Warburg!
By Juliane Filser, 09.02.2023

Another long-term project was finished today: the showcase with our oldtimer, the Warburg apparatus dating back from the first years of the university. Former technician Ute Uebers came to help with the details, and from now on the instrument decorates the entrance of the UFT building.

Social Distancing in House Martins
By Juliane Filser, 08.08.2022

No summer vacations without nature goodies: The flight manouvres of house martins (Delichon urbicum) are familiar phenomena of every summer, and their chatter becomes most apparent when large numbers are sitting closely packed on power cables. However, during times of pandemic they apparently mimick human behaviour: near the „iron age house“ on the island of Amrum they would practice social distancing…

Quarantine Pleasures
By Juliane Filser, 19.07.2022

Not everything is bad during a Covid-19 infection: forced to being homebound on a hot day like this, I was lucky enough to take this shot of one of my favourite insects – Calopteryx splendens, a true beauty. The females look less conspicious, being uniformly green. Note the long bristles at the grabbing legs – no chance for the prey!

Abuse
By Juliane Filser, 04.06.2021

This box was originally built for and inhabited by starlings. In later years, woodpeckers would enlargen the hole – and now it has become home of a squirrel! As these cute rodents are well known for preying on birds‘ nests, this righteously can be called abuse..

Monsters in Nature
By Juliane Filser, 03.06.2021

On our excursion to the Königsmoor we encountered not only a lush vegetation of typical bog species such as the carnivorous Drosera rotundifolia but also the largest earthworm I ever found in nature (probably Lumbricus terrestris). Note that my shoe size is 43…

dead otter (Lutra lutra)
By Juliane Filser, 09.09.2020

On September 09, 2020 I made a tragic discovery on my way to work: a big puddle of blood on the road, and at the margin a dead otter (Lutra lutra), a young male – first time ever that I had seen one around here. Although it is very sad to find a dead specimen of THE umbrella species of conservation in Bremen, this on the other hand proves that they are at least there. Yet it also calls for paying more attention to traffic regulation: this road is officially forbidden for cars, with very few exceptions. However, it is also a rat run for cars heading in N-S direction, accompanied by plenty of roadkills. More pictures see https://seafile.zfn.uni-bremen.de/d/b6e3ac0089c34c3e9481/

Easter 2020 – Social distancing in eggs
By Juliane Filser, 12.04.2020

A very special Easter nest: Right on Easter Sunday I found this lonely egg near our pond. A couple of mallards had been around during the last weeks and obviously started with this unfinished nest. Maybe the large fox that I had seen the other week is to blame that it was abandoned with one egg only?

Nice excursion finds
by Juliane Filser, 14.06.2019

Half-day excursions can be so exciting! Here are two examples of what we encountered on June 5 and 12 2019, respectively:

Asilidae are a predatory family of flies. Here is one with its regrettable prey, a curculionid beetle . The characteristic paired lobes at the tarsi are nicely visible. Below, you can see a species from the genus Neoitamus holding a curcolionid beetle (Phyllobius sp.).

Also, students attending my lectures are familiar with the interesting reproduction behaviour of Helicidae: During mating they „shoot“ a calcareous structure, the so-called love dart seen in one of the pictures above, into the partner’s foot.

Surprising Find
by Juliane Filser, 05.06.2018

While taking mesofauna samples, PhD student Hind Khalili found a really smashing surprise in her small soil cores!