A royal visitor

I was just going to put the rabbit back in hutch before going out. The rabbit's name is Hot Chocolate (or Chocky for short), and he is allowed to enjoy the freedom of running around our backyard when we are home - which he loves and gets into all sorts of mischief - but he goes back in his hutch when we're out. He is my flatmate's daughter's rabbit, but when they are away, such as they were last weekend, I get the privilege of rabbit-sitting. He is a pretty fun wee guy so of course I don't mind!

Hot Chocolate getting sad he wasn't invited to the photoshoot with my visitor...

Walking across the lawn, I saw a monarch butterfly in the grass. It was crawling, but seemed unable to fly. It was a cold cloudy morning, and I figured maybe it was just a bit cold. If there had been a patch of sun, I'd have put him in the sun for a little bit. So instead I took him inside. He wouldn't sit still, crawling everywhere. I made him up some sugar water, but he just kept trying to walk through it, and as he liked to carry his wings open, drag them through it too, which wasn't helpful. I had to go, so I just left him in my room and hoped he would be ok and that my resident praying mantis wasn't about to get an easy feed.

When I returned home in the afternoon, I was pleased to find him still in one piece, hanging out on my bed. I tried giving him some sugar water again, and this time he figured out what to do - in went his long tounge. Five minutes later he was flying around my room like a pro! He obviously just needed a little energy to get going. So I opened my door and said goodbye as he flew out into the garden.

My little royal visitor made my day, and I am glad I was able to help him on his way :)

I Spy With My Little Eye

Sometimes I think about how beautiful the world is. I feel blessed to live on such a beautiful planet and to have eyes that allow me to witness that beauty. The human eye contains four different photoreceptors: rods that detect the presence of light (i.e allow us to see in black and white and detect movement) and three types of cones that allow us to see in colour. Each cone type detects a different colour - red, green or blue. All the colours we see are the result of different combinations of those cones being stimulated simultaneously by the light entering the eyes. As humans, our eyesight is one of our more developed senses - one that we rely heavily on each day, or at least I know I do. Yet, Louie Schwartzburg compares our visual range to a single octave of the musical scale.

Many animals have the capacity to see light frequencies we cannnot. For example, honey bees can see ultraviolet, and many flowers have patterns on their petals that are not visible to the naked human eye that become visible under ultraviolet light, that aid bees in locating nectar and pollen. We already admire flowers for their beauty, but imagine being able to see the additional beauty visible to the bees. But there is one creature that makes me marvel even more at its visual capabilities...

The Mantis Shrimp 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OdontodactylusScyllarus.jpg

This shrimp-like creature is not actually a shrimp, but a group of crustaceans belonging to the Order Stromatopoda. They are predatory creatures found in shallow tropical and sub-tropical seas around the world. The mantis shrimp is noteworthy for several reasons, including its viciousness and strength, its complex signaling behaviours and its extraordinary eyesight.

The eye of the mantis shrimp has at least 16 different photoreceptors, of which 12-13 are cones for detecting colour. Moreover, they are capable of seeing polarised light. If the world looks as amazing as it does through our human eyes, imagine how amazing it would look through the eyes of the mantis shrimp...