Earth Touch Blog

Photography

Flickr group: pic of the day – great white egret May 2 2008

The great white egret, also known simply as the great egret Ardea alba, is the world’s largest egret.

Photography

Flickr group: pic of the day – mandarin duck Mar 28 2008

The mandarin duck (Aix galericulata) is a medium-sized bird, closely related to the North American wood duck. The adult male as shown in this picture is recognisable because of its vivid and unique colouring.

Earth-Touch in-house

Highlights podcasts are a hit Feb 7 2008

Earth-Touch highlights podcasts are now going to be available weekly.

Wildlife news from around the world

Caterpillars trick ants Jan 29 2008

When humans make themselves smell more alluring than they really are it’s fairly harmless, but it’s a case of life and death for the larvae of Alcon blue butterflies, which trick red ants into feeding them, leaving the young ants to starve.

Alcon caterpillars dupe the ants by giving off a scent which mimics that of the insects’ own larvae.

Guest blogs

Capturing spirit of place Jan 29 2008

Guest Blog By Diane Hossick

Back in the 1970s, the novelist Lawrence Durrell (brother of naturalist Gerald Durrell) presented a memorable BBC TV series entitled Spirit of Place. Beautifully shot, it matched Durrell’s inimitable use of language with landscape, flora, fauna, and people, focusing on European and North African places of great beauty: towns, villages, coast and countryside.

Did you know?

Did You Know? Barn swallow Nov 22 2007

Five million barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) migrate from Europe to the Mt Moreland reed bed on the KwaZulu-Natal coast of South Africa in the Southern Hemisphere’s summer months of October and November each year, returning in the autumn.

Wildlife news from around the world

Rare divers on the rise in some parts of UK Sep 17 2007

The numbers of rare black-throated divers (Gavia arctica), also known as Arctic “loons” in North America, and red-throated divers (pictured above), or red-throated loons (Gavia stellata), are on the rise in Scotland and the Hebrides Islands, off the west coast of Scotland.

Wildlife news from around the world

Scientists find “continent” of rare species deep in the Mid-Atlantic Sep 7 2007

INWARD-POINTING TEETH: A rare viperfish in the North Atlantic has teeth designed to entrap prey. Photos courtesy:  David Shale

A viperfish with ice-pick-like teeth, a polka-dotted glass squid that resembles a beach ball, sea cucumbers and possibly a new species of ostracod or seed shrimp, are among the fascinating deep sea creatures found by scientists between 800m and 3500m deep (half a mile and 2.2 miles) along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the North Atlantic Ocean, LiveScience reported.