Now, I experience it as a tough task- the threading in a needle, as my mom had in my teen years. Either I trim and moisten the end of the thread or push a steel blade's edge into the needle's eye to clear it and try, and retry threading. This job was earlier simplified by using a Threader. But now a lady has invented a fool proof sewing needle.
For any living animal Oxygen is the basic requirement. Without Oxygen there will be no life in it. Recently there was a news about the discovery of creatures living about 3.5 kilometers under the Mediterranean Sea where there is no Oxygen at all!
We have seen about parental care towards young ones in earlier blog posts. Now a frog shows it here. It is the Marsupial Frog (Gastrotheca riobambae, Andean Marsupial Treefrog). Both the male and female frogs take much care both in fertilization and bringing up the young ones. Unlike other frogs, this female marsupial frog has a brood pouch on its back.
Orchid flowers are very beautiful. But the orchids are difficult to grow and have these flowers. There is an easily grown tropical tree that bears flowers resembling Orchid flowers! It is the Purple Orchid Tree (Bauhnia purpurea, Butterfly Tree, Purple Camel's foot, 'Iruvaatchi' in Tamil). Its flowers are pink and fragrant.
Every day we have this visitor from the animal kingdom into our household. It searches here and there for small food particles. If it finds out something attractive, it hurries out and returns with a flotilla of its companions following in a line, one after the other: it is nothing but our active Black Carpenter Ant (Worker) (Camponotus pennsylvanicus, 'Katterumbu' in Tamil)!
In my childhood I was shown the wonder of getting water by simply digging with hands a half a foot deep pit in the sand of river bed! Recently, I encountered a mystery of getting water without even this digging. An old dug-up storm water drain nearby is always dry except in rainy season. In the previous summer, to my amazement I witnessed water gushing out from its floor!
Whatever present in the Nature is mimicked, it will wonder us, is it not? A garden with colorful trees present inside a glass jar(!) is the wonder here - the Chemical garden or the Silica garden! This jar contains a solution of Sodium silicate (common name: Water glass). Inside it small crystals of various metallic salts are placed. Then the colorful trees start to grow instantly and visibly in minutes!
World wide personal problem is our body weight! I see many blogs that are entirely dedicated to posting on 'Weight losing.' Books and magazines quite often carry articles on this weight losing. These indicate that there is a global problem: Obesity. Once I found myself gaining weight due to insufficient activities and high intake of excessively nutritious diet.
It will be funny to see a tiny horse head to move about inside a aquarium tank, isn't it? It will also be exciting to see it as a 'mermaid' of horse! It is a Seahorse (Hippocampus kuda, 'Kadal kuthirai' in Tamil). It is not a mammal; but it is actually a bony fish! It lives in sheltered shallow waters containing coral reefs and sea weeds.
As a little boy I was shown some flying birds that flew past on the sky at dusk. (By doing this my sisters were clever in diverting my attention while they were on babysitting duty!). Those birds make sounds all through such flights as 'qwakgaa, qwakgaa'! I know now what is this bird, that made me curious and wondering, and also introduced me to the hobby, Bird-watching!
I found one day a plant among bushes on the wayside, becoming prominent by popping up by itself with its bright yellow heads. It had large leaves and had grown profusely within a shorter period of time. It was exactly like a robust Senna plant, as if it was from the era of Dinosaurs! I also found grannies picking up its leaves for preparing home remedies for illnesses (Granny's medical treatment, 'Paati Vaithyam' in Tamil!).
In the previous year, one day, I had my nose detecting some musky odor as I entered the junk room of my house. There, down on the floor some patches of oily matter were seen. That smelt musky. My sixth sense indicated me that there must be an intruder. I was right: there was a Musk Shrew (Asian House Shrew, Suncus murinus)!
I find often labels stuck to the cloths that I wear. These labels advertise about the company or the tailor which are unwanted and unsightly marring the good appearance of the cloths. Should I bear them on me always, wherever I go wearing the cloths? I am sure that I shall be unable to remove those labels easily - with a razor blade or by using a stitching needle.
Usually we think that microbes are harmful and that they impair our health. But here is an example for their good beneficial work without which our Termite (Mastotermes darwinensis) cannot live at all! Protozoan (Trichonympha) and other Microbes live in the guts of these termites and aid in the digestion of Cellulose of plant materials by secreting out the enzyme, Cellulase - to release energy from it! (Note here the fact that humans are also weak to digest cellulose!).
A hitherto lifeless inanimate thing starts now to move about - this will amaze you, is it not? In childhood I too wondered this when an iron piece 'went by itself' to attach with a pocket magnet! With the magnet I used to go on testing all the objects in the house. Some coins were attracted by it while others were not. Quality ever- silver utensils were not attracted and so on ....!
After an event in life other events follow. The question that arises within us after knowing about that prime event is: What happened next? I had informed about the unexpected cutting down of my Indian Coral Tree in one of my previous posts (Read it here). Now the tree has grown up and bloomed!
The first animal that usually becomes a member of an Indian household (disapprovingly) is a lizard creeping on the wall or the ceiling. It is the Common House Lizard - the Gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus, 'Palli' or 'Gouli' in Tamil). It is a silent nocturnal lizard. But sometimes it makes sounds suddenly, that alerts and stuns us. Beliefs are attached with its sounds: that its such utterance at that instant means that the decision being made by the person is agreed and approved by it also! Another belief is that it foretells an impending event! I heard also such sounds when these lizards chase and fight or mate.
In the past, man grew fungus and found out that it produced a substance that killed other disease - producing germs. It is the science about the production of Penicillin from the fungus, Penicillium notatum. But in the remote past millions of years ago wasps had found this fact and used this technique in protecting their developing offspring, the larvae! Yes, the Beewolf wasps (Philanthus crabroniformis) produce a cocktail of antibacterial substances from Streptomyces since ages.
One bird that I watched and wondered in my childhood made me to continue Bird-watching as a hobby. It is the Common Tailorbird (Orthotonus sutorius, 'Thaiyal kuruvi' in Tamil). What attracted me to it so much? It is its tiny size compared to that of a hen, its incessant calls, its upright moving tail and its amazing behavior of nest - building!
Then, in 1960s, here in my home town a lane was called after a tree that had been grown along its side. It was called as 'Vaadhaankottaimara Theru' (in Tamil). That tree's common English name is Indian Almond Tree ('Terminalia cattappa', Tropical Almond, ' Vadhaankottai maram' in Tamil)! The tree is characteristic with all its broad, large and deep greenish leaves that turn bright red before they fall down.
