Category: Animal Kingdom

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Animal Kingdom Cautionary Tales Featured Video Clips

Attack of the Japanese Hornets!

With its large body and wingspan, the Japanese giant hornet is quite the fearsome creature. It is known to prey on bees, often dismembering heads and limbs in the heat of battle. It eats their honey too, because after all, to the victor belong the spoils.

It is claimed that a single Japanese giant hornet can kill 40 honey bees in a minute, so can you imagine what damage a nest of them could cause? The BBC did exactly that. In this clip, a band of 30 Japanese giant hornets unleash hell upon a colony of 30,000 diminutive European honey bees. The attack is timed to some epic orchestral music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BHEkjBDWKs

The original clip along with the relevant commentary can be seen after the jump.

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Animal Kingdom Arty Awesomeness Featured Photoworthy

Beautiful Undersea Photography by Alexander Semenov

Alexander Semenov is a marine biologist stationed at the White Sea Biological Station (WSBS), a remote research centre that is located on the Karelsky Coast in northwest Russia. Semenov is part of the dive team at WSBS and during his excursions, takes close-up shots of the truly beautiful and bizarre fauna lurking in the depth of the White Sea.

Have a look at some of Semenov’s amazing undersea photography after the jump.

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Animal Kingdom Arty Awesomeness Featured Video Clips

Starlings Take Flight in Amazing Murmuration

A flock of birds. A murder of crows. A parliament of owls. The English language certainly provides descriptive terms for collections of birds. Perhaps one of the most interesting collective nouns is a murmuration. This term describes a gathering of starlings, and Vimeo user Sophie Windsor Clive was lucky enough to experience such a murmuration on the River Shannon in Ireland.

Clive recorded the amazing phenomenon where thousands of starlings are in flight, with one bird trying to copy the movement of the other. What results is a collections of wonderfully swirly, hypnotic patterns. It’s a breathtaking sight, you must see it.

What looks like a mating dance is actually a form of survival says The Telegraph. Starlings are prey for other larger birds and to avoid being the next meal, the starlings seek safety in the flock. They fight to stay away from the edge, because it’s easier predatory birds to snatch them up from there.

[via @Deems]

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Animal Kingdom Arty Awesomeness Featured Photoworthy

Animal Eyes, Up Close

You may recall Your Beautiful Eyes, a series by Armenian photographer Suren Manvelyan that took a closer look at the human eye. He carries on with this theme in his latest set of photos, this time his subject range includes fish cats, horses, and crocodiles. Have a look at this amazing macro shots of animal eyes after the jump.

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Animal Kingdom Cautionary Tales Entertainment Featured Video Clips

Mountain Biker Meets Angry Buck

Whenever I’ve walked on the slopes of Table Mountain, the nicer mountain bikers are generally the ones going uphill. They’re far too out of breath to be of any danger to me. However, the ones coming down the hill seldom announce their presence. They scream down the rocky roads, leaving a trail of dust and angered walkers in their wake.

You’d think a mountain biker on the flat savanna wouldn’t be of much nuisance to anyone. Unfortunately for mountain biker, Evan van der Spuy of Team Jeep South Africa, that wasn’t the case. During a race at the Albert Falls Dam, van der Spuy rode past a grazing Red Hartebeest who reacted to the cyclist’s presence. And by “react”, I mean “charge the mountain biker and klap him something fierce”.

Yoh.

[via +James Francis]

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Animal Kingdom Arty Movie Reviews

This Dog is an AT-AT Walker

Judging from the look on his face, Bones Mello wishes his owner were locked up in a prison in a galaxy far, far away. The everso cute Italian Greyhound belongs to Katie Mello, a fabricator who decided dress her dog up as an imposing Imperial Walker from the Star Wars universe.

Have a look at some images of the fabrication process and final goofy result, after the jump.

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Animal Kingdom Arty Awesomeness Featured

Amazing Wood-Chip Sculptures by Sergei Bobkov

You might not believe it, but what looks like taxidermied animals are in fact made from completely from wood chips. Russian school teacher Sergei Bobkov cuts chips from the Siberian cedar to create wonderfully detailed sculptures of birds and animals.

To make the plummage for his bird sculptures, he cuts the wood chips from a cedar stick and soaks them in water for several days. He then rolls them into the shape of a feather. It’s a labour-intensive project and Bobkov spents up to six months to produce a sculpture. Have a look at some of his creations after the jump.

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Animal Kingdom Science & Technology

Oh Look! The Vasculature of a Porcine Heart

Back in 2007, Flickr user Rob Jones took a photo of the wonderfully intricate mess of veins and capillaries in a porcine heart. With its four chambers and four valves, a pig’s heart is similar to a human one and blood flows through it in a similar way to a human’s.

The image show a porcine heart where the blood was replaced with a plastic substance, and when the tissues surrounding the heart was dissolved, all that remained was the detailed vascular system. Have a look at the full image after the jump.

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Animal Kingdom Featured Video Clips

Moscow’s Subway-Riding Stray Dogs

The subways of Moscow are not only used by people. Some of the stray dogs who live on the outskirts of the city have learned how to use the transport system to ride into the centre of town, scavenge food, and then to return to the suburbs.

The dogs choose the less-crowded cars, and can be seen napping on the floors and on empty seats, or wandering amongst the commuters. Muscovites seem to tolerate the dogs, and in one station, there is a bronze statue dedicated to a stray who was stabbed to death by a heartless person. They rub its shiny nose for good luck.

Of the some 30,000 strays in Moscow, scientists seem to think that only a few have managed to master the subway routes by using the sights, smells, and announcements to figure out where they are and where they need to be. Some of the dogs have figured out where to sit to increase their chances of being fed. Others it seems are more cunning, and resort to sneaking up behind unsuspecting Muscovites and barking loudly so that they drop whatever food they may be eating. Some residents are incensed about the presense of the street-smart strays and want them deported, while others are pragmatic, asking people to learn to live with them.

Have a look at an ABC News report on the subway-riding dogs of Moscow.

To see more images and video clips, head to English Russia.

[via Oddity Central]

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Animal Kingdom Arty Awesomeness Featured Photoworthy

Incredible Macro Photography by Igor Siwanowicz

If you have a penchant for macro photography like I do, you’re sure to love the exceptional talents of Igor Siwanowicz. There isn’t much information about the photographer so his photos will have to do the talking. The subjects in front of Siwanowicz’s lenses include all manner of amphibians, insects, and reptiles. He captures the everso cute expressions on the faces of the chameleons and the Kung Fu poses that praying mantises are fond of.

Have a look at some of his stunning macro photos after the jump.

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