Many large animals would still be living in Central Europe of today, if humans hadn't exterminated these over the course of millennia. These include mammoth, elephant, rhinoceros, bison, moose, Irish elk, deer, European donkey, horses, aurochs, buffalo, wild sheep, etc. pp... Recent research has helped us to understand: their influence on the landscape was or would be massive: In Germany, without the influence of human beings there would hardly be connected forests, but instead in their place a diverse, mosaic-like landscape of meadows, tree and bush groups, game passes, wallows, etc. Habitat for all those animal and plant species that are today described as "open land species of often uncertain origin".
Megabat with high wings
With a wing span of up to one metre and a weight of approximately a half
kilogram, the bare-backed fruit bat Dobsonia crenulata of Sulawesi is
among the especially "secretive" megabats. Bare-backed fruit
bats seldom fly above the trees, like most other large megabats do. The
"contiguous" wing, which grows together over the haired back,
is the characteristic of their breed. Similar to a plane with high situated
wings, they are also capable of slow flight, allowing them to enter even
dense forest. Thanks to their special wing construction, bare-backed fruit
bats can make use of biotopes into which other large megabats are unable
to penetrate.
Donkey's ear
Donkeys were at work at the major construction sites in human history
– from the pyramids of Giza, the Cologne Cathedral to atomic reactors
in Asia. An animal with a history. Jesus, Moses and Tutankhamen are sure
to have often sat on a donkey as children and Cleopatra loved to bathe
in donkey milk. The domestic donkey began to lose its significance here
at the beginning of the 20th century. Its most significant competitor
was initially the bicycle, the "spoked donkey". Then came the
automobile. While the last wild donkeys are today struggling to survive,
some domestic donkey races are also on the endangered list. Our bottle-fed
baby "Emil", a living reminder of the filming in Andalusia,
takes it calmly.
Two egg-carrying females of the summer tadpole shrimp Triops cancriformis we found in the Guadalquivir alluvium in Spanish Andalusia. The spotted animal originates from a roadside ditch containing clear water. The uniform beige-brown specimen lived in a hollow in which primarily river water buttercups Ranunculus fluitans bloomed. Hundreds of tadpole shrimp in all sizes had agitated the water into a murky grey-brown brew. Can the apparent differences be traced back to the differing environmental conditions in the two ponds and thus to a coincidence, or are they expressions of two different evolutionary lines?
