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Last Remaining Asian Lions – Pride – Roshan Patel (2013)

May 22, 2014 at 11:14 pm / Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Big cats are under threat in every part of the world. Asiatic lions (Panthera leo persica) once roamed all the way up to Europe. Now only 50 left in the wild in Gujarat, India. Pride looks into how rural communities started working with the government to create a protected habitat for the highly endangered Asiatic lions. The documentary was produced by Roshan Patel as a project for masters degree program in the School of Film and Photography of Montana State […]

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The Making of the Fittest: Evolving Switches, Evolving Bodies – HHMI – Sean Carrol (2012)

April 22, 2014 at 11:07 am / Evolution, Molecular Nature, Natural history, Video

Evolving Switches, Evolving Bodies is one of the series of educational videos called The Making of the Fittest by Sean Carroll for communicating biological evolution to public with the support of Howard Hughs Medical Institute – HHMI. Evolution is thought to be acting very slow usually over millions of years. However, it can happen suprisingly quick. In this documentary, we look at a fish that evolved to change its body between two states reversibly multiple times over a few thousands […]

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The Making of the Fittest: Birth and Death of Genes – HHMI – Sean Carrol (2011)

April 21, 2014 at 3:11 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Molecular Nature, Natural history, Video

A fish caught known as Crocodile fish or icefish in Antarctic waters by the Norwegian expedition in 1927 tells us another fascinating story on evolution of life. Birth and Death of Genes is one of the four educational videos Sean Carroll has produced for communicating biological evolution to public with the support of HHMI. These fishes (called Nothothenoids) are unique for they are the only vertebrates in the world that lack the oxygen-binding protein hemoglobin, which gives blood its red […]

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Brown Wood Rail singing in the Chocó forests of Ecuador – Luke Browne (2013)

March 7, 2014 at 2:13 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

The Brown Wood Rail (Aramides wolfi) is a poorly known bird from western Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Because of extensive habitat loss,it’s considered vulnerable to extinction with less than 4,000 individuals remaining. Here, we recorded an individual singing in front of a motion-activated camera trap at Bilsa Biological Station, one of the largest remaining pieces of Chocó forest in western Ecuador. Bilsa is located within Machine-Chindul Ecological Reserve, Esmeraldas province, Ecuador. The Karubian lab at Tulane university has described the […]

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Invasive Lionfish of the Tropical Atlantic – Marine Ecology Expeditions – Lorenzo Mittiga (2012)

February 28, 2014 at 4:09 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Lionfish are popular aquarium fish native to the Indo-Pacific region. The lionfish invasion in the western Atlantic began in the mid 1980s off the southern coast of Florida, USA. From Florida, lionfish have spread in all possible directions. By 2000, individuals had been sighted off the coast of North Carolina and Bermuda. First lionfish were reported from the Bahamas in 2004, where they quickly dispersed throughout the archipelago by 2007. The range of lionfish has increased further southward. Lionfish now […]

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Pitcher Plants of Palawan – Stewart McPherson (2010)

February 26, 2014 at 3:18 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

The naturalist and explorer Stewart McPherson sets out to discover new species of pitcher plants on the Island of Palawan in the Philippines. Carnivorous plants have the most impressive adaptations that help them survive comfortably in low-nutrient environments. Most plants absorb nutrients through their root but carnivorous plants trap and digest various invertebrates to get nutrients. Even small frogs and mammals can become prey. McPherson previously discovered 5 new species of pitcher plants and photographed one that has trapped a […]

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Crows Mobbing a Bald Eagle – Kevin Ebi & Jennifer Owen (2011)

February 10, 2014 at 1:28 pm / Natural history, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Many of us might have witnessed this pre-emptive behavior but never had the chance or reflexes to record it. Kevin Ebi and Jennifer Owen successfully documented the predator deterrence behavior of crows. This observation is a part of a much larger project. Kevin has spent three nesting seasons with a pair of bald eagles nesting in Heritage Park, Kirkland, Washington and wrote a book. According to his account the video is from June 12, 2011. Two cameras were used to […]

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Female Frog (Leptodactylus insularum) Leading Her School – Kristiina Hurme (2006)

January 29, 2014 at 2:23 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Short Observations, Video

Leptodactylus insularum is a tropical frog occuring in Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela. In this video, a female Leptodactylus insularum pumps her abdomen in the water, and tries to lead the school towards a different area in the swamp. Females attend schools for varying amounts of time, and this is a fairly young school, which may explain why they are slow to follow her. Or perhaps they’re feeding on a great patch and don’t want to leave! […]

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Herbivory on Pecan Catkins by an Eastern Gray Squirrel

December 6, 2013 at 12:54 am / Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

The eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is a successful mammalian species native to eastern north America but has been introduced to England and certain parts of the Europe. Early spring is the hardest time for these squirrels. It is especially burdensome for females who give birth to a litter between February and March. The young are weaned for about seven weeks. The videos were recorded on 8 April 2012 in Athens, GA which probably corresponded towards the most demanding last […]

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An Illustrated Introduction to Speciation – Cornell Lab of Ornithology (2013)

December 4, 2013 at 8:46 pm / Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Cornell Bird Lab produced a series of quite friendly short video programs to provide a scientific explanation for how new species have evolved (and are evolving). Indeed, how did 39 different bird of paradise species grouped in 15 genera evolved from one humble crow-like ancestor over 20 million years? At the heart of the story lies the biological species definition which is one of the many definitions biologists have derived for the species concept. Long-distance movement is a prerequisite for […]

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Six Spotted Tiger Beetle Ovipositing

September 7, 2013 at 5:56 pm / Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

A short observation of six-spotted tiger beetle ovipositing recorded on April 30th 2013 in Sandy Creek Park, Athens, GA. Since this is a long (more than 30 minutes) observation, the middle portion of the footage is sped up 3x for brevity. Due to abundant rainfall in spring (and summer) of 2013, Oconee river flooded its banks fairly often. This tiger beetle (Cicindela sexguttata) with rather faint spots on her abdomen was ovipositing in the softened trail soil. In my opinion […]

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Predator Avoidance Strategy of the European Click Beetle

August 7, 2013 at 5:15 pm / Natural history, Short Observations, Video

Pascal Schneider from Mainz, central Germany recorded this interesting predator avoidance behavior on the night of May 23rd 2012. He heard a curious clicking sound coming from a corner of terrace next to his kitchen. He quickly realized that a Pholcid spider was attacking a beetle and didn’t hesitate to record the event. The beetle Athous haemorrhoidalis (Elateridae family) is species strictly found in europe. As in most insects, females are always larger than males. Larvae develop in soil and […]

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Is Picture Wing Fly a Predatory Jumping Spider Mimic?

August 6, 2013 at 3:45 pm / Evolution, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

The video of this picture wing fly (Delphinia picta) was recorded on April 24th 2011 in Athens, GA. It has a curious wing pattern which resembles a jumping spider but is it really? Mimicry is a type of species interaction that evolves in response to prey, predators and parasites. Examples of mimicry is abundant in nature and provide compelling cases for natural selection. A classic example is Heliconius butterflies living in tropical America. Some Heliconius species show Batesian mimicry. Wing […]

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A Carolina Wren Family Attacked by a Chipmunk

July 30, 2013 at 6:25 pm / Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

On April 21 2013, a family (4 juveniles 2 adults) of Carolina Wrens (Thryothorus ludovicianus) were hanging around a downed tree. The chicks were learning to forage while being actively fed by their parents. In the middle of all this a chipmunk approached which made both parents rather nervous. Then the chipmunk made a darting attack. The wren parents defended their chicks quite effectively. One parent dove on the chipmunk with a flying kick. It was so powerful that the […]

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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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