“Smell that? That’s what hate smells like. And maybe a little urine. It’s been rough morning.”
Today,while watching the BBC life series I was mesmerized by many aspects of nature, but what stuck with me most was that a female octopus lays many many eggs (approximately 100 000) tends to them for six months. Caressing them, and just making sure the eggs are protected. During that time she doesn’t leave her den, Not once, so she doesn’t hunt for food which holds vital energy for her survival. During her pregnancy she thus, slowly starves herself to give the eggs a chance. On her last energy she apparently blows water over them to help them hatch and then she dies.
This sacrifice makes them (to me) one of the most devoted mothers in nature.
Oh and they also have 3 hearts and blue blood.
Absolutely fascinating…
Francis Alÿs, The Nightwatch, 2004 [x]
Surveillance cameras observe a fox exploring the Tudor and Georgian rooms of the National Portrait Gallery at night.
life:
Ah, don’t you wish you were at Cannes right now? (well, we do…)
Here, as the 65th edition of the French Riviera’s film extravaganza gets underway, LIFE.com presents a gallery of both rare and classic pictures from Cannes in 1962 — photos made 50 years ago that still, today, convey the glamor and the blithe sensuality that set the festival apart.
Pictured: French starlet Philomene Toulouse angling for attention with her pet fox and bare torso at the Cannes Film Festival.
Red crab migration
The red crab is by far the most obvious of the 14 species of land crabs on Christmas Island. Every year over 150 million red crabs move from inland shelters to the shore for their annual breeding season. This occurs at the beginning of the wet season (usually October/November).
The main migration can last up to 18 days. Masses of crabs gather into broad columns as they move toward the coast, climbing down high inland cliff faces, and over or around all obstacles in their way, following routes used year after year for both downward and return migrations.
Movement peaks in the early morning and late afternoons when it is cooler and there is more shade. Because if caught in open areas, in unshaded heat, the crabs soon lose body water and die.
Christmas Island is a small Australian-owned territory located in the Indian Ocean, approximately 300 miles south of Jakarta, Indonesia. A small population of 1600 residents live on the area of 50 square miles.
