stills from microecos, the movie

Thomas Moffett or Muffet was an English naturalist and physician. He edited the Insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum (Theater of Insects), which was an encyclopedia of insects and their behavior based on previous scientific works. Moffett added commentary on the beauty and virtue of insects and the lessons they could teach humans. Moffet wrote

Do you require Prudence? regard the Ant; Do you desire Justice? regard the Bee; Do you commend Temperance? take advice of them both. Do you praise Valour? See the whole generation of Grasshoppers.

Moffett was particularly interested in spiders. In fact, the nursery rhyme “Little Miss Muffet” is said to have been written about an incident involving one of his children.

PENGUIN USE POO TO MELT SNOW

Gentoo penguins apparently form groups before they start to breed and may inadvertently use their dark guano to melt out rocky breeding sites earlier than they would otherwise melt.

In a time-lapse video of the Cuverville Island Gentoo penguin colony on the Antarctic Peninsula, you can see that the pattern of penguins congregating and leaving their droppings is followed by snowmelt. Scientists studying the images say it is possible that the darker color of poop is helping to melt snow by absorbing extra heat - a process known as the Albedo effect

The footage was collected as part of Penguin Watch — a citizen science project run by the University of Oxford that invites the public to analyze imagery beamed from the Antarctic. The next year should bring hundreds of thousands more. So if you care to click through penguin pics and maybe help some science, this is the website for you.

video: Oxford Science Blog

RORQUAL WHALES HAVE STRETCHY BUNGEE CORD NERVES

Biologists at University of British Columbia have discovered a unique nerve structure in the mouth and tongue in fin whales that can double in length and then recoil like… a bungee cord. The stretchy nerves explain how one of the largest whales are able to balloon an immense pocket between their body wall and overlying blubber to capture prey during feeding dives.

gif:  Expansion of the ventral grooved blubber (VGB) during a fin whale lunge, illustrating changes in the dimensions of underlying nerves (yellow) that occur during the lunge

Image:  Segment of a nerve of the tongue at its initial length prior to being stretched and same nerve, after it is having been stretched. Till it abruptly stiffens and resists further extension, finally is more than twice its initial length