As an educated behavioural ecologist I felt the urge to congratulate Charles Darwin (12. February 1809) on his 200th birthday. Of course he is not still alive, but being one of the greatest scientist of all time I feel he deserve the humble attention he can get from my blog.
His greatest work; The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, has been the basis of many studies after it was first published in 1859. In many ways these admirable reflections on the natural world of his time has been the foundation of my own fascination of nature. The diversity of species, sexual selection, elaborate ornamentation and all that has to do with what we love about nature, and what flipped society up side down 150 years ago is all thanks to a a curios boy from Shrewsbury, England. To read more about Darwin go her.
As a celebration I have added an image of Elephant Seals mating. This is a perfect example on how natural (or more correctly sexual) selection works. Only the largest and strongest males have been able to mate. As a result the males have outgrown the females, and today size dimorphism in Southern Elephant Seals are one of the greatest known in mammals. The female weighs about 600kg, while the male reaches an astonishing 4000kg. The biggest male ever to be caught was about 5 tons!
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