Macro

Red-backed jumping spider As a kid, I was always curious about the living creatures around me.  I had a passion for learning about them and read anything I could get my hands on which helped me understand their beguiling ways.  It was that same love for all organisms and my desire to learn about them which led me to do a bachelor's degree in zoology through my hometown university.  That eventually led me into teaching and now, that I have retired, still fuels my spirit of inquiry.  It has been a life long obsession, one which never ebbed. Today I was enjoying the sun on a patio where I was visiting and noticed an unfamiliar spider moving about on a barbeque.  It took only a few seconds for me to go over and examine it.  It was a jumping spider, a type of arachnid which doesn't trap prey in a silken snare but rather by pouncing.  Fortunately, the red back it had made it easy to look it up on the web (the internet, not the spider's).  This eight-legged mystery was calle

Sunflower starfish. Big is a relative term.  Its connotation is based upon comparisons with other things, usually of the same type.  Fast falls into the same category.  Something is considered fast when compared to others which are slower than it.  The sunflower sea star (above photo) is both big and fast; that is when compared to other starfish.  Its diameter across, from the tip of one arm to the tip of another through its center, may measure up to a meter.  Its speed is equally outrageous, outpacing other species of sea star by Olympian standards. The behemoth above was photographed while I was exploring a lagoon in the Broken Islands.  I was amazed at its vast size and speed.  If you have watched sea stars at all, you would know that they are usually less than a foot across and live a relatively sedentary existence.  They move at rates measured in inches per minute, while the sunflower sea star moves closer to a meter or more per minute.  This may not seem as Herculean as I w