Hi, Mr. Nature here–and I stumbled over this interesting armadillo video while looking for something else. So now I know why these critters appear to walk on tiptoe. It’s because they are walking on tiptoe. They have long claws for digging up termites, which they eat.
More of God’s cool stuff!
Hi, Mr. Nature here–and I just can’t let the summer pass without saluting one of my favorite critters, the tiger swallowtail butterfly. Happily, they’re not uncommon around here. I saw a nice one this morning.
The one in this video is a male. The females have a border of metallic blue spots along the bottom of their wings; and some females have black wings. I always thought that was another species, but I was wrong.
As man’s stuff continues to deteriorate, God’s stuff is still going strong-and this is one of the most beautiful examples of it.
It would be a sorry world that had to do without butterflies!
Hi, Mr. Nature here–and would you believe it? I’ve never in my life seen one of these beautiful creatures in the flesh: the luna moth. The map says they live where I live, but I’ve never, ever, seen one.
Note how trustingly the moth perches on the man’s finger. I guess you have to, if your wings got rained on and they’re too wet to fly.
This moth is one of God’s loveliest creations.
I do hope I see one someday.
Mr. Nature here–and good grief, where did the summer go?
I couldn’t let it pass without posting one of my favorite sounds of summer–the night-time chorus of the katydids.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy God’s stuff.
Hi! Mr. Nature here, with some more of the strange and fascinating stuff that God has included in His creation.
Here we see a boy playing with a humongous stingray–not an activity I would personally recommend. After all, a stingray that size could kill you dead with one thrust of his stinger. But this child pets it, talks to it, and even feeds it, and comes to no harm.
My question is, what’s going through the stingray’s mind? We have no idea what kind of mind it has. Is it enjoying this little play session? And if you were a stingray, how would you process this experience? I mean, this is so far off the beaten path, I hardly know what to start wondering about.
Just a reminder of how little we truly know, and how much remains to be learned and understood…
Hi, Mr. Nature here! Let’s wash out that nasty aftertaste of news and politics and enjoy some of the good stuff God has given us.
If your neighborhood’s like mine, with an awful lot of foliage, you’re more likely to hear the birds than see them. And if you’re like me, one cardinal can make you think you’ve got half a dozen different kinds of birds all hiding out in the same tree.
Cardinals sing a lot of different songs, and this video will clue you in to four of them. You’d think it’d be easy to see cardinals, but I think they’re seen only when they want to be seen. You can always hear them, though.
I remember Roy Scheider in Jaws excitedly babbling, “We don’t even know how old sharks are!” And he was right–back when Jaws was made, nobody knew any reliable method for estimating the age of a shark.
But now scientists have estimated that a female Greenland shark is about 400 years old ( http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37047168 ).
This is one of those things that makes you wonder, “Why didn’t anybody think of this before?” They used a radiocarbon test to estimate the shark’s age. Usually this is a test that’s used by archeologists. I never heard of it being applied to living tissue–but there’s no reason I can think of why it wouldn’t work.
The Greenland shark inhabits polar seas, sometimes swimming under the Arctic ice pack, and grows up to 24 feet long. Someone ought to investigate how the shark keeps warm. Whales and seals have blubber, polar bears have fur, the Borchgrevinck fish has a special chemical in its blood that functions as antifreeze; but the shark has none of these.
Some big sharks, like the great white and the mako, along with a few big fish like tuna, are functionally warm-blooded. This hasn’t been detected in any but a few species.
Anyhow, this shark that lives in horribly cold water has always fascinated me. Imagine swimming around under the ice for 400 years.
God’s creation always holds surprises for us.
Does your cat love you? Here are some cats who really, really love their human beings.
Just another one of those little things that God put into His creation, that we never would’ve thought of.
God’s stuff is just so good.
I have had many pet mice, and I tell you, they make fantastic pets. And when you think about it, what must you look like to a mouse? Who can imagine it?
Pet mice will indeed be affectionate toward you, and the longer I had my mice, the more astounded I was by their intelligence and adaptability. A mouse is long-lived if he makes it to his second birthday. If they lived longer, they’d be reading, writing, and telling us what to do. They can learn all sorts of things very quickly.
I once had a mommy mouse who used to groom my mustache. She was a methodical little soul. She had nine babies and divided them into groups of three so she could nurse them more efficiently. I’ve known middle school kids who couldn’t have figured that out.
But of course you pay a price for any pet that’s only going to be with you for a short time. You’d better believe you can learn to love a mouse.
Our Father made us that way.
Check this out–and this is only the hands and forearms of a very odd dinosaur.
It’s called Deinocheirus, meaning “horrible hand,” and for a long time this set of hands and forearms was all that was known of it, other than the facts that it once lived in Mongolia and doesn’t live there anymore. Over the years, a few more bits and pieces were discovered, upon the basis of which, scientists have reconstructed this beast as an overgrown “bird mimic” dinosaur. If more bits turn up, they may have to change their view. By “overgrown” I mean, by comparison with others in the group, amazingly colossal. The others were about our size or a little bigger. You can see by the photo that this was way, way bigger.
God created dinosaurs, as He did everything else, and this is a dramatic example of the boundlessness of His imagination and the boldness of His handiwork.
God also removed the dinosaurs. We don’t know why. Maybe someday we’ll get to ask Him; but so far, He has not told us.
Where has He put them? Well, He has the entire universe at His disposal. So who knows?