water
101. Heliamphora use shape to filter water of prey.
This carnivorous plant prevents its pitcher (used for trapping animals) from overflowing by including a narrow gap near the top of the rolled, zipped up leaf. This gap allows excess water to leak out, yet is small enough to keep prey inside the pi...
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Email102. Beetle wing condenses water in dry climate.
"Desert magician, a darkling beetle conjures moisture where there appears to be none. Even in Africa's harsh Namib Desert, dew forms at daybreak. As condensation forms on its shiny exoskelton, the beetle tilts forward, sending water down its body ...
103. Nasal turbinates reduce water loss: northern elephant seal
"Elephant seals fast completely from food and water for 1-3 months during terrestrial breeding. Temporal countercurrent heat exchange in the nasal passage reduces expired air temperature (Te) below body temperature (Tb). At a mean ambient temperat...
104. Hairs detect changes in water current: shrimp
"One tiny crustacean, Euchaeta rimana, combines elements of the fish's sensitive skin and the spider's motion-sensitive hairs. The shrimp moves its mouthparts to create a smooth water current that it can detect through sensory hairs on its antenna...
105. Suckers steal water and nutrients: Australian Christmas tree
"The fact is that the Christmas tree steals the water that its neighbours have managed to extract from the parched ground before they themselves are able to make use of it. A pair of sharp woody pincers then develops from the side of the collar op...
106. Legs 'row' across water: fishing spider
"What happens is that the leg and dimple (the latter from the downward weight transferred by the leg) act as a unit. Both move rearward as the animal pushes, and the rearward drag of the unit generates the forward thrust (fig. 5.8b). (Moving a dim...
107. Water vapor harvesting: Namib desert beetle
The Namib Desert is characterized by high temperatures, strong winds, and negligible rainfall, but it does experience nocturnal and early morning fogs that move in from the Atlantic Ocean. The fog droplets are unusually small, about 1-40 microns i...
108. Grooves gather water.
"The thorny devil, a tiny highly specialised lizard from the central Australian desert which lives entirely on ants has each scale enlarged and drawn out to a point in the centre. Few birds could relish such a thorny mouthful and to that extent, t...
109. Stems direct water into ground.
In Australia's southwestern region, more than 90 percent of native scrub and woodland habitat has been cleared for plowed wheat fields and sheep pasture. "Why did a water cycle that once supported one of the richest plant communities outside the t...
110. Plants minimize water loss: desert
"The vegetation of arid ecosystems displays scale-free, self-organized spatial patterns. Monitoring of such patterns could provide warning signals of the occurrence of sudden shifts towards desert conditions…Scanlon et al. 4 (page 209) and ...
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