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Those of you without your glasses on may be asking: "why are there fruit gummies on this leaf?"

The answer: these are some absolutely stunning Glass Frogs! You can see straight through these little dudes' skin!

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The Royal Greenhouses of Laeken (Dutch: Koninklijke Serres van Laken, French: Serres Royales de Laeken), are a vast complex of monumental heated greenhouses in the park of the Royal Palace of Laeken in the north of Brussels. It is one of the major tourist attractions of the city.

The complex was commissioned by King Leopold II and designed by Alphonse Balat. Built between 1874 and 1895, the complex was finished with the completion of the so-called “Iron Church”, a domed greenhouse that would originally serve as the royal chapel. The total floor surface of this immense complex is 2.5 hectares (270,000 square feet). 800,000 liters (over 200,000 US gallons) of fuel oil are needed each year to heat the buildings.

The complex can only be visited during a two-week period in April–May each year, when most flowers are in full bloom.

Credits : [Wikipedia] [Olivier Polet] [Luc Viatour]

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Clouds of the Large Magellanic Cloud : The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is an alluring sight in southern skies. But this deep and detailed telescopic view, over 10 months in the making, goes beyond what is visible to most circumnavigators of planet Earth. Spanning over 5 degrees or 10 full moons, the 4x4 panel mosaic was constructed from 3900 frames with a total of 1,060 hours of exposure time in both broadband and narrowband filters. The narrowband filters are designed to transmit only light emitted by sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Ionized by energetic starlight, the atoms emit their characteristic light as electrons are recaptured and the atoms transition to a lower energy state. As a result, in this image the LMC seems covered with its own clouds of ionized gas surrounding its massive, young stars. Sculpted by the strong stellar winds and ultraviolet radiation, the glowing clouds, dominated by emission from hydrogen, are known as H II (ionized hydrogen) regions. Itself composed of many overlapping H II regions, the Tarantula Nebula is the large star forming region at the left. The largest satellite of our Milky Way Galaxy, the LMC is about 15,000 light-years across and lies a mere 160,000 light-years away toward the constellation Dorado. via NASA

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Stick em up!

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A Rose of Jericho three hours after being watered having nearly returned to is previous, alive, state!

The Rose of Jericho(Anastatica hierochuntica) is a species of resurrection plant. These plants are characterized by their ability to use Poikilohydric mechanisms which enable them to survive extreme dehydration for years at a time.

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Saturn’s hexagonal north pole (desktop/laptop) Click the image to download the correct size for your desktop or laptop in high resolution

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ALL TOGETHER NOW

roxy jane jade rose megidos aranea eridan

alternian ladies

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I wanna be this kinda druid…more beastfriend than beastmaster.

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For Gwennie. Happy New Year

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雪柳（ゆきやなぎ） Thunberg’s meadowsweet (Spiraea thunbergii)

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“A sleepy Arctic Fox yawning in Svalbard Norway”

(via)

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