungen weniger als 11 Minuten, im Maximum bis zu 100 Minuten. Die REM-Phase währt im Mittel 3 Minuten. Es wird angenommen, dass die Tiere in der liegenden Stellung Raubtieren schutzlos ausgeliefert sind, da sie nur langsam aufstehen können und sich durch Treten mit den Beinen verteidigen. Den größten Teil der Nacht verbringen sie mit Wiederkäuen. Tagsüber dösen Giraffen hin und wieder kurz im Stehen, was insgesamt weniger als 50 Minuten eines 24-Stunden-Tages ausmacht. Dadurch kommt ein Individuum auf etwa 4,6 Stunden Schlaf je Tageszyklus. Jungtiere schlafen durchschnittlich länger.
(Wikipedia)
The Mount Elliott Mining Complex is an aggregation of the remnants of copper mining and smelting operations from the early 20th century and the associated former mining township of Selwyn. The earliest copper mining at Mount Elliott was in 1906 with smelting operations commencing shortly after. Significant upgrades to the mining and smelting operations occurred under the management of W.R. Corbould during 1909 - 1910. Following these upgrades and increases in production, the Selwyn Township grew quickly and had 1500 residents by 1918. The Mount Elliott Company took over other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s, including the Mount Cuthbert and Kuridala smelters. Mount Elliott operations were taken over by Mount Isa Mines in 1943 to ensure the supply of copper during World War Two. The Mount Elliott Company was eventually liquidated in 1953.
The Mount Elliott Smelter:
The existence of copper in the Leichhardt River area of north western Queensland had been known since Ernest Henry discovered the Great Australia Mine in 1867 at Cloncurry. In 1899 James Elliott discovered copper on the conical hill that became Mount Elliott, but having no capital to develop the mine, he sold an interest to James Morphett, a pastoralist of Fort Constantine station near Cloncurry. Morphett, being drought stricken, in turn sold out to John Moffat of Irvinebank, the most successful mining promoter in Queensland at the time.
Plentiful capital and cheap transport were prerequisites for developing the Cloncurry field, which had stagnated for forty years. Without capital it was impossible to explore and prove ore-bodies; without proof of large reserves of wealth it was futile to build a railway; and without a railway it was hazardous to invest capital in finding large reserves of ore. The mining investor or the railway builder had to break the impasse.
In 1906 - 1907 copper averaged £87 a ton on the London market, the highest price for thirty years, and the Cloncurry field grew. The railway was extended west of Richmond in 1905 - 1906 by the Government and mines were floated on the Melbourne Stock Exchange. At Mount Elliott a prospecting shaft had been sunk and on the 1st of August 1906 a Cornish boiler and winding plant were installed on the site.
Mount Elliott Limited was floated in Melbourne on the 13th of July 1906. In 1907 it was taken over by British and French interests and restructured. Combining with its competitor, Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited, Mount Elliott formed a special company to finance and construct the railway from Cloncurry to Malbon, Kuridala (then Friezeland) and Mount Elliott (later Selwyn). This new company then entered into an agreement with the Queensland Railways Department in July 1908.
The railway, which was known as the 'Syndicate Railway', aroused opposition in 1908 from the trade unions and Labor movement generally, who contended that railways should be State-owned. However, the Hampden-Mount Elliott Railway Bill was passed by the Queensland Parliament and assented to on the 21st of April 1908; construction finished in December 1910. The railway terminated at the Mount Elliott smelter.
By 1907 the main underlie shaft had been sunk and construction of the smelters was underway using a second-hand water-jacket blast furnace and converters. At this time, W.H. Corbould was appointed general manager of Mount Elliott Limited.
The second-hand blast furnace and converters were commissioned or 'blown in' in May 1909, but were problematic causing hold-ups. Corbould referred to the equipment in use as being the 'worst collection of worn-out junk he had ever come across'. Corbould soon convinced his directors to scrap the plant and let him design new works.
Corbould was a metallurgist and geologist as well as mine/smelter manager. He foresaw a need to obtain control and thereby ensure a reliable supply of ore from a cross-section of mines in the region. He also saw a need to implement an effective strategy to manage the economies of smelting low-grade ore. Smelting operations in the region were made difficult by the technical and economic problems posed by the deterioration in the grade of ore. Corbould resolved the issue by a process of blending ores with different chemical properties, increasing the throughput capacity of the smelter and by championing the unification of smelting operations in the region. In 1912, Corbould acquired Hampden Consols Mine at Kuridala for Mount Elliott Limited, followed with the purchases of other small mines in the district.
Walkers Limited of Maryborough was commissioned to manufacture a new 200 ton water jacket furnace for the smelters. An air compressor and blower for the smelters were constructed in the powerhouse and an electric motor and dynamo provided power for the crane and lighting for the smelter and mine.
The new smelter was blown in September 1910, a month after the first train arrived, and it ran well, producing 2040 tons of blister copper by the end of the year. The new smelting plant made it possible to cope with low-grade sulphide ores at Mount Elliott. The use of 1000 tons of low-grade sulphide ores bought from the Hampden Consols Mine in 1911 made it clear that if a supply of higher sulphur ore could be obtained and blended, performance, and economy would improve. Accordingly, the company bought a number of smaller mines in the district in 1912.
Corbould mined with cut and fill stoping but a young Mines Inspector condemned the system, ordered it dismantled and replaced with square set timbering. In 1911, after gradual movement in stopes on the No. 3 level, the smelter was closed for two months. Nevertheless, 5447 tons of blister copper was produced in 1911, rising to 6690 tons in 1912 - the company's best year. Many of the surviving structures at the site were built at this time.
Troubles for Mount Elliott started in 1913. In February, a fire at the Consols Mine closed it for months. In June, a thirteen week strike closed the whole operation, severely depleting the workforce. The year 1913 was also bad for industrial accidents in the area, possibly due to inexperienced people replacing the strikers. Nevertheless, the company paid generous dividends that year.
At the end of 1914 smelting ceased for more than a year due to shortage of ore. Although 3200 tons of blister copper was produced in 1913, production fell to 1840 tons in 1914 and the workforce dwindled to only 40 men. For the second half of 1915 and early 1916 the smelter treated ore railed south from Mount Cuthbert. At the end of July 1916 the smelting plant at Selwyn was dismantled except for the flue chambers and stacks. A new furnace with a capacity of 500 tons per day was built, a large amount of second-hand equipment was obtained and the converters were increased in size.
After the enlarged furnace was commissioned in June 1917, continuing industrial unrest retarded production which amounted to only 1000 tons of copper that year. The point of contention was the efficiency of the new smelter which processed twice as much ore while employing fewer men. The company decided to close down the smelter in October and reduce the size of the furnace, the largest in Australia, from 6.5m to 5.5m. In the meantime the price of copper had almost doubled from 1916 due to wartime consumption of munitions.
The new furnace commenced on the 16th of January 1918 and 77,482 tons of ore were smelted yielding 3580 tons of blister copper which were sent to the Bowen refinery before export to Britain. Local coal and coke supply was a problem and materials were being sourced from the distant Bowen Colliery. The smelter had a good run for almost a year except for a strike in July and another in December, which caused Corbould to close down the plant until New Year. In 1919, following relaxation of wartime controls by the British Metal Corporation, the copper price plunged from about £110 per ton at the start of the year to £75 per ton in April, dashing the company's optimism regarding treatment of low grade ores. The smelter finally closed after two months operation and most employees were laid off.
For much of the period 1919 to 1922, Corbould was in England trying to raise capital to reorganise the company's operations but he failed and resigned from the company in 1922. The Mount Elliott Company took over the assets of the other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s - Mount Cuthbert in 1925 and Kuridala in 1926. Mount Isa Mines bought the Mount Elliott plant and machinery, including the three smelters, in 1943 for £2,300, enabling them to start copper production in the middle of the Second World War. The Mount Elliott Company was finally liquidated in 1953.
In 1950 A.E. Powell took up the Mount Elliott Reward Claim at Selwyn and worked close to the old smelter buildings. An open cut mine commenced at Starra, south of Mount Elliott and Selwyn, in 1988 and is Australia's third largest copper producer producing copper-gold concentrates from flotation and gold bullion from carbon-in-leach processing.
Profitable copper-gold ore bodies were recently proved at depth beneath the Mount Elliott smelter and old underground workings by Cyprus Gold Australia Pty Ltd. These deposits were subsequently acquired by Arimco Mining Pty Ltd for underground development which commenced in July 1993. A decline tunnel portal, ore and overburden dumps now occupy a large area of the Maggie Creek valley south-west of the smelter which was formerly the site of early miner's camps.
The Old Selwyn Township:
In 1907, the first hotel, run by H. Williams, was opened at the site. The township was surveyed later, around 1910, by the Mines Department. The town was to be situated north of the mine and smelter operations adjacent the railway, about 1.5km distant. It took its name from the nearby Selwyn Ranges which were named, during Burke's expedition, after the Victorian Government Geologist, A.R. Selwyn. The town has also been known by the name of Mount Elliott, after the nearby mines and smelter.
Many of the residents either worked at the Mount Elliott Mine and Smelter or worked in the service industries which grew around the mining and smelting operations. Little documentation exists about the everyday life of the town's residents. Surrounding sheep and cattle stations, however, meant that meat was available cheaply and vegetables grown in the area were delivered to the township by horse and cart. Imported commodities were, however, expensive.
By 1910 the town had four hotels. There was also an aerated water manufacturer, three stores, four fruiterers, a butcher, baker, saddler, garage, police, hospital, banks, post office (officially from 1906 to 1928, then unofficially until 1975) and a railway station. There was even an orchestra of ten players in 1912. The population of Selwyn rose from 1000 in 1911 to 1500 in 1918, before gradually declining.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
[Culex Linnæus 1758: 26 (IT: 4) sgg, 845 (IT: 12) spp; Culicini: 4 gg, 795 spp; Culicinæ: 11 tbb, 41+†2 gg, 3,066 spp; Culicidæ: 2+†1 sff, 12+†1 tbb, 44+†3 gg, 3,500 spp]
Conspecific sympatric adult ♀, dorsal habitus.
C. pipiens is the most common Culex in the Northern hemisphere and is a vector of many diseases; it is fundamentally glycyphagous and only ♀♀ have piercing-sucking mouthparts and are preferentially hæmatophagous (20÷200 epd). Maxillæ and mandibulæ of ♂♂ are short, delicate tape-like sucking structures and epipharynx is fused with prepharynx. C. pipiens pipiens (anautogenous, primarily ornithophilic) and C. pipiens molestus (autogenous, primarily mammophilic) are interfertile. Host detection is mainly chemotropic, thermoacoustic and optochromatic. The main human kairomone is lactic acid, with a synergic action of CO₂ and H₂O emitted by breathing and perspiration; additional attractants are volatile substances in sweat and sebum produced by the skin flora. ♀♀ also release AP on hosts, attracting both ♀♀ and ♂♂. BPC methods include Wolbachia-induced CI and introduction of hyperparasites and predators, as Toxorhynchites.
REFERENCES
D.A. Yee & al. 2022: Culicidæ and human pathogens.
R.C. Wilkerson & al. 2021: Mosquitoes of the world.
N. Becker & al. 2020: Culicidæ, pp. 120, 276-278.
D.A.H. Peach & G. Gries 2019: Culicidæ phytophagy.
G.R. Mullen & L.A. Durden 2019: Medical entomology, pp. 261-325.
G. Wolff & J.A. Riffell 2018: Culicidæ host pref. mechanisms.
R.E. Harbach 2018: Culicipedia, p. 104.
D. Bravo & al. 2017: Culicidæ of Western Spain.
F.M. Jiggins 2017: Wolbachia through mosquito populations.
B.A. Harrison & al. 2016: Culicidæ of mid-atlantic US, pp. 64-65.
H. Liu & al. 2016: ORCO and ORs in Aedes albopictus.
A.S. Raikhel 2016: Progress in Culicidæ research (AIP51).
H. Mehlhorn 2016: Encyclopedia of parasitology, pp. 1685-1708.
C. Carraher & al. 2015: The structural basis for insect olfaction.
F.v. Breugel & al. 2015: Vision, odor plumes and thermal targets.
H. Asgharian & al. 2015: C. pipiens evolutionary genomics.
Y. Wang & al. 2015: GS incongruence investigation in Culicidæ.
D.M. Suker & L.W. Simmons 2014: Evolution of insect mating.
N. Becker & al. 2012: The C. pipiens complex in Europe. (→ RG)
M. Calzolari & al. 2012: WNV & USUV in Emilia-Romagna in 2010.
S.P. Frances & al. 2009: SS220 & DEET evaluation.
J.H. Werren & al. 2008: Wolbachia: master manipulators of IB.
R.E. Harbach 2007: Review of Culicidæ phylogeny.
Y. Xia & L.J. Zwiebel 2006: CqOR7 from Culex quinquefasciatus.
M.J. Lehane 2005: Biology of blood-sucking insects.
G.M. Attardo & al. 2005: Culicidæ nutritional VG regulation.
D.M. Fonseca & al. 2004: C. pipiens cmpx emerging vectors.
I. Wahid & al. 2003: Culicidæ maxillæ and mandibulæ.
R.E. Harbach & I.J. Kitching 1998: Culicidæ phylogeny.
J. Boorman & al. 1995: Culicomorpha IT F65.
M.F. Bowen 1995: Culicidæ ♀♀ sensilla basiconica.
N. Tsuji & al. 1990: Autogenous and anautogenous Culicidæ.
Briozoo, invasivo in alcune zone.
There are concerns about Amathia verticillata as an invasive species. It can develop into huge aggregations and cause fouling of fishing gear, block sea-water inlets, out-compete native species and upset food chains by filtering phytoplankton from the water
Went to a known nesting site for the Ivy Bee (Colletes hederae) in Shropshire today. It's thought to be one of the largest aggregations in the county. There were hundreds of nest burrows there and LOADS of bees active in the area. This mating pair were crawling through the grass, but I managed to get several natural light shots that I blended together in PSE.
By way of a bonus, Ian Cheeseborough the County Recorder for bees was there too. Haven't seen him for a couple of years!
Aggregation of Oxycarenus lavaterae on a linden tree in the spring (Slovenian name of the bug is "rjava lipovka", thanks to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Yerpo for the determination)
NASA artist's concept of the nighttime launch of a Nova rocket on a “Lunar Return Mission”, aka “Lunar Landing”. The image was part of a presentation entitled “A Rocket for Manned Lunar Exploration”, given by Milton W. Rosen and Francis C. Schwenk at the Tenth Congress of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), London, 31 August 1959.
The abstract:
"One of the significant human accomplishments of the next decade will be the manned exploration of the moon. Previously, the uncharted regions of the earth, the Arctic and Antarctic, the Amazon and Himalayas challenged the skill and fortitude of explorers. But these regions cannot long retain their status—the new frontier lies beyond the confines of our planet—on the nearest sizeable aggregation of matter in space—the moon.
Significantly, man’s exploration has been paced by his technical progress. The discovery of America was made possible by ships and sails of sufficient size and by advances, however crude, in the art of navigation. Oxygen masks made possible the conquest of Everest, and rockets—the exploration of the upper atmosphere.
The exploration of the moon is within view today. If it may be assumed that Project Mercury in the U.S.A. and similar efforts by the U.S.S.R. will establish that man can exist for limited periods of time in space, then a trip to the moon requires mainly the design, construction and proving of a large rocket vehicle.
In one concept of a manned lunar vehicle the entire mission, the trip to the moon and the return, is staged on the earth’s surface. A highly competitive technique, one favored by many engineers, is to stage the lunar mission by refueling in a low earth orbit. This would permit the use of a smaller launching vehicle but would require development of orbital rendezvous techniques. In any case, a vehicle of the larger type will be needed for lunar as well as other exploratory missions.
This paper presents a parametric study of vehicle scale for the direct flight manned lunar mission. The main parameter is the take-off thrust which is influenced by many factors; principally the propellants in the several stages and the flight trajectory. A close choice exists in the second stage where conventional and high energy propellants are compared. The size of the final stage and hence the entire vehicle is governed mainly by the method of approach to the earth’s surface, whether it is elliptic, parabolic or hyperbolic. The various methods are applied to an illustrative vehicle configuration.
Reliability will be a major factor in the success of any manned lunar flight. While no formula is proposed for improving component reliability, certain operational procedures can be used to advantage in enhancing the probability of a successful round trip to the moon."
There are multiple neat & amusing things going on here:
The exotic launch site; semi-mountainous, near a shoreline, inlet, or whatever it is, that’s deep enough to accommodate a battleship or destroyer, which I assume is maintaining watch. And it’s got palm trees! I’ve got it - it’s Nova Scotia...Southern Nova Scotia! Get it, NOVA...? Never mind. Obligatorily featuring the beckoning destination in the sky.
Oddly, the gantry looks like an elevated/stretch version of Launch Complex 36 at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), which I believe had yet to be built?/used, for Little Joe II launches. Being 1959, I guess there weren’t a whole lot of examples to draw from, especially for a rocket this size.
Finally, the folded up/retracted landing gear ringing the conical-shaped lander, are visible. The circular shape of the footpad of the one ‘facing’ the viewer is discernible as well.
Wait, wait, there’s more! M. W. Rosen is none other than Milton “Milt” Rosen, of Viking sounding rocket ‘fame’, the real deal. Confirmation:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Rosen
Credit: Wikipedia website
Francis C. Schwenk, possibly/probably originally of the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory/Lewis Research Center (btw, Cleveland Rocks) appears to have been a prolific researcher & valued asset to NACA/NASA. He even worked on the Satellite Power System concept, as late as 1980! Super smart, motivated, with longevity; traits you want in a rocket scientist. Also the real deal.
So, as part of a NASA presentation, I assume this to be an in-house NASA work, which of course substantially reduces the chance of artist identification, especially for something from 1959. Damn.
See:
www.alternatewars.com/SpaceRace/SP-4205/Chapter_01.htm
www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4205/ch1-2.html
Yet again, as is all too often the case, a superior & far more informative read - at a non-NASA site:
www.wired.com/2014/01/rosen-schwenks-moon-rocket-1959/amp
Credit: WIRED website
An unexpected & welcomed surprise. Although not an artist’s identification, a small win nonetheless, filling in at least a few additional pieces of a historical puzzle that no one gives a rat’s ass about...anymore. Despite such, I’m still pleased:
link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-662-39914-9
Specifically:
link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-39914-9_27
Credit: Springer Nature Switzerland AG/Springer Link website
Last, but NOT least, the following obscure website appears to have the entire presentation available to view, which includes the artist's concepts. Bravo!:
dokumen.tips/reader/f/a-rocket-for-manned-lunar
Credit: Indonesia DOKUMEN website
HOWEVER, this presentation should ALSO reside & be readily available at some NASA or otherwise ‘official’ site, for free, with no log-in, no 'mother-may-I' BS required. Something like what the NTRS once was.
BUT, it doesn’t seem to be. Pretty historic, with ‘pictures’, and it seems to ONLY be available on an Indonesian document sharing site. Although I’m grateful, you’re kidding me, REALLY???
The annual sharpnose shark breeding aggregation in a Blue Hole in The Bahamas. This was a poor visibility and not peak density. Hoping to get back in one more time this month and capture more!
Lamnamkok NP, Chiang Rai, Thailand
Family : Lycaenidae
Sub-Family : Polyommatinae
Species : Acytolepis puspa gisca
A small butterfly that is very widespread from Sri Lanka and India across Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. It is primarily a lowland forest species but it is not at all unusual to find them at altitudes up to 1000m. They are an avid puddling species and are often found in large aggregations along with other small blues. In Thailand Acytolepis puspa is usually the most numerous species and it can be hard work trying to pick out the less common species hidden amongst them.
The larvae feed on a wide variety of foodplants including members of the Fabaceae, Sapindaceae, Dipterocarpaceae, and Euphorbiaceae families as well as numerous others.
All my insect pics are single shot and handheld, usually in the wild.
A snowflake is either a single ice crystal or an aggregation of ice crystals which falls through the Earth's atmosphere as snow.
Each flake nucleates around a dust particle in supersaturated air masses by attracting supercooled cloud water droplets, which freeze and accrete in crystal form.
Complex shapes emerge as the flake moves through differing temperatures and humidity zones in the atmosphere, such that individual snowflakes differ in detail from one another, but may be categorised in eight broad classifications and at least 80 individual variants.
The main constituent shapes for ice crystals, from which combinations may occur, are needle, column, plate and rime. Snowflakes appear white in colour despite being made of clear ice.
This is due to diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum of light by the small crystal facets.
Hope this brings a bit of joy again, have a good day and thanx for your visit, so very much appreciated, Magda, (*_*)
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