Showing 3 posts tagged costa rica
The Blue Morpho Butterfly is a beautiful brown — yes, brown — butterfly. The microscopic scales on this rainforest butterfly manipulate light, reflecting back an intense blue light that makes them appear blue.
The video above zooms in on the scales. The video below shows the Blue Morpho in action at the Selvatura Butterfly Garden in Costa Rica:
Normally, these little guys would be vulnerable to being picked up by predators such as vultures, sea gulls, raccoons, possums, coyotes, and people. But this is a very lucky nest of Olive Ridley Sea Turtle hatchlings; they are making their way to the water across a Costa Rican beach from a protected nest, under the watch of volunteers.
High-res
That is a Sacoglossan Sea Slug, found in French Polynesia. It is one of the many kinds of life documented over a 24 hour period in one cubic foot underwater by photographer David Liittschwager.
National Geographic has a great (flash) interactive photo gallery, including videos(!), of the five ecosystems that David explored and documented: forest in Central Park, a coral reef in French Polynesia, a Costa Rican tropical cloud forest, South African mountain fynbos (a collection of plants that are mainly shrubs), and a fresh water river in Tennessee.
via Raul.
