Thought for the day/Quote of the Week- Steve Jones on snail sex

"In the Middle Ages, they believed that snails, because of their shells, don't have sex. So the snail was an image of purity and, here, [in "Annunciation" by Francesco Del Cossa] the Immaculate Conception. We know now that they were completely wrong- snails have sex in the most gothic and complicated ways you can imagine" - Prof. J. Steve Jones- University College London, quoted in "Intelligent Life" magazine (vol 3, issue 4,p138) Summer 2010.

(above- two snails that won't be having sex anytime soon- image by V. Neblik).

Insect photographs

Hi. Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful. Thanks for stopping-by. The weirdlybeautiful creature above is a grasshopper species that I am currently "culturing" on my windowsill. Grasshoppers are famously noisy creatures, but this particular species seems to be almost totally silent- so far, at least.

Over the past few weeks, I have been heavily involved in both entomological and botanical and wildlife photography projects- the pictures below are what happens when photography and entomology collide...











All images in this post (c) Victoria Neblik, 2010. All rights reserved.

Quote of the week- Albert Camus- Invincible summer

"In the midst of winter, I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer" - Albert Camus

Image- wild deer, North Yorkshire, UK, (c) V. Neblik, 2009