Tag Archives: meet the

Get your groove on with the Peacock Spider

Posted on 3 May 2013 by Heidi Kay Smith | Leave a comment

Part 1:

Part 2: Remix

High fives to Jurgen Otto for this work.

“Meet the…” is a collaboration between The Finch & Pea and Nature Afield to bring Nature’s amazing creatures into your home.

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Posted in Curiosities of Nature

Tagged meet the, peacock spider

Meet the Flying Fox

Posted on 28 March 2013 by Heidi Kay Smith | Leave a comment

There are about 60 species in the genus Pteropus and these bats are known generically as flying foxes. They are typically fruit and nectar fiends and can forage over a 40 miles radius. This seems incredible, but some of the larger species have wingspans reaching over a meter and a half.

Check out the video from National Geographic below:

“Meet the…” is a collaboration between The Finch & Pea and Nature Afield to bring Nature’s amazing creatures into your home.

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Posted in Curiosities of Nature

Tagged Bat, flying fox, meet the, Pteropus

Meet the Tardigrade

Posted on 22 March 2013 by Heidi Kay Smith | Leave a comment

Credit: William R. Miller Tardigrade Reference Center

Tardigrades are within the Superphylum Ecdysozoa and about 400 species make up the Tardigrada phylum. These 8-legged segmented bits of awesomeness live in water and are the some of the most extreme of all the extremophiles. Tardigrades are able to survive near absolute zero (-459F) all the way up to 304F.

Here is a short video from National Geographic:

Tardigrades are being utilized in research as a model system to examine development driving the evolution of morphology. Follow this link to the Goldstein lab at UNC-Chapel Hill.

“Meet the…” is a collaboration between The Finch & Pea and Nature Afield to bring Nature’s amazing creatures into your home.

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Posted in Curiosities of Nature

Tagged Extremophile, meet the, NASA, Tardigrade

Meet the Ping-pong Tree Sponge

Posted on 14 March 2013 by Heidi Kay Smith | Leave a comment

The aptly named Ping-pong tree sponge (Chondrocladia lampadiglobus) is a carnivorous sponge. At first glance, you may think “I want that mid-century modern lamp” or “that sponge is adorable”, but the Ping-pong tree sponge is a stone-cold carnivorous killer. Those ping-pong ball looking things are covered in tiny spicules which the sponge uses to catch tiny crustaceans.

Check out another sponge in the same genus-the harp sponge (Chondrocladia lyra).

“Meet the…” is a collaboration between The Finch & Pea and Nature Afield to bring Nature’s amazing creatures into your home.

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Posted in Curiosities of Nature

Tagged carnivore, chondrocladia, meet the, sponge

Meet the Springtail

Posted on 7 March 2013 by Heidi Kay Smith | 1 Comment

Orchesella cincta (Photo by Mvuijlst – Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported)

Springtails are all around us.

Springtails (Collembola) are hexapods but not insects, being members of the insects’ sister class Entognatha (which also includes proturans and diplurans). They are tiny (<6mm), and numerous, occurring at densities up to around 100,000 per square meter of topsoil. They are important components of forest floor ecosystems, and some species can also be found floating on the surface of stagnant water. Continue reading →