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Crossection of a Dandelion Compound Flower – Rüdiger Hartmann (2015)

March 8, 2015 at 11:30 am / Natural history, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is one of the most ubiquitous plants belonging to the family Asteraceae. The plant is native to Eurasia but has become naturalized to all temperate regions of the World introduced unintentionally by Humans. It’s compound flowers are self-pollinated and seeds are wind dispersed. In this short observation developmental biologist Dr. Rüdiger Hartmann of the University of Freiburg has done a wonderful job of showing the dynamics of the mature compound flowers (inflorescence) using timelapse videography in his […]

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Voyage of Darwin’s Beagle – Episode 2: Low Life on the Ladder of God (2009)

February 12, 2015 at 12:37 am / Evolution, Human Nature, Natural history, Video

When Darwin set foot in Rio de Janerio he witnessed the brutality of slavery. Brazil is a melting pot of genetic diversity. All fossil and genetic evidence points that Africa is the home continent where modern Humans originated about 200 thousand years ago. As Humans spread and colonized new continents genetic diversity eroded gradually proportional to the distance away from Africa. Loss of genetic diversity was because of joint effects of two well understood genetic phenomena known as population bottleneck […]

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Voyage of Darwin’s Beagle – Episode 5: The Paradise of Competition (2009)

February 12, 2015 at 12:27 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Global Patterns, Natural history, Video

The Galapagos islands has been a pivotal single location where everything came together in Darwin’s mind. The geology of the archipelago and almost every species (Tortoises, iguanas, finches) he observed on each island showed significant variation. The Galapagos Islands, which are part of Ecuador are about 1000 km (620 miles) west of South America. As the three craters on the largest island (Isabela Island) suggest, the archipelago was created by volcanic eruptions. Each year roughly 60,000 tourists visit these islands. […]

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Salmon Confidential – Twyla Roscovich (2013)

February 2, 2015 at 2:30 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Fish are cold-blooded animals and this property make them very efficient in terms of biomass accumulation. For this reason ecological trophic levels in aquatic systems can be more than terrestrial systems. Compared to fish, a warm-blooded cow is a furnace burning 90% of the food intake. Fish is a very valuable food. The global demand for seafood is so large that wild fisheries can’t meet that anymore. How are we going to feed fish to humanity? Two-thirds of the salmon […]

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Picture Wing Fly and Ant Competing for Nectar

January 27, 2015 at 1:01 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

A picture wing fly (Delphinium picta) and an ant (Formica palidefulva) are competing for nectar secreted from the extrafloral nectaries of the Passiflora vine (Passiflora incarnata). This short observation was filmed on August 25 2014. Georgia State Botanical Garden, Athens, GA, USA. Here we see multiple overlapping natural history stories. A passiflora vine is being defended by workers of a Formica palidefulva colony. A picture wing fly is sneaking around the vine looking for an opportunity to sip sweet nectar […]

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Seed Dispersal Under the Threat of Mustard Bomb – Michal Samuni-Blank (2012)

January 27, 2015 at 11:35 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video

Plants evolved diverse ways to disperse their seeds using animals. To give a few specific examples Long-wattled umbrella birds, Toucans and fruit eating bats are known for effective dispersal of palm tree seeds by eating the fruits. These dispersers regurgitate or defecate seeds after flying far away. On the other hand, most fruit eaters are also seed predators. Unlike birds and bats other animals such as agoutis, monkeys, peccaries and tapirs can chew and destroy the very same palm seeds. […]

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A Phorid Parasitoid Fly Attacking Carpenter Ants Tending Aphids

January 9, 2015 at 2:19 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

Recorded at the Georgia State Botanical Garden of Athens, GA on August 17th 2014. A carpenter ant (Camponotus spp.) colony nested at the base of a young beech tree (Fagus grandifolia) were tending aphids on the same tree. There is an interestic four level trophic interaction at this one spot forming a food chain. The parasitoid fly feeding on ants who feed on aphids sucking carbohydrate rich sap out of the beech tree: Beech tree > Aphids > Ants > […]

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How to Pin a Butterfly – Anshul Fernando (2010)

January 8, 2015 at 4:15 pm / Natural history, Video

Pinning insects is a craft perfected by early natural historians. Here you can find five instructional videos recorded by individuals and institutions from different parts of the world. Every recording shows slightly different tools employed but the overall procedure remains the same. Anshul Fernando is a nature artist who has butterfly farms in many countries such as Sri Lanka and India. He cultivates rare butterflies and sells them after pinning. He uses a standard traditional insect pinning set up that […]

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Hawaiian Honeycreepers: Evolution in Hawaii

December 5, 2014 at 11:36 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Untamed Science is a science video blog. In this episode the focus is on the evolution of Hawaiian honeycreepers and the geology of the archipelago. The documentary does an excellent job in describing the formation of the volcanic island chain with a brief animation showing the crossection of the Earth’s crust and the hot molten mantel. In Hawai’i, honeycreepers and a group of plant species called lobeliads belonging to the bellflower family (Campanulaceae) evolved in an intricate interaction involving nectar […]

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Hawaiian ‘I’iwi Bird – The Nature Conservancy

December 5, 2014 at 11:35 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

This short observation was recorded at The Nature Conservancy’s Waikamoi Preserve on Maui. It shows one of the classic examples of co-evolution between a plant and a bird. The long bill of the scarlet ‘i’iwi (Vestiaria coccinea) and the curved, tubular flower of the blue ‘ōpelu (Lobelia grayana), a native lobelia have evolved together due to selective forces that increase the survival success of both species. In Hawai’i, honeycreepers and lobeliads evolved in an intricate interaction involving nectar feeding pollination […]

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The Great Australian Fly – Tosca Looby (2014)

November 4, 2014 at 10:14 pm / Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

As Aussie as meat pies and footy, the humble fly is Australia’s most annoying yet enduring icon. Ever-present at BBQs, it has even spawned the renowned ‘Aussie salute’. Our battle to zap them has created an entire pesticide industry and kept scientists busy for decades. The fly has influenced everything from fashion to farming and food, and as legend has it, even the Aussie accent. But a closer look reveals the wretched Australian fly is more than just a pest […]

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What Ants Teach Us? – Deborah Gordon TED Talk (2014)

November 4, 2014 at 2:05 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

There’s never enough ant coverage in Nature Documentaries. Ants are a paradigm for self organizing systems. Here you can watch two TED lectures by the prominent ant scientist (Myrmecologist) Deborah Gordon of Stanford University. She has been studying red harvester ants intensely both in the field and in laboratory. Observation of ants in both environments have been very informative in understanding emergent properties of a complex system such as an ant colony. How does a living system with no central […]

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Ants in Space – Stanford University – BioEdOnline.org

November 4, 2014 at 2:05 pm / Evolution, Natural history, Video

Teachers! Students! A new citizen science project needs your help! You can help scientists collect data by repeating an experiment that was carried out in space. In January 2014 live colonies of pavement ants (Tetramorium caespitum) were taken to the International Space Station for a curious experiment. The experiment sought to understand whether worker ants change their search behavior in microgravity? The experimental set up was designed by Dr. Deborah Gordon in collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine Center for […]

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Red Eyed Green Frogs Mating (2002)

November 4, 2014 at 8:48 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Red eyed green frog (Agalycnis callidryas) mating is an event visible to few visitors of the Neotropical forests. These frogs live high up in the forest canopy and only come down to swamps to breed in large numbers. The economy of nature limits reproductive effort of females. Egg production is costly compared to sperm therefore not all females can be ready to mate when the mating time comes. There’s always less females in a given mating aggregation and males put […]

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James L. Hamrick interview – Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) – (2014)

October 27, 2014 at 7:48 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video

Dr. James L. Hamrick is Regents Professor of Plant Biology at the University of Georgia. He is widely recognized for his work on the genetics and evolution of natural plant populations. The featured video is from a series of interviews for the 50th anniversary of Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS/OET). Dr. Hamrick is also a personal hero of mine and is one of my role models as a tropical biologist. I discovered his work soon after I began to work […]

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