Hidden Unseen

Tree of Life in Bahrain

The Tree of Life or Shajarat-al-Hayat, as it is called in the local language, is a mesquite lonely tree that stands in the heart of Bahrain’s desert for over 400 years.

Tree of Life – Bahrain | Photo by: Faisal Ansari

Tree of Life – Bahrain | Photo by: Harold Laudeus – Flickr

Both its age and its location definitely make this tree a survivor, which is considered to be a remarkable natural wonder of the world witnessed by most who visit Bahrain.

Tree of Life – Bahrain | Photo by: Amer Olba™ – Flickr

Tree of Life – Bahrain | Photo by: Faisal Ansari

It stands alone, on top of a 25-foot-high sandy hill, at the highest point in Bahrain, miles away from another natural tree and with no apparent source of water. With 32 feet in height, it has continued growing-despite the extreme temperatures, lack of fresh water, and nutrients.

Tree of Life – Bahrain | Photo by: Harold the Heretic – Flickr

Tree of Life – Bahrain | Photo by: Shady_Myskus – Flickr

It has come to be known as the Tree of life due to the very fact that the tree stands amidst a hot and dry desert with no known water source feeding, which truly represents the magic of life and the power of nature.

Tree of Life – Bahrain | Photo by: Harold Laudeus – Flickr

Tree of Life – Bahrain | Photo by: cannopia – Flickr

Serving to increase the lure of the place, the tree’s source of water is a mystery, because it stands in a place completely free of water. Plant scientist may say that its roots go very deep and wide to get water from the reserves of sweet springs kilometers away. The local inhabitants believe with heart and soul that the tree’s longevity is granted by Enki, the mythical God of water, and that it marks the location of the Garden of Eden.

Tree of Life – Bahrain | Photo by: Alex Europa – Flickr

Tree of Life – Bahrain | Photo by: stephenmichaelgray – Flickr

Surrounded by endless oilfields, from far away it looks like a green spot in the desert. The tree has several low hanging branches that spread out in all directions.

Tree of Life – Bahrain | Photo by: Glenn Rose – Flickr

Tree of Life Road – Bahrain | Photo by: triggerpit.com

The Tree of Life in Bahrain is located 1.2 miles or 2 kilometers away from Jebel Dukhan.

How to Get there:
“To reach the tree, take the Zallaq Highway heading east, which becomes the Al-Muaskar Highway. You will eventually see a sign for the Tree of Life indicating a right turn. (Although the sign seems to point you to turn onto a dirt road which actually goes nowhere, do not do so, instead wait until the next intersection which is several metres ahead). There are no signs as you travel down this road, but pay attention to a scrap metal yard on your right. Before you reach a hill which warns you of a steep 10% incline, take a right. As you continue straight down this road (including roundabouts), you will begin to see Tree of Life signs again. The signs will lead you down a road which will then be devoid of these signs, but you will eventually see the tree in the distance on the right (it is large and wide, not to be mistaken for other smaller trees along the way). You turn onto a dirt path at Gas Well #371. You can drive up to just outside of the tree, but make sure you stay on the vehicle-worn path, as turning off of it is likely to get your car stuck in the softer sand.”

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Enormous King Ragworm & its Adorable Offsider, Slender Ragworm

Behold: the king ragworm.

Underwater photographer Alexander Seminov was kind enough to let his photographs been posting here, and they really are something special. Pictured is Alitta virens, commonly known as the sand worm or king ragworm. And by the way, these things can grow to over 120 cm long.

Alitta virens, the king ragworm. Copyright: Alexander Seminov

Found in the northern hemisphere where the water is shallow, brackish and temperate, they hide those pretty, iridescent green, blue and yellow colours in U-shaped burrows dug down into the sediment. From here they’ll snare their prey of small worms, crustaceans and molluscs in much the same way as the dreaded bobbit worm – shooting up through their burrows to strike with their two pincer-like teeth before retreating back down to feed on their prize.

But sometimes they’ll need to leave the safety of their burrows to scavenge for food scraps, and when things get particularly lean, they’ll emerge to swallow the top layer of sediment so they can live off the nutrients in the settled detritus. At moments like these, the king ragworm is particularly vulnerable to becoming a meal itself, and in response to this, it’s figured out a pretty nifty way of keeping watch for predators.

Close-up of the king ragworm. Copyright: Alexander Seminov

In 2005, a team led by Gordon Watson of the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Marine Sciences observed the responses of king ragworms to three different extracts – king ragworm extract; extracts from its very close relative, Nereis diversicolor; and extracts from its common predator, the flatfish. The N. diversicolor extract didn’t prompt much of a response, but the king ragworm extract prompted them to significantly reduce their feeding and other out-of-burrow activities. While the detection of flatfish extract resulted in more tentative feeding activity, the response of the king ragworms to this was no where near as spooked as it was when they detected extracts of their peers.

The team suggested that this could indicate the use of chemical signals by king ragworms to judge the risk of predation in their area. For example, chemical signals given off by flatfish extract could indicate that there is a predator nearby, which is bad news. But chemical signals given off by extracts from other king ragworms could indicate that something in the area is actively damaging king ragworms, which is very bad news. The king ragworm was accordingly named the first known annelid worm – part of a large group of segmented worms that includes earthworms and leeches – to use chemical signals from other members of its species as a warning that there might be active predators nearby.

This careful strategy could have something to do with the species’ relatively long life span of three years (if it’s not hauled up by fisherman for bait first). Close relative N. diversicolor typically only lives for about half as long.

Nereis pelagica, the slender ragworm. Copyright: Alexander Seminov

This is the slender ragworm (Nereis pelagic). With its Christmassy green, gold and red colouring, this little guy only grows to between 6 and 21 cm long, but what it lacks in length, it makes up for in head appendages. It’s got two antennae, two palps – which are those large appendages near the mouth – and four pairs of tentacles.

It’s also impossibly adorable. In 1959, R.B. Clark from the Department of Zoology at the University of Bristol collected a few hundred slender ragworms and gave them glass tubes to live in like they would their burrows in the wild. Over several months he watched as many of them were inexplicably displeased with their own glass tubes and very interested in their neighbour’s identical glass tube. Fights, friendships and embarrassing knots ensued.

First, the fights and friendships:

If this worm is inadequately housed, it invades neighbouring tubes, and if these are already occupied, fighting between the invader and the occupant often ensues … If one or other worm has not been driven from the tube within 3–4 minutes, fighting ceases abruptly and the two worms live in the tube.

Nawwwwwww.

Fighting involves lots of biting in a very tight space.

The slender ragworm. Copyright: Alexander Seminov

The fighting didn’t always occur between two ragworms in the same tube though – Clark reported that if the occupant does not immediately react to the intruder, the intruder will sometimes wiggle itself under the occupant, and if the occupant doesn’t attempt to evict it, both worms agree to live in the same tube.

Nawwwwwww.

Clark does go on to say that in some cases if an invader is successful at evicting the original occupant, it’ll recuperate for a few minutes before continuing to pursue the losing ragworm. On one occasion, a slender ragworm was so paranoid about keeping its glass tube that it picked a fight with a neighbouring ragworm, just in case. Fights conducted outside the tubes also involved lots of biting, plus some vigorous thrashing.

And then the knots:

“Worms not accommodated in tubes crawl over each other and even become tangled together in knots.”

Dying. I’m dead.

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14 Facts About Dragonflies

Flying insects are usually annoying. Mosquitoes bite you, leaving itchy red welts. Bees and wasps sting. Flies are just disgusting. But there’s something magical about dragonflies.

1 ) Dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve, some 300 million years ago. Modern dragonflies have wingspans of only two to five inches, but fossil dragonflies have been found with wingspans of up to two feet.

2 ) Some scientists theorize that high oxygen levels during the Paleozoic era allowed dragonflies to grow to monster size.

3 ) There are more than 5,000 known species of dragonflies, all of which (along with damselflies) belong to the order Odonata, which means “toothed one” in Greek and refers to the dragonfly’s serrated teeth.

4 ) In their larval stage, which can last up to two years, dragonflies are aquatic and eat just about anything—tadpoles, mosquitoes, fish, other insect larvae and even each other.

5 ) At the end of its larval stage, the dragonfly crawls out of the water, then its exoskeleton cracks open and releases the insect’s abdomen, which had been packed in like a telescope. Its four wings come out, and they dry and harden over the next several hours to days.

6 ) Dragonflies are expert fliers. They can fly straight up and down, hover like a helicopter and even mate mid-air. If they can’t fly, they’ll starve because they only eat prey they catch while flying.

7 ) Dragonflies catch their insect prey by grabbing it with their feet. They’re so efficient in their hunting that, in one Harvard University study, the dragonflies caught 90 to 95 percent of the prey released into their enclosure.

8 ) The flight of the dragonfly is so special that it has inspired engineers who dream of making robots that fly like dragonflies.

9 ) Some adult dragonflies live for only a few weeks while others live up to a year.

10 ) Nearly all of the dragonfly’s head is eye, so they have incredible vision that encompasses almost every angle except right behind them.

11 ) Dragonflies, which eat insects as adults, are a great control on the mosquito population. A single dragonfly can eat 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes per day.

12 ) Hundreds of dragonflies of different species will gather in swarms, either for feeding or migration. Little is known about this behavior, but the Dragonfly Swarm Project is collecting reports on swarms to better understand the behavior.

13 ) Scientists have tracked migratory dragonflies by attaching tiny transmitters to wings with a combination of eyelash adhesive and superglue. They found that green darners from New Jersey traveled only every third day and an average of 7.5 miles per day (though one dragonfly traveled 100 miles in a single day).

14 ) A dragonfly called the globe skimmer has the longest migration of any insect—11,000 miles back and forth across the Indian Ocean.

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Top 10 Bizarre Forms of Ancient Currency

Money. Just hearing the word makes people’s ears prick up. But would you accept a brick of salt or a large rock instead of your regular paycheck? Understanding the value of money over time is a key point in finance – and time has certainly changed what people value. Historically, people have assigned monetary value to a wide variety of objects. And while most of these currencies wouldn’t be practical today, they serve as important reminders of what people used to value and why. Ancient currencies came in many amazing shapes, sizes and formats. Here we look at ten incredible examples that are quite different from what we use today.

10. Dolphin Teeth

The most disturbing of the ancient currencies may be dolphin teeth, which were used in the Solomon Islands for hundreds of years, in keeping with timeworn traditions. In 2008 the island’s dollar currency became devalued. The locals responded by stockpiling money, which in turn caused a coin shortage that made matters worse. So, as a result, some parts of the islands went back to the traditional use of dolphin teeth. Incredibly, the teeth quadrupled in value. Local dolphin hunter Henry Sukufatu told The Wall Street Journal, “The white man’s money will end, but the dolphin teeth will always be there for us.”

In January 2013 the region made headlines when Malaita villagers butchered up to 900 bottlenose dolphins thanks to a conservation dispute. Locals confirmed that they resumed their yearly dolphin cull after a U.S.-based conservation group failed to pay them the full agreed-upon compensation for refraining from killing the marine mammals.

9. Squirrel Pelts

Historically, fur pelts have played a vital role in bartering and trading. In the medieval era, squirrels were prized for their pelts, and they became a recognized form of currency in Russia and Finland. In fact, in Russia the killing of squirrels for currency may have inadvertently saved a significant portion of the population from the bubonic plague. At that time, Russia was using squirrel pelts as cash, with the animals’ snouts and claws possibly representing change. Even today in Finland squirrel pelts are apparently accepted as currency and have a monetary exchange value. So if you hear someone say the words “squirrel pelt” in Finland, you know the discussion could well be about money.

8. Salt

Salt has been an important commodity for millennia. It played a prominent role in the development of early civilizations and is referenced in several major religious traditions or texts. In 2200 BCE it was used for one of the earliest recorded tax payments, by then emperor of China Yu the Great. Outrage over a salt tax was among the catalysts for the French Revolution, and the commodity also played an important role in the American Civil War.

Moreover, back in the Ancient Roman era, soldiers were sometimes paid in salt packs. Interestingly, the Latin adjective relating to salt, “salarium,” gave rise to the English words “soldier” and “salary.” Even in the present day, some nomadic people of Ethiopia use salt as their currency.

7. Peppercorns

In Ancient Greece, the scarcity of peppercorns made them extremely valuable. Then in the 5th century, Alaric the Visigoth and Attila the Hun supposedly both ordered the Romans to hand over huge quantities of black pepper as ransom when they attacked the city of Rome itself.

By the Middle Ages, peppercorns had become an accepted form of currency. During the 15th century, the European demand for pepper was so high that it played a major role in the creation of sea routes from the spice-growing areas of the Far East. Referred to as “black gold,” peppercorns were so expensive prior to the 19th century that only the very wealthy could buy them. And today black pepper is still the most widely traded spice in the world.

6. Wampum (Beads)

America’s first currency was beads – specifically, wampum. These are traditionally handcrafted beads made from the white shells of whelks and the purple and white shells of the quahog (clam). When European settlers came to North America in the 16th and early 17th century, they noticed that wampum were sacred and valuable to the Native Americans. The colonists discovered that they could obtain much-needed supplies from the indigenous peoples if they traded wampum. Thus, wampum became an official currency – even though the indigenous population did not see it as money. With the aid of European tools, wampum started being mass-produced in factories. Eventually, in 1663, the shell beads were demonetized in the New England colonies – although they remained official tender in New York until the early 1700s; and some factories continued to produce wampum until the early 20th century. The Native Americans became disinclined to trade pelts for wampum, which perhaps reduced the value of the beads. Ultimately, the colonists may have learned a very valuable economic lesson about supply and demand.

5. Tea Brick

Another fascinating ancient currency comes in the form of the tea brick. Producing these valuable objects involved combining the tea plant stalks and leaves with various herbs and, at times, wood chips. The mixture was firmly pressed using ox blood, and sometimes dung was employed as a binding agent. Traditional tea bricks displayed Chinese characters or unique designs, while markings on the back of big tea bricks would help them to be divided evenly. In the 19th century they were made use of as currency in China, and they were also used in Russia, Tibet, Siberia and Mongolia. The bricks had an understood value. For example, 12 bricks would buy you a sheep, while 20 would get you a horse. In Siberia, the bricks were consumed like a kind of eatable currency until as late as World War II, and they were used as medicine as well.

4. Rai Stones

On the island of Yap in Micronesia, size matters. Some evidence suggests that the Yapese people may have been creating their rai stones since around 500 AD. To produce this unusual form of currency, the Yapese traveled to the neighboring island of Palau to obtain limestone. They shaped the stone into big circular discs with central holes. These were then transported on a long, perilous voyage back to Yap. Some stones measured as much as 12 feet across and weighed over four tons. The stones’ dangerous – and sometimes fatal – production process increased their value. But once they’d been used for payment, their location often remained unchanged. In fact, a physical exchange may not have been necessary, as long as everyone knew to whom the rai belonged. Their value diminished with the arrival of the Europeans, whose technology quickly increased production. Today, rai stones are used in traditional rites and remain a national emblem. Their image is also proudly displayed on Yapese license plates.

3. Cowry Shells

Cowry shells are among the earliest known forms of ancient currency. The shells come from sea snails known as cowries, and the most commonly used cowry was the Monetaria moneta, which is known as the money cowry. The shells are small, easy to carry, durable and tough to copy – although some people did make counterfeit cowry shells using materials like horn, bone, lead, and even silver and gold. Aside from their currency purposes, cowries were also used to make stunning jewelry and ornamentation. Cowries started as a medium of exchange in China as early as the 16th century BCE. And over time their use as a type of currency spread to major trading areas in Africa, Arabia, parts of Europe and considerable portions of Asia. As testament to how significant they are in Chinese culture, images of cowry shells appear in Chinese characters related to trade and currency.

2. Arrowhead Coins

This truly fascinating ancient currency type originates from the northern part of the Black Sea. As early as the 7th century BCE, these unique arrowhead coins were issued as currency in the area known as Great Scythia, a far-reaching region that included portions of what is now the Ukraine, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, North Caucasus and parts of Russia. Bronze arrowhead money appeared before many more familiar ancient coins and was appreciated for its bronze consistency as well as its capacity to be used for weapons. These coins were cast in many shapes, and they eventually took on the more intricate form of dolphins and fish.

1. Knife Money

Like arrowhead coins, ancient Chinese “knife money” combined weaponry and currency. As with the arrowheads, knife money may be an indicator of what was valuable, important and treasured at the time. The bizarre currency first appeared in China around 600 BCE, at the time of the Zhou dynasty. Historians believe that the knife-shaped coins were modeled after scraper-knives used by nomadic huntsmen in the eastern and northern parts of the country. Most knife currency was inscribed with numbers or a single word – for example, “sheep” or “fish” – which may have been used to mark the value of the particular coin. Each money piece also included an inscription signifying the fact that it was official currency. Knife money was made use of for hundreds of years, until the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi, abolished the currency and declared that only circular coins with a square hole in the middle would be accepted as legal tender.

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13 Most Horrifying Ways to Die (If You’re an Arthropod)

Scared of insects, spiders, and other leggy arthropods?

It could be worse. You could be one of them. At that size you face an array of dangers unlike anything you know from your comfortably large human existence. Here are just a few of the many perils you worry about as an arthropod.

1. Your guts are impaled on spiky ant teeth.

Odontomachus coquereli trap-jaw ant with cricket prey (Madagascar).

2. Your innards are suddenly sucked out by a predatory maggot.

Schlorp! An Aphis nerii milkweed aphid meets an end at the suction-mouth of a hover fly larva (Arizona).

3. Your brain is invaded by a zombie fungus that directs you to an ideal spot for your parasite to release spores.

A cricket has succumbed to a insect-eating fungus (Belize).

4. One of your friends turns out to be a giant hungry spider.

Betrayal! An Aphantochilus rogeri ant-mimic spider feeds on the turtle ants it resembles. Like most spiders, Aphantochilus dissolves the tissues of the prey with injected venom and sucks up the slurry (Ecuador).

5. Wasp larvae eat you alive while you can’t move.

This spider is alive but paralyzed. She will make a tasty, days-long meal for the young wasp that hatches from the egg. Paralyzed prey doesn't rot as quickly as dead prey, so this seemingly morbid scheme has reason (Victoria, Australia).

6. Your head takes a direct injection of Dracula Ant venom.

Ouch! This earth centipede is the preferred prey of the Stigmatomma oregonense dracula ant. It will be paralyzed with this sting and fed alive to piles of hungry ant larvae (California).

7. You are pulled from your comfortable house by ravaging hordes of army ants.

This termite is being drawn, quartered, and stung in the head by a passing raid of Eciton army ants. If there were one general rule of rainforest ants, it's that everything likes to eat termites (Ecuador).

8. Your body is slowly weakened and destroyed by wasp grubs feeding on your insides.

A tomato hornworm carries pupae of Cotesia wasps that have emerged from its body (Illinois).

9. That swelling in your belly? Turns out you were pregnant with a parasitic worm that kills you when it breaks free.

A mermithid nematode worm breaks free from a trap-jaw ant (Belize).

10. You fall into a pit with a voracious predator at the bottom.

An antlion hurls sand at a Camponotus ant attempting to climb out of the trap (Florida).

11. A fly lays an egg in you that causes your head to fall off.

A pair of female ant-decapitating flies close in on a carpenter ant. Their larva will eat the insides of the ant and crawl into the head capsule to pupate, causing it to fall off (Illinois).

12. Your corpse is dragged around as a trophy by a giant, leggy predator.

Bittacus chlorostigma hangingfly with carpenter ant prey. The hangingfly will present his capture as a nuptial gift to potential mates (California).

13. A giant hand mashes you to the wall.

This mosquito wasn't fast enough to avoid a swat (Paraná, Brazil).

Actually, that last one doesn’t seem so bad compared to the others. At least it’s fast.

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