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Today’s post is a big plate o’ retweet, because when I checked me Twitter today I found many tasty morsels I knew I had to skewer. Dine well, me hearties.

Iceberg Art

Iceberg Art, all-natural and un-freaking-believable. This image hasn’t been photoshopped, it looked that good in real life. Algae, sediments, and a speedy melt/refreeze process can make icebergs look like waves caught in time, striped lollies, and generally awesome! More eye candy can be had here, some of which blow my mind. I’m updating my wallpaper as I write!

On a distinctly less pretty note, we’ve got a gigantic huntsman staking out our office at the moment. Every time I walk past it I have to swivel my neck so I can watch it and make sure it doesn’t jump onto my head. I had a huntsman on my head once, someone batted it off with a magazine and it was massive. Not cool. I ain’t good with spiders. Squid and sharks, bring it on, but creepy eight legged freaks… arachnids should just stick to land. Unless I’m on land. In which case they should drown themselves. Except for this little guy.

Bagheera_kiplingi_vegetaria

Bagheera kiplingi is mostly vegetarian, between 60 – 90% of its diet is made up of Beltian bodies, nutritious little parcels of yum produced by Acacia trees to feed ants, which in turn act as bodyguards for the Acacia. It’s a jumping spider, and it hides from ant security with jumping, hanging by a silk thread, and chilling on old leaves the ants don’t often patrol. Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science has the full story here. Incidentally, wasn’t Bagheera the panther in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book? Hey, do you remember The Just So Stories? SO GOOD! Here’s an excerpt from The Elephant’s Child, about how the elephant got it’s trunk.

In the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn’t pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant–a new Elephant–an Elephant’s Child–who was full of ‘satiable curiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions. And he lived in Africa, and he filled all Africa with his ‘satiable curiosities.

Read the rest here, or browse through them all here. I recommend the Cat That Walked By Himself, it was always my favourite as a lass. For I am the cat that walks by herself, and all places are alike to me.