Abies nordmanniana: O Christmas Tree!

Fir (abeto) is the common name for the genus (género) Abies, which belongs to the pine family (Pinaceae), of coniferous trees. One of the differences between firs and spruces (picea or falso abeto in Spanish) is that spruces differ from firs in having pendulous cones.

         Cones of genus Abies                                  Cones of genus Picea

Abies nordmanniana, Caucasian fir  

                                   (abeto del Cáucaso o abeto de Normandía)

                                    is one of the most beautiful firs.

The Caucasian fir comes originally from the Caucasus region. It has a regular conical shape and dark green needles. It is used for Christmas trees.

I hope you enjoy this evergreen and "entrañable" German Christmas carol:

My Family and Other Animals (Mi familia y otros animales)

A Spanish edition of Gerald Durrell´s book               A recent English edition

I would like to recommend you this book. It might be a good choice for a Christmas present. The author of the book, Gerald Durrell, was a famous naturalist who wrote a number of books about animals in a funny and entertaining way, because he was, above all, an animal lover. He also presented some television series. The book tells us the childhood of Gerald Durrell with his family in Corfu island and his early love for animals. This created some problems for his family, because Durrell used to fill his room with every kind of local fauna: scorpions, toads, octopuses, etc. Durrell also writes about some people of the island and criticizes some members of his family from a point of view of a child who simply loves animals...

Gerald Durrell was also a pioneer in captive breeding. Here you have the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust website: http://www.durrell.org/

A new form of life

NASA scientists have discovered mysterious bacteria that can live on arsenic. It is the first organism able to substitute one of the six chemical elements crucial to life (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus)."This is just a weird branch on the known tree of life," said Paul Davies, the Arizona State University and Nasa Astrobiology Institute researcher. "We're interested ultimately in finding a different tree of life... that will be the thing that will have massive implications in the search for life in the Universe.

The following video talks about the discovery ( I hope you understand more or less).