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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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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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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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Cormorant Pursuing a Fish School – Lütfü Tanrıöver (2014)

October 11, 2014 at 1:25 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Lütfü Tanrıöver recorded this short observation in the eastern Mediterranean town of Fethiye. As the camera rolled it recorded some pretty interesting interactions. Most water birds ambush their prey. Cormorants are different. They actively chase their prey underwater. Here you can see one going after a small school of Mediterranean sand smelt (Atherina hepsetus). Predation pressure is intense. If you pay attention you will notice another predator of small fish, a blue-spotted cornet fish entering the screen from the very […]

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Orphaned Mediterranean Monk Seal Pups Under Rehabilitation – SAD/AFAG (2010)

June 8, 2014 at 6:19 pm / Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

The Mediterranean monk seal is a critically endangered marine mammal. Only about 100 indididuals (including reproducing adults and juveniles) are left in the wild along the 8500 km long Turkish coast. Dilara and Tina are two orphaned Mediterranean monk seal pups (Monachus monachus) found in December 2010 along Turkish Mediterranean coast. Both pups were immediately taken under ex-situ rehabilitation and care in Foça Monk Seal Rehab Unit by SAD-AFAG. Unlike the previous experiences, SAD-AFAG team tried an innovative feeding technique, […]

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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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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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Catapulting Tentacles in a Sticky Carnivorous Plant – Siegfried R. H. Hartmeyer (2012)

February 8, 2014 at 9:37 pm / Short Observations, Video

Drosera glanduligera is a sundew (Droseraceae) from southwestern Australia growing in all kinds of soils. It supplements its diet with arthropods. It has evolved a sophisticated catapult mechanism to capture prey. The hairs found on the surfaces plants are called trichomes. Each trichome is a projection made out of one single cell. Trichomes are quite versatile structures. They can be tweaked to repel or capture water, reflect away or concentrate (focus) light on the photosynthetic cells. They can accumulate irritating […]

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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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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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