Nature is wild

4bars said:
I googled and is a english book for kids . I had my local language ones.

It explains that? I knew that Spiders were found thousands of km up in the air. But I though it was involuntary, not that they were ballooning on purpose
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:lol:
 
4bars said:
I googled and is a english book for kids . I had my local language ones.

It explains that? I knew that Spiders were found thousands of km up in the air. But I though it was involuntary, not that they were ballooning on purpose
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Yeah, the spider had babies and most of them balloon off out of the barn. It's probably the thing I remember most from the book.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
Yeah, the spider had babies and most of them balloon off out of the barn. It's probably the thing I remember most from the book.
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I would remember that too. With a trauma
 
Imagine being told you look like shit every day...

Newly discovered Australian beetle almost mistaken for bird poo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-68622828

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The Corinthian said:
I had no idea spiders did this until today - my mind is blown:







Ballooning (spider) - Wikipedia
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Imagine shitting out a long silk attached to your bottom then a tornado comes to pick you up and you end up at the peak of Himalaya after 25 days of being airborne. What's stopping humans from achieving that type of technology? instead we're focusing all of our efforts on AI....
 
4bars said:
feck me. Are tornado season exclusive of US? or there are other countries that experience them so often?
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Canada is in second place, every continent gets tornadoes, & I believe the deadliest was in Bangadesh.
 
calodo2003 said:
Canada is in second place, every continent gets tornadoes, & I believe the deadliest was in Bangadesh.
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I am not saying that there are no tornados anywhere else, but where is more like. I just search it

The United States averages over 1,200 tornadoes every year. That's more than any other country. In fact, it's more than Canada, Australia and all European countries combined. Canada actually ranks second on the list for most tornadoes, with an average of 100 per year.
 
4bars said:
I am not saying that there are no tornados anywhere else, but where is more like. I just search it

The United States averages over 1,200 tornadoes every year. That's more than any other country. In fact, it's more than Canada, Australia and all European countries combined. Canada actually ranks second on the list for most tornadoes, with an average of 100 per year.
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Yeah the size of the North American landmass and America's position in it mean that it sits in a Goldilocks zone for tornado formation. Cooler air from up north meets warm, wet air from the gulf of Mexico and this provides the conditions for tornadoes to form.
 
From Nature Briefing:
Ants perform life-saving amputations

Florida carpenter ants (Camponotus floridanus) bite off injured nest mates’ limbs to save them from deadly infections. It’s the first example of animals other than humans performing such life-saving amputations. “The ant presents its injured leg and calmly sits there while another ant gnaws it off,” explains animal ecologist and study co-author Erik Frank. “As soon as the leg drops off, the ant presents the newly amputated wound and the other ant finishes the job by cleaning it.”
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References:
The New York Times | 5 min read
Current Biology paper

There are two videos on the NYT page that show some of this (although it's hard to really understand what you're seeing).
 
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Cheimoon said:
From Nature Briefing:
[quote[Ants perform life-saving amputations

Florida carpenter ants (Camponotus floridanus) bite off injured nest mates’ limbs to save them from deadly infections. It’s the first example of animals other than humans performing such life-saving amputations. “The ant presents its injured leg and calmly sits there while another ant gnaws it off,” explains animal ecologist and study co-author Erik Frank. “As soon as the leg drops off, the ant presents the newly amputated wound and the other ant finishes the job by cleaning it.”
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References:
The New York Times | 5 min read
Current Biology paper

There are two videos on the NYT page that show some of this (although it's hard to really understand what you're seeing).
[/QUOTE]
Extraordinary.
 

This is about springtails, small hexapods (related to insects but not insects) that live pretty much anywhere there is decomposing organic matter. Their amazing feature is that they have some sort of appendix that can bounce them up into the air, on average some 30mm. Yes, just 3cm, but that's 30 times their size, so pretty amazing. What's more, during those flights of about 0.1s, they can do some 20 backflips. That's 120 backflips per second or, in a more common unit, 7200rpm. The quickest springtail measured even clocked 22,000rpm! That's pretty insane. Scientists actually needed are super precise camera just to find out what happens, since it's just a blur to the human eye or an regular camera. Pretty wild!

Springtails also have an appendix that can help them land: if they arrive the right way, it provides pretty much instant grip and they're stuck in place. But funnily, it often doesn't grip on and instead, the springtails just bounce around a bit. Oh well, can't have it all!
 
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