They say the Inuit have 50 (0r 100 or 700; pick a number) words for snow. The human race must have tens of thousands of words for water, including all those Inuit words for snow. Water is what shapes us and makes this planet habitable. It is the blue in the pale blue dot as seen from deep space by the Voyager space craft. Carl Sagan once said: "we are made of star stuff". True enough. Mostly though, we're water.
Water is tricky. At the molecular level, it wants to stick to other water molecules. This attraction to itself is what allows water to form snow flakes, rain drops, clouds, and all other the myriad forms it can take. When in contact with air, water still wants to stick to itself; hence surface tension; if you do it with care, you can float a needle on a glass of water. Water covers a good three quarters or so of the planet, which makes for an awful lot area cover by surface tension. For those who can handle it, the surface tension universe can be an amazingly productive environment. Water striders, or pond skaters, are the undisputed masters of the water's surface. Distributed across the globe, they can walk on water, a feat of biblical proportions. Lacking Divine inspiration, water striders do it the hard way: they have fine water-repellent hairs on the tips of their toes. Moving across the surface like an ice skater moves across a frozen pond, they dig their toes in for thrust, then glide on the momentum. Water striders are the only insects to colonize the open seas, living on the oceans' surface, often miles from land.
Water is tricky. At the molecular level, it wants to stick to other water molecules. This attraction to itself is what allows water to form snow flakes, rain drops, clouds, and all other the myriad forms it can take. When in contact with air, water still wants to stick to itself; hence surface tension; if you do it with care, you can float a needle on a glass of water. Water covers a good three quarters or so of the planet, which makes for an awful lot area cover by surface tension. For those who can handle it, the surface tension universe can be an amazingly productive environment. Water striders, or pond skaters, are the undisputed masters of the water's surface. Distributed across the globe, they can walk on water, a feat of biblical proportions. Lacking Divine inspiration, water striders do it the hard way: they have fine water-repellent hairs on the tips of their toes. Moving across the surface like an ice skater moves across a frozen pond, they dig their toes in for thrust, then glide on the momentum. Water striders are the only insects to colonize the open seas, living on the oceans' surface, often miles from land.
The water's surface can offer a good living if you can pull it off. Water striders are predators, feeding on insects that fall in and become trapped by the surface tension. Sitting motionless, four long walking legs splayed out and front legs just touching the surface, water striders are exquisitely sensitive to the tiny ripples made by struggling prey. Homing in, they grasp their prey in their forelegs, piercing it and sucking it dry through a stout beak. They can judge the size, direction, and distance of what fell in by the ripples, the same way we can with sound, which when you think about it, is ripples in the air. Water striders "hear" through their feet.
1 comment:
Great photos! Yours?
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