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NASA Tracks Chelyabinsk Meteorite Dust in the Atmosphere

July 27, 2013 at 1:42 pm / Global Patterns, Video

Our planet is no stranger to meteorites. Take a look in the Moon and see what has been erased from the surface of the Earth by tectonic movements. Evolution of life took many sharp turns because of catastrophic impacts. On February 15, 2013 a meteor weighing 10,000 metric tons exploded only 23km above the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia. The so called airburst event created a very strong ultrasound that was picked up by listening stations established to monitor nuclear […]

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Metamorphosis – Tale of a Wetland (Bryan Maltais 2012)

July 24, 2013 at 12:08 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Nature reveals its ability to heal when amphibians, reptiles, birds and plants repopulate a recently abandoned rock quarry to create a flourishing wetland in Fort Collins, Colorado. However, the scarred earth of this healing quarry causes salamanders to undergo a rare and peculiar shift in their morphology. Time-lapse sequences show seasonal changes of the wetland over one year accompanied by underwater footage of amphibians breeding and undergoing metamorphosis. Everybody is familiar with the metamorphosis of butterflies and moths. The following […]

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A Tour of a Section of Human Chromosome 11

July 21, 2013 at 8:17 pm / Evolution, Human Nature, Molecular Nature, Video

This video produced by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories takes us on a tour of about 650,000 nucleotides from the tip of the short arm of human chromosome 11. From a distance we can discern 28 genes, denoted by red and yellow blocks. The red exons carry the DNA code for protein, while the yellow introns are noncoding. Also prominent are more than 500 transposons, or jumping genes, denoted by blue and purple blocks. If we zoom in, we can take […]

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Ant Tending Treehopper Larvae

July 18, 2013 at 12:52 am / Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

May 23rd 2009 in Georgia State Botanical Garden in Athens, GA, USA. The ant (Formica palidefulva) is tending a number of treehopper (Entylia carinata) nymphs. If watched carefully, the honeydew secreted by the instars are visible at [00:22, 00:28, 00:37] seconds into the video. The mother treehopper is still sitting around the midrib of the thistle where she laid her eggs (dark necrotic patch around her). The story got published in the November 2009 issue of the Atlas Magazine under […]

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Brown Bears during Salmon Run in Katmai National Park – Live from Alaska

June 19, 2013 at 12:28 pm / Natural history, Video, webcams, Wildlife Documentaries

[Video streams have no sound and will be off air when it’s night time in Alaska] (Ursus arctos) are Caniform (dog-like) mammals. Except the polar bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) who is strictly a carnivore all other brown bears (Grizzly, Kodiak and Siberian brown bear) are omnivores and biologically are the same species. This means they can interbreed when species barriers gets lifted. As Arctic sea ice disappears polar bear habitat shrinks and thus they are forced to move southern latitudes […]

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A Yellow Throated Warbler Collecting Conifer Leaves for Nest Construction

May 25, 2013 at 6:41 pm / Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

In this short observation recorded on May 19th 2012 you can watch a a yellow throated warbler (Setophaga dominica) collecting conifer leaves for nest construction. The way it gathers needle leaves in its beak is quite interesting. Nest construction in birds is not all instinctive and has a consirable learning component. Urban birds can sometimes use rather unconventional materials in their nests. For instance urban birds in Mexico City use fibers of cigarette butts which contain poisonous compounds in making […]

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Parkta Duran Kelebekler

May 22, 2013 at 10:54 am / Short Observations, Video

15 Haziran 2013 günü Georgia Eyalet Botanik Park’ında dururken gözlemlediğim Apatelodes torrefacta türü güve kelebekler neredeyse tüm Kuzey Amerika’nın doğu yarısında yaygın olarak gözlemlenebilir. Dişiler erkeklerden daha iridir. Bu türün tırtılları dişbudak kiraz vişne akçaağaç ve meşe cinsinden ağaçlar üzerinde beslenirler. Görüntüler iki cinsiyetin tek bir çerçevede görüntülemesi ve yaşam döngüsü içinde olmazsa olmaz niteliğindeki bir davranışı özetlemesi açısından önemli. Örneğin Almanya’da bulunan 47 milyon yıllık iki kaplumbağa taşılı yine benzer bir davranışı belgelemesi nedeniyle büyük ilgi toplamakta.

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A Nest Building Hummingbird

May 10, 2013 at 6:59 pm / Natural history, Short Observations, Video

In this short but condensed observation you can watch a female Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna) construct her nest over 10 days between 18-28th January 2010 recorded in Victoria, British Colombia, Canada. She uses fluff feathers of other birds, spider webbings and cotton tissue around seeds of poplar trees as nest material. The size of the finished nest is typically about 5cm across x 4cm high. Unlike most other bird species in all hummingbirds nest construction and parental care is always […]

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Sponge Bob or Sponge “Poop”

April 14, 2013 at 10:07 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

It is ironic that biologically diverse habitats are usually rather poor in nutrients. Coral reefs are one of them. Crystal clear waters of the tropical seas is a “clear” indication of nutrient poor environment. Because nutrients in the water column are scarce microscopic plants and animals (planktons) that form the basis of food webs cannot maintain high numbers and the water column remains clear. Dissolved organic carbon is a nutrient that is inedible for most organisms living in a reef. […]

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A Cannibal Caterpillar?

April 11, 2013 at 7:27 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

On September 22 2012, I encountered this caterpillar eating another fuzzy insect part along the White Trail of the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens, GA. While the munching was going on, a familiar bully of the bushes the ground beetle (Calleida punctata) came in. The beetle harassed and eventually forced the caterpillar away from the leaf. I desperately needed help in explaining the sequence of events happening in this video. Why was the ground beetle so interested in […]

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Empire of the Desert Ants – BBC (2011)

April 3, 2013 at 11:10 pm / BBC documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

BBC Wildlife Division’s Natural World series tells the natural history of the honeypot ant (Myrmecocystus mimicus) in the Arizona desert. This is the first footage to show honeypot ant queens co-operating in the wild. Filmmakers spent 150 days in the deserts of Arizona, US to capture the behavior of the ants. Filming the foundation of a new colony was a considerable challenge because the insects rarely ventured above ground. The team was fortunate enough to witness a mating swarm that […]

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Nanook of the North – Robert Flaherty (1922)

March 20, 2013 at 3:45 pm / Human Nature, Technical Notes, Video

In the days long before the term “documentary” had even been coined this full feature movie did it all. The filmmaker Robert Flaherty (1884-1951) had an early exposure to people of the Arctic. Born in Michigan, he spent quite a bit of time traveling with his father in northern Canada. He developed an ethnographic eye and casually filmed many short sequences of the daily lives of Inuit people. He later decided to put all these clips together to create a […]

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An Illustrated Introduction to Natural Selection & Sexual Selection – Cornell Lab of Ornithology (2013)

March 10, 2013 at 1:04 am / Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Cornell Bird Lab produced a series of quite informative teaching materials to provide scientific explanation for how new species have evolved (and are evolving). Evolution is not only a struggle for existence, it is also an effort to pass on genes to next generation. Modern biology has described mechanisms of evolution with fine details and this video effectively tells how natural selection works with three cartoonified traits in an island setting at the first few minutes. In many animals females […]

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American Eagle – PBS Nature (2008)

March 6, 2013 at 11:33 pm / PBS Nature, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

This PBS Nature documentary outlines the life cycle and biology of the iconic Bald Eagle. The plot is centered around two breeding pairs in Iowa and Minnesota. Both nests were installed webcams and have attracted millions of viewers from all over the world. The nests are still active and pairs are now preparing for the breeding season. The nest in Iowa is next to Decorah Fish Management Station. As a top predator highly adapted for fish prey the location provided […]

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Revealing the Origins of Life – PBS (2011)

March 6, 2013 at 11:28 pm / Evolution, Molecular Nature, Nova Documentaries, Video

How life began is a very fundamental question. This short documentary is an outstanding primer for scientific explanation of the origin of life. Featuring Nobel prize winner Jack Szostack of Harvard University and John Sutherland of University of Manchester, it explains the chemical evolution leading to the formation of RNA. Scientists all agree that formation of basic building blocks of life is suprisingly very easy. The burning question is how do they react to form complex molecules? RNA world hypothesis […]

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