Adventure Ausrama Blog

You may think humans are changing to adapt to city life. However, animals living in cities are evolving faster. Metabolisms of the little creatures are running hot. In Puerto Rico, anole lizards can travel across concrete due to changes in their feet structure. Charles Darwin did get things wrong. Evolution does not just happen over tens of thousands of years. It is dynamic. Alterations are rapid. PCB (Polychlorinated Biphenyls) levels rise in cities and it will kill some animals. The mummichog fish has quickly evolved to survive the poisonous chemical. The shorter the lifespan of living organisms the faster they evolve. A long-time resident of cities is the European blackbird. It has developed more practical beaks and songs. Moreover, their digestive system can digest food scraps discarded by people. Urban blackbirds no longer migrate. Mosquitoes in the London Underground have changed dramatically. They breed one-on-one, not in the clouds of mozzies in a sexual frenzy like their...

 ▶Societies origin is told by rock carvings. They are preserved on rock - civilization.| origin or rock oh have so origin ah you on shown so you or have oh petroglyphs | age found. swedish ◀ | You don't think of Sweden as a place where Man's past has been recorded. However, petroglyphs which are image outlines marked in the rockface are common in that country. They have been maintained by people throughout the ages. The first "drawings" were made 4,000 years ago.      | of rock it sea you origin or civilization up have we shown of origin in you ho petroglyphs oh civilization la shown ha sea go have oh petroglyphs shown civilization or sea | Depictions show close affinity with the sea and nature. Bowmen hunt animals among longships. It is a mishmash of activity. Bulls and antlered stags are everywhere. There are even giants with spindly legs. Some similar sites are in the British Isles and Spain, the idea taken there by Scandinavians moving west. ...

As international trade continues so does "equalization" of the planet. Many marine species are now found in all waters of the world. This is because transport ships literally hoover up animals in ballast water, which is released at any time, any place, when it is no longer needed. All ballast water is released into a port when cargo is taken onboard. Marine survivors of this rough treatment give the local environment a go. Some are successful and multiply to epidemic proportions. Zebra mussels and Pacific seastars in particular are a major problem. An Australian study gathered data such as ports where ballast was likely to be taken on and where it would probably be released. Marine species spread this way were identified and it was predicted how long they would survive. This data was fed into a computer. It was noticed that shipping volume was increasing mainly in the transport of primary products. Most of this Australian export was delivered to Asia and...

The toads cannot be stopped - cane toads that is. Some do-gooders are pressing the United Nations to act to stop the vermin from moving in to the Northern Territory and Western Australia. This won't do any good, Territories, states and the Federal Government have given up already. Even annual kills have not reduced the population one iota. Because the pests are moving into the Purnululu National Park, the Wilderness Society is pressing the World Heritage Center in Paris to take action. The Australian Authorities would welcome any extra funding they can get, but it is common knowledge that nothing can be done. World Heritage rules hold states, territories and national governments responsible to control pests in protected parks. In this instance it would be foolish for legal action to ensue. Trapping and fencing will not work. Australian laboratories are working on a biological control mechanism. Other countries with similar problems are working on a similar solution. Until an a...

If you want to see weird animals go visit Australia. Most animals are spread throughout the world but Australian marsupials stay strictly at home on this "lost continent". Two hundred kinds of marsupials live only in Australia the kangaroo being the most commonly known. When the platypus was first taken to England scientists of the day said it was a hoax, a made up animal. The koala seemed to be a cuddly bear. Unfortunately wild koalas can be very nasty and do not take kindly to being picked up. So aligned to its environment, the Tasmanian Tiger soon became extinct with the arrival of Europeans. Besides marsupials, other creatures make life difficult for people living on this continent. Red back and funnel web spiders are dangerous. The box jellyfish also causes much pain to humans. Small animals have died from their sting. Don't let the presence of these put you off from a visit to this great country. Oh, I nearly forgot; crocodile lives up north. http://www.adventur...

Not much can be done about saving endangered species when the great majority of people "don't give a damn". Like global warming many just do not want to hear the truth. Money is not forthcoming for conservation. Stopping animals from going extinct is only being done on a piecemeal basis. We have to choose what to save. This really means that the blame for the loss of some animals lies solely with Mankind. Just who is to decide the fate of creatures is not yet known. It will have to be bodies that receive funding for such purposes. They are probably doing the selection process as we speak. If what is to be saved and what is to be lost was publicly known there would probably be an outcry - everyone has their favorites. More funding is the answer of course. Whether times be good or bad giving money for conservation has never been popular. Other things seem more important. It is really inevitable that prioritizing what goes extinct will occur. The global warming ...

Birds are the most diverse creatures on Earth.  Not only have they changed into different species on large continents, they have also adapted specifically to environments on islands. A new classification system is in the form of a circle with increasing diversity as one moves out in time from the center.  different types of birds are correctly located on the figure covering a period of 50 million years. There is not one specific ancestor.  "Base" species take the form  of a circle of time moving out from the center and new kinds of birds branch off directly to the outer edge.  Fast evolving birds are in red; slower ones are drawn in blue. Significantly birds such as woodpeckers often split into new species, while hornbills, for example, did not.  There was more diversification in the Western Hemisphere.  Furthermore, species did not proliferate in the tropics because the climate remained stable there over a long period. http://www.adventure--austral...

Predictions on what alien life could look like are limited: movie aliens are typically humanoid with various outer "textures". An understanding of the evolution of life forms on other planets can be gained by examining slimy mold in forests. Amoebas living in slime for the most part are single-celled creatures, but they do collect together forming complex bodies that crawl. Other groups pulsate. New work has identified signals that make the little creatures congregate together. Researchers put Phusarum polycephalum (many-headed slime mold) in a maze, then placed two pieces of food further inside the twisting corridors. The "thing" tested the paths with tendrils, backing away when it reached a dead end. Four hours later it located and devoured the food. A map of Spain was laid out and food was placed on large cities with slime mold being released to do its work. A network of tentacles spread out over the map almost exactly the same as the highway system of Spa...

Things have been falling from the sky for hundreds of years with no solid explanation. It has been claimed that marble pillars from ancient Rome fell gently to earth a century or so ago. This is deemed to be just a story, but Frogs, fish, worms and squid being dumped onto the earth during rainstorms is fact. The main theory is that they were picked up from small shallow ponds by whirlwinds. This is just theory and has not be proven. Indeed, no one has observed actual "pick up" occurring. When a fall has taken place more of the same can be expected. The species of frogs and fish are not always local. They are from different climes than the dumping location. Such passengers of storm have one thing in common: they are generally small. Although stories of small creatures falling with rain are usually much the same, some cases are truly extraordinary. Fish fell from the sky during a Singaporean earthquake in 1861. Leonard Bourne was running in a rainstorm in 1966 in Australia when...