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 a big...
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 if...
