Category Archives: Nature

Great Nature Mount Tai in China(II)

Geographic Environment

Mount Tai runs through the central part of Shandong Province, within the territory of Tai’an City, between Tai’an, Jinan and Laiwu.

In front of Mount Tai is Qufu, the hometown of Confucius, and back to Jinan city, the city of Quancheng. Mount Taishan rises in the east of the North China Plain and is above the Qilu Plain. It faces the sea in the East and the Yellow River in the west. In the south, there are Wen, Click Here For More. Sihuang and Huaihe rivers. Its East-West length is about 200 kilometers. Its north-south width is about 50 kilometers. Its main mountain range and offsets cover more than ten surrounding counties. It covers an area of 426 square kilometers and its main peak, Yuhuangding, is 1,545 meters above sea level.Click Here For More.

Mount Tai is the largest mountain range in the hills of Shandong Province. The stratum is the typical basement and caprock structure area of North China Platform. The southern part of the plateau rises greatly, and the caprock is weathered away, revealing a large area of basement- Mount Tai Complex, i.e. the stratum of Mount Tai Group in the Archaeozoic Era. Its absolute age is about 2.5 billion years, and it is one of the oldest strata in China. In the north, the rise is small, and the typical Paleozoic strata developed on the North China platform are preserved in the caprock.

Water Bear(II)

Science History

“Little Water Bear” was first described by a priest named Goeze (Full name Johann August Ephraim Goeze) in 1773, but it is incomplete. In 1774 and 1776, Italians  Lazzaro Spallanzani, a biologist, discovered that “slow-moving animals” (Tardigrada) can “resurrect” without taking off their protective shells in a water-scarce environment.Click Here For More.

Fossils of water bears show that this species existed as early as the Cambrian Period 500 million years ago. Since their discovery, interest in the taxonomic position, morphology, life style, histology and Hidden nature of tarda has increased.

In 1851, Dujardin believed that Tardigrada was an organism originally living in the ocean, which was the first step in the classification of Tardigrada. From 1907 to 1909 Murray collected samples of a variety of Tardigrada during his British-Antarctic expedition. This led to a rise of 25 species in a very short period of time. In 1928, Mr. Turing established a new order for Tardigrada.

According to Dujardin in 1851, they had a pharynx similar to that of nematode animals, and considered “water bear” to be a close relative of nematode animals. In 1909, Richter J believed that its close relatives should be arthropods. At the same time, the most experts agree with this statement. It was classified as an arthropod class in 1929 on the basis of histological evidence at that time. By 1953, a technological basis was finally available for measuring oxygen consumption in the normal and cryptic state of Tardigrada animals. In 1968, the scientists observed the storage cells of Tardigrada animals under an electron microscope.

The Most Clever Marine Animal(II)

The largest octopus is the Enteroctopus dofleini in the North Pacific Ocean, in February 1973, a diver caught a large octopus at the Shahoud Canal in Washington. The Octopus was 15.6 meters in diameter and weighed 53.6 kilograms when its wrists and feet unfolded. The octopus, 1.5-2 meters long, is about 6 millimeters in diameter and more than 100 grams in gravity.click

Thinking

Jim, an octopus expert who has been working on Octopus research for many years,click points out that octopus has “conceptual thinking” and can solve complex problems by itself, which makes it have the ability to walk with two feet. He also noticed on the post as the octopus is one of the most diverse creatures that ever appeared on earth comparing to Human. The octopus has very developed eyes and this is the only similarity between the octopus and humans. It is quite different from humans in other ways: the octopus has three hearts, two memory systems (one is the brain memory system, the other is directly connected to the sucker), 500 million neurons in the octopus brain, and some very sensitive chemical and tactile receptors. This unique nerve structure makes it more capable of thinking than ordinary animals.

Scientists have tested octopus: click scientists put a glass bottle containing lobster into the water, but the bottle was corked. The Octopus revolved around the bottle for a few times and then wrapped it around with its limbs. Then it pulled the cork with its limbs from various angles and finally pulled it out successfully to get a good meal.

Can the Human Protect the Nature?

There are many kinds of flowers near extinction, how can we protect them?

A young natural environmental protectionist hang a rope with the mountain climbing on the shores of the Napali Coast of the Hawaiian Islands, he close to few plants carefully. He transfer pollen like a pollinator, the pollen were stored in a small glass bottle which needed he dipped by a water color brush and paint on. This kind of plant called Brisghana gs, it is an extremely endangered plant of the genus Campanula. Its large fleshy leaves form a flower pattern, standing at 3 to 16 feet. There may be only 5 groups left in this plant, and a total of 45 to 65 plants live in the wild.Click Here For More.

Large-scale relief work in Hawaii has already worked for the woody genus. Not only the rare plants in the wild are pollinated by artificial pollination, but the seedlings cultivated in the greenhouse are now returning to their previous habitats. Two exotic introduced hawk moths, tomato hawk moth and tobacco hawk moth, seem to replace the unique pollinator moth of the genus Brassica. However, humans cannot intervene to manage every endangered flowering plant in the world and do artificial pollination superheroes to save each species. We must work to change some of the bad habits of human beings to protect habitats, flowering plants, and animal pollinators who have evolved with them.

Thousands of wildflower species around the world are on the verge of extinction, and many have disappeared. Flowering plants themselves should be protected. If the protection of flowers needs to be rationalized economically, we don’t have to look far away. Click Here For More. It is enough to look at our own garden. Many endangered flowers in the world are the ancestors of our favorite garden flowers and cut flowers. If flowering plants are our true companion plants, then we must consider how to care for them and their wild relatives. Daily news or NGO annual reports are not only full of worrying statistics.

Scientists, naturalists, students, civic scientists and volunteers are busy working on planting, transplanting and caring for rare plants. The concept of natural environmental protection is spreading, and now people are helping to plant flowering plants because they are our partners. Click Here For More. Some of plants neared extinct, but now they have a light future again since the action that people adopt. Planting local wildflowers or traditional varieties in private and public gardens suitable for pollinators’ survival, without the use of pesticides or herbicides, and joining civil public events and organizations, through which we can make significant efforts to protect flowers and their pollinators. Doing this may be a small step to protecting nature, but by gathering our efforts from all the world, you can quickly provide lasting protection for your flowers. We can be the housekeeper of plants, starting with their own homes, backyards and parks. To make our own contribution, we can buy organic flowers, especially those certified by various agencies. We can support the use of pollution-free insecticide during planting.

Natural Wonders in China(II)

Zhangjiajie

Known by the world for the movie Avatar from James Cameron, Zhangjiajie is the first National Forest Park of China and a World Geopark listed in 2004. Covering an area of 1840 hectares, the Zhangjiajie Park is a heavenly Pandora formed by complex geological structures and peculiar landforms, say more than 3000 remarkable peaks standing into sky.

As a magic creation from the nature, Zhangjiajie in Wulingyuan is the wonderland where many Chinese TV productions or movies were filmed, like the Dream of Red Mansions, Journey to the West – two of the four greatest Chinese novels. Identified as National Forest Park with Yangjiajie, Tianzi Mountain, Suoxiyu Nature Reserve, Zhangjiajie is the most excellent part of capacious Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Area. As a paradise for adventurers, here are countless vertical cliffs, beautiful Golden Whip Brook, thrilling glass skywalk encircling Tianmen Mountain for 60m, the highest water-eroded mountain cave–Tianmen Cave, frightening Yaozi Village, best views of all the peculiar peaks and top stone bridge in broad Yuanjiajie, One Step to Reach the Sky in the lasted discovered Yangjiajie with dense forest, shrinking fairyland to watch the most original natural landscape in Tianzi Mountain.

Zhangjiajie is the major tourist city in China, where has a lot natural tourist attractions, we suggest you to travel if you have a chance.

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How Much You Know About Ants

Ants are insects as alias ants, belonging to the Arthropoda, Insecta, Hymenoptera, Formicicus. There are more than 11,700 breeds of ants known in the world, including 283 genera and 21 subfamilies. There are more than 600 species of ants identified in China. New breed of asexual ants have also been discovered recently. Ants live long, workers can survive for weeks to 3-10 years, and Queens can survive for years or even ten years. An ant nest can grow in 1 places for several years or even more than ten years. Well, there is one more thing to popular science that termites do not belong to ants.

Form and Features

There are 21 subfamilies and 283 genera of ants (the mainstream is the taxonomic system of 16 subfamilies and 21 subfamilies compared to the new system, which has identified several subfamilies from the ponerine). Generally, the body is small with black, brown, yellow and red colors, and the body wall is elastic, smooth or slightly hairy. Mouthparts are chewy and upper jaw are well developed. The shape of feeler of Ants are like knee of people, the scape as extra long, 2 or 3 section expansion in end, and whole antenna with 4 to 13 segments. Its abdomen is nodular.

 

The outer part of the ant is divided into three parts: the chest, the abdomen and the six legs. The ant egg is about 0.5 millimeters long, with irregular oval, milky white, larva-like and worm-like translucency. Worker ants are small in size, about 2.8 millimeters in body and brown in body. Males and females are relatively large. Belly fat, head and chest brown color. The first half of the abdomen is brownish yellow and the latter half is brown.

 

Social Character

Ants are typical social groups. 3 elements of sociality: The same breeds can cooperate with each other to care for the larvae; With clear division of labor; At least two generations in the ant colony overlap (excluding individual cases), and the offspring can take care of the previous generation for a period of time.

 

Ants are also famous architects in the animal world. They use their jaws to dig holes in the ground and carry sand through every grains of sand to build their nest. The “room” of the ant nest will remain at the beginning of the construction unless the soil is seriously dried.

More animals from New Zealand.

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