An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon’s apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun, causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring), blocking most of the Sun’s light. An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region thousands of kilometres wide. This is also known as Ring of Fire.

You say, you have bad weather ?

Just look at what’s going on in Norilsk is now …

A list of the ugliest animals in the world…

It’s not just pictures of animals, it is moments of their lives. Such moments are not the usual sight to see, they are lightning fast. Only professionals can help us to enjoy these episodes. It is clear that these images require special hard work and incredible patience, and only the most hardy and persevering manage to make the best shots.

Underwater photographer Doug Perrine travelled to Mexico’s Baja Peninsula to photograph the magnificent 50-foot-long Bryde’s whale.

Surrounded by hungry marlins and sea lions, Doug and his fellow diver, Brandon Cole, found themselves in the middle of a feeding frenzy, which allowed them to witness, and get extraordinarily close to, this act of nature.

Feeding time: No escape for dozens of sardines as they are swallowed up by a Bryde whale off Baja, California

The Bryde’s whale tracks down sardines for supper off the coast of Caba San Lucas, Mexicom

The whale clamps its jaws round some fish in this dramatic image caught by brave underwater photographer Doug Perrine

‘The marlin were a little scary too – they would use their bills to try to whack the sardines that would hide behind our necks, under our arms, and between our legs.

‘When the whale hit my rubber fins, I just tumbled down its side. ‘It sped past with its throat pleats expanding to take in a swimming pool sized gulp of sardines and sea water.’

‘As the whale pushed the water out of its mouth the air was forced out with the water. This produced jets of white bubbles that make the whales look like fire-breathing dragons.’

The photographer looks up at the Bryde’s whale as he gets up close and personal with this magnificent animal

Bryde’s whale expels air and water from mouth through baleen plates after swallowing the sardines

The Bryde’s whale can grow up to 50ft long and is seen here off the coast of Cabo San Lucas in Mexico

A Bryde’s whale narrowly misses photographer Brandon Cole after making a sudden turn to avoid hitting a marlin feeding on a bait ball of sardines off the coast of Caba San Lucas in Mexico

Throat pleats of a Bryde’s whale expand as it engulfs part of a school of sardines off the coast of Caba San Lucas in Mexico

The life of a Hercules beetle.

The last pictures are sad.

Romantic photo collection from the animal world, devoted to the upcoming spring.

British chainsaw tree sculptor Tommy Craggs has gotten a lot of attention lately for enchanting sculptures that he has left in a publicly-accessible forest in northern England. Because his identity was a mystery until recently, locals called him the “Yorkshire Banksy”.

You may be familiar with these animals, but maybe not their range of colors. No need get your eyes checked. Nature’s just messing with you.

Blue Lobster

All-Black Penguins

Very little is known about all-black penguins because they are extremely rare.

Purple Squirrel

Percy and Connie Emert of Jersey Shore, PA caught a purple squirrel in February, 2012.

Pink Turtle

"Caramel Pinks" are a color morph of red-eared sliders.

Pink Katydid

The naturally green katydids become pink due to a condition called erythrism.

Neon Blue Garter Snake

Wild populations of these brightly-colored fellows exist in San Francisco.

White Peacock

This peacock is not an albino; it is a rare white variant of its normally colorful counterpart.

Pink Bottlenose Dolphin

In 2009, this pink dolphin was discovered in a Louisiana lake.

RELATED LINKS…

Amazing yellow animals

Amazing purple animals

Amazing red animals

Amazing transparent animals

]]> http://funnypagenet.com/oddly-colored-creatures/feed/ 0 http://funnypagenet.com/a-deadly-battle-of-the-spider-and-the-wasp/ http://funnypagenet.com/a-deadly-battle-of-the-spider-and-the-wasp/#comments Mon, 27 Feb 2012 06:53:24 +0000 admin http://funnypagenet.com/a-deadly-battle-of-the-spider-and-the-wasp/  

A chance enconuter. A ferocious clash. A spider and a wasp fighting for their very lives. It’s not often we get the opportunity to see a vicious death battle in the insect world, but that’s exactly what we have for you here.

The spider pictured here was innocently hanging out on the side of a wall when a wasp spotted it and approached. The wasp dove for the spider and attacked it, whereupon both animals dropped to the floor.

This is the start of the battle, and the spider seems to have the advantage. However, while it might be physically overpowering the wasp, the wasp has a weapon, using its sting to inject the spider with venom.

The wasp is starting to escape from the spider’s grasp, but look at the way the spider’s legs are gripping the insect tight. They are fighting for their lives, and both know it.

The spider is likely to be a Larinioides sclopetarius, a species of orb weaving spider. Orb weavers make the classic round webs we see in gardens, though they’re often found above and around water. From its appearance, it seems that the wasp is a yellowjacket.

The dynamics of the situation have changed, the wasp has managed to get the spider on its back. Clicking of this picture you can see a silken thread still attached to the latter’s leg.

Fights between spiders and wasps aren’t that rare. Yellowjackets are often killed by orb weavers when they stumble into their webs. But it’s not all one way — some wasp species not only prey on spiders but also use them as hosts for their larvae.

When certain species, such as spider wasps, need to lay their eggs, they paralyze a spider with their venom. They then lay their egg on the spider’s abdomen where it starts to develop. When the egg hatches, the wasp larva will feed on the still-living spider as its first meal – killing it in the process.

Here the wasp is giving another solid bite to the spider, its stinger up in the air. It’s difficult to say who has the upper hand — the deadly embrace, at this point, looking pretty evenly matched as both combatants struggle on their backs.

In this close-up, you can see a liquid of some sort near the wasp’s mouth. It is hard to say whether it is venom from one of the combatants or from an injury.

Wasps generally eat prey as larvae and nectar as adults. This adult wasp may have been looking for a place to lay eggs as there was no feeding involved after the spider died. (So there you have it, Spidey lost! Read on to see it in its death throes.)

The fatal stroke given, the spider’s legs start to curl into the death position.

Battered and beaten, the corpse is left alone. Dazed and exhausted, the wasp flew off about five minutes after the battle ended.

This last image is a close-up of the spider, showing its chelicerae, or mouthparts. Hard-fought battles like this occur throughout the animal kingdom, and while we’ll never know the true purpose of this vicious battle, it stands as an example of the brutality often found in the natural world. It seems the old saying is true: Nature really is ‘red in tooth and claw’.

Topiary is the horticultural practice of training live perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, perhaps geometric or fanciful; the term also refers to plants which have been shaped in this way. As an art form it is a type of living sculpture.

State natural reserve "Pillars" is located in north-western spurs of Eastern Sayan bordering the Central Siberian Plateau. The natural boundaries of protected areas is the right tributary of the Yenisei River. The height of the rocks reaches 60-90 m. The author posted photos of his trip to this reserve. Look and admire…

Darwin’s bark spider (Caerostris darwini) is an orb-weaver spider that produces one of the largest known orb webs, web size ranged from 900–28,000 cm2, with anchor lines spanning up to 25 metres (82 ft). The spider was discovered in Madagascar in the Andasibe-Mantadia National Park in 2009. The species was named in honour of the naturalist Charles Darwin, with the description being prepared precisely 150 years after the publication of The Origin of Species, on 24 November 2009.

Its silk is the toughest biological material ever studied, over ten times tougher than a similarly-sized piece of Kevlar. The average toughness of the fibres is 350 MJ/m3, and some are up to 520 MJ/m3, making the silk twice as tough as any other spider silk known. The web of Darwin’s bark spider is remarkable in that it is not only the longest spanning web ever observed, but is among the largest orb webs ever seen, at an area of up to 2.8 square metres (30 sq ft). Nephila komaci, discovered in 2009, and some other Nephila species also make webs that can exceed 1 m (3 ft 3 in) across.

According to professor Ingi Agnarsson, director of the Museum of Zoology at the University of Puerto Rico, the spider’s web occupies a unique biological niche: "They build their web with the orb suspended directly above a river or the water body of a lake, a habitat that no other spider can use". This position allows the spiders to catch prey flying over the water, with webs observed containing up to 32 mayflies at a time. The strong silk and large web are thought to have coevolved at the same time, as the spider adapted to the habitat. Scientists are currently researching how the spider is able to weave such a large web over water along with being able to anchor drag lines on either side of a river.

Like other spiders of the genus, Darwin’s bark spider displays extreme sexual dimorphism, with large females (18 cm) and small males (6 cm).
The spider was described along with a previously undescribed species of fly, which appeared to have a kleptoparasitic relationship with it. The flies often feed on the spider’s catches before the spider wraps them. Occasionally, spiders have been observed to chase away the flies when they land on something that the spider is eating.

Phenomenon in the form of well shaken up sea foam have nicknamed coastal cappuccino. This natural phenomenon is very rare.

These pictures were taken on the coast of Cape Town, South Africa. According to scientists, marine cappuccino is formed as a result of large-scale mixing of algae, sea foam, strong winds and the various wastes.

The usual sky at different times of day.

This is a list of 10 largest trees in the world. The exact locations of 10 tallest trees in the world are secrets, so the pictures available in this post are only illustrations. The trees are not guarded 24/7 and only sealed the information what keep the trees grow higher.

10. Mendocino – 112.20 m (368.1 ft)

Species: Sequoia sempervirens
Location: Montgomery Woods, California, USA
Diameter: 4,19 m (13,7 ft)
Between December 1996 and August 2000, the tallest tree in Montgomery Woods, named the Mendocino Tree, was the world’s tallest known tree. It was displaced by the discovery of a number of taller trees in Humboldt Redwoods State Park and later Redwood National Park in Humboldt County. The tree is one of dozens of similar height in the grove, and was never specifically marked in order to protect the tree. Earlier well-publicized candidates for the world’s tallest tree suffered damage from stresses resulting from crowds of tourists.

9. Paradox – 112.56 m (369.2 ft), USA

Species: Sequoia sempervirens
Location: Humboldt, Rockefeller Forest, California, USA
Diameter: 3,90 m (12,8 ft)

8. Rockefeller – 112.60 m (369.3 ft)

Species: Sequoia sempervirens
Location: Humboldt, Upper Bull Creek Flat, California, USA
Diameter: –

7. Lauralyn – 112.62 m (369.5 ft)

Species: Sequoia sempervirens
Location: Humboldt, South Fork Eel River, California, USA
Diameter: 4,54 m (14,9 ft)
Discovered by Paul Zinke & Al Stangenburger

6. Orion – 112.63 m (369.5 ft)

Species: Sequoia sempervirens
Location: Redwood, Redwood Creek Tributary, California, USA
Diameter: 4,33 m (14,2 ft)
Discovered and verified by Lidar.

5. National Geographic Society – 112.71 m (369.9 ft)

Species: Sequoia sempervirens Location: Redwood Creek, California, USA
Diameter: 4,39 m (14,4 ft)
The fifth tallest tree in the world is located in Redwood Creek. From 1994, after it was found, the tree became the tallest tree in the world until 1995.

4. Stratosphere Giant – 113.11 m (371.1 ft)

Species: Sequoia sempervirens
Location: Humboldt, Rockefeller Forest, California, USA
Diameter: 5,18 m (17 ft)
Stratosphere Giant was once considered the tallest tree in the world. It was discovered in July 2000 in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, measuring 112.34 metres (368.6 ft) tall. The tree has continued to grow and measured 113.11 m (371.1 ft) in 2010. It is a specimen of the species Sequoia sempervirens, the Coast Redwood. It is surrounded by a large number of trees of almost equal size. To avoid damage by tourism, the tree’s exact location was not disclosed to the public.

3. Icarus – 113.14 m (371.2 ft)

Species: Sequoia sempervirens
Location: Redwood, Redwood Creek Tributary, California, USA
Diameter: 3,78 m (12,4 ft)
Discovered July 1st, 2006. Dead spire top. Once taller.

2. Helios – 114.58 m (375.9 ft)

Species: Sequoia sempervirens
Location: Redwood, Redwood Creek Tributary, California, USA
Diameter: 4,96 m (16,3 ft)
According to report, Helios was the tallest tree in the world from 1 June 2006 until 25 august 2006. The tree lost its title after foresters found Hyperion on the other side of Redwood creek tributary.

1. Hyperion – 115.61 m (379.3 ft)

Species: Sequoia sempervirens
Location: Redwood, Redwood Creek Tributary, California, USA
Diameter: 4,84 m (15,9 ft)
Hyperion is the name of a Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) in Northern California that was measured at 115.61 metres (379.3 ft), which ranks it as the world’s tallest known living tree. Hyperion was discovered August 25, 2006 by naturalists Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor. The tree was verified as standing 115.55 metres (379.1 ft) tall by Stephen Sillett. The tree was found in a remote area of Redwood National and State Parks purchased in 1978. The exact location of the tree has not been revealed to the public for fear that human traffic would upset the ecosystem the tree inhabits. The tree is estimated to contain 502 cubic metres (17,700 cu ft) of wood, and to be roughly 700 – 800 years old.