Beautiful Animals

osso, Glad you like the photos. The eagle owl pic was a prize winner. The elk photo just struck me as wonderful. Intimate, kinda.

mesquite, What an extraordinary looking creature that Lambis Scorpius is. Other-wordly. I've seen films of scallops propelling themselves away from trouble. It seems to be effective. I tried to watch the video in the link. My computer doesn't do videos well. Didn't see much movement, but thanks for trying.

Red light photography has opened a world to us that would have otherwise remained hidden. Glad you used it--whether or not you thunk it up yourself.

Indian star tortoise:





Caracal:

Oh myyyyy

that is beautiful.

I want to know the camera that took this picture.
The shutter speed.... dear lord........

shewolf, Because the photo was a prize winner, the camera info and other picture-taking info is provided here:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.photos-of-the-year.com/image/challenge/533/464464464eagle-owl.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.photos-of-the-year.com/challenge2005/showphoto.php%3Fpage%3D1%26sort%3D4%26photo%3D3395%26cpage%3D3%26pperpage%3D15%26thecat%3D533&h=600&w=405&sz=131&tbnid=dEHHe1YQ0Pg20M:&tbnh=135&tbnw=91&prev=/images%3Fq%3Deagle%2Bowl%2Bphotos%26um%3D1&start=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=1

If this doesn't work (it looks kinda long), go to google. Enter eagle owl photos. One of the first ones to pop up is this one. Click on it and you'll be at the site.

I don't know what this was. It appeared to be in the lobster family but was small, about 2.5 inches.
What I do know is that he had a nasty disposition. If you tried to pick him up with your hand you would hear a loud click
like a staple gun and suddenly have two holes in your finger bleeding profusely.



This Spotted Puffer also got curious when the Textile was feeding.

The nasty little lobstery thing has a wonderful silver look. Love dem puffer fish. I'm curious to know why some of the fish were so interested in the eating habits of the Textile. Were they hoping for scraps? Happy it wasn't them being eaten.

Who needs aliens from outer space when we've got oceans full of such animals? I can only imagine how much we still don't know. What we haven't yet seen.


Silverback gorilla:





Mature male orangutan:

Perhaps I can help you here. This is what is known as the peacock shrimp, it has some highly developed front claws that it uses to snaps against each other with great vigour, creating a vaccum bubble that implodes upon itself to create temperatures that reaches around 3000 degrees celsius, it uses this ability to stun other animals on order to eat them. It's eyesight is one of the very best within the animal kingdom. If you want to, I could get you the latin name.

The peacock shrimp is probably one of the most specialized animals you'll find at sea.

Here to follow are some pictures taken by norwegian wildlife photographers:

coolwhip, Thanks for the info about the peacock shrimp. I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't need the Latin name. 3000 deg Celsius!!! I looked up peacock shrimp on google. It has something called a peacock mantis shrimp. Is it the same? It's hard to tell from the photos.

The photos of the eagles are positively spectacular. Love the moose. The detail is extraordinary. I want to reach out and touch them. Don't worry. I'll control myself.

Proudly presenting the Cinclus cinclus, or 'fossekall' in norwegian. It is, and has been since '63, the national bird of Norway.



Maybe not as macho as the american balled eagle, but it has its charm.

Looked up fossekall. In English it's a white-throated dipper. It's a lovely bird with interesting habits. I don't require machismo to appreciate a bird. Reading about it reminded me of one of my favorite vacations--a week in Norway many years ago. Bergen and Oslo.

I don'k know what this is called in english, if I were to traslate the norwegian name directly it would be called something like pearl owl. However, I found this picture to be absolutely hilarious.



A little wabbit:



And a fox:

Found some info about the peacock shrimp, or the peacock mantis shrimp as you said roberta.

The latin name is odontodactylus scyllarus, here is an image of this absolutely stunning animal:



I was writing from what I remembered earlier, so I found out that it doesn't use two of its claws to make these vaccum bubbles, rather a hammer-like claw that can strike with forces thousands of times its own body weight. Even capable of shattering bullet proof glass!

Each hammer strike is followed by the collapse of the cavitational bubbles, which creates an additional explosion that might prove to be even more powerful than the impact itself.

O. scyllarus has more colour pigments in its eyes than found in any other animals, a whopping eight pigments. In comparison humans only have three. These eight pigments, in addition to some other traits, gives O. scylliarus the best colour sight in the animal kingdom. It also has two 'sets' of eyes, which makes it capable of seeing polarized light. I'm not really sure what polarized light is, but it sure sounds cool. :wink:

Fratercula arctica, or Atlantic Puffin. Nicknamed 'the parrot of the north' where I live, because of its magnificent colours.

Thanks so much for identifying that critter for me. Back in the days that I had the aquarium we did not have the benefit of internet access. Before making that post I did search, but under the false assumption that it was in the lobster family.

I never cease to be amazed by the wealth of knowledge that is available via members of the A2K community.

Coolwhip, First, thanks for the additional info about the peacock mantis shrimp. What an amazing creature.

Love the photos, especially the fox. Great moment caught on film. So the puffin is the parrot of the north. I like that.

Just glad to help, mesquite. You should be glad that little bugger didn't punch straight through the glass in your aquarium. :wink:

Here are some more photos of norwegian wildlife:

I don't have the names of these majestic birds, but I'm sure some of you do.


Norwegian moose (slightly different from the one on the North American continent, or so I'm told)


Brown bear:

Here are some foxes for Roberta :wink:





These are arctic fox cubs(or puppies?), if I'm not mistaken. They are endangered due to global warming. Places that used to be uninhabitable for the red fox are now attracting them after the temperatures have risen. I.e the habitats of the arctic fox are being taken over by the red fox, which is bigger and stronger.

coolwhip, Did some investigating. I believe the majestic birds are buzzards. Thanks for all the photos.


Baby alligators hitching a ride on mom:





i'iwi (Hawaii):

coolwhip my daughter will be in your country. Living in a tent she tells me.