Posts tagged penguin
Best Wild Animal Photos of 2012
Announced last Wednesday, these are the winners of the 2012 Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year. This is the 48th year of the international competition, and as always, the entries are an amazing showcase of the world’s best nature photography across 18 separate categories. What’s interesting, though, is how the beauty of nature is juxtaposed against its horrors: we see breathtakingly vibrant emperor penguins and the first adrenaline-filled hunt of cheetah cubs, and then beside them is a strikingly lonely polar bear on a crumbling island of ice, and the horrifying mass carcasses of sharks harvested only for their fins. It is a reminder that yes, nature is brilliant and beautiful and wondrous, but it’s also wild and terrifying, and sometimes humans are the cause of it.
oooh pretty.
(via dendroica)
Antarctic Moss Lives Off Penguin Poo
The moss grows in the Antarctic summer and can be an indicator of climate change. Using nitrogen analysis of the soil, scientists found nutrients from seabirds’ waste entering the plants.
“They form these big turfs of bright, almost fluorescent green. It is really soft and velvety to touch, and warms with the sun. It’s quite a lot warmer than the air,” said plant biologist Sharon Robinson.
Tourists on an expedition spotted the rare bird that has a mutation that dilutes its feather pigments.
