Toad eggs adhere in and out of wate
61. Disklike structures adhere to smooth surfaces: Spix's disk-winged bat
"Several of the smallest bats, for instance, use [suction adhesion] to cling to smooth leaves, with disklike structures on wrists and ankles. In the 3.5-gram Thyroptera tricolor of Central America, suction provides the main mechanism; these bats' ...
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Email62. Silk protects from flooding, captures water: barking spider
"The whistling spider uses a silk film over the entrance to its burrow to maintain humidity, and a silk-covered mound at the burrow entrance traps dew or raindrops for drinking and helps prevent flooding in heavy rain. The air trapped around the s...
63. Ragworm burrows with inside-out pharynx.
“The worm burrows using the everted pharynx and the hydrostatic skeleton (Trevor 1977). A recent study show that the larger N. virens uses it everted pharynx to propagate cracks in muddy cohesive sediments (Dorgan et al. 2005).” (Hesselberg 2007)
64. Eyes squirt blood: horned lizard
"Among the most famous, and spectacular, performers of autohemorrhaging are three species of North American desert-dwelling lizard, Phrynosoma cornutum, P. coronatum, and P. solare, which are commonly known (albeit inaccurately) as horned toads&he...
65. Ear flaps keep water out: otters
"Among aquatic mammals such as the otter, the ear-flap can be pressed down to close the ear to water." (Foy and Oxford Scientific Films 1982:167)
66. Adhering to multiple substrates: blackberry
"One of the most mobile of plants…is the blackberry. An individual, once established, immediately starts to seek new territory for itself. It puts out exploratory stems…They begin to advance directly and purposefully…Each stem...
67. Photosynthesis in low-light conditions: Taeniophyllum orchid
"One orchid, taeniophyllum, has roots that are even more versatile. Its scientific name means, rather unattractively, 'tapeworm leaf'. Its roots have not only developed into flat, tapeworm-like shapes several yards long that writhe statically all ...
68. I well remember the aromas
My involvement with food began at an early age. Eating to survive was a given, but my mother gave new meaning to the word "delicious" during the holiday season. This is when she would cook cookies, cakes and pies for Christmas celebrations. My f...
69. Valve regulates water permeability: yellow bush lupine
"In seeds of Trifolium repens, T. pratense, and Lupinus arboreus, the hilum is a hydroscopically activated valve in the impermeable epidermis of the testa. When relative humidity was low the fissure in the hilum opened permitting the seed to dry o...
70. Layers produce iridescence: giant wasp
"We have shown that the iridescence of the wings of Megascolia procer javanensis can be reasonably well understood as resulting from the interference of light in a thin optical chitin layer covering a chitin-melanin absorbing structure...The black...
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