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This amazing video presents the life cycle of the sea biscuit Clypeaster subdepressus, as part of a master's thesis project conducted at the Biosciences Institute of the University of São Paulo.

Adult specimens were collected from sand beds in the São Sebastião Channel (São Sebastião, SP, Brazil). Researchers then induced gamete release (eggs and sperm), followed by in vitro fertilisation. The resulting embryonic development was observed under light microscopy in a controlled laboratory setting.

As development progressed, embryos transformed into free-swimming larvae approximately 0.2 mm in width. These larvae were sustained on a diet of microalgae until they reached the stage of metamorphosis. During this stage, a juvenile sea biscuit began forming within the larval body. Once the tiny podia (tube feet) and spines developed, the larva sank and underwent metamorphosis, resorbing its larval tissues in the process.

The juvenile then began life among sand grains, exploring its new benthic environment.

The video footage was captured at the University of São Paulo’s Marine Biology Center (CEBIMar-USP), located in São Sebastião, on the northern coast of São Paulo State, Brazil.

Here's the video - enjoy!

 
Out of the over 4,000 species of frogs on Planet Earth, around a third of them are considered to be at threat of extinction. Here, Guy Fenton takes us on a journey, exploring why frogs are so vital to our ecosystems.  Fenton also covers how frogs are helping scientists to create new innovations in the medical field.  Told from a non-scientific perspective, this short video speaks volumes about the importance of our amphibian friends.

One reason (apart from any species has a right to survive without forced extinction because of our actions) can be seen as purely selfish.  The frogs of this world may well turn out to be incredibly important to the future of our species.  So, conserving them in the wild so we can continue to learn from them is something that we should make every attempt to ensure.

Scientists, for example, are studying frog skins to see how the cells can be turned into new antibiotics.  As most of our current antibiotics are now becoming useless because of antibiotic resistance, these new ones are vital – urgent even.  More and more bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics – could frogs hold the secret to a new group of antibiotics?

Have a look at this video – it’s very short and you will (most likely) learn something.

Curious about grizzly bears? A 7 minute film about the elusive North Cascades grizzly bear narrated by ecologist and film maker Chris Morgan, and including appearances by many Washington State residents who share their opinions of bears, and help bust some myths. The film includes beautiful footage of the North Cascades, and bears in Alaska where Morgan has hosted several films for PBS Nature, the BBC, and others.

In 1989, Amanda Lollar discovered a bat dying on the sidewalk.  Distressed that any creature should have to expire in such a way she took it home to allow it a dignified send off.

However the bat, which she christened Sunshine, survived due to Amanda’s care and was the catalyst for Bat World Sanctuary, which Amanda founded in 1994.

This short film by Brett Kessler takes a peek in to this world of injured, orphaned, and non-releasable bats in Mineral Wells, Texas.

It may be the national bird, but many Americans go through their entire lives without seeing one.  Not so the residents of Unalaska (in, unsurprisingly enough, Alaska).  It is one of the biggest fishing ports in the world and when the fishing boats return, bald eagles are waiting for them – in their droves.  Great Big Story takes a look at this fascinating bird which is about as opportunistic a feeder as you can get (that means it’s not desperately fussy!).

Have you ever seen a host of honey bees using their wings to cool down their hive? This and many other wonderful moments were caught by Mike Sutton when he recently had the opportunity to film hives at Hillside Apiaries in New Hampshire.  He has managed to capture some wonderful close-ups of honey bees in their natural environment, marrying his film with a brilliant soundtrack and some honey bee facts. Plus he was only stung three times during the whole filming process.

Did you know that symbiosis is one of the most important words in the English language?  Why? Because without symbiosis it is possible that most life on earth (ourselves included) would not live. This is the first in a series of short films exploring the amazing science of symbiosis, a mutually beneficial relationship between two or more species. In this episode - Symbiotic Super Powers – we get to learn what symbiosis is, discover why it’s so important for life on Earth, and meet some of the scientists who are working hard to understand it.  This very cool short was created by Day’s Edge Productions.

Look up at the sky and what do you see? Well, blue, yes. And maybe a plane or a bird, but otherwise ... nothing. Or so you think. It turns out that right above you, totally invisible, is an enormous herd of animal life -- tiny bugs riding the wind currents.

According to research done by British scientists in a six mile square space about our heads there can be as many as three billion insects.

That is quite some figure.  This amazing animation takes you through the reasons why.  Some of the heights that these insects reach is pretty spectacular to say the very least.  It certainly answers the question how high can insects fly?

Picture one of those double-take moments when you have to look again in a mixture of curiosity and alarm. Then imagine that you are thirty meters underwater when that happens. Over the years, divers off the coast of California have had many such moments when they suddenly come across the huge face of an old man peering at them from the rocky reefs below. Yet this is not anything approaching a subaquatic nightmare: it is the face of an extraordinary creature, the wolf eel.

You might have thought that there was only one species of giant squirrel.  In fact, there are 44 in the tribe and the largest is the Red and White Giant Flying Squirrel (Petaurista alborufus).

It is found in the forests of China and Taiwan and, boy, can it fly.  Strictly speaking it glides, but as you can see from the video above it is extraordinarily good at that.  It launches itself in to space and then seems to float effortlessly through the trees to its destination.  As you can imagine they are very difficult to film!

The flight is – admittedly – awesome but what many find equally striking about the Red and White Giant Flying Squirrel are its piercing blue eyes.

This incredible species inhabits the dense montane forests and limestone cliffs of China.  It is distributed widely in the country and is not in any danger of extinction.  In Taiwan they inhabit the island’s hardwood and conifer forests, nesting high in tree hollows.

They have small litters of only one or two infants and feed on a variety of nuts, fruit and vegetation.  They will also eat insects and larvae and have been spotted occasionally raiding bird nests for eggs when times are a little frugal.

The tiger shark is more often considered the hunter rather than the hunted but here is filmed evidence that it is not quite at the top of its particular food chain.  Footage captured by Edwar Herreño shows a pod of killer whales take down a tiger shark with ruthless efficiency and then divvy up the resulting carcass, playing with their food as we might do with a shrimp.  The film captures not only the immediacy of lunch time chez the killers but also their sheer, magnificent power and size - not to mention that they ruthlessly stalk, kill and devour their prey so gracefully. True cetacean connoisseurs.

This is just amazing – one cell becomes two, two becomes four – and so on until a complete organism is there in front of your eyes. In this case it is a newt tadpole that emerges but is the process that is fascinating. It may sound like a long time to wait to see a tadpole swim off but believe me, you will be entranced by this little creature’s process of becoming.

A film by Jan van IJken, Becoming just became the one thing that made my day. Enjoy!

Can you bring a species back from extinction? Despite fictional accounts in books and movies like Jurassic Park the answer remains a very definite no – not in any complete way for sure.  Yet species on the edge of destruction can be saved even if they are dodging extinction in the most unlikely of places.

This is the story of the rediscovery of the Lord Howe Stick Insect (Dryococelus australis) which had also been known as the tree lobster due to its size and color at maturity.  It was thought to have been made extinct by 1920 – game over.  Yet Lord Howe Island has an islet – a sea stack – called Ball’s Pyramid.  It had been suggested that the insect may have survived there, although most thought that highly improbable.

However an Australian team of etymologists journeyed to the islet in 1981 and the rest as they say is history.  Instead of telling you the whole story here, however, watch this beautifully made animation by Jilli Rose which tells the whole story.  It is without words for the first few minutes but after that the oral history of the Lord Howe Stick Insect and how it was saved from almost inevitable stochastic extinction. 

Don’t be put off by its length either – this is entrancing viewing.

For two hundred million years they did their own thing.  Then we came along. Dr Sue Cartsairs runs a small turtle trauma center in Ontario.  Often the turtles have been run over by vehicles and it is the job of her center to try and even the odds for survival for the turtles in this day and age.  In other words, to fix and release them.  As Dr Carstairs points out many of these turtles are over a hundred years old and as such deserve the chance to get back to the water and continue living their long, long lives. As well as a great insight in to practical not to mention pragmatic conservation, Fix and Release (by Scott Dobson) is visually very beautiful.

For me the most amazing part of the film was seeing the eggs being taken out of a turtle which had not survived its injuries.  Once extracted the eggs were placed very carefully in a box and then left to incubate and hatch.  Then they are released in to the wild (turtles are born independent). Amazing. If you would like to find out more about how to help Ontario’s fresh turtles then click here.

This is the story of a tiny insect smaller than a grain of rice – in a way it’s the circle of life writ very, very small. A native of North America, the species has recently been having something of a feast and the mountain pine beetle has reproduced to plague proportions. They have now killed most of the mature pine trees in an area the size of Wyoming.  The people at the Ruckelshaus Institute guide us through the story and the possible future of the mountain pine beetle.

Madagascar is an amazing place and here Lance Featherstone has captured its wildlife wonderfully. I don’t know about you but sometimes music can enhance a video about the natural world but most of the time I find it a distraction.  However, what Lance has decided to do here is to keep the natural sound of the rainforest as the backdrop to his film.  It works beautifully and one is left with a sense of the peace of the place.

The New Forest of England is an ancient world full of medieval monsters - duelling dragonflies, acid-firing ants and jousting stag beetles. Filmmaker Oliver Mueller combined macro, slow-motion and time-lapse techniques were combined with custom-built equipment to reveal these astonishing lives. The film was the result of 30 days shooting on location during the summer of 2015, plus months of research, planning and post-production

There’s nothing quite like a horror movie if you fancy having the wits scared out of you.  Quite what is going through a cat’s mind if they decide to sit back and watch too is beyond me.  After all, they surely cannot grasp the concept of television – do they think that what they see is really going on in front of them? Who can say but this particular cat seems to be joining in the spirit of things more than adequately.

From what I can make out from the soundtrack the horror movie that the cat is watching is “Psycho” (there is a mention of Mrs Bates and I suspect it is the moment that Lila discovers her corpse in the fruit cellar).  Whatever the case, this moggy decides that enough is enough as soon as the screaming starts!  Yet before that the slowly widening eyes as the cat realises the, well, horror of the situation, is a sight to behold…

Togepi is a 9-month-old Tabby-Bengal Mix.  Now she's truly mixed (up!).

About 10 million individual yacare caimans exist within the Brazilian pantanal, representing what is quite possibly the largest single crocodilian population on Earth.  Every year as the summer progresses aggregate in small bays that get smaller day after day. It is a very difficult period and there are many fights over territory. When the water runs out, the caimans reduce they metabolism and remain buried under the mud, waiting for the upcoming rains. Those who survive, begin the mating season, where males perform a real water dance, vibrating their bodies to attract females, and enjoy the abundance of fish brought by the waters returning to flood the Pantanal.  The Director of Photography of this exquisite look at a little known species of caiman was Cristian Dimitrius.

The most intriguing physical attribute of an anole (ubiquitous, tree-dwelling lizards of the New World tropics) is its dewlap.  Used to communicate to potential mates (and to identify members of its own species).  Award winning production company Day’s Edge have created this marvellous short documentary about the dewlap, focusing on the work of Dr Manuel Leal, a biologist at the University of Missouri.  He poses a question - if two species of anoles have the same dewlap (at least to our eyes) then how do they tell each other apart? The answer is an eye-opener to say the least.