doubleREDapples: 2012

Saturday 16 June 2012

Orchid Look Like Monkey!

Nature doesn’t need an audience. These wonderful orchids come from the south-eastern Ecuadorian and Peruvian cloud forests from elevations of 1000 to 2000 meters and as such not many people throughout history got to see them. However, thanks to intrepid collectors we do get to see this wonderful Monkey Orchid. Someone didn’t need much imagination to name it though, let’s face it.

Its scientific name is Dracula simia, the last part nodding towards the fact that this remarkable orchid bears more than a passing resemblance to a monkey’s face – although we won’t go as far as to be species specific on this one. The Dracula (genus) part of its name refers to the strange characteristic of the two long spurs of the sepals, reminiscent of the fangs of a certain Transylvanian count of film and fiction fame.

The examples seen here are all cultivated – though it remains very rare in ‘captivity’. For that reason don’t make a dash down to your local horticulturalist. Yet for those lucky enough to have one, if kept quite cool and in partial shade and it can thrive and flower. Like all orchids, however, it needs a lot of care and patience – so you may want to consider a cactus instead!

If you don't quite see why this orchid gets its name, then do one thing. Move back from your screen a few feet and take another look. Close up the similarity is good, from a distance it is astounding.

Monday 11 June 2012

13 Way People Catch a High

Germany Highway Speed

ALIEN From the Sea?It tasted Good!

Goose barnacles (order Pedunculata), also called stalked barnacles or gooseneck barnacles, are filter-feeding crustaceans that live attached to hard surfaces of rocks and flotsam in the ocean intertidal zone.

Some species of goose barnacles are pelagic and are most frequently found on tidewrack on oceanic coasts. Unlike most other types of barnacles, intertidal goose barnacles depend on water motion rather than the movement of their cirri for feeding, and are therefore found only on exposed or moderately exposed coasts.

In Portugal and Spain, they are a widely consumed and expensive delicacy known as percebes. Percebes are harvested commercially in the northern coast, mainly in Galicia, and are also imported from overseas, particularly from Morocco and Canada.

Are You Brave Enough?Do This!

For most people the mere thought of walking across a thin wire thousands of feet up would give them a nervous sweat and send their hearts racing.

But adrenaline junkie Brian Mosbaugh is so used to the perilous heights of being a highline walker he even gave himself time to kick back for a relaxing lie down on the tightrope over Yosemite National Park.

Balancing his whole body on the wire, Brian lies completely horizontally on the precarious rope above the Californian national park, before getting back up again to continue his leisurely stroll across to the cliff face at Taft Point.