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Bowerbird’s Grand Performance – Life Story – BBC

May 22, 2016 at 9:20 pm / BBC documentaries, Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Wildlife Documentaries

With its retina punishing feather colors this is a spectacular solo mating dance performed by a male bowerbird advertising his male qualities. The independent dilation and contraction of the pupils is a striking part of the choreography at the beginning of the performance. In Humans male brains perceive dilated eyes as a signal for sexual readiness of females. Seeing the exaggerated form here should make us curious about our “inner reptile” since birds and mammals have evolved from independent reptilian […]

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Learning to Live on the Moon – PBS

May 17, 2016 at 2:04 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Nova Documentaries, PBS Nature, Video

Energy flows, nutrients cycle. This is how we can define working principles of an ecosystem in a nutshell. Our planet has a very complex land-air-water interaction and we are only beginning to understand the behavior of these systems by simplifying them in enclosed systems such as Landscape Evolution Laboratory (LEO). Due to its proximity, the Moon appears to be the most convenient celestial body to colonize. The Moon is so close that it can even occasionally get shielded by the […]

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Conserving Colombia’s Cotton-Top Tamarin – Federico Pardo (2011)

April 21, 2016 at 11:20 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

About the size of a squirrel, the cotton-top tamarin (Saguinus oedipus) is a New World primate. It has a characteristic shock of white hair on it’s head. Males and females do not vary in size (not sexually dimorphic). The cotton-top tamarin was declared endangered in 1973 following the exportation of 20,000-40,000 tamarins to the United States for use in biomedical research. Cotton-top tamarins were found to spontaneously develop colorectal cancer and for this reason served as an ideal model for […]

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The World’s Fastest Runner – Greg Wilson – National Geographic (2012)

April 14, 2016 at 10:42 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

A well-designed filming set up to capture the motions of running Cheetahs. Since late MIT professor Doc Edgarton’s time highspeed cameras have evolved wonderfully enabling technical capabilities for producing great slow motion films. In this production the filming crew used a Phantom Flex highspeed recording camera. The following talk by the director Greg Wilson gives us the behind-the-scenes view of the project. The entire set up was constructed on the running alley specially designed for exercising the Cheetahs of Cincinnati […]

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Visitors of Jerusalem Thorn (Paliurus spina-christi)

March 18, 2016 at 1:07 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

The Jerusalem Thorn (Paliurus spina-christi) is a native evergreen bush of the Mediterranean basin belonging to the Buckthorn family (Rhamnaceae). As you might have already guessed from its scientific name, this is the plant depicted as a torture device (the crown of thorns) on prophet Jesus Christ’s head. The genus Paliurus is quite recognizable by its orbicular-winged fruit. The fossil record for the genus is widespread in the Northern Hemisphere and goes back to the middle Eocene epoch (~34 million […]

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Visitors of Starry Rosinweed – Silphium asteriscus (Asteraceae)

March 11, 2016 at 2:00 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

A brief record of the insect visitors on a starry rosinweed in less than half hour period during August 14th 2010 at the State Botanical Garden in Athens, GA. Visitors/pollinators included long-horned bee (Melissodes bimaculata), Juvenal’s duskywing (Erynnis juvenalis), Carder bee (Anthidium illustre), Fiery skipper (Hylephila phyleus), Scoliid wasp (Scolia nobilitata), another long-horned bee belonging to genus Melissodes and Silvery Checkerspot (Chlosyne nycteis). In this short observation, the last visitor of the flower was a Silvery Checkerspot with rather beat […]

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If a Tree Falls: The Mozambican Forest at Risk – Mike & Sam Goldwater (2010)

February 25, 2016 at 10:42 am / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Video

“If a Tree Falls: The Mozambican forest at risk” is a documentary film produced and directed by Mike and Sam Goldwater. The project was commissioned by IIED – the International Institute for Environment and Development exploring the validity and application of the United Nations Collaborative Program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries abbreviated as REDD. The documentary was shot in the Northern Mozambican province of Nampula. The film portrays an example for the tragedy of […]

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BioBlitz!

February 17, 2016 at 7:31 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

NEW! UConn BioBlitz June 3rd – 4th 2016 in Two Rivers Magnet School, Hartford CT. 2016 BioBlitz will possibly be the biggest ever organized thus far. You can have more information here. BioBlitz 2015 was a huge success held at UConn Campus on July 24th – 25th 2015. In May 2013, National Park Service/National Geographic organized a BioBlitz in Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve near New Orleans, Louisiana. The video above is based on experiences of young participants. […]

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Carnivorous Pitcher Plant Catches Ants by Changing Slipperiness of Peristome – Ulrike Bauer (2015)

January 23, 2016 at 9:38 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations

Biologists have shown that a pitcher plant has a remarkable adaptation for varying the slipperiness of the rim of its trap (the peristome). In Borneo, the pitcher plant (Nepenthes rafflesiana) traps sporadically large group of ants from the same species. In experiments where the trapping surfaces were kept continuously wet the plants no longer captured large groups of ants. When scout ants find a pitcher trap full of sweet nectar, they return to the colony and recruit many more ant […]

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Long-term Behavioral Observations on Big Cats of Africa – Beverly and Dereck Joubert / TED Talk (2010)

January 6, 2016 at 1:48 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Short observations are relatively easy to capture and can be quite informative. On the other hand, long-term observations can be rather expensive and require dedication but enable recording of rare and unusual events. Beverly and Dereck Joubert are certainly one of the most successful long-term observers of our time. Events they capture on film are seemingly serendipitous. Such once in a life time events can only be recorded by being there on a long-term basis and require an almost unblinking […]

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Long-wattled Umbrellabird Eating Oenocarpus fruit in the Chocó Forests of Ecuador – Luke Browne (2013)

December 30, 2015 at 2:11 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations, Wildlife Documentaries

Long-wattled Umbrellabirds (Cephalopterus penduliger) are important seed dispersers for many plant species, especially the palm Oenocarpus bataua. Here, a motion-activated camera records a male Umbrellabird eating ripe Oenocarpus fruit on the ground at Bilsa Biological Station in the Chocó forests of western Ecuador. You can notice the pronounced wattle and crest characteristic of male Umbrellabirds. Because of extensive habitat loss across its range (Ecuador and Colombia), populations of Umbrellabirds are declining rapidly and are considered vulnerable to extinction. The Karubian […]

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Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO) – Biosphere 2

December 29, 2015 at 11:24 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Human Nature, Video

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. -Samuel Beckett- Biosphere 2 started as quite an ambitious challenge. It crammed five biomes into 3 acres of sealed facility and tried to create a mesocosm experiment. It was a “ship-in-a-bottle” style miniaturization of ecosystems; a tiny little man-made Hawaii in the Arizona desert (Hawaii is the only place on our planet where all biomes of the world, excepting Arctic Tundra exist). Biomes of the Biosphere 2 were […]

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A Tribute to Jacques-Yves Cousteau: Cries from the Deep (1981)

November 10, 2015 at 12:42 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Natural history, Video

Ever since the publication of his first book titled “The Silent World” in 1953 Jacques Yves Cousteau has generated multiple waves of inspiration worldwide. A documentary produced under the same title won the prestigious Palm d’Or award at Cannes Film Festival in 1956. This is a rare achievement among nature documentaries. Cousteau’s second big hit arrived in 1965 with another production titled World Without Sun documenting activities of six crew members living in Continental Shelf Station II at 10m depth […]

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Secrets of the Hive – Why Puerto Rico’s Killer Bees Stopped Killing – Smithsonian Institution (2015)

October 27, 2015 at 1:04 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Human Nature, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Secrets of the Hive is a Smithsonian Institution documentary directed by Dennis Wells. It focuses on the decline of the honeybees and reviews potential solutions to restore pollination service provided by these important domesticated insects. A major emphasis of the documentary is on the Africanized honeybees. These bees are a result of a failed experiment that started with good intentions in Brazil. Researchers in 1950s wanted to introduce the genetic vigor lost in honeybees due to domestication. Trials to selectively […]

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Dagger Flies (Empididae) Mating with Nuptial Gift

October 4, 2015 at 7:05 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Dagger flies Mating. Filmed in Sami Dino Parkı, Ferahevler, İstanbul on May 12th 2015. Male hilarine flies (Diptera: Empididae: Empidinae) present their mates with silk-wrapped gifts. The nuptial gift keeps the female busy during copulation. The silk around the gift is produced by specialized cells located in the foreleg basitarsus of the male fly. Here in this observation the hind legs of the male appear to have multiple functions: They form a resting platform for the female and at the […]

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