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When alive, its color is dark grey; upon drying it becomes either yellow or brown. Young larvae swim freely until they attach themselves to the sea floor or other adequate ground. After that, they start growing slowly, as it may take as much as 40 years to grow the size of a baseball 1 bath sponge or Spongia officinalis 2 Suberites […]

  As you can see, skeleton shrimp have taken the basic amphipod body plan and dialed all the features to “scary”. Skeleton shrimp live only in saltwater, and mostly near the coast. They eat whatever they can get, which may include protists, detritus, worms, diatoms, and other crustacean larvae. Although some filter feed or scrape

 The beadlet anemoon This is a most common sea anemone that can be found in the intertidial zone on Atlantic rocky shores. The beadlet anemone is most abundant on the lower shore, particularly on exposed coasts, but is also found on the middle and upper shore, especially in rock pools, as well as in damp

Herring FRTs Herring communicate with each other by forcibly expelling gas from the anal area, producing bubbles and a high-pitched sound. The researchers call this sound production an FRT (Fast Repetitive Tick). They did have another word in mind when they created the term, however. Both the Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) and the Pacific herring

Herfstaster De herfstaster (Aster novi-belgii) is een meerderjarige kruidachtige plant. Deze plant stamt uit de VS en is in 1710 naar Europa gebracht . Daar is deze tuinplant  snel verwilderd zodat de herfstaster tegenwoordig ook in natuurgebieden voorkomt. Er zijn tegenwoordig vele cultivars , welke met elkaar gemeen hebben dat ze weinig eisen aan de

’s apparent from watching honey bees that they enjoy a tasty snack of poison ivy nectar. Having observed this, a reader asked “Is there such a thing as poison ivy honey?” I vaguely remember references to poison ivy honey from way back, but I couldn’t remember the details. According to Honey Plants of North America (Lovell 1926),

 The common wall lizard This is an small lizard found in Central and South Europe that lives in crackels in walls, rocks and boulders. They live from insects ( mostly flies, gnats, midgets, moths) and slower food , like caterpillars and woodlice and spiders.  For larger prey the lizard  will thrashes its prey to death

Antlion The antlion is an insect that has a impressive  larva with large fangs. The antlion builds a trap to catch ants and other insects. The trap is a pits dug into the ground. Once its prey tries to escape it is bombarded with sand grains.The larvae of antlions are sometimes referred to as “doodlebugs” because

White-throated dipper These are small , but lumpy. strong birds, living near fast-moving freshwater streams with a stoney underground.. They are capable to dive and swim under water, using there short powerful wings. These wings are not very suited for flying, they fly clumsy, but dippers are fast swimming divers. illustration made by Hendrik Gronvold