Inner Nature: The nature of instinct
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
One of the unexpected sights driving around my neighborhood in Chester county is seeing an adult male peacock with a magnificent tail walking about the streets. Peacocks are native to the tropics, and are the national bird of India. This peacock was probably bought as a pet, maybe as a pair, maybe alone. He’s since become feral, and has no partner. He has...
Inner Nature: The Otherworldly Octopus
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
I was watching a male ruby-throated hummingbird at my feeder the other day. Hummingbirds fascinate me. Besides being charismatic and heart-stoppingly beautiful, they are feisty. I watched him drink his fill and then sit on a nearby branch to play dog-in-the-manger, chasing away other hummingbirds who dared to try to take what he didn’t want. Their speed, their...
Inner Nature: The incredibly resilient tardigrade
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
In the annals of the ecosystem’s version of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not is a long list of organisms that are considered over-performers: tough, enduring and even thriving in environmentally adverse conditions. Most endure in state known as cryptobiosis (also called anabiosis), which means “mysterious or enigmatic” and refers to the difficulty in telling...
