The Unstartled Steppes of Dream
I am Ashley.
This is my personal blog. If you want just marine biology, go here.
I love the world; I really don't like people.
I balance all this animosity towards the human race with being an almost always kind and gentle being to all creatures.
I'm highly introverted and nature is my primary escape from humanity.
Creepy-crawly-slimy things are my favorites. Dinosaurs are fantastic.
Future marine biologist; presently an amateur entomologist, ichthyologist, artist, biologist, and writer.
Literature, video game, and music connoisseur.
I'm so full of passion for the world that it hurts.
I think a lot, I laugh a lot, I love a lot.
Almost none of the photos are mine and only some of the drawings are mine.
Listen in.
Gorongosa Pygmy Chameleon (Rhampholeaon gorongosae), photographed on Mount Gorongosa by Piotr Naskrecki (2013).
This species of chameleon has only been spotted by a few people since its discovery in the 1970s, making these photographs particularly spectacular.
(Article)
The earth is now home to over seven billion humans. If you find that hard to fathom, try grasping how many have ever walked the planet.
That’s what American demographer Carl Haub wanted to find out when, in 1975, he heard someone say that 75 percent of the people who’d ever been born were alive at that time.
Dubious, he set out to disprove it, taking two main things into account: (1) the assumed dawn of humanity and (2) average populations at different periods of time.
Using 50,000 B.C. as his starting point, Haub applied crude birth-rates—the number of annual births per thousand people—to each population set, then added them. His estimate? In 1975, 103 billion people had lived, but only 4 percent of them were alive at that time.
Applied to our current population, says Haub, those numbers are around 108 billion, and 6.4 percent. Mind-boggling, indeed.
Related to shrimp and crabs, the giant isopod is a deep-sea crustacean that makes its home on the ocean floor. It is the largest of the known isopods, which on land includes the relatively tiny pill bug.
Photograph by David Schrichte
The fin whale is the second largest creature on Earth, reaching maximum lengths of 82 feet (25 meters) for males and 89 feet (27 meters) for females. Fins are baleen whales: They use the fringelike baleen in their mouths to strain krill and tiny fish from the massive amounts of water they ingest as they feed.
Photograph by Daisy Gilardini
A giant spider crab is illuminated by the lights of a submersible. Protected from some predators by its hard exoskeleton, the creature—which can grow to ten feet (three meters) wide—can also blend in with the ocean floor. Under deeper cover, it can disappear beneath the sponges and other marine life it uses to adorn its shell.
Photograph by Emory Kristof
The world’s largest creatures reside in the ocean, and its depths are home to unusual species whose surprising proportions are unknown on land.
Here, an underwater view captures the billowing tentacles of a lion’s mane jellyfish. The most potent species of jellyfish, the lion’s mane can reach a diameter of 6.6 feet (2 meters) with tentacles topping 49 feet (15 meters).
Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic
Christmas Tree Worms
Photograph by Jean Kunzelman
It might be alluring, but a rare flower hat jelly’s lilac-tipped fringe can deliver a painful sting. Found off Brazil, Argentina, and southern Japan, the jelly’s tentacles can coil and uncoil and are used to capture small fish and other food.
Photograph by e-Photography/Chijimatsu/SeaPics.com
Resembling a sunflower, a sea anemone appears deceptively benign. A close relative of coral and jellyfish, anemones are stinging polyps that spend most of their time waiting for fish to pass close enough to get ensnared in their venom-filled tentacles.
Photograph by Oriana Poindexter, My Shot
Photograph courtesy Davide Lopresti, RSMAS
