With this photographic project (not a biology, not a scientific project) I documented the life I have encountered during a longer stay in Corfu Island, Greece, 2021.
Always fascinated by the concept of life. What is life? In short, for me tends to be that development in an environment where given enough time, for the atoms to settle, and given the initial universal patterns (cosmological universal conditions), they will eventually come to different configurations, with life being a tip of the development wave. But underlining: given enough time with relative stable initial conditions. Thinking on fast forward at this development, there are waves and waves of changes of the environment as well as in resulting configurations. On fast forward, Earth changes, local conditions change, universal conditions change. A great deal of adaptability exists, I think, when we think at local conditions change, in that even in a few generations of life waves, they are adjusting accordingly, and keeping on the tip of the wave. Visiting an island for more weeks gave me the opportunity to study some of the development, adaptability of life.
One of the decisive element in the cosmological conditions with great influences of local environments.
And of course the “radiator”‘s fuel that the patterns harness it for multiplication purposes.
Island formed by old sediments.
Lifted as land. Land of marine sediments but also terrestrial epochs of sediments.
With visible layers of sediments and areas of forming stones.
Possible fossil profile in white stone.
Human settlements are subject to rapid degradation.
Cicada ‘Tibicen plebejus’ known as Tzitzikas. The fauna begins with this interesting insect, while visiting the Island, this was heard everywhere.
Cicada: only males make the strikingly loud sound of mating.
The flora is mostly “cactus” like.
Sand flower: Flower Funnel Daffodil.
Dill flowers. Dill with intense aroma.
The climbing plants and plants are adapted to low water resources. When imported in more moderated regions, with lots of rain, they will grow more aggressively.
Tube-like herbs, with resembling grass leaves.
Very old cactus, almost like a tree. It is a big spiders home.
Podarcis erhardii (Erhard’s Wall Lizard) is a species of Squamata in the family lacertid lizards.
The ants are sturdy built and bigger as the continental/moderate region ants.
Seagrass
Not yer identified fish scale (10 cm specimen).
Mammoth Wasp Megascolia maculata (female) – they are big but not aggressive.
Sand Wasps are very common – not aggressive.
Labidura riparia – Shore Earwig
The life in the pond by the sea. Semi-salted water and very high temperatures. But life found a way or more ways to survive. For one, the slight salty water contains frogs, and on the other side, fish live in very hot water.
The pond by the sea. Semi-salted water: sometimes flooded by the sea and as it is slight below the sea level, they both communicate through the sand.
Mediterranean sand smelt, Atherina hepsetus, is a species of fish in the family Atherinidae. In the pond semi-salted sea water of at least 50 degrees C.
Frogs in the pond.
Turtles too.
And the surprising 12-spotted tiger beetle. As the beach got flooded – sea waves colliding with the pond water – small fish from the pond got caught in small spots of water on the sand.
Once water spots are disappearing, small fish seek other water spots. Which seems they have no problem finding them – a mysterious way by which they jump to the nearest water spot. Crawling through sand if needed. This jump happens just before the water spot gets dried out – as a normal way of moving on.
Surprising survival skills by the small “sand smelt” fish. I was wondering, after a flood, why there is no dead fish on the sand? Right there I spotted the jump and witnessed more times: they are finding the water spots, jumping towards them – that’s a mystery how do they “see” the right direction. The second way they were disappearing I discovered by deduction: through the very clever tiger beetle.
They were present on the sand whenever a new water spot appeared. At first was not sure what’s with the bugs or those “flies” around the water spots, very present, very fast moving. Unless I got a closer look, thinking: wait, could be that they know there is fish in the water spots? And to my surprise they are marching around the water and wait until it’s gone, then jump for the fish, eating them in an instant.
Then they disappear too, not sure how and where…on the beach. To note that their movement is very fast (fastest on earth maybe, compared to their size) but the close contact and attack on the prey is pretty clumsy. I think their eyesight is not the best.
Ants collecting what appears to be dead carnivorous plants.
