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Friday Film

Friday Film:: Virgin Mothers

By July 6, 2012September 24th, 2015One Comment

Today’s Friday Film is by John Dunstan whose excellent short films were featured in previous posts, Short Film:: Wild Jersey City and ‘The Secret Life of….my small urban backyard’ in a past Foragings.

He’s back with a new short film, one  in a series building from the bottom up on the food chain. This one is titled ‘Virgin Mothers‘ and features the role of aphids in our complex food web. The film explores parthenogenesis, the ability of aphids to reproduce without breeding. It also demonstrates the various roles of aphids at the bottom of the food chain including being farmed, used as hosts and of course as a buffet source for a variety of other insects. The film includes an interesting look at honeydew, the waste of the aphids and its impact on other wildlife. The footage is beautiful and offers a fascinating, close-up look at the life of aphids.

Virgin Mothers from John Dunstan on Vimeo.

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Kelly Brenner

Kelly Brenner is a naturalist, writer and artist based in Seattle. She is the author of THE NATURALIST AT HOME: Projects for Discovering the Hidden World Around Us and NATURE OBSCURA: A City’s Hidden Natural World from Mountaineers Books, a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards and Pacific Northwest Book Awards. She writes articles about natural history and has bylines in Crosscut, Popular Science, National Wildlife Magazine and others. On the side she writes fiction.

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  • Pingback: Virgin Mothers, the secret life of aphids, a must-see video

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