Plants have a fascinating array of adaptations that function to maximise the odds of successful reproduction. Flamboyantly shaped & coloured flowers spring to mind, not to mention nectar rewards & attractive scents (which are not necessarily pleasant to the human nose, but then, Rafflesia isn’t out to attract us!). One of the more unusual adaptations is […]
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a wide froggy mouth – but not on a frog
When I was an undergraduate a joke about wide-mouthed frogs went the rounds… Frog mouths are quite interesting, actually. Look into that gape & you’ll see a tongue (which is rooted at the front of the mouth, allowing it a greater forward reach). Back of the tongue is the glottis, opening into the trachea, & […]
Continue readingtrees on stilts
And no, I’m not talking about triffids here. More a part of the continuing series on plant root adaptations. I’ve mentioned mangroves in passing before (to do with their pneumatophores), but the thing that stood out for me about the mangroves we saw in Queensland was the fact that they looked like they were on […]
Continue readingaustralian red beech
We saw this lovely tree on the shoreline at Cape Tribulation. The flowers last just a day before their petals fall. I took this particular photo because I liked the way the fallen petals exposed the colourful reproductive structures – I’m always on the lookout for images to use in my lectures. This reminds me […]
Continue readingbotanical architecture
Plant roots don’t just grow down under the soil surface. A few posts back I wrote about the aerial roots of strangler figs: beginning as thin hair-like structures, they thicken into strong cables & eventually their interlaced networks engult the trunk of the hapless host tree. Then there are the pneumatophores of mangroves and bald […]
Continue readingcassowaries: crucial to rainforest ecology
This is the only photo we got of a cassowary, on our recent jaunt to Australia. (I’ll stop rubbing it in soon, I promise!). She was sitting in the corner of an enclosure at the Habitat in Port Douglas. Like our own kiwi, cassowaries belong to the ancient flightless group of birds known as ratites. Cassowaries […]
Continue readinggreat balls of sand
We went for quite a few walks on the beach while we were in Port Douglas, usually in the early morning before things got too hot! We were surprised by the near-total lack of shells washed up on the sand (the copious cuttle-fish ‘bones’ didnt’ count). And fascinated by the way that the sand between […]
Continue readinga whale of a community
‘Community’ is one of those words that has different meanings in science & general use. Every time I set an essay that asks students to talk about biological communities, someone will tell me about ant communities, or monkey communities, or human communities. But a biological community is a group of populations from several different species, living & interacting […]
Continue readingowlcat. definitely not coming to a place near you, any time soon
Owlcat: Makes me chuckle when I think about it. Not just because Lolcats make me LOL (they do), but also because the idea of an owlcat epitomises a standard creationist argument. It goes something like this: if evolution is true, how come there aren’t any crocoducks/owlcats/<insert laughable hybrid here>?
Continue readingof ant hotels and homicidal figs
One of several highlights of our holiday was a guided tour of part of the Daintree National Park. There was so much to see! But we’d probably have walked straight past some wonderful plants & animals if it wasn’t for our guide, Ross. For example, the first time we encountered a Boyd’s forest dragon, all […]
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