Laurel dodder (Cassytha filiformis)

Tali putri or love-vine or laurel dodder (Cassytha filiformis) is a species of plant in Lauraceae, an obligate parasitic vine, an aphrodisiac, growing vines and tightly coiled on other plants to fill the canopy and berry-shaped fruit.

C. filiformis has cylindrical stems, orange to green in color and branched, blunt ends and grows coiled to form very strong threads on the stems of other plants.

The leaves are reduced to scales about 1 mm long. Flowers are borne in spikes or sometimes solitary with 6 tepals, each 0.1-2.0 mm long. The fruit is round and seeded with a diameter of 7 mm.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Laurales
Family: Lauraceae
Genus: Cassytha
Species: Cassytha filiformis

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) manufacture bubble-nets as tools to increase prey intake

NEWS - Humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) create bubble net tools while foraging, consisting of internal tangential rings, and actively control the number of rings, their size, depth and horizontal spacing between the surrounding bubbles. These structural elements of the net increase prey intake sevenfold. Researchers have known that humpback whales create “bubble nets” for hunting, but the new report shows that the animals also manipulate them in a variety of ways to maximize catches. The behavior places humpbacks among the rare animals that make and use their own tools. “Many animals use tools to help them find food, but very few actually make or modify these tools themselves,” said Lars Bejder, director of the Marine Mammal Research Program (MMRP), University of Hawaii at Manoa. “Humpback whales in southeast Alaska create elaborate bubble nets to catch krill. They skillfully blow bubbles in patterns that form a web with internal rings. They actively control details such ...

Black potato (Coleus rotundifolius)

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