Wikipedia:Picture of the day/August 2012

Five views of the shell of a sacred chank (Turbinella pyrum), a species of sea snail (also known as a conch) found in the Indian Ocean. The name "chank" is derived from the Sanskrit name shankha. The shell is of religious importance in Hinduism and Buddhism, where it is recognized as one of the eight auspicious symbols.

Photo: H. Zell

The

Photo: Felix König

A pair of

Plate 5 from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, showing a variety of calcareous sponges, a class of about 400 marine sponges that are found mostly in shallow tropical waters worldwide. Calcareous sponges vary from radially symmetrical vase-shaped body types to colonies made up of a meshwork of thin tubes, or irregular massive forms. The skeleton has either a mesh or honeycomb structure.

Image credit: Ernst Haeckel

Portrait of a

A panoramic view of Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic, as viewed from the Petřín Lookout Tower. The view is approximately 180 degrees, from north on the left to south on the right. The area on which Prague was founded was settled as early as the Paleolithic age. By the year 800 there was a simple fort with wooden buildings, occupying about two-thirds of the area that is now Prague Castle. Prague was an important seat for trading where merchants from all of Europe settled, and it especially flourished during the reign of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

Photo: David Iliff

The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is a carnivorous marsupial found in the wild only on the Australian island of Tasmania. It is characterised by its stocky and muscular build, black fur, pungent odour, extremely loud and disturbing screech, keen sense of smell, and ferocity when feeding. Its large head and neck allow it to generate the strongest bite per unit body mass of any living mammal.

Photo: JJ Harrison

A line drawing of the

The larva of a scaldfish (Arnoglossus laterna), one of the many species that are considered to be ichthyoplankton, a blanket term for fish eggs and larvae that cannot swim effectively under their own power, but must drift with the ocean currents. Fish larvae are part of the zooplankton that eat smaller plankton, while fish eggs carry their own food supply. Both eggs and larvae are themselves eaten by larger animals.

Photo: Hans Hillewaert

A vertical, end view, and cross-section of a carambola, the fruit of Averrhoa carambola, a species of tree native to Southeast Asia and South Pacific islands. The fruit has ridges running down its sides (usually five, but the number may vary); in cross-section, it resembles a star, inspiring the alternative name starfruit. The entire fruit, including the slightly waxy skin, is edible.

Photo: S. Masters

The

Tracy Caldwell Dyson in the Cupola module of the International Space Station, observing the Earth below during Expedition 24. Caldwell Dyson is an American chemist and astronaut. She was selected by NASA in 1998 and made her first spaceflight in August 2007 on the STS-118 mission aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Photo: NASA/Tracy Caldwell Dyson

At Breakfast (1898) by the Danish artist L. A. Ring. Ring was one of the foremost painters of Danish symbolism. As a painter, he made his humble origins the dominant theme of his paintings. This painting shows his wife, Sigrid Kähler, surrounded by subtle symbols indicating his love for her, such as the myrtle branches above her head, a symbol of Aphrodite according to the Ancient Greeks, and used in Denmark to adorn the bride at weddings.

The

Panellus stipticus is a common and widely distributed species of fungus that grows on decaying deciduous trees, especially beech, oak, and birch. In some areas, it is bioluminescent, and the fruit bodies of these strains will glow in the dark—an effect known as foxfire—when fresh or sometimes when revived in water after drying.

Photo: Ylem

Six

Photo: NASA/MSFC/David Higginbotham/Emmett Given

Richea scoparia is a species of flowering plant endemic to Tasmania, Australia. It is a compact, often rounded shrub branching mostly from the base and which can grow to 2 metres (6.6 ft) high. The plant is spiny to touch and can make impenetrable thickets where it is common. Branches are clothed with stiff, curved, sharp pointed, awl shaped leaves, and the flowers are eaten by wallabies.

Photo: JJ Harrison

The castle on Eilean Donan, a small island in Loch Duich in the western Scottish Highlands. The castle, which was built in the 13th century and destroyed in the 18th century, is widely familiar from many photographs and appearances in film and television. The present buildings are a 20th-century reconstruction.

Photo: David Iliff

An 1805 depiction of a

An 1893 print showing various examples of sea anemones, a group of water-dwelling, predatory animals named after the anemone, a terrestrial flower. As cnidarians, sea anemones are closely related to corals, jellyfish, tube-dwelling anemones, and Hydra. Its body is a polyp attached at the bottom to the surface beneath it by an adhesive foot, although a few species are free-floating.

Artist: Giacomo Merculiano; Restoration: Citron

A

Photo: JJ Harrison

Dorsal and ventral views of the shell of an orange spider conch (Lambis crocata), a species of sea snail that belongs to the true conch family. It is found in the western Indian Ocean and grows to between 70 to 205 mm (2.8 to 8.1 in) in length.

Photo: George Chernilevsky

The Italian wall lizard (Podarcis sicula) is native to southern and southeastern Europe. As the name suggests, it is the most abundant lizard species in southern Italy. The species is known for having been subject to "rapid evolution": In 1971, ten adult specimens were brought to the Croatian island of Pod Mrčaru from a neighbouring island, where they founded a new bottlenecked population. After the Yugoslav Wars, scientists found that the Pod Mrčaru population differed greatly from the original group, although the two are genetically identical. The most surprising difference was that individuals on Pod Mrčaru had developed cecal valves, "a brand new feature not present in the ancestral population".

Photo: Richard Bartz

The Tepees, a

Photo: Finetooth

The

The

Photo: Wladyslaw

Two workers, c. 1908, use

Photo: Bain News Service; Restoration: AutoGyro

A crystal bar of cadmium, made by the flux process, and 1 cm³ of cadmium for comparison. This soft, bluish-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. It was discovered in 1817 simultaneously by Stromeyer and Hermann, both in Germany, as an impurity in zinc carbonate.

Photo: Alchemist-hp