Animal with a Segmented Body

Captured at my front yard

This is a delightful little pill bug, which is also called a roly poly by many children. This pill bug is a bug with a segmented body. An animal with a segmented body means an animal, also called an anthropods, have a body divided into segments that have functions. These sections of an anthropod's body is called the head, thorax, and abdomen. This pill bug is a great example of an anthropod because it can roll up into a ball.

Predation

Captured at Coalinga at our camp

In this picture you see a man holding up a dead bobcat. This is an example of predation, which is when one organism acts as the predator and the other organism is the prey. In this picture the hunter is the predator, whom saw the prey, stalked it, and then shot it, sadly.

Population

Captured at the Schönbrunn in Austria

At the Schönbrunn in Austria there are many tourists, which at the time included myself. There are many people in this picture. This is a good example of a population, the human population to be exact. A population is a group of organisms that live in the same area together.

Territorial Behavior

Drawing of salmon

This is salmon during mating season. In the drawing it depicts a female salmon hovering over her eggs and protecting her territory. This is called territorial behavior, in which an animal defends a territory.

Protein

Drawing of protein synthesis

This drawing of protein synthesis, a process in which protein is formed. A protein is a molecule composed of amino acids joined by peptide bonds. Proteins are made by ribosomes and are found in almost every living thing. In this drawing, the protein is the small chain of circles.

Coevolution

Drawing of an acacia tree and acacia ants

Acacia trees are tall trees that have a mutual relationship with acacia ants. The acacia ants defend the tree from predators and harm, but at the same time the acacia tree gives the ants food and shelter. This mutual relationship is due to coevolution. Coevolution is when two or more species have close relationship ecologically that causes one species to adapt, creating both species to adapt.

Batesian Mimicry

Drawing of a Mexican milksnake and mountain kingsnake

Notice how the drawing of the Mexican milksnake and mountain kingsnake look similar. This is called batesian mimicry, which is when an organism imitates a dangerous species to avoid predators.

Asexual Reproduction

Drawing of mushrooms

As stated in the caption, this is a drawing of mushrooms. If you have ever seen mushrooms before in the wild, you see not one mushroom, but a good bunch. The reason for this is because of asexual reproduction. Asexual reproduction is when an organism reproduces without fertilization or meiosis, but with the cloning of the parent organism.

Parasitism

Captured in my turtle tank

This picture is not no ordinary worm. This worm is called a blood worm and is not apparently bad for turtles, but are for horses. The blood worm is a larvae of a type of fly and is only parasitic to horses as stated previously. A parasite or parasitism is an organism that either lives on or in its host and receives nutrients at the expense of the host, causing serious injury or even death.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Vestigial Structures

Drawing of the large intestine

This is part of the large intestine. At the end of the large intestine is the appendix, which is a vestigial structure. A vestigial  structure is an organ that was great use to an organism's ancestors, but are now useless to the present organism. The appendix is a great and most commonly known vestigial structure because our ancestors used to use the appendix to help digest plants, but is now no use to us because of evolution.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Unicellular Organisms

Drawing of a unicellular organism

This very simple drawing is a unicellular organism. A unicellular organism is an organism that only has one cell. Many of these unicellular organisms are bacteria, amoeba, and others.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Pollen

Drawing of a flower with pollen in the air

Pollen is the element for fertilization to occur in plants. It comes from flowering plants and can cause serious allergies to many people. This smudgy drawing is an example of pollen landing on a flower.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Radial Symmetry

Drawing of a starfish with many legs

This pretty bad drawing is an example of radial symmetry. The deformed starfish has radial symmetry because of its many legs. Radial symmetry means when an organism can be divided into smaller halves at any angle at a central axis according to dictionary.com.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Surgical Relations of a Flower

Captured in my neighborhood

After adventuring out in my neighborhood, my cousin and I found a flower and then performed a serious operation. It took a drastic toll on the flower, but we found the flower's ovary. A flower ovary is a female  reproductive organ of a flower, where premature seeds or ovules are located at.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Pollinators

Captured at my backyard lemon tree

Bees, butterflies, humming birds,ants, ect. are pollinators. A pollinator is an animal that moves pollen from a male flower to a female flower, to help in fertilization. It's just that simple.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Detritivore

Captured underneath a pot of flowers in my front yard

 Worms are awfully hard to find in the summer, although when you don't want to find them, you see them squirming about everywhere. My cousin and I, dug a few holes in the yard until we found some under a pot of flowers. A worm though, is a detritivore, meaning an organism that uses organic waste as food. Worms are good detritivores in the soil because of their fertilizer, it helps the soil become more healthy and helps plants flourish.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Bilateral Symmetry

Captured at Mammoth

When one thinks about symmetry they think of geometry and shapes. Never symmetry in animals or plants. This picture of a white tail deer is an example of bilateral symmetry. Bilateral symmetry is when an organism is divided down a central line or middle and is symmetrical. Many organisms have bilateral symmetry and fewer ones have radical symmetry, which leads onto the next post.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Mutual Friends

Captured at the Mautern in Austria

You know how on facebook you can have mutual friends with people you don't know. Well, mutualism is when two species of animals have a positive or mutual relationship. The fish and the duck in this picture have a mutual relationship because a study shows that one duck can increase the fish population. The ducks eat all the tadpoles, frogs, and other species, creating a good plentiful of duck droppings that help the pond become pollution free due to the carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous from the droppings which increase the population of fish.

Bibliography:
http://www.fao.org/

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Homologous Structure

Captured at the Mautern in Austria

Wolves are great majestic creatures of the forests (leaving out the unicorns). Despite this, they have homologous structures. Unlike analogous structures, homologous structures are structures that share the same ancestral form, but not the same function. Wolves share the same homologous structures as a coyote and dog, with this information you can conclude that the common ancestor was the wolf, between the coyote and dog.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Analogous Structure

Captured at the Mammoth lakes

This female eagle was very shy to the camera, until I finally got this pretty amazing photo. All birds have analogous structures because of their wings. Analogous structures are structures of animals that have the same function and resemblance in the bone structure. The wings of bats, birds, and bugs are all analogous structures.

Niche

Captured at Lake Tahoe

Isn't this a pretty picture? The lighting was just amazing at the time. Just two geese doing their own thing, eating little fish. These two geese along with the lake and fish are an example of a niche. A niche is an organism's position in its environment and how it lives. The fish in this lake eat smaller fish and become eaten by geese, coyotes, and other animals. The position that the geese pose in this environment at Lake Tahoe is to eat fish and be eaten by coyotes, if not careful, but I saw the whole flock of geese over there; the geese population over there is flourishing.

Adaptations in Plants

A strand of wheat

Wheat has adapted over the years. As said before, adaptation is when an animal or plant alternates to fit the form of the environment. In the Neolithic Age, the start of farming began for the early humans. Depending on where they lived, they farmed different kinds plants, but many of which farmed wheat. These early humans changed wheat in a drastic way by natural selection. Every time a human picked wheat based on their tastes, for example if a wheat's kernel was big they would pick that wheat, instead of the smaller wheat. This created the wheat with the big kernels to become an abundance in their crop field instead of the wheat with smaller kernels.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Autotrophs

Captured at a Santa Monica neighborhood

This beautiful flower is an autotroph. All plant species are autotrophs, except those few plants that are carnivorous. Autotrophs are organisms that use inorganic matter as a source of nutrient. An example of inorganic matter is the sunlight, in which plants gain its energy and nutrients from.

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Meet Charles, He's a Heterotroph

Captured at the Mautern in Austria

This is Charles, and yes I named a brown bear Charles. I met Charles at the Mautern (pronounced "Moutern") in Austria, basically the Moutern is a mountain in Austria that is a zoo, it's a really amazing zoo actually. Anyways Charles here, is a heterotroph, which means an organism the needs organic compounds for food. Organic compounds are any type of edible item that contains carbon. Charles is a bear and eats meat as well as other types of foods like carrots, berries, ect. in which all contain carbon. In this photo, Charles looked up at us begging for more carrots because we dropped them down for him. He has a pretty intense stare though, don't you think?

*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.

Adaptations in an Animal

Captured at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Cheetahs were once my favorite animal as a kid. I was so fascinated by their speed and agility.Cheetahs, though, have adapted the traits they now have. What does adaptation mean? Adaptation means the alteration of an organism by natural selection over time. Cheetahs are adapted to run to up to 60 miles per hour, their slim frame, claws, and long legs help gain this speed, making them the fastest land mammal on Earth.

Bibliography:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/


*All pictures and drawings are original. Please don't copyright.