The Cold Light of the Firefly

This wonderful and yet small and tiny creature amaze me very much when I have seen them plaguing a tree and make that tree glow brightly in the dark after sunset. Its beautiful! Have you ever seen one like that before? Well, by reading this part of my blog you'll be amazed and awed to see not only the beauty but the wisdom on a firefly!

In tropical and temperate regions, the firefly is recognized by the flashing light it uses to atract a mate. Interestingly, the firefly's light is superior to the incandescent and flourescent light produce by man. In fact, the next time you look at your electric bill, think of waht this small insect can do.

An incandescent lightbulb emits only 10 percent of its energy as light; the rest is basically wasted, discharged as heat. A flourescent bulb performs much better, emitting 90 percent of its energy as light. But niether of these is a match for the firefly. With very few ultraviolet or infrared rays, the light emitted by this insect is nearly 100 percent energy effecient!

The firefly's secret lies in the chemical reactions of the substance luciferin, the enzyme luciferase, and oxygen. Special cells called photocytes use luciferase to trigger this process, with oxygen as fuel. The result is cold light - so named because it produces virtually no heat. Horticultural and environmental education Sandra Mason aptly remarked that lightbulb inventor Thomas Edison "must have been envious of fireflies."

What do you think? Yes, its really a small and tiny creature but yet a wonderful and magnificent insect in our planet. An unequivocal wisdom from nture.


LIGHT EFFECIENCY




INCANDESCENT BULB = 10%







FLOURESCENT BULB = 90%







FIREFLY = 100%






Icek Blueyez

The Wing of the Dragonfly

Certain dragonflies can glide for 30 seconds without any significant loss in altitude. Their secret? An aerodynamic wing that is unlike any manufactured by the aircraft industry!


The microthin wing of the dragonfly is corrugated, with pleats that prevent it from bending. Scientists have found that the pleats also give the dragonfly greater lift while gliding. "This is because air circulates in the cavities between pleats, creating areas of very low drag that aid the lift-generating airflow across the wing," says New Scientist magazine.


After studying the wing of the dragonfly, aerospace engineer Abel Vargas and his colleagues concluded that "biologically inspired wings are very relevant in the design of micro-aerial vehicles." Armed with a camera or other equipment, such palm-size flying robots have a numbe of practical uses, from obtaining information from disaster locations to monitoring pollution levels. What a marvelous jewel in nature the microthin, pleated wing of the dragonfly.

Icek Blueyez

Sharkskin in View

To the eye, the skin of a shark appears smooth. But if you could feel it-safely, of course- you would discover that sharkskin actually has a texture like sandpaper when you move your hand from the tail toward the head. The roughness of the skin is not noticeable when you move your hand from the head toward the tail.

The tiny grooved scales that produce this effect help the shark in two ways. First, they channel the water, allowing the shark to swim with minimal resistance. Second, the scales flex as the shark swims, creating an unstable surface so that parasites cannot find a home there.

The properties of sharkskin have a wide range of applications. For instance, scientists have already produced a swimsuit that because of the shark-inspired texture of its outer surface increases the wearer's swimming speed by about three percent. They believe that the same principles can be employed to develop cars and boats with less friction drag.

Researchers also hope to tap into the hygienic properties of sharkskin to manufacture a microbe-repellent coating for boats that would be more friendly to the environment than metal-based antifouling paints. Other applications include medical products and devices that will reduce the risk of hospital-acquired infections.

What do you think? The shark's skin- with its energy-efficient, hygienic properties is really a wonder in nature it is really designed intelligently.

Icek Blueyez

The World's Smallest Bat

In 1973, Thai biologist Kitti Thonglongya and his team collected more than 50 unidentified bats in caves near the Sai Yok waterfall in Thailand. He sent specimens to Dr. J. E. Hill of the British Museum of natural History in London. Sadly, Kitti died before learning that he had discovered a new bat species, which Hill named Craseonycteris thonglongyai in Kitti's honor. Its common name is Kitti's hognosed bat.

About 1.25 inches long, with a wingspan of approximately 5 inches, Kitti's hog-nosed bat is the smallest known bat and is one of the smallest mammals. In fact, it is so tiny that it is sometimes called the bumblebee bat. Its other distinctive traits are the piglike nose (reflected in his name), the complete absense of a tail, and large ears with swollen tragi, or ear canal covers.

These bats can be found only in the Sai Yok national park in Thailand and in nearby parts oy Myanmar. Like many other species, Kitti's hog-nosed bats employ echolocation when on hunt for insects. Having wings that are long for its size, the mammal is well adapted to hovering, which may enable it to pluck prey from the foliage of trees. When roosting, the animal prefers the warm upper regions of limestone caves with high ceilings and many chambers-place that afford more protection and minimize the loss of body heat, which is an important consideration for tiny, warm-blooded mammals. What wonderful instincts and abilities the Creator gave these amazing little creatures!

Because Kitti's hog-nosed bat is extremely rare and occupies just a small territory, its survival is at risk if its circumstances do not improve. Efforts have been made to provide better protection, but deforestation, logging, road construction, and tourism continue to be a threat. Whether this tiny mammal has the resilience to survive ino its fragile habitat remains to be seen.

The Biggest and the Smallest
There are nearly 1,000 species of bats, and they are the only mammals that can fly. The largest bats, called flying foxes, may have a wingspan in excess of five feet and weigh over two pounds. By comparison, Kitti's hog-nosed bat has a span of about five inches and weighs in at a mere 0.07 of an ounce.





By: Icek Blueyez

The Colorful Kingfisher

A flash of turquoise or electric blue dives into a stream and quickly emerges again, flapping into the air with a fish in its beak. This often the first glimpse that people get of a kingfisher, a colorful bird with a relatively large head and beak. Despite the name, however, kingfishers are not all fish-eaters. Some species prefer lizards, snakes, crabs, or even insects - often catching the latter in flight. Moreover, only about a third of the world's kingfishers live near water. Their habitats range from dense tropical forests to coral islands to deserts. One desert dweller is the red-backed kingfisher, which makes its home in the dry interior of Australia.

The species that do fish are masters of the art. Usually, the bird watches patiently from a perch. When it spots a fish, it tenses for the dive, instinctively factoring in the refraction of light, which seems to alter the position of the fish. Then the bird dives toward the water, beating its wings to give it speed. If the fish is near the surface, the bird may just pluck it up. Otherwise, it folds its wings back and shoot into the water like a dart. "The whole act is a display of extraordinary skill, performed without hesitation or fumble." says the book The Life of Birds. Kingfishers are even capable of catching more then one fish at a time! And in cold regions some have been observed diving through thin ice to seize prey.


Kingfisher courtship rituals can be quite entertaining. Some species pair up in aerial chases, after which the male displays his nest-digging skills. Rituals may also include feeding- the male advertising his worthiness by offering the female a tasty morsel.

Kingfishers do not construct typical bird's nests. Some make their home in a chamber at the end of a tunnel that they may excavate in a bank, ditch, or gravel pit. Others set up house in a rabbit burrow or in a hole in a tree.

The common kingfisher has a vast range that stretches from Ireland in the northwest across Europe and Russia to the Solomon Islands in the southeast. A good number of common kingfishers, as well as the pied kingfisher and the white-throated kingfisher, can be found in Israel be the Sea of Galilee and along the Jordan River.


A particularly well-known kingfisher is Australia's laughing kookaburra. known for its fiendish 'laughter," the kookaburra is a fearless hunter whose diet includes snakes up to three feet long! Although kingfishers have few natural enemies, their numbers decline when rivers become polluted or forest habitats are destroyed. Indeed, approximately 25 kingfisher species are classified in categories ranging from near threatened to critically endangered. Hopefully, conservation efforts will help to preserve these beautiful and often entertaining birds.


By: Icek Blueyez