Robber fly - Nature photographer Thomas Shahan specializes in amazing portraits of tiny insects. It isn't easy. Shahan says that this Robber Fly (Holcocephala fusca), for instance, is "skittish" and doesn't like its picture taken.

Nature by Numbers (Video)

"The Greater Akashic System" – July 15, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) (Subjects: Lightworkers, Intent, To meet God, Past lives, Universe/Galaxy, Earth, Pleiadians, Souls Reincarnate, Invention: Measure Quantum state in 3D, Recalibrates, Multi-Dimensional/Divine, Akashic System to change to new system, Before religion changed the system, DNA, Old system react to Karma, New system react to intent now for next life, Animals (around humans) reincarnate again, This Animal want to come back to the same human, Akashic Inheritance, Reincarnate as Family, Other Planets, Global Unity … etc.)

Question: Dear Kryon: I live in Spain. I am sorry if I will ask you a question you might have already answered, but the translations of your books are very slow and I might not have gathered all information you have already given. I am quite concerned about abandoned animals. It seems that many people buy animals for their children and as soon as they grow, they set them out somewhere. Recently I had the occasion to see a small kitten in the middle of the street. I did not immediately react, since I could have stopped and taken it, without getting out of the car. So, I went on and at the first occasion I could turn, I went back to see if I could take the kitten, but it was to late, somebody had already killed it. This happened some month ago, but I still feel very sorry for that kitten. I just would like to know, what kind of entity are these animals and how does this fit in our world. Are these entities which choose this kind of life, like we do choose our kind of Human life? I see so many abandoned animals and every time I see one, my heart aches... I would like to know more about them.

Answer: Dear one, indeed the answer has been given, but let us give it again so you all understand. Animals are here on earth for three (3) reasons.

(1) The balance of biological life. . . the circle of energy that is needed for you to exist in what you call "nature."

(2) To be harvested. Yes, it's true. Many exist for your sustenance, and this is appropriate. It is a harmony between Human and animal, and always has. Remember the buffalo that willingly came into the indigenous tribes to be sacrificed when called? These are stories that you should examine again. The inappropriateness of today's culture is how these precious creatures are treated. Did you know that if there was an honoring ceremony at their death, they would nourish you better? Did you know that there is ceremony that could benefit all of humanity in this way. Perhaps it's time you saw it.

(3) To be loved and to love. For many cultures, animals serve as surrogate children, loved and taken care of. It gives Humans a chance to show compassion when they need it, and to have unconditional love when they need it. This is extremely important to many, and provides balance and centering for many.

Do animals know all this? At a basic level, they do. Not in the way you "know," but in a cellular awareness they understand that they are here in service to planet earth. If you honor them in all three instances, then balance will be the result. Your feelings about their treatment is important. Temper your reactions with the spiritual logic of their appropriateness and their service to humanity. Honor them in all three cases.

Dian Fossey's birthday celebrated with a Google doodle

Dian Fossey's birthday celebrated with a Google doodle
American zoologist played by Sigourney Weaver in the film Gorillas in the Mist would have been 82 on Thursday (16 January 2014)

Friday, January 13, 2012

Tiny frog claimed as world's smallest vertebrate

Researchers have discovered in Papua New Guinea what they claim is the world's smallest frog

guardian.co.uk, Associated Press, Thursday 12 January 2012

The tiny frog called Paedophryne amanuensis measures around 7mm.
Photograph: Christopher Austin/LSU/AFP/Getty Images

Researchers have discovered in Papua New Guinea what they claim is the world's smallest frog.

An article Wednesday in the journal PLoS One named Paedophryne amauensis as the world's smallest animal with a spine.

The adult frogs are about three-tenths of an inch long, and a millimetre or so smaller than a carp found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The frogs are so small that Louisiana State University herpetologist and environmental biologist Christopher Austin had to enlarge close-up photos to describe them.

Austin discovered the tiny frogs – along with another small frog species – in August 2009 while on a trip to Papua New Guinea to study the extreme diversity of the island's wildlife.

Steven J. Beaupre, a University of Arkansas scientist and president-elect of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, said many vertebrates have males and females of very different sizes, "so it is reasonable that the world's smallest vertebrate may end up being either the males or the females of some specific fish or amphibian species."

He said he doesn't pay attention to "tiniest" reports, but the frogs themselves are a significant discovery.

"The discovery of two new frog species comes as great news against the background of more prevalent accounts of tropical amphibian extinction," he wrote in an email.

Knowing about such tiny creatures and their ecology, he said, helps scientists "better understand the advantages and disadvantages of extreme small size and how such extremes evolve. Fundamentally, these tiny vertebrates provide a window on the principles that constrain animal design."

Austin said that since these frogs hatch out as hoppers rather than tadpoles and live on the ground, their existence contradicts the hypothesis that evolution at large and small extremes is linked to life in water.

At least 29 species of minuscule frogs in equatorial regions worldwide live in leaf litter or moss that is moist year-round and eat even tinier invertebrates, creating a previously unknown "ecological guild" of similar animals with similar life habits, he said.

"We realised these frogs were probably doing something incredibly different from what normal frogs do – invading this open niche of wet leaf litter that is full of really tiny insects that other frogs and possibly other creatures weren't eating," Austin said.

In August 2009, Austin and graduate student Eric Rittmeyer were collecting and recording the mating calls of frogs at night in a tropical forest near the village of Amau in eastern Papua New Guinea, when they heard a chorus of high-pitched "tinks."

"This frog has a call that doesn't sound like a frog at all. It sounds like an insect," he said.Austin estimated that they found 20 previously unknown species in New Guinea, which is such a hotspot of diversity that scientists figure they've described only about six-tenths of all the species living there.

• Get the Guardian's environment news on your iPhone with our new app. You can also join us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+

No comments: