Animals Rule

spectacled eider

New Zealand giraffe beetle (Lasiorynchus barbicornis)

is a long species of straight-snouted weevil found exclusively in New Zealand. this species of weevil is special as is the longest species in the world, with males reaching 85mm long and females 45mm long. Most of their length comes from their extremely long neck, thus the name giraffe, their Maori name (tuwhaipapa) on the other hand, comes from the Maori god of newly made canoes. they exhibit minimal amounts of sexual dimorphism as well, as males have a protrusion on the end of their head with antennae on the tip, but on the females they have a much smaller protrusion with antennae halfway through.

Phylogeny:

Animalia-Arthropoda-Insecta-Coleoptera-Curculionoidae-Brentidae-Lasiorhynchus-barbicornis

Periphyton Community

The periphyton community (sessile organisms that live attached to surfaces projecting from the bottom of freshwater aquatic environments) in Lake Hovsgol contains hundreds of diatom species. Diatoms are a large group of microscopic algae that grow as single cells or small colonies. This sample was taken as part of a Mongolian-American international partnership to survey the diatom flora of Hovsgol National Park in north-central Mongolia.