Recent Videos

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  How Copper Engravings are Done – Eric Meier (2009)

  March 9, 2018 at 2:27 pm / Natural history, Technical Notes, Video

  Natural History largely depended on artists before the invention of photography. Some of the most successful scientific expeditions such as the Voyage of the Endeavor by Captain James Cook had artists on board that would sketch and draw. These drawings would later be masterfully retraced onto copper plates for reproduction in a dedicated studio that required a lot of resources beyond the capacity of a ship. The process was extremely labor intensive and slow but the results were impressive for […]

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  Hungry Polar Bear Ambushes Seal | The Hunt | BBC Earth (2017)

  March 9, 2018 at 10:55 am / BBC documentaries, Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Short Observations, Video

  Being a predator is very difficult. The “one in twenty” success rate is almost a universal rule of thumb to describe predator hunting efficiency. Prey defines the terms of engagement. Predator has to play catch up and therefore has to be stronger, faster more agile and perhaps more clever in planning a successful attack. We know this relationship from studies that have exquisitely measured predator-prey related physical parameters in Cheetahs and Lions hunting Impalas and Zebras. Connections between apex predators […]

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  David Attenborough: Joseph Banks – Endeavor / Philip Stevens (2014)

  March 9, 2018 at 9:41 am / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video

  The year 2018 marks the 250th anniversary of the legendary first voyage of Captain James Cook on board the collier frigate ship Endeavor. The voyage was a first in that science didn’t loose against the call of the adventure like many others did. The Endeavor established the fundamentals of scientific research on a vessel and set the pace for many other long distance expeditions including the voyage Darwin took on board the Beagle. Endeavor earned its place in history as […]

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  Anatomy of a Hunt: Speed, Strategy and Survival / Nature (2018)

  March 7, 2018 at 1:00 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Evolution, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  As predators chase down their prey on the open savanna it’s a race for survival. Lions and cheetahs are some of the most athletic animals on the planet but strength and speed aren’t everything. By precisely measuring the movements of predators and prey during hunts, researchers have now modeled the optimum strategy of both hunter and hunted, unpacking the subtle details of this evolutionary arms race. During a typical run, a Cheetah can leap 25 feet on a single stride […]

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  Eagle Cam from Southwest Florida – Ozzie and Harriet

  March 2, 2018 at 8:41 am / Natural history, Video, webcams

  Camera-2 360 degree view: Wecome to the breeding season 2020! A pair of bald eagles named Ozzie and Harriet have been coming to this nest located in Fort Myers, FL for the past 9 years. They nest early compared to other pairs between the months of October- April. In 2012 through private funding a camera was installed 6 feet above the nest. The nest sits on two branches of a slash pine tree approximately 60 feet from the ground and […]

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  A Malayan Colugo and Her Baby in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Singapore (2016)

  February 13, 2018 at 9:28 pm / Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  This Malayan colugo (Galeopterus variegatus) carrying a baby was observed on November 25th 2016 in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Singapore. The observation has been registered to iNaturalist database. No Malayan colugos have been successfully bred in captivity. Oldest known captive individual lived 17.5 years. Malayan colugos belong to the “skinwing” mammal order called Dermopterans. They are also known as Sunda flying lemurs. They are strictly arboreal, spending their time in the treetops of tropical rainforests entirely. The name “flying” is […]

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  The Most Groundbreaking Scientist You’ve Never Heard of – TED-Ed | Addison Anderson (2013)

  February 11, 2018 at 11:41 am / Evolution, Global Patterns, Natural history

  Seventeenth-century Danish geologist Nicolas Steno [11 January 1638 – 5 December 1686] studied anatomical details of many species including cadavers at a young age. Steno’s contributions to geology influenced Charles Lyell, James Hutton and Charles Darwin. Here in this TED-Ed short animation Addison Anderson tells Steno’s little-known legacy. Steno was a groundbreaking scientist demonstrating the power of empiricism a scientific tradition that was started by Aristotle. Steno, in his Dissertationis prodromus of 1669 is credited with four of the defining […]

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  A Sunfleck Over a Sapling in Barro Colorado Island

  January 19, 2018 at 10:25 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, NatureDocumentaries.org, Short Observations, Video

  Recorded during the dry season on Jan 26th 2017 at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Barro Colorado Island, Panama. A short duration sunfleck passes over a sapling of Nectandra cissiflora (Lauraceae). Plants growing in the forest understory habitats can be exposed to fast microclimatic changes. Although light is essential for plants, sudden exposure to high light can be detrimental to shade adapted leaves. Sunflecks can be destructive for the photosystem II (PSII), a component of the photosynthetic apparatus […]

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  A Chimpanzee’s Tale – Pierre Stine (2002)

  January 16, 2018 at 9:26 am / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

  Illegal chimpanzee trade has been a big problem. Pet and animal circus industry has been trafficking these endangered animals by using brutal ways. Many lost their lives caught in snares. Naive pet owners eventually learn that chimps become very strong and hard to maintain in a Human-scale habitation. The organization HELP Congo has been combating the illegal chimpanzee trade and habitat loss through deforestation in Congo for many years and the film covers what happened after their first successful attempt […]

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  Humpback Whales Bubble Fishing – BBC Earth (2015)

  January 15, 2018 at 4:38 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Video

  Cetaceans are the largest animals on our planet. Whales could evolve into such enormous sizes only very recently through the geological time. This became possible due to pulses of nutrients coming from a cycle of glaciations fertilizing the seas for plankton growth. Feeding efficiency is a prerequisite for gigantism to evolve. Truly gigantic animals have always been close to the base of trophic levels and have found a way to maximize feeding on a rich food resource. Sauropod dinosaurs for […]

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  Charting the Galaxy – from HIPPARCOS to Gaia – ESA

  January 15, 2018 at 2:36 pm / Cosmological, Video

  Gaia is an astrometry mission that is built as a continuation of the hugely successful HiPParCoS telescope: the High Precision Parallax Collecting Satellite (HiPParCoS). Since 2013, Gaia has been generating the largest, most precise three-dimensional map of our Galaxy by surveying more than a thousand million stars. Gaia monitors every target star about 70 times over a five-year period recording their positions, distances, movements, and changes in brightness. It is expected to discover hundreds of thousands of new celestial objects, […]

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  Space Engine Universe Simulator

  January 15, 2018 at 12:23 pm / Cosmological, Video

  Space Engine is one impressive project all started by codes written by a single person Vladimir Romanyuk and it is all free! Space Engine is a purely exploratory environment. Almost all objects are real and astronomically mapped using scientific resources such as the HIPPARCOS Project of European Space Agency (ESA) which has now upgraded into the Gaia galaxy mapping mission, the historic 1888 compilation called the New General Catalog/Index Catalog (NGC/IC) of J.L.E. Dreyer, the Messier Objects, the International Astronomical […]

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  Devonian Fossil Forest of Gilboa

  January 10, 2018 at 5:23 pm / Evolution, Natural history, Video

  Spectacularly preserved plant remains unearthed at the Riverside Quarry site in Gilboa, NY date from the Middle Devonian period, approximately 390 million years ago. The site of the “oldest fossil forest” was found in the 1920s. Here in this playlist you can watch six videos highlighting the findings. The videos feature two paleontologists William Stein of the Binghamtom University and Christopher Berry of Cardiff University. The Devonian period was a hugely transformational time for land plants evolving towards forest ecosystems. […]

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  Largest Egg Mass Ever Observed – Lütfü Tanrıöver (2015)

  January 9, 2018 at 12:55 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Natural history, Short Observations

  On July 9th 2015, a Turkish underwater videographer Lütfü Tanrıöver encountered a curious semi-transparent gelatinous mass at a depth of 22 meters (72 feet) while diving with his friends near his hometown of Fethiye on the Mediterranean coast of Anatolia. As every citizen scientist instinctively would, he explored and successfully recorded this observation of huge biological importance on film. It didn’t take long before the BBC Wildlife Service reached out to him about the observation. According to Dr. Michael Vecchione […]

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  Sharing The Secrets – Drew Perlmutter (2015)

  January 7, 2018 at 10:11 am / Ecological Documentaries, Video

  Caves are powerfull places. Our ancestors were inevitably attracted to these geological formations. Prehistoric cave art that has flourished within the last 50 thousand years is an exciting demonstration of our ancestral relationship with these places. The filmmaker Drew Perlmutter brings the story of cave explorers in “TAG” region to the surface. The geology of the Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia is quite unique that has lead to many cave formations. In fact, the region is home to the highest concentration […]

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