View allAll Photos Tagged Behaviour
Communication to my sons with the aid of OpenOffice.org presentation template "Recommendation of a Strategy"
This was a first. Laying on TOP of the box. (You can see where he was chewing/ripping the box on the left side. LOL.)
This and the following photos will represent some of the first, still photos of velvet worm anatomy and feeding behaviour that I have come across over a public forum. There is the awesome documentary life in the undergrowth narrated by David Attenborough put out by the BBC that has some amazing footage of a velvet worm in action. You can see that here: boingboing.net/2011/03/02/death-and-the-velvet.html. Unfortunately my mpe is no longer and so I was reduced to using a raynox msn-202 coupled with a 100mm macro lens. Despite that I was able to get some serviceable pictures.
Nearly six years of searching and I have finally come across a velvet worm! This is was of my awesome finds. Probably rarer than a jaguar, most people I know only ever come across a few in their lifetime. Reclusive, living in low densities they are nocturnal predators with a strongly negative phototactic response. They are usually found in low vegetation though this one was found on a leaf at chest height. These are what those cuddly, fuzzy creatures that morph into blood curdling monsters are based on. They appear as slow, gentle creatures until they begin hunting and then you see the darker, more monstrous side!
They have a slow ponderous movement and their legs move asynchronously. The stubby feet end in what look almost like claws or feet belonging to an animal. They move their antennae back and forth searching for food. When they do locate food they halt, rear up slightly, pause imperceptibly and then their modified front legs which act like miniature canons fire a spray of adhesive that is 90% water which hardens in the air. I touched the adhesive and it is STICKY!!! I pulled up a mosquito lassoed with this glue and ripped the body in half, it is obviously more than adequate for the size of the prey that the velvet worm hunts. They swivel and rotate these 'canons' in a 'Z' or 'S' pattern to increase the surface area to trap their prey. However this motion occurs faster than the eye can see. All I saw was the recoil of the 'canons', I did not see the swiveling motion which is said to occur in .07 seconds! If the prey is large enough it may fire several times. The prey is bound to the surface substrate and the velvet worm approaches...
The velvet worm waits until some of the struggling of the prey has abated and then it moves over the prey. It has an operculum in the ventral surface from which it everts a kind of feeding apparatus that is disproportionately large with the scale of the invertebrate. It possesses two fangs which bite down into the prey and inject proteolytic enzymes and possibly poisons to kill the prey. It then takes up bits of digested prey into its stomach where it is further digested. Complete digestion of the mosquito occurred within roughly 15 minutes.
Velvet worms have remained unchanged for roughly 570 million years (Wikipedia) and uncharacteristically give birth to live young!
Found during a night hike in Reserva Bilsa, Mache-Chindul, Ecuadorian coastal rainforest.
A private owner encouraged visitors to bottle-feed her unrestrained "pet" capuchin monkey. The owner hires out her monkeys for events such as children's parties. (USDA license holder, OH) Copyright Born Free USA/R&D
This looks more suspicious than it really was. These gentlemen were just taking shelter from a sudden heavy rainfall....
Couldn't have timed it better, pulled up the van just in time to watch this Barn Owl quartering this field, bagging a couple of shots into the bargain.
How do we turn a site of the loss of cooking knowledge into a source of food knowledge? What if recipes for the product were included with the product just consumed? See also: Make the Bread, Buy the Butter; Jennifer Reese, 2011
Public Lecture on "Changing Consumer Behaviour: Are We Becoming More Demanding?" by Professor Moira Clark, Director, Henley Centre for Customer Management on 25 February 2015
"Mind Your Behaviour" is an architectural exhibition featuring works from Danish architectural firm, 3XN. The exhibition focuses on behavioural influence by architecture design. 3XN is known for works such as the Danish Pavillion design at World Expo in China, Denmark's new aquarium (The Blue Planet), Ørestad College, and etc.
Image of of two goannas (Lace monitor, Varanus varius) engaged in domination behaviour ('combat') and quite oblivious to the world.
LOcation: Near Culcairn, NSW, Australia
For the rest of the series see here
© Dirk HR Spennemann, Albury 2007
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