Secretive Purple Herons

Life is good. (currently messing with my theme a bit)

[itscolossal]

Branching & Looping Wooden Tables by Michael Beitz

[libutron]

The sit-and-wait feeding strategy of the Surinam Horned Frog - Ceratophrys cornuta 

It has been said that frogs of the South American genus Ceratophrys (Leptodactylidae) can best be described as big, bad and beautiful. Big because of their size (C. cornuta attains a length of up to 15 cm), bad because they are aggressive, and beautiful because of their often gaudy combinations of green and brown dorsal coloration.

The Surinam Horned Frog, Ceratophrys cornuta occurs in the Amazon Basin (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru and Suriname). These frogs are voracious predators, which use a sit-and-wait feeding strategy to ambush prey that varies from ants to small vertebrates.

Horned frogs bury themselves in the leaves on the ground with only the head sticking out. Once in this position and helped by its camouflage coloration, C. cornuta waits for something edible to pass by and eats almost anything that passes, as long as it will fit in the frog’s mouth.

The cryptic coloration of these frogs is thought to be an anti-predator adaptation as it aids in camouflaging them in their surroundings. It is also thought that the horns may function as part of this camouflage, since the horns may be perceived by predators as the stem of a leaf or other such object

References: [1] - [2]

Photo credit: ©Robert Oelman | Locality: unknown (2013) | [Top] - [Bottom]

[yerawizardharry-blog]

Nüshu (literally “women’s writing” in Chinese) is a syllabic script created and used exclusively by women in the Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern China. Up until the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) women were forbidden access to formal education, and so Nüshu was developed in secrecy as a means to communicate. Since its discovery in 1982, Nüshu remains to be the only gender-specific writing system in the world. Read more here.

[isawatree]

Sunrise @ Monument Valley by Liping Yu

[georgiatnsv-deactivated20260427]

Appenzellerland by pboehi on Flickr.

[spookpooch]

I’ve been feeling sick of being in the city and far from any real nature for a while now so I made an ‘ideal’ kind of place I wish I could live in instead to help cope haha.

[catherinepapeillustration]

The finished bumblebee poster.

[fdsfjdsfjkf93723679267-deactiva]

do you ever look around at the big crowds of people around you and realize everyone has a story and memories and family and troubles and achievements and a first kiss and a broken heart but you’ll never know any of it and every human life is really intricate and expansive but oh they’ve walked into a shop and you’ll never see them again and you’ll never know just what they were thinking 

[freeteddybearhugs-blog]

I think about this a lot

[troll-bridge]

There’s a word for this:

[deactivated-blog]

Earth Day 2015

Date: April 22, 2015

Location: Global

Tags:

http://ift.tt/v9YN86

[explore-blog]

The résumé virtues are the ones you list on your résumé, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being — whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed. Most of us would say that the eulogy virtues are more important than the résumé virtues, but … most of us have clearer strategies for how to achieve career success than we do for how to develop a profound character.

David Brooks on cultivating the “eulogy virtues” of character – an enormously insightful and important read.

[humanoidhistory]

[humanoidhistory]

April 21, 1972 – Astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke go on the first spacewalk of the Apollo 16 mission.

[nprbooks]

Blumberg has spent years looking at textbooks from all over the world. In almost every country she has studied, women are either completely written out of texts — or they’re portrayed in stereotypical, often subservient roles.

See Priya Cook: Gender Bias Pervades Textbooks Worldwide

[flowerfood-deactivated20160210]

Silver Pear (Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’) by celerycelery on Flickr.

Silver Pear (Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’)

[phototoartguy]

And then there were 4 by azp3 on Flickr.

[courtnywhitmore]

Pop Culture References in Shrek 2 (1/?)

Click the gifs for more information

[princesacosmica-blog]

OH MY GOD, IM SO GLAD I FOUND THIS ON MY DASH.

I´VE BEEN LOOKING FOR IT FOR AGES. 

[archaeologicalnews]

Evidence of Pre-Columbus Trade Found in Alaska House

Bronze artifacts discovered in a 1,000-year-old house in Alaska suggest trade was occurring between East Asia and the New World centuries before the voyages of Columbus.

Archaeologists found the artifacts at the “Rising Whale” site at Cape Espenberg.

“When you’re looking at the site from a little ways away, it looks like a bowhead [whale] coming to the surface,” said Owen Mason, a research associate at the University of Colorado, who is part of a team excavating the site.

The new discoveries, combined with other finds made over the past 100 years, suggest trade items and ideas were reaching Alaska from East Asian civilizations well before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean Sea in 1492 archaeologists said. Read more.

[nomorekyriarchy]

Zeam Porter, who broke down while speaking, said it hurt listening to those opposed to the gender identification of transgender people.“It’s like, ‘I respect transgender people, but …’ ” said Porter, who declined to name the high school in Minneapolis. “The ‘but’ is what I’ve been hearing my whole life. All I hear is, ‘You are problematic; you’re wrong.’ ” () We commend Zeam Porter for speaking up for themself and their personal experience at a hearing about trans inclusion in sports in their area, as the only trans representation at the hearing. Zeam is a hero. Look at all those uncomfortable old white guys. Nicely done.