Natural Wonders
Father Love
Mother love has been well publicized. When the spotlight is turned on the emperor penguin, it’s father’s turn. This biggest of the penguins stands nearly four feet tall. About April—late fall in their homeland Antarctica—they all assemble in an agreed-upon place. There they court ashore for about two months. They live on love, you might say, since they do no eating during this time. Then the female lays an egg and leaves. The male rolls the egg onto his feet, covers it over with a slab of his fat, and stands there for two months. By then, hopefully, Mamma is back from her two-month eating binge with stored-up food for the newly hatched chick. If she doesn’t show up, Daddy has to cough up the lining of his throat and feed it to his new offspring. By now he has fasted four months and is 40 percent lighter. But look at that beautiful baby—it makes it all worthwhile!
A Spider’s Flypaper
Out of the orb-weaver spider’s spinnerets comes the liquid protein material that quickly hardens as it is expertly strung into those beautiful webs you see laden with early morning dew. The spinnerets can be manipulated to produce several different kinds of web—some strands thick, some thin, and some sticky. Most of the silk is not sticky, but some strands strategically placed are. They are the ones that hang on to the hapless flies—yet never entangle the spider. With its mouth the spider oils its feet and then walks on the sticky silk with impunity.
A Fish With Flashlights
Have you ever been momentarily blinded at night by someone throwing the beam of a flashlight in your eyes? Then you know how some sea creatures feel when they are about to dine on a tasty fish and suddenly have it flash a green light into their eyes and temporarily blind them. By the time they recover, their meal has vanished. Flashlight fish, as these light bearers are commonly called, do not make their own light, as do fireflies and glowworms and most other bioluminescent creatures. In pouches under its eyes the flashlight fish stores bacteria that actually produce the light. The fish can regulate the amount of light the bacteria produce, mainly through the control of oxygen. The pouch containing the bacteria has its own separate eyelid by means of which it covers or reveals the green light. It is believed that in addition to using these flashlights to temporarily blind predators, the flashlight fish uses them in communicating and in foraging for food.