Badass Nature

🌳 The smallest tree in the world

🇮🇸 Iceland isn't really known for its trees, yet many areas that seem totally void of trees actually have one hiding in plain sight.

👀 What's this fluff in the grass? Perhaps a sheep walked by and left something behind? Why it's the world's smallest tree - the dwarf willow (Salix herbacea)!

🤏 Also called the least willow, snowbed willow, this species only grows to 1-6 cm in height. And although it doesn't really look like a tree, it does produce a woody stem with lateral branches so, botanically speaking, it is a tree. It's typical in the cold northern regions of our planet.

❄️ The dwarf willow is perfectly evolved to survive the harsh arctic climate - it's tiny, has broad leaves to maximize photosynthesis and it can reproduce both sexually and asexually by cloning itself. Cloning, however, comes at a cost, genetic that is - with more clones comes lower genetic diversity, which, in the long run, is dangerous.

🇨🇿 In the Czech Republic, for example, both existing populations of this species are purely female, so they're unable to produce seeds and colonize new areas, making the dwarf willow critically endangered in this country.

⛰ As we hiked across humid rocky terrains, I often stopped to marvel at the tiny plants growing on the edges of the trails.

🌸 One of those was the common butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris) with its beautiful purple flower blooming high above its dangerous leaves arranged in the shape of a star.

☠️ Why dangerous? It might not look like it, but the plant is carnivorous!

🍴 You can’t expect to get many nutrients from soil in these areas, especially if you grow on volcanic rock, so what's another way to get nutrients? Eat.

🍃 When insects (mostly tiny flies) land on the butterwort's glandular leaves, they get trapped in its mucopolysaccharide slime. The leaves then curl upward from the sides and the plant starts to digest them.

💦 What lures them to the leaves? Perhaps the glistening appearance of the droplets on the leave’s glands, UV patterns or a fungus-resembling odor.

🌞 Carnivory, however, isn’t crucial for the plant’s survival, but enough sunlight is, so you won’t see the butterwort grow in the shade of another plant.

🍃 Too much prey can even damage the glands and cause the leaves to rot. The rotting leaves or leaves that are covered with insects so much that they cannot photosynthesize properly are quickly replaced by new fleshy traps, waiting for those extra nutrients.

🐝 The flower, blooming in a safe height so as to (perhaps) minimize the risk of injury for possible pollinators, attracts bees, butterflies and tiny bugs to have a sip of its nectar and pollinate it while the tiny corpses lay below, rotting away in their sticky, green grave.

You haven’t really visited Iceland in the summer if you haven’t seen these fellas!

🇮🇸 The Atlantic puffin’s (Fratercula arctica) Icelandic population comprises about 8-10 million individuals - 60% of the world’s Atlantic puffin population!

❄️ While it’s not difficult to spot them there in the summer, their winter whereabouts are somewhat hard to decipher.

🌊 Puffins spend about 8 months at sea and only return to land to breed. Also, they lose their bright coloration as winter approaches, when their beaks shed and turn grey.

💧 How do they survive so long at sea? Their feathers are waterproof and they can drink saltwater!

👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨 Puffins are monogamous and the birds usually return to the same spot to rear a single chick every year, with the same mate. Their average lifespan is almost 31 years!

🐟 You’ve surely seen pictures of puffins with a ton of fish in their beak. Usually it’s about ten but one individual was spotted carrying 62 fish! How the heck?

🍽 Well, their no. 1 prey is the sand eel or sand lance (seen in the second image), and puffins have special adaptations that help them keep the fish safely in their beak - a spiny tongue and upper palate, plus an extra bone in their jaw that prevents the fish at the tip of their beak from falling out.

There’s just so much about these birds that makes them cool, I could go on forever.

🇮🇸 Iceland’s official bird of the year 2021!

🏔 As we hiked the Fimmvörðuháls trail, I noticed something on the hill, standing tall, looking at us patiently…

It was the beautiful golden plover! That was the moment I really wished I owned a pro camera 🙄

🐦 European golden plovers (Pluvialis apricaria) build their nests on the ground and line them with lichens, grasses and leaves, making their white eggs with brown spots well camouflaged in the nest.

🐣 Their chicks are precocial and nidifugous, meaning that once they hatch, they're mature enough to move around and feed themselves. They're tiny and helpeless nonetheless, dependent on their parents for at least 25-33 days.

😳 Baby golden plovers rely on their amazing moss-mimicking feathers that help them blend in with their surroundings in order to avoid predation.

🌸 The arrival of golden plovers to Iceland is always covered by the media - in Icelandic tradition, it symbolizes the beginning of spring. Its nickname in the country is vorboðinn ljúfi, meaning "the sweet herald of spring".

🌞 A 19th century poem by the poet Páll Ólafsson reads - Lóan er komin að kveða burt snjóinn, "the golden plover has come to sing away the snow".

Iceland’s former coat of arms (1903-1919) features the country’s national bird - the gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus).

🇮🇸 Gyrs, as they are also called, are the largest species of falcon, with females reaching a maximum wingspan of 160 cm (males ca. 110). They’re so strong they can take down prey 2-3 times their size!

🚀 Though not as fast as their competitor, the fastest animal on Earth, the peregrine falcon, gyrs have amazing endurance and in contrast to peregrines, which utilize the force of gravity to reach speeds of up to 360 km/h, gyrs rely solely on their raw power and can reach speeds of over 130 km/h.

🇮🇸 Gyrfalcons come in several shades, called morphs, from gray to almost completely white. This depends on how far north they live. The northernmost populations tend to be the palest.

❄️ They are hyper-specialized for winter - they’re the only species of raptor that does not need to migrate south for winter. Gyrfalcons have even been spotted on sea ice during winter, far from land!

As an addition to my previous post, here are some local artists explaining how it goes with the Nootka lupin on Iceland

Hate the lupin, love the lupin

Just when you thought you’ve learnt enough about these amphibians! Venomous caecilians!

🐦 Excited about this!

The new European Breeding Atlas will be available by the end of this year - it will include updated info about species distribution and abundance.

Cannot wait to see what changed in Europe, but I am also a bit worried that the results won't be too optimistic.

What do you think?

We are happy to announce that he title page has been finalised, and promotion will start soon via the web pages of the publisher Lynx Edicions

https://www.lynxeds.com/product/european-breeding-bird-atlas-2-distribution-abundance-and-change/

How do you like the cover by Szabolcs Kókay?

🤔 They're probably not the animals you'll find in your favorite Nat Geo documentary, but caecilians are some of the coolest animals on Earth!

☝️ Really! Have you ever heard of animals that feed on their mother's oviduct while they're developing inside her? How about animals that eat an extra layer of their mother's skin during their first weeks outside her body? You know, like a creepy alternative to mammals drinking their mother's milk.

😎 Read Badass Nature's newest article and you will have!

Caecilians - The Blind Ones Thse serpentine amphibians are some of the coolest creatures you never heard of!

‼️DON’T GRASP THIS NETTLE


🌏 Gympie-gympie, or Dendrocnide moroides is the common stinging nettle’s distant cousin that lives in the Australasian region. Now that you know this, you won’t be surprised if I tell you that this plant can be deadly.


🌱 Unlike the sting of the herb that grows in your backyard, the sting of this 3-4 meters tall shrub isn’t just annoying for a few minutes or hours, the pain can last for weeks to months! On top of that, the affected area can be sensitive to cold for up to two years, causing electric shock-like pain. If the hair-like structures from the plant’s leaves or stems enter your nose, it can cause horrendous sneezing and even nosebleed.


Its common name ‘the su***de plant’ comes from a rumor that an officer once used the plant for cleaning after he took a number two in a forest in Australia. After weeks of suffering from breathing troubles and nauseating pain, he used his gun to take his own life.


🌳 While gympie gympie is the most dangerous plant of the nettle family, its close relative, Dendrocnide excelsa, the giant stinging tree, is the tallest one, growing to stunning 40 meters in height and 6 meters in diameter. Touching these plants can be painful to humans and deadly to dogs, horses or other non-native animals, causing their nervous system to shut down. Native mammals, birds and other animals are not only seemingly immune to the plants’ toxins, they even eat their leaves and fruits.


Hey, Evolution, y u so mad in Australia?

📸 CSIRO