Blue Planet Journey

  The dioramas at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science focus on the taxidermy mounts and on the manufactured and painted habitats. But there is also behavior featured. Predation is an ecological process that results in a +/- situation. One individual gets a net benefit, and the other receives a net loss. Think of the situation in the photo above. The mountain lion and her cub are receiving a benefit from the deer. The deer, on the other hand, is experiencing a loss. Predation is not limited to encounters that result in nature "red in tooth and claw."  Herbivory and parasitism also result in a +/-. But herbivory and parasitism don't catch an audience's attention like classical predation. Predatory behavior captures the "oohs" and "aahs." Here's what you'll find in the dioramas on the second and third floors of the DMNS. Arctic fox beginning a pounce to catch a rodent under the snow. A golden eagle brings a cottontail to the nest. Bald eag...

  Big Pine Key is one of larger islands of the Florida Keys, and home to the National Key Deer Refuge . This diorama  is located in James Hall on the third floor of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. As with many dioramas, the focus is on a few species, but there is more to see.   The foci of the diorama are the Great White Heron (a white subspecies of the Great Blue Heron ),  American Crocodiles (as opposed to American Alligators ), the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake , and the Tricolored Heron , with the rattlesnake and the crocodile locked in a lethal embrace. As with many dioramas, there is more to be seen than just the featured species. Here's what I found, aside from the herons, crocodile, and snake: Horseshoe crab . Most people don't recognize the importance of this animal to both birds (particularly the Red Knot) and humans. Horseshoe crab blood being harvested to extract Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL),a reagent that detects bacterial and fungal cell-...