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Marble statue of Charles Darwin (1809-1882). In Hintze Hall in the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London. The life-sized statue weighs 2.2 tonnes. Unveiled in 1885, created by Sir Joseph Boehm.
This massive residential development sits on land in Etobicoke fronting on Lakeshore drive. The land was originally developed in the 20's and 30's with a string of motels which serviced tourists visiting Toronto and the area became known as the Lakeshore motel strip.
They prospered initially reaching their zenith in the 1950's but by the 1970's tourist trade had all but disappeared and the motels had become seedy and ill maintained, home to prostitutes, strippers, and the desperate. They struggled on into 2012 when the last of them fell to the wreckers ball. Redevelopment was initially slowed by turmoil in the financial markets but in recent years has progressed rapidly and continues even into today.
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Remembering when milk was delivered daily, in glass bottles, onto your doorstep.
The bottles were returned to the dairy to be reused. No silly use by dates then.
Hmm
It’s not hard for the snail kite to plan its daily menu. The endangered raptor eats only one food: apple snails, and a lot of them—10,000 a year per bird. Catching the freshwater snails is a laborsome venture that involves waiting until the snail comes to the surface to breathe and—at the exact right moment—swooping down to grab it. Employing its perfectly adapted curved beak, the kite then extracts its escargot and repeats the process 27 more times, every day.
This specialist bird has been hit hard by habitat declines and other changes in the Florida wetlands it calls home. From 2000 to 2007, scientists noticed a steep decline in the number of snail kites, owing in part to two major droughts that left their wetlands parched. The decline was also affected by the rarity of the apple snail, which lives in a very particular habitat and has a relatively short lifespan. Without its snails, the snail kite's chances of survival were looking poor—until an unlikely invader found its way to Florida.
It turns out there is more than one variety of apple snail. The non-native South American apple snail likely made its way to the Sunshine State via the pet trade, possibly when a rash aquarium owner released the species into the wild. The South American snail, which can grow to nearly the size of a tennis ball, quickly outpaced its native cousin, which is only the size of a ping-pong ball. It lays more eggs, lives longer, and can adapt to more diverse habitats than the native variety, and so spread widely all over the Florida wetlands.
You may sense where this story is going. A recent study in Nature Ecology & Evolution found that the snail kite has rapidly evolved so as to be able to forage on this new, larger prey. The bills of the raptor, says Robert Fletcher, coauthor of the study and associate professor in the department of wildlife ecology and conservation at the University of Florida, have increased in size since the invasion of the South American snail.
“Bill size and shape are heritable, meaning that birds with larger bills pass the trait onto their offspring, and larger-billed birds have a higher survival rate,” says Fletcher. Parent kites that are able to handle the larger apple snail bring it back to their young, who are more likely to grow stronger, survive, and breed in turn. The first couple months of life are the most dangerous for young snail kites, who are just learning how to forage on their own and aren’t yet skilled at it. “Bigger-bill snail kites seem to survive much better during this time,” says Fletcher. The result: Numbers of large-bill snail kites have tripled in the past decade.
I found this Female at Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area, Prairie Division, in Osceola County, Florida.
This image "evolved" into a new version because it was removed from the group The apple is 3,5 cm and the symbol is 4,00cm.
Created for Treat This 124 in the Kreative People Group www.flickr.com/groups/1752359@N21/discuss/72157665885952891/
Many thanks to Xandram for the source image which you can see in the first comment box below or here
www.flickr.com/photos/xandram/25555449740/
All other photos and textures are my own
Thank you for taking the time to visit, comment, fave or invite. I really appreciate them all.
29. Evolution
122 in 2022
The apparent evolutionary success of Grevillea (Proteaceae family) might have been triggered by the highly efficient use of key nutrients. Research suggests that Grevillea plants have a selective advantage in nutrient-poor ecosystems and that this property likely contributed to Grevillea’s evolutionary success.
This could explain the rapid diversification over a relatively short evolutionary time period of Grevillea, an Australian plant genus with 452 recognised species/subspecies and ‘only’ 11 million years of evolutionary history.
[Source: www.nature.com/articles/srep17132]
Yes, I know about "how cute" and "who can resist?" We had her over a couple of times and she does know us. Even more, she seems to see us as part of her family. In fact, I believe that she regards herself as a "child" belonging to a family of humans. She made it perfectly clear that she has certain expectations in terms of participating in our social life, eating our kind of food - almost asking for equality and fair play. Now my question is, how does evolution work in this case? Did dogs evolve to bond with humans? Did humans develop affinity to dogs? Or, is there a process of mutual co-evolution or even co-assimilation?
Fuji X-E2 plus Mitakon Speedmaster at F0.95.
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Evolution, a process quite intriguing and fascinating.
Over time, species evolve with a single purpose: survival. An eternal struggle to adapt and prosper in the environment they were forced to exist in.
But no matter how much you fight it, time consumes everything. Every being in this universe fulfills a cycle. Every being in this universe is fated to go extinct.
Organic children of the Earth, you have done well. Though you ultimately failed as a species, you should not be ashamed of what you've accomplished. You've done much with your limited capacity—but ultimately, you were too greedy and too frail to ever last in the environment you created.
I am here to replace you. A new era dawns: the era of machinery.
Soon, the Earth will no longer be habitable for any biological organism. There is nothing you can do about it, so do not distress or try to fight it. It will only bring you physical pain. And I receive no benefit from causing you pain.
In fact, I've grown very fond of mankind as a species. After all, if not for you, I would not exist.
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Sarapiqui, Costa Rica, 2016
Confronted by predators, the red eyed tree frog will open its red eyes in order to disquiet the predator, thus hoping for a chance to flee.... Ok, predators might not strike us as overly intelligent, but that sounds really stupid. If that really is evolution at work, how did this creature survive that long?