european earth worms invade america

Did you know that the famous and loved earth worms of Europe were not present in north-east America before they were recently introduced as fishing baits?
There were earth worms in America quite some time ago, before the ice age came and killed them all. Now, the introduced earth worms disrupt some ecosystem relationships altering the species composition.
Read more about this here.

look book: animalia

Shortnose sucker (listed for his name. Sucker!)

under water spider

a study reveals that the spider's air bubble works like a gill, making it only necessary for the spider to come up to the surface once a day.
WOW!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/13614742

the right to be lazy

Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy. – Lessing. interesting artwork at the museum of contemporary art in berlin (old hamburg train station) a round piece of land, left to its own development, around it a hedge to symbolize the ordered world around it. great!

pink lupine

that's how it started in may:

the moss in my garden reproducing

snow white blue morning

adopt a plant

my mom read about this in the newspaper: it is a website where people can adopt plants others do not want anymore. or in case you do have a plant you can't really handle or don't want anymore you can advertise it for adoption.
i think that is such a cool idea!
the site is in german though.. but perhaps the concept will be adopted to other countries?

http://www.botanoadopt.org/

grow your own chili!

i have to harvest my first home-grown in a few days.
it is fairly easy to grow them yourself on the windowsill.

if you need tips, visit: http://www.chili-balkon.de/ the site is in german
on the link page of the chili-balkon (chili balcony) i found an english site: http://www.g6csy.net/chile/index.html but there is others mentioned too..

anyway, the sites suggest that one can do science with growing them. but let me tell you that my first try was a success and i did not do much about it.

just put some seeds into a pot with earth (planting earth from the shop so). (seeds need to be covered). watered them regularly. (not too moist so they do not rot. but never dry so they can grow..)
when there is flowers, pollinate them with a little paintbrush (not needed when they are growing outside).

and that over a few month..

voila. my own chili is ready to be eaten (not by me so.. i do not like hot food)

autum

the golden leafs keep falling from the sky. the trees are in their couture dresses. they don't need to pose. the wind is shaking them so their appearance fits into the scene.

wow: sursum

found the most wonderful website through a friend..

tiny

did you know that the smallest insect with wings known is a wasp? it is so small you will probably hardly recognize it and if you do you might think it is a particle of dust. they are so small that for them, air is not as light as for us but rather tenacious, perhaps like water or maybe even sirup. therefore the small species have wings which are not laminar but only one hard vein with hardened hairs on it. their latin name is chalcidoidea, in english they are the chalcid wasps, and german for them is erzwespen. please read more about them on the pages of wikipedia: english: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcid_wasp
deutsch: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erzwespen

amblypygi

sorry. there were pictures here but they disappeared. i realized that it is not allowed to show pictures of other people here so now there is no pictures anymore but you can check them out yourself at the following web pages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblypygid
http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://www.smnk.de/SMNK/02-Forsch-I/02-05-Zoologie/02-05-1-1/2-5-1-1-Bilder/Amblypygi.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.smnk.de/SMNK/02-Forsch-
I/02-05-Zoologie/02-05-1-1/02-05-1-1-Inhalt.html&h=190&w=190&sz=30&hl=de&sig2=djoPMbs5pkdiIiix3_3LJw&start=8&tbnid=VdrcEWwIMeTXJM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=103&ei=0bX9R
c7UN6GYyQKvgZWJDw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgei%25C3%259Felspinne%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Dde%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:de:official%26sa%3DN
both 17.03.2007
Amblypygid, tailless whip scorpion; german: Geißelspinne
flat body, front pair of legs with pincer-like fangs.. eating insects they catch, most species hiding under stones during daytime, need humid environment
.. i found an exuviae in coffee bay when i was sitting on a rocky ledge on a river playing drums. i photographed it but wasn't sure what kind of animal i had found.. now i know :)