Beautiful Animals

I'm pretty sure that this one:



is the Asian Paper Wasp, Polistes chinensis.

Still working on this one:



I hope I'm not the only one who thinks they're beautiful, even though my hands were shaking when I took the pics.

FBM, I especially like the last photo. Gawgeous. I understand your concern about wasps. Ouch. I was once bitten by a wasp. The best and most immediate relief? Meat tenderizer. Worked like a charm.

There are lots more biggests, but I'm gonna end my little odyssey with the biggest of the biggest. The blue whale:



Although the blue whale is unquestionably the largest animal on Earth, is it the largest living thing? I don't think so. Comments? Responses? Is anybody there?

A loved photo from Tai Chi on a2k, re her neighbors:

I believe some of the Sequoia trees are more massive than Blue Whales. Also there are mushrooms with extensive subterranean coverage and some types of trees which are all genetically identical and essentially represent a single organism. Even though they look like a "forrest" of individual trees, they are not individuals.

Meat tenderizer? Huh. Who'd a thunk it?

How about The Great Barrier Reef .The world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.

The largest rodent in the world. I took this picture in May of 2010 in the Amazon.

Grey whale ...

A beautiful and tender moment between mother and infant orangutan

Common scarlet-darter

From an article about humans and birds in today's Guardian:
(good article, by the way)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/27/wings-desire-mark-cocker-birds

Snow geese at dawn in New Mexico.
Photograph: David Tipling


A barn swallow feeds its hatch of young.
Photograph: Reuters/Thomas Krumenacker


Male hummingbirds fight over territory.
Photograph: Nicolas Reusens/Getty Images/Flickr Open

Beautiful - especially the snow geese!

osso, The cattle look crowded. Are they ganged together waiting for something? The bird pics are magnifico. The hummingbirds take my breath away. Thanks for them all, kid.

rosborne, I didn't specify flora or fauna. Wouldn't surprise me if a particularly massive sequoia tree equaled the size of a blue whale. I don't know nuttin' about suberranean stuff. I take your word for it. In fact I find it tres interesting. Thanks mucho.

FBM, I was stung in the airport in Florida. Made the entire flight back to NYC in pain. Ouch. Called the poison control line in NYC when I got home. Meat tenderizer? Yup, meat tenderizer. It worked in seconds. Who knew?

Barry, You mind reader from across the pond you. The great barrier reef is exactly what I was thinking of. If you ever find yourself playing twenty questions (animal, mineral, vegetable), the two best animal ones, in my experience, are coral reefs and pearls. Everyone has heard of coral and pearls, so you can't be accused of choosing something too obscure. And so far, no one has guessed either one. When was the last time I played this game? Decades ago.

c.i., Thanks for the pic. An in-the-flesh encounter with a capybara. Wow.

vonny, Gray whale. Are those feathery looking things whale teeth? Repeating myself, but I'm giving this a wow. The primate pick is beautiful. Heart-warming. Touching. Thank you. The darter is a doozy. Transparent wings. Wonderful.

Nudibranch:

The cattle are ganged together watching Mr. and Mrs. Tai Chi at work on their old schoolhouse renovation. I've remembered that photo.. I think it's hilarious.

It's their baleen - a filter-feeder system inside the mouth, which works when they opens their mouth underwater and take in water. The water is then pushed out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and remain as food source. Baleen is similar to bristles and is made of keratin, the same substance found in human fingernails and hair.

Yep. Before plastic, it was called whalebone and used for ribs in ladies' corsets. Don't know what you did with the rest of the fish.

vonny, Thanks for the explanation. I know what baleen is. Just never saw it looking quite like that before.

Roger, I believe that whale oil had a variety of uses. BTW, a whale ain't a fish. I'm just being picky. Thanks for the underwear info.

Lilac breasted roller:

I've never seen it before either - clever isn't it!

The greater bulldog bat

OMG, that bat photo is an awesome image!!!