#firefly

#firefly

Winners of the Nature Conservancy Photo Contest 2021Nature is full of beauty and perfection. Being with nature is like looking at a masterpiece. It's a good thing that a camera exists so that we can capture nature's artwork.Photographers from all over the world share their views of nature for the Nature Conservancy Photo Contest 2021. The photos are breathtaking, inspiring, and even moving. The grand prize winner of the contest catches a western lowland female gorilla 'Malui' walking through a cloud of butterflies. This was captured by Anup Shah in December 2011 at Bai Hokou, Dzanga Sangha Special Dense Forest Reserve, Central African Republic.Check out all the images that won by category over at The Nature Conservancy.Image above: Anup Shah/TNC Photo Contest 2021#nature #photocontest #gorilla

How Do Fireflies Synchronize Their Flashings? By Looking at Each OtherIt's a spectacular summertime display of natural light: thousands of male fireflies flashing together in harmony but how in the world do they know when to synchronize flashings?New findings by Orit Peleg of the University of Colorado at Boulder and colleagues suggest that individual fireflies know when to flash their lights in unison by ... looking at other fireflies!When the researchers, for example, put a single male into the pop tent all on his own, that bug would flash without a good sense of rhythm—a few bursts here, a few bursts there. Increase the number of fireflies, however, and things began to change.“When you start putting 20 fireflies together, that’s when you start observing what you see in the wild,” Sarfati said. “You’ve got regular bursts of flashes, and they’re all synchronized.”The fireflies, in other words, likely aren’t hardwired to flash with a particular pattern. Instead, their light displays seem to be more social. Bugs watch what their neighbors are doing and try to follow along. The group’s findings, Peleg said, could help researchers learn more about a range of other synchronous behaviors in nature—and maybe one day design swarming robots that act in tandem.#firefly #synchrony #insect #biology #animalbehaviorVideo: Peleg Lab