by Paula Peeters | Feb 11, 2016 | Tales of science
Many rainforest trees begin their life in the beak of a wompoo fruit dove. And wompoos find it hard to survive without rainforest. This partnership is among the latest in a long series of trysts between rainforest trees and fruit-eating birds. A fruit and its seeds...
by Paula Peeters | Jun 6, 2015 | Tales of science, Wildlife illustration, Writing
Australian swans are black, while most swans are white. Why should this be? When I was a child, growing up in Australia, the only swans I saw were black. At Lake Wendouree in Ballarat, or in the Botanic Gardens of Melbourne, the swans were slightly menacing in their...
by Paula Peeters | Apr 17, 2015 | Tales of science, Writing
A rainforest tree is subject to many mortal perils: shade, cyclones, fires, chainsaws. One of the most grotesque and extended deaths is carried in a tiny seed, rained down from above by complicit birds and bats. Many such seeds drop harmlessly to the forest floor, or...
