Big – a first-year gyrfalcon – and little – a downy/pin-y merlin. Sharp-eyed viewers – the merlin got blown out of his nest and his right eye got a minor infection in the process – it’s recovering well. Non-falconers – note the difference in the proportions and structure of the feet. The merlin has bird-catcher’s feet; the gyr is much more a generalist, shading towards furred quarry.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
Are the intarwebs great or what? Last night I watched – live – a dissection of a giant squid from the other side of the world. The archived video stream can be found here.
*
h/t ectoplasmosis
Steve posted recently about overharvest of a Tibetan medicinal fungus – when I clicked through and read the LA Times article, the scientific name of the fungus rang a bell. “Cordyceps,” says I. “Isn’t that the genus of the mind control fungus?” Off to Wikipedia to verify that, yes, indeed, Cordyceps unilateralis changes the behavior of it’s ant host.
Cordyceps unilateralis is a species of entomopathogenic fungus that infects and alters the behavior of ants in order to ensure the widespread distribution of its spores. The spores enter the body of the insect through its spiracles, where they begin to consume the non-vital soft tissues. When the fungus is ready to spore, its mycelia enter the ant’s brain and change how it perceives pheromones, causing the insect to climb to the top of a plant and use its mandibles to secure itself to the stem. The fungus then kills the ant, and the fruiting bodies of C. unilateralis grow from its head and explode, releasing the spores. This process takes 4 to 10 days.*
No similar activity was mentioned for Cordyceps sinensis (the Tibetan vegetable caterpillar), but that won’t stop me from speculating. I have 2 hypotheses:
