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Cape Conran Jan 2017

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Orange everlastings, (Bracteantha subundulata) in bloom at Mt Buffalo, Victoria, Australia. January 2016

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Grevillea refracta, Tanami Track & Lajamanu turnoff. May 2016

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Morning with cranes | by PeterGrayPhoto | http://ift.tt/1G6kN8R

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Seadragon in motion (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus) Learn more about this rare Australian species.

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Seadragon by Peter.Thurgood

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Leafy Sea Dragon | Phycodurus eques

(by NaSseR.Q8[BRB])

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If you have every wondered what a Staghorn Fern (Platycerium superbum) looks like after 25 years of cultivation, now you have an idea.

This Australian native is normally found in rainforests, where it grows on trees and creates a “nest” where humus accumulates.

Like many orchids, bromeliads, and other ferns, it is an epiphyte (a non-parasitic plant that lives on another plant, instead of rooting in soil).

These plants are excellent at deriving or accumulating nutrition from their environment (pooling water, efficiently using water vapour, and deriving nutrition from organic detritus).

In nature, these plants are also important habitats: becoming micro-ecosystems that support insects, amphibians, reptiles, and other organisms.

#epiphytes #ferns #Staghorn fern

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The top image is a photograph of a lush rainforest canopy. The bottom image colors each tree based on its species.

How? It’s all thanks to a special lab built by ecologist Greg Asner inside a twin-turboprop airplane. From a few thousand feet up, the Carnegie Airborne Observatory uses lasers, spectrometers and other instruments to build a detailed 3-D model of a forest, identify different species of vegetation and quantify carbon sequestration. It’s a lot quicker than tramping through the jungle and taking these measurements on foot.

A fun tidbit from the full story: "On one occasion, he and his team mapped more than 6,500 square miles of the Colombian Amazon at night — about the size of Connecticut plus Rhode Island — flying with all their lights out to avoid being shot at by the FARC, the Colombian rebel force.”

Images: Greg Asner, Carnegie Airborne Observatory

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Pantanal is the world’s largest wetland. Aside from the beautiful scenery, pantanal is also home to some amazing (and weird) wildlife such as the capybaras and giant ant-eaters.

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In Ma-Adan, Iraq marsh dwellers have populated the Edenic wetlands for almost 5000 years. The wetland allowed for the community to be almost completely self sufficient, providing sturdy reeds as building material for homes and boats, and tender reed shoots provided plentiful forage for water buffalo, who provided milk and dung used to fuel fires.

Read more here

Similar communities have been established in Peru, as seen in our previous post.

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Sunset over the wet savanna (by Pierson Hill)

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Adult hoary marmot standing guard at the entrance of his den on Mt. Roberts, Juneau, Alaska

by MostlyBurds

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Ken and Julia Yonetani, The Last Supper, 2014

The Last Supper, a 9 m long banquet table sculpted entirely from more than one tonne of Murray River salt, points to concerns arising from increasing salinity levels in Australia and unsustainable agricultural practices. In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, the massive banquet of luxurious foodstuffs also becomes a larger visualisation of the problems of food security and safety in an increasingly toxic world.

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It is rare that I completely surrender in awe of the sublime, but the Juvet hotel in Norway is one of those discoveries. The balance and simultaneous contrast between the forces of nature and architecture is just jaw-dropping. The empty, sleek, well proportioned yet warm and beautifully...