Plants and Animals

Pythons (particularly the Amethystine Morelia amethistina) are well equipped with facial heat-receptor pits. They hunt nocturnally and are able to detect minute temperature changes from direct absorption of optical radiation through the thin pit organ membrane.

Birds are conspicuously exothermic targets at night. They roost strategically along vegetation that requires thoroughfare of heat-seeking snakes to ensure forewarning through vibration.

Nesting, however, is another matter. Some bird species, including the Spectacled Monarch Monarcha trivirgatus build nests on isolated under-storey shrubs with a cup-design that conceals the greatest portion of the heat signature. Nesting is also timed to coincide with high ambient temperatures to lessen the contrast.

The challenge of successful nesting is also dependent upon the onslaught of the heavy wet season. A couple of clients last year informed me that their indigenous guide at Mossman Gorge had forecast the beginning of the wet in three weeks time, as the birds had just started nesting. I agreed that the nesting was only one night old, but as it turned out, the wet arrived that night and the birds had an unsuccessful nesting.

Any day now, the rainforests of the Daintree will resound of the arrival of the Buff-breasted Paradise Kingfisher Tanysiptera sylvia.

They are very punctual, arriving in the last week of October, first week of November, each year. The males industriously excavate upwardly climbing tunnels into terrestrial termite mounds and upon breaching the internal cavity, rely upon the resident colony of termites to congeal the inner wall of the would-be incubating chamber. The female kingfisher will reject the proposal unless the termites have played their part.

As we walk past these mounds over the summer months, kingfisher chicks can be heard inside calling for food. When they ultimately fledge, the parent birds return to PNG, leaving the abandoned juveniles in a state of distress. For about three weeks they hang around the nesting site, before heading off to New Guinea on their own; having never been before.

This Eurasian Tawny Owl (Strix aluco) fell into a chimney, that is why it’s all black with soot. Note, the closed eyes, this is actually a sign of distress in owls. The owl was cleaned and later released.

The species is resident in Europe and southern Russian and naturally occurs in two colours rufous brown and greyish brown with all intermediate forms.

Their territorial calls are the classic hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo..

They nest in holes in trees.

[from Ann Novek in Sweden]

The outer-wing coverings (tegmina) of the Snub-nosed Katydid (Mastigaphoides sp.) are remarkably leaf-like, even to the extent of the centrally prominent vein and subordinate branches. They blend splendidly within rainforest foliage and are found most easily at night, after summer rains, when singing.

Such a marvellous design, but to what extent do we over-interpret the convergence of design with the character of that which provides the design-benefit, as an expression of either evolutionary adaptation or just as readily by the gracious glory of God?

I must confess that neither explanation deepens my understanding of the process that leads to mimicry and both are ever-increasingly incredible, when it is implicit that the outcome is pre-ordained.

Or is it? Perhaps the mimicry only seems to be pre-ordained; an inadvertent piece of genetic good fortune that resonates with competitiveness.

Of course there is coincidence, when two or more separate evolutionary trails randomly converge, to which we often over-attribute an awesome unlikelihood. But perhaps there is less freedom than we might imagine.

For instance, to what extent do genetic variations and mutations remain constrained by internal chemical mechanisms? Do these constraints dramatically reduce the possibility of outcomes to those that have previously overcome similar competitive hardships? And what of the prescriptive inducements of external chemical overtures; pheromones, for example, wafting across the sensitivities of a menagerie of adaptable interests?

Other examples of mimicry have been previously considered at The evolutionary power of persuasion, Unidentified (Spider) and Lichen Spiders.

Orphaned baby hedgehogs need feeding by hand every two hours day and night for the first two weeks of their life. Then every four hours for the next two weeks until they can lap on their own.

They are fed with a milk substitute, called Espilac (a dog milk substitute), which is the closest thing to natural hedgehog milk.

Photograph from Catastrophe Aid for Birds and Wildlife, Sweden

Older hedgehogs can be fed suitable dog food and herring.

Photograph from Catastrophe Aid for Birds and Wildlife, Sweden

Read more from my colleague Angelica on wildlife rehabilitation in Sweden: http://www.iwrc-online.org/magazine/2006/winter/RehabilitationinSweden.htm

Ann Novek
Sweden

If this spectacular moth had a common name it would almost certainly be the Night Citrus Swallowtail. Previously known as Nyctalemon patroclus, it has since been re-affirmed as the formerly identified Lyssa macleayi.

The compound eyes of many insect species have an effective tapetum (reflective carpet) producing strong eye shine under illumination. Light that enters the eye is only partially absorbed and that which escapes is reflected off the tapetum so that it has another chance of being absorbed. A portion of this reflected light leaves the eye again as eye-shine.

The moth is large (full hand size) and stunning in its velvety-brown and white dorsal aspect, but I do like the photograph above and particularly the way that the eyes have captured the flash of the camera.

Interestingly, the moth positions itself at rest during the day upside-down; presumably to encourage any unfortunate avian predation to the less critical end of the moth, with the ‘swallowtails’ resembling antennae.