Nature is wild

The Corinthian

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Had no idea octopuses...octupi? were this friendly.
 

The Corinthian

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Watch My Octopus Teacher. Nice wee documentary. You will never eat octopus again.
Thanks for this - watched it last night. Beautiful documentary and some extraordinary footage.

I actually welled up at the end!
 

The Corinthian

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So I went down the rabbit (or should that be octopus) hole on youtube and came across the Dumbo Octopus -


It actually looks like a performer trying to gee up a crowd by clapping above its head (it's actually its ears).
 

The Corinthian

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Footage shows pod of orcas killing a great white shark and devouring its liver

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappen...white-shark-and-devouring-its-liver-1.6610075


The video is a little underwhelming, the article is more interesting actually. One way or another, orcas are pretty cool.
I think I saw a different but similar video on Instagram. Orcas are ruthless efficient and strategic killers. Amazing creatures.

There was a BBC doc where they isolated a seal on a huge block of ice. They kept off swimming beneath it causing shockwaves so that it would break into smaller pieces forcing the seal to go into water to get to safety. But obviously the moment it gets into water it’s game over.
 

Cheimoon

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Yikes! These guys know what they're doing! Not so cute now, eh Willy...

But yeah, pretty impressive. I think someone in the article I referenced referred to orcas as the wolves of the sea - and that seems pretty accurate. (And wolves are also very cool of course.)
 

Suedesi

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I think this video from a decade + ago is the first documented orca attack on great whites

Plenty of evidence on Youtube of Orcas eating GW livers
 

Organic Potatoes

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Yikes! These guys know what they're doing! Not so cute now, eh Willy...

But yeah, pretty impressive. I think someone in the article I referenced referred to orcas as the wolves of the sea - and that seems pretty accurate. (And wolves are also very cool of course.)
I’m glad we made a pact with them after freeing Willy; can you imagine how dangerous the seas would be otherwise against a hunter almost as smart as us?

And I heard they are the most widespread species of mammal. Is that right? I’m guessing if so it’d be because there’s only one type of orca as opposed to other candidates, and humans are limited to land (or it didn’t include humans).
 

Cheimoon

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I’m glad we made a pact with them after freeing Willy; can you imagine how dangerous the seas would be otherwise against a hunter almost as smart as us?

And I heard they are the most widespread species of mammal. Is that right? I’m guessing if so it’d be because there’s only one type of orca as opposed to other candidates, and humans are limited to land (or it didn’t include humans).
There are actually multiple species of orcas that can be differentiated by observers and normally don't mix. Not sure what the level of difference is though; they might well be able to produce children together and not really be all that different genetically.

In any case, orcas are found pretty much everywhere around the world's oceans, so given sea makes up 2/3 of the earth's surface, that would indeed make them more geographically spread than humans.
 

Cheimoon

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A remarkable piece of everyday wildlife camera work - a time lapse movie of a bird nest:

I have seen other videos like that before. Really nice. :)
 

Cheimoon

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That's wild!

I'm also wondering what happened to that little boat there, cause that must have caused some serious waves. But I see it's accelerating away at the end at least.
 

The Corinthian

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This won the 'Image of Distinction' award by Nikon - it's an image of an ant super magnified. Scary!
 

The Corinthian

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Actually sorry - that didn't win the award, but it was one of the finalists.

This image won the award -

 

utdalltheway

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Watch My Octopus Teacher. Nice wee documentary. You will never eat octopus again.
(Not sure what it says about me but) I enjoyed the documentary but still not giving up one of my favourite foods when I go to Spain. Pulpo ala Gallega (sp?) Octopus fried in olive oil and sprinkled with paprika.
 

utdalltheway

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I think this video from a decade + ago is the first documented orca attack on great whites

Plenty of evidence on Youtube of Orcas eating GW livers
That 1st video is about the whale watching trip near the Farallon islands, not far from San Francisco back in 1997. It was big news back then as it had never been witnessed before.
 

RexHamilton

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This won the 'Image of Distinction' award by Nikon - it's an image of an ant super magnified. Scary!

What I love about this is, how human like it is. Mouth below nose, below eyes.

We might be going back a couple of billion years, but that's our cousin.
 

The Corinthian

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A scientist has found that 53 sea creatures previously thought to be silent can actually communicate.
The creatures were sending message all along, but humans had never thought to listen to them, Gabriel Jorgewich-Cohen suggests.
He used microphones to record the species, including turtles, communicating they wanted to mate or hatch from the egg.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63380157
 

Cheimoon

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What I love about this is, how human like it is. Mouth below nose, below eyes.

We might be going back a couple of billion years, but that's our cousin.
Yeah, I was thinking about something like that recently: how little variety there is between land animals (everything that's not insects, including birds) compared to the insane variety you find underwater. It gets a bit more varied if you add insects to the land mix, but again, if you compare that to the sea, where you also have some mammals and then everything from sea cucumbers to stars to squid to the insanity of the deep seas - you can tell that life got out of the water only relatively late in its evolution!
 

The Corinthian

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Bumblebees get a buzz out of playing with balls, study finds
Research shows bees rolling wooden balls despite having no apparent incentive to do so


Bumblebees are associated with lives of work rather than play, but researchers have for the first time observed the insects playing with balls for enjoyment, just like humans and dogs.

A team of UK scientists watched bees interacting with inanimate objects as a form of play and said the findings added to growing evidence that their minds are more complex than previously imagined.

Lars Chittka, a professor of sensory and behavioural ecology at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), said bees were “a million miles from the mindless, unfeeling creatures they are traditionally believed to be”.

She added: “There are lots of animals who play just for the purposes of enjoyment, but most examples come from young mammals and birds. This research provides a strong indication that insect minds are far more sophisticated than we might imagine.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/oct/27/bumblebees-playing-wooden-balls-bees-study

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Bees ‘count’ from left to right, study finds
Latest finding adds to theory that animals, including humans, naturally arrange things in a certain order, even without being able to count


Bees order numbers in increasing size from left to right, a study has shown for the first time, supporting the much-debated theory that this direction is inherent in all animals including humans.

Western research has found that even before children learn to count, they start organising growing quantities from left to right in what has been called the “mental number line”.


However the opposite direction has been found in people from cultures that use an Arabic script which reads from right to left.

“The subject is still being debated between those who think the mental number line has an innate character and those who say it is cultural,” said Martin Giurfa, a professor at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition at Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/27/bees-count-from-left-to-right-study-finds

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I find studies like this incredible.