Little owl (Athene noctua), also known as the owl of Athena or owl of Minerva, in a wooded area near Düsseldorf in Germany (courtesy of Ralf Kistowski).
Whale sharks can grow over 40 feet (12 meters) in length and weigh up to 20 tons (20,000 kg), making them the largest fish on Earth — unlike whales, they’re not mammals. (See also related video here: zafoid.com/post/view/11962)
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A single litre of saltwater contains around one billion bacteria and ten billion viruses. If you weighed all living species in the ocean, microorganisms would account for 90% of the weight.
It may appear outrageous, but we live in a world ruled by viruses. The oceans alone contain around 10³⁰ viruses, which is almost a billion times more than the number of stars in the known universe. A virus is an infectious agent that requires a host cell (such as a bacterium) to reproduce. Once it infects a host, the virus hijacks the cell's reproductive mechanism, and transforms it into a viral replication factory.
On the other hand, while bacteria are frequently perceived as infectious agents, the majority of bacteria are actually quite harmless, and play an important role in global ecosystems. They are also extraordinarily abundant — a single drop of water can contain over 100 different types of bacteria. How do all of these organisms find the energy and nutrients they need to survive?
In the nutrient-rich waters at the ocean's surface, sunlight is the major energy source for micobes, driving photosynthesis, the conversion of light energy into chemical energy. Photosynthesis is limited in much of the open ocean due to nutritional deficiency, and it entirely impossible in the deep ocean due to lack of sunlight. Despite this, bacteria have discovered a means to survive in the huge, dark ocean, acquiring energy from two dissolved gases, hydrogen and carbon monoxide, in a process known as chemosynthesis.
Pictured here is a mixture of single-celled microbes – diatoms, dinoflagellates, radiolarians, and foraminifera (source: Christian Sardet, Plankton – Wonders of the Drifting World, Univ. Chicago Press 2015).
Following the incredible video of the glass frog last May (zafoid.com/post/view/11930), today we have colourful frogs from Indonesia, including two images of the endemic Javan tree frog, black-webbed tree frogs at play on a tree branch, and Wallace's flying frog.
Large female whale shark feeding on tuna eggs
Video captured last year, in the waters off St Helena Island, in the South Atlantic Ocean, courtesy of underwater photographer Martijn Schouten.
Six wild birds that call the Maltese islands home (please click on an image to see full size), photographically captured by Aron Tanti and other BirdLife Malta members.
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The glass octopus, scientifically known as Vitreledonella richardi
Found in tropical and subtropical seas worldwide, the glass octopus inhabits mesopelagic to bathypelagic zones of the ocean, typically at depths where sunlight penetration is minimal. Due to its deep-sea habitat, encounters with this species in the wild are very rare.
Glass octopus live in the open ocean and can reach a total length of 45cm. These unusual animals get their name from their translucent bodies, which are almost entirely clear, like glass.
“It gets its name from its ability to be almost completely transparent. In part of this clip, its chromatophores (cells that produce colour for camouflage, seen here as yellow dots) can be seen,” says Schmidt Ocean Institute. "The only aspects of that are not clear are optic nerve, eyeballs and digestive tract.”
The species has distinctive rectangular eyes when viewed laterally. This cylindrical design, with a centered lens, limits horizontal vision but minimisew the eye’s silhouette when viewed from below, aiding in camouflage. Indeed, as can be verified from this video, when viewed from directly above, the glass octopus almost disappears from view altogether.
Continuing on this month's theme of stealth and camouflage, here are three incredible images of moths who are masters of the art of disguise. (Click on image to view full size.)
You may also wish to view a related video: zafoid.com/video/view/1409/camouflage-at-its-best-the-buff-tip-moth
