Monday, July 23, 2007

The Largest Beetle - part II

In my opinion the Titan Beetle (Titanus giganteus) is the largest and longest one. The biggest recorded specimen is about 17 cm long. Is powerful, fast and aggressive insect that can cut flesh to bone on human finger.

Source: University of Florida, Wikipedia
See also: The Largest Beetle - part I

Friday, July 20, 2007

Largest flying bird ever

Photo from Thunderbird site listApparently Argentavis magnificens is the largest flying bird ever discovered. Dr. Kenneth E. Campbell, (one of the discoverers) in front of the 25 ft. wingspan Argentavis Magnificens. Display seen at the Natural History Museum, Los Angeles.
Currently accepted estimates:
* Wingspan: 5.7 to 8.3 m (19 - 28 ft)
* Length: 3.5 m (11.5 ft)
* Height: 1.8 to 2 m (5.9 ft - 6.5 ft)
* Weight: 65-100 kg (143 lb - 220 lb)

Source: Angelfire, Wikipedia

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Cobra vs Mongoose


The Mongooses have very fast reactions and interesting tactics when they decide to attack a snake. It looks like a fencer or martial artist. They make feints, provocations, counter attacks, true fighting art. The Small Asian Mongoose is particularly famous snake-eater, they eat even King Cobras.

Iapetus

Saturn's satellite Iapetus (or Japetus) is one of the strangest objects in our Solar system. There is equatorial ridge about 20 km wide and 13 km high extending 1300 km through the center of Cassini Regio. Parts of the ridge rise more than 20 km over the surrounding plains. The ridge forms a complex system including isolated peaks, segments extending for more than 200 km and sections with three near parallel ridges. A an conclusion I'd say that all this seems to be way too unnatural in my opinion.

Source: Wikipedia

The Largest Beetle

Photo from University of Florida
Which one is the world's largest beetle is a very difficult question. All depends what exactly means "largest". Is it the heaviest? May be the longest? But in this case with the antennae or with the horns or without them? Or something else? So, according to what feature is measured the answer is variable. On the picture above we can see top, side, and bottom views of five of the bulkiest insects in the World, compared to a 15-cm (6-inch) scale at left. Images are graphically-sized representations of the five species at their maximum known sizes. Scale was achieved by comparing widths first, then body length. From left to right the species are:
Titanus giganteus – 16.7 cm French Guiana, Brazil
Megasoma actaeon – 13.5 cm Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil
Megasoma elephas – 13.7 cm Mexico through Venezuela
Goliathus regius – 11 cm Ghana, Ivory Coast
Goliathus goliatus – 11 cm Equatorial Africa, central and east
Ghosted to the right of the documented sizes, also to scale, is the mythical "9-inch Titanus" from the popular lore.

See more: The Largest Beetle - part II
Source: Coming soon

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

The Godfather: Opening Scene

Another one of my favourite movie scenes. Without expensive computer effects, only actor's play and producer's art.

Largest Turtle

Photo from Marine Conservation Society
The largest turtle ever recorded anywhere in the world washed up dead at Harlech North Wales in 1988. It was a male leatherback that drowned after becoming entangled in buoy ropes and it weighed 916kg and measured 2.91 metres in length (pictured above). It is now on display at the National Museum and Galleries of Wales in Cardiff.

Source: Marine Conservation Society

Largest Crocodile

The largest species of crocodile is the Saltwater Crocodile and one of the biggest specimens was Gomek (on the photo), measured 5.5 m (17.9 feet) and weighed well over 2,000 pounds (roughly 900 kg) when he died in February 1997. Gomek was captured by George Craig in Papua New Guinea and sold to St. Augustine Alligator Farm in Florida. George also captured even larger crocodile, Oscar, who currently lives on Green Island in Queensland.

Gomek feeding on the famous video record.

In other web-sites we can find that the two largest crocodiles in captivity are Cassius at Marineland Melanesia on Green Island, Australia and Chai Yai (probably on the picture with Steve Irwin), a saltwater/siamese hybrid.
Cassius is 18 feet (5.5m) long. Yai is listed by the Guinness Book of Records at being 19 feet 8 inches (6 m).

Sources: Crocodilian Biology Database, crocodilian.com

Huge Goliath African Tigerfishes

Photo from Dan Douglas
Once we determined that the largest species of African Tetra is the Goliath African Tigerfish (Hydrocynus goliath), we have to try to find also the biggest specimen on record, which is slightly more difficult task. So far what I found we can see on this picture of particularly large exemplar with weight of 36 kg (this is the photo of the biggest one that I found and there was information for slightly bigger specimen but without photo). Supposedly the Tigerfish can reach up to 50 or even 70 kg.

Photo from Greatfish
Another big Tigerfish.

Huge turtle

Photo from Chelydra.Org
The largest species of freshwater turtles is The Alligator Snapping Turtle. There are notes that the biggest specimen on record was either one who had a weight of 107 kg (236 lb) and was housed at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, Illinois according to Wikipedia, either another one who weighted 113 (249 lb) from the Tennessee Aquarium. Actually this one on the photo is named Big Bill and while not the biggest one, it is still likely to be near 100 kg (220 lb).

Source: Chelydra.Org

Most Successful Sniper Ever

Simo Häyhä (December 17, 1905–April 1, 2002) a Finish soldier with 505 confirmed kills against Soviet soldiers is widely considered to be the most successful sniper in history. The unofficial Finnish frontline figure from the battlefield of Kollaa places the number of Häyhä's sniper kills at 542. Besides his sniper kills, Simo Häyhä was also credited with as many as two hundred kills with a Suomi M-31 SMG submachine gun, thus bringing his credited kills to at least 705. All of Häyhä's kills were accomplished within 100 days prior to injuries caused by an enemy bullet.

Source: Wikipedia

Soviet Snipers


Many people think that Vasily Zaytsev is the best (may be better to say deadliest) Soviet sniper, but there is another man - Fyodor Okhlopkov. I have done some researches and apparently he was the best Soviet sniper. Zaytzev had 242 verified kills and Okhlopkov 429. For Zaytsev the real number may be much higher, some argue it might have been as many as 400, but the same is true as well for Okhlopkov, who is on other hand Yakut and often overlooked because that. Despite his ethnics he had typical Russian name. Probably his record is beaten only by Simo Häyhä.

Similar posting: Most Successful Sniper Ever

Monday, July 16, 2007

African Goliath Tigerfish

Photo from sensingtheshift
The African Tigerfish (Hydrocynus goliath) has one of the most horrific aspects, which fresh-water creature can have and also is the largest Tetra, which fact brings to mind the parallel between the house cat and the tiger, which seems oddly fitting in this case. They can grow up to 1.80 m (6 feet). There is something unnatural in their appearance, the teeth are somehow too big and sharp for the rest of the body, also the colour of the teeth is yellowish which looks also abnormal for fish, which would've been a bit more ordinary if it had at least white teeth. And overall it plainly looks like a movie monster.

Source: Sensingtheshift, Wikipedia

Cultural Peculiarities - Stoning


TIL that the stoning is a legal sentence in some countries. In Wikipedia we can see that:
Stoning is a legal sentence for certain activities deemed criminal in some of the Islamic countries governed by Sharia law, including the following:
* Nigeria
* Saudi Arabia
* Iran
* Sudan
* Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
* Pakistan
* and the United Arab Emirates
Source: Wikipedia

Huge hailstone

The largest hailstone ever measured, 17.8 cm (7.0 in) in diameter, with a 47.6 cm (18.75 in) circumference.


On this video we can see the result of an amazing hail. It surely will kill a man if he is outside in similar hailstorm.

Source: Wikipedia

Sunday, July 15, 2007

The Terrible Grasshoper - largest insect title holder

Little Barrier Island giant weta or Wetapunga (Deinacrida heteracantha) from New Zealand is regarded to be the world's biggest insect, more certainly to say the heaviest. The scientific name of the genus is Deinacrida, which in means "Terrible grasshopper" in the Greek language. There is documented specimen of 71gr, which is heavier than sparrow or mouse. As well there are more insects pretending for the title largest, mostly of them beetles, but there is not documented heavier specimen as far as I know.

Update: There are actually bigger insects if we consider also the larvae of some beetles. However the Wetapunga is still the biggest adult (imago) form.

Update N2: Also, apparently Wetapunga means "God of ugly things" in Maori (for the authenticity of which I can't guarantee, but I don't see reason why the guy from the comment section is going to lie)

Source: Wikipedia

Bad birds

This picture is called "bird vs rabbit", but there is no much in therms of "versus", the poor rabbit is adversary in the same sense a Big Mac is an opponent for me. The bird actually is Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) and the rabbit is most likely to be pet dwarf rabbit (at least in my opinion, we can judge from the shape of ears, head and the colour, also it seem too dark for young Hare). It looks bizarre and abnormal for us, but the Herons usually will eat all small enough animals they can catch.


In this video is shown the St James's park in London, where a pelican swallows alive pigeon. The moment was caught on camera by the photographer Cathal McNaughton. The pelicans usually eat fish, but if they are starved, they will eat almost anything they can catch. There are known cases where they have eaten ducklings for example.

All is OK, all it's natural, but the last one is already excessive.

Sources: Daily MailBBC

Deadliest jellyfish

                             Photo from AFPMB
The Box jellyfish, called Sea Wasp (Chironex fleckeri) is the deadliest species of jellyfish. Also it is wide regarded as the deadliest creature ever. They can kill human only in 3 min and the sting is extremely painful.

Few notes of interest: First, they look like jellyfishes, but they are not actually real jellyfishes from the systematics' point of view. And second, there is antidote and few treatments which may help the victims survive the sting and I recommend these interested in the issue to read the more in debt explanation from the Wikipedia's article.

Source: AFPMB, Wikipedia

Most dangerous spiders

Apparently the most venomous spider is the Brazilian wandering spider (Phoneutria spp.). Phoneutria nigriventer's extreme toxicity in a table showing that the amount necessary to kill a 20gm mouse was only .006mg (intravenously) and .0134 subcutaneously as compared to Latrodectus mactans (Black Widow) at 0.110 and 0.2 respectively. Recent studies suggest that these spiders only inject venom in approximately one-third of their bites and may only inject a small amount in another third. The evidence, so far, clearly shows that both P. nigriventer and P. fera (on the photo) are extremely dangerous.

The funnel web spiders are another very venomous genus. Atrax robustus (on the photo) and Atrax formidabilis arguably are the most venomous and dangerous spiders in the world according with AFPMB.

The widow spiders are very dangerous too. The venom is not as potent as in the case of the two genuses above, but the evidence shows that there is comparable amount of deaths and health problems caused by these spiders. Relatively to the most of the spiders their venom is still very potent, (15 times more potent than that of the rattlesnakes; it is also reported to be much more potent than the venom of cobras and coral snakes). For Latrodectus mactans the amount of venom necessary to kill a 20 gm mouse was 0.110 mg (intravenously) and 0.2 mg subcutaneously. 63 deaths were reported in the United States between 1950 and 1989. Prior to the development of antivenom, 5% of reported bites resulted in fatalities. On the photo black widow (possibly Latrodectus mactans) - one of the most dangerous in the genus.

Source: Washington.edu, Wikipedia, AFPMB