One of the now rare species of oysters in the Pacific Northwest is the Olympia oyster, Ostrea lurida, (Carpenter, 1864). While rare today, these are British Columbia’s only native oyster. Had you been dining on their brethren in the 1800s or earlier, it would have been this species you were consuming. Middens from Vancouver Island's norther tip to California are built from Ostrea lurida.
Co-ordination of flight requires tremendous brainpower, and co-ordination of active flight, with the constant shift in the shape and location of massive wings, even more so. Nature is extremely parsimonious, not frittering away investment in any organ where it is not needed.
During the Miocene and Pliocene, 12-1.6 million years ago, a diverse group of extinct proboscideans, elephant-like animals walked the Earth. Most had four tusks and likely a trunk similar to modern elephants. They were beasts of legend, inspiring myths and stories of fanciful creatures to the first humans to encounter them.
The Rocky Mountains command this part of the world. Vast, humbling, magestic, they define this part of the world. Vertically, they soar above 14,440 feet or 4,401 meters. Spanning 40 degrees of latitude, some 4,800 kilometres or 2,980 miles, they run the length of North America from Liard Plain in BC's north to the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The mountains you see north of the Liard river, into the Yukon, are often grouped in with the Rockies, but are actually part of the Mackenzie Mountain system. The river systems that gather and wind their way out of these mountains head in all directions.
Pterosaurs, the mighty winged-lizards, soared ancient skies expertly hunting for prey. Because they evolved from reptiles prior to modern birds, it was once believed that pterosaurs were primitive, passive fliers. They were seen as gliders, rather than skillfull hunters.
Plant fossils from the Okanagan highlands, an area centred in the Interior of British Columbia, provide important clues to an ancient climate.
Today the Hecate Strait is a tempestuous 40-mile wide channel that separates the mist-shrouded archipelago of Haida Gwaii from the BC mainland. But Haida oral tradition tells of a time when the strait was mostly dry, dotted here and there with lakes. And indeed, during the last ice age, glaciers locked up so much water that the sea level was hundreds of feet lower than it is today. Soil samples from the sea floor of Hecate Strait contain wood, pollen, and other terrestrial plant materials that tell of a tundra-like environment.
Thinking of heading down to the Ms. Adrenaline Swimsuit Competition? Not surprising. Sex attracts and naked bodies flaunted for all to see, attract even more. Researchers from four universities across the US and Canada prodded into our sexual habits to answer the question of what characteristics attract us to our mates. The results were published in the journal Personality And Individual Differences, with a trend line showing those with hard bodies, a curvy waist-hip ratio and strong chin lines tend to be better in bed but perhaps more apt to cheat.
The islands of the Aegean are peaks of underwater mountains that extend out from the mainland. Crete is the last of this range and boasts a diverse beauty from its high mountains of Psiloritis, Lefka Ori, Dikti, to its ocean caressed pink sand beaches.
