Source: the-shark-blog
The great crested newt, also known as the warty newt (Triturus cristatus), looks like a tiny aquatic dinosaur due to the crest on its back that males develop during the breeding season. This species lives mostly on land, but spends between three and five months of the year in lakes, ponds, and ditches. They are widespread throughout Europe, but in a number of places their habitats have been drained, leading to a decline in numbers.
(via libutron)
Source: explosionsoflife
Giant Anteater, mother and child (South America) | animal blog | photo credit
(via justanotheranimaladdict)
Trapiche emerald, Muzo, Columbia. A trapiche is the result of the growth of an emerald crystal with the darkened impurity of lutite
Photo Copyright © Heritage Auctions
(via libutron)
Crocodile measuring 8.6m (28ft). Shot by a hunter in Queensland, Australia in 1957.
(via sixpenceee)
Coral Lichen - Cladia retipora
Also referred to as Snow Lichen, Cladia retipora is a fruticose (shrubby) lichen that grows on the ground and is native to Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia. It sometimes grows in pulvinate clumps (like cushion), often with moss, forming large mats resembling a layer of snow.
The branches have delicate open-work structure. The three dimensional network of holes are called fenestrations, hence the common name of Coral Lichen. This lichen is usually white to pale grey and sometimes there is a yellowing at tips. The tiny brownish-red tips on the branches are the fungal component’s fruiting bodies called apothecia. These produce the spores.
In Australia this lichen can be found in Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, and Tasmania.
The Coral Lichen was the first Australian lichen to be described in a scientific publication, the second volume of Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen (Labillardie, 1806). Labillardie classified it as an alga, and named it Baeomyces reteporus; it was later classified as a lichen.
Besides its beautiful structure, and the attractive landscapes that this lichen creates in the fields where it grows, Cladia retipora has pharmacological properties (its extracts show antimicrobial, cytotoxic and antiviral activity), and is also one of the species being used to monitor fluoride pollution around an aluminum smelter in New Zealand.
[Ascomycota - Lecanoromycetes - Lecanorales - Cladoniaceae - Cladia - C. retipora]
References: [1] - [2] - [3] - [4] - [5]
Photo credits: [Top: ©Kevin Wells | Locality: Tasmania, 2013] - [Middle-top: ©Kok van Herk | Locality: Australia] - [Middle-bottom: ©Vanessa Ryan (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) | Locality: Sleepy Bay Walk, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania, 2014] - [Bottom: ©Danya Rose | Locality: Blackbutt Plateau, New South Wales, Australia, 2007]
The Narrownose chimaera (Harriotta raleighana), occurs in deep waters of the continental slopes in depths of 380 to 2,600 m in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They are oviparous but nothing is known of spawning and reproduction and very few juveniles have been collected. It was filmed swimming 10 m above the seafloor in Hydrographer Canyon, off the coast of Nantucket Island in the US.
