Ask urodacus!

[quote=“bob”]

What do trees use water for anyway?[/quote]
For making absinthe. :unamused:

It’ll be something to do with carrying nutrients and all that but how exactly. Does water flow up and sap down?

What is that process called that takes carbon dioxide out of the air and turns it into pencils?

I need a refresher course on how trees work.

Not too much technical jargon please.

Can sunflowers walk after dark?

sunflowers turn their heads after dark, like many other flowers. Is that walking?

Bob, plants absorb nutrients dissolved in water through their roots. vessels, a little like blood capillaries, join to larger vessels and connect in a network just below the outside surface of the stem or trunk and then branch (he he he) again higher up in the plant and travel to all the leaves. Here, water is lost by evaporation through tiny holes on the underside of the leaf, and that loss pulls the rest of the water upward, so plants don’t need hearts to move their ‘blood’ around. However, there’s a problem, in that sucking on a tube of liquid can only pull enough to raise a column up 32 feet if it’s a wide column, and a lot higher if the column is narrow and you have capillary action helping. But there is a max height for most plants, normally about 3-400 feet. The max height restriction depends on things like the atmospheric pressure pushing liquid up the bottom of the pipe, the boiling point of the liquid, and the tendency of it to boil in a vacuum. with water at atmospheric pressure, a vacuum pump can only suck up about 10 meters of column height before the column breaks (the liquid boils under the reduced pressure)…

another totally separate system of vessels connects most parts of the plant and allows back and forth flow of a solution containing the sugars that were made by photosynthesis, and other chemicals. this is the sap of a plant, and allows plants to store sugars in different places from where they were made… like in the potato instead of in the potato leaf, so the pant can survive the winter when its leaves freeze and die (unless you dig the potato up and eat it first).

No. I just need to know if I should lock the windows.

OK thanks. I think I got that.

Why do we mostly have (bad) nightmares and less or no pleasent dreams ? :ponder:

And why does prolonged use of Melatonin seem to induce nightmares?

Heard some strange wildlife noises a few weeks back, and found these tracks outside.

Is it a coyote or a bobcat? The noise I heard was not a coyote. Unfortunately, the tracks were in kinda dry soil, so hard to make out.

Any ideas?

[quote=“saddletramp”]Heard some strange wildlife noises a few weeks back, and found these tracks outside.

Is it a coyote or a bobcat? The noise I heard was not a coyote. Unfortunately, the tracks were in kinda dry soil, so hard to make out.

Any ideas?[/quote]

Coyote tracks are always in a straight line-unlike a dog’s. I can’t tell the length in that stride either by your photo-any scat around?
Should be dry with traces of rodent or deer hair in it. Coyotes mark by scat. Damn hard to track-I’ve spent whole afternoons tracking a few in endless concentric circles-that’s why most hunters bait and wait or just trap or poison them. I’ve seen bobcat too-really fast-seen them run down jack rabbits in the day time.
What kind of noises did u hear-like a mewling or a yipping?

BTW I DO NOT hunt anymore!

Me neither, more’s the pity. :cry:
But I doubt they’re coyotes or bobcats, seeing as how neither are found in Taiwan.

Me neither, more’s the pity. :cry:
But I doubt they’re coyotes or bobcats, seeing as how neither are found in Taiwan.[/quote]

I was guessing this was in the States some where South West judging by the soil.

It’s a domestic/feral cat if it’s in Taiwan. I can’t judge by the photo the size-you should lay a coke can down next time for reference. I’m sure it’s some kind of cat.

Here’s a link
http://www.bear-tracker.com/bobcat.html

Anyway, to answer your question, they’re bobcat tracks. Or maybe puma or mountain lion (they still have puma in the states?).
With pugs as clear as that you would see clawmarks if it was a coyote.

It looks like a cat footprint. Taiwan have many cat.

Yes-Taiwan feral cat have many.

Our cat gets pretty feral if the dog goes near him. His feet don’t change shape, though. Feral cats means wild cats? Never knew.

Um, saddletramp has now left the building that is Taiwan.

I’m no expert on American fauna.

Now, if you’d asked me about koalas, or bridled nail tail wallabies, or dunnarts, or woylies… or even spiders and scorpions, I would have had an answer right off the bat.

How many spots has a quoll?

Cougar hind foot?

see bear-tracker.com/caninevsfeline.html

Eastern or tiger quoll?