Kismo bee (Xylocopa aestuans)

Kismo bee or Lebah Kismo (Xylocopa aestuans) are carpenter bee, larvae eat honey, have yellow hair on their backs, have fat bodies, are large in size more than 2 cm long, mouth does not have mandibles and larger hind legs.

X. aestuans has a shiny black color but the back has yellow feathers with longitudinal line features, membrane and long wings, has two antennas on the head, a fat body with a large belly and a bent body posture. This insect is historically widespread in Southeast Asia.

Lebah Kismo spend most of their time in rice fields, forests and other environments that grow many flower plants. A group of X. aestuans come to each flower to eat honey where each visit lasts only a few seconds.

This bee has an important role in the ecosystem, especially as a pollinating plant. Kismo bees live socially and build nests in wooden cavities on dead trees, wood piles or people's houses.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Suborder: Apocrita
Superfamily: Apoidea
Family: Apidae
Subfamily: Xylocopinae
Tribe: Xylocopini
Genus: Xylocopa
Subgenus: Koptortosoma
Species: Xylocopa aestuans (Linnaeus, 1758)

Tiang fern (Cyathea contaminans)

Paku tiang or pole fern or tiang fern ( Cyathea contaminans ) is a plant species in Cyatheaceae, has a height of up to 12 m, a single stem and the old part shows traces of leaves, the basal part is thickened by adventitious roots and grows mixed with other species. C. contaminans has stipe for 100 cm long, gloucous, purplish to the base, very thorny, when young has scales on all parts, up to 45x3 mm in size, pale brown, very thin and setiferous. The main rachis is pale, prickly, scaly as a stipe but then glabrescent. Pinnae has the largest size of 60 cm and the lowest decreases with stems up to 10 cm. Pinnules have a size of 150x30 mm or smaller with 1-2 pairs of basal segments more or not at all, the rest of the pine curved almost to the rib. Costules have a size of 4-5 mm. Common veins are 12 pairs. The lamina segment is hard, rough on the bottom and fibrous edges. Sori is exindusiate, near costule and pale paraphrase is no more than sporangia. The scales and hair on the pi...

Wild durian (Cullenia exarillata)

Wild durian ( Cullenia exarillata ) is a species of plant in the Malvaceae, a tall tree with smooth, greyish-white bark, peeling on older trees, a straight trunk, horizontal branches and often with a series of knob-like tubercles for flower and fruit attachment. C. exarillata has young branches and the underside of the leaves is covered with golden brown peltate or shield-like scales. The leaves are single, alternate, glabrous, glossy green on the upper side and covered with silvery or orange peltate scales on the underside. Hermaphroditic flowers are tubular and also covered with golden brown scales, 4-5 cm long and cream or reddish brown in color. Flowers have no petals, formed of tubular bracteoles and tubular calyxes, 5-lobed. Fruit is round, 10-13 cm in diameter, covered with thorns and clustered along the branches. Many seeds, reddish brown, 4-5 cm long and 2-3 cm wide. The seeds are enclosed by a fleshy, whitish aril. The fruit splits open when ripe and dries to release the s...

Thomas Sutikna lives with Homo floresiensis

BLOG - On October 28, 2004, a paper was published in Nature describing the dwarf hominin we know today as Homo floresiensis that has shocked the world. The report changed the geographical landscape of early humans that previously stated that the Pleistocene Asia was only represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens . The report titled "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia" written by Peter Brown and Mike J. Morwood from the University of New England with Thomas Sutikna, Raden Pandji Soejono, Jatmiko, E. Wahyu Saptomo and Rokus Awe Due from the National Archaeology Research Institute (ARKENAS), Indonesia, presents more diversity in the genus Homo. “Immediately, my fever vanished. I couldn’t sleep well that night. I couldn’t wait for sunrise. In the early morning we went to the site, and when we arrived in the cave, I didn’t say a thing because both my mind and heart couldn’t handle this incredible moment. I just went down...

Dlium