In Nature everything is happening with an inner meaning or intention. It may look absurd and dirty. But in animals it is done for goodness - the health. I refer here to Coprophagy, the act of taking one's own faeces. For example, Rabbit (Sylvilagus floridanus, 'Muyal' in Tamil) does this!
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.
At evening just before dusk I used to hear a bird's call nearby the house. When I peeped out I could see small greenish birds sitting on the electric line giving out the call, 'druee, druee, druee.' When disturbed all of them would fly away singing in chorus. They are the Green Bee-eaters (Merops orientalis , Little Green Bee-eater, 'Punchuruttaan' in Tamil).
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!
