Finds of the week

Pavlin-eyed atlas is one of the largest butterflies in the world. The size of her wings can reach 24 cm! The Museum of Victoria and Albert in London is stored specimen, which was caught on Java Island in 1922. Due to the fact that the wings of this butterfly were incorrectly dispersed, their scope increased to 26.2 cm, but with the "proper reconstruction" it is 24 cm. Pavlin-eyeds are interesting because they have no mouth. They do not eat and exist only at the expense of those substances that have accumulated in the caterpillars.

His name, Pavlin-eyed atlas received in honor of the hero of the ancient Greek myths of the Atlas (which we often know under the name of Atlanta). According to legend, the Atlas kept all the heavenly arch on his shoulders. Thus, the title underlines the huge size of the insect. However, the biggest butterfly in the world is still a scoop of Agrippina. One of the copies of this scraped, mined in Brazil, has a scope of a wing 29.8 cm!

On all shoes

An international festival of balloons is held annually in Albuquerque (New Mexico, USA). Over 800,000 people from around the world go out to see how aircraft of participants from 50 countries rise in the air. Usually the event is held in early October – it is at that time in Albuquerque worth warm, solar and windless weather.

The main event of the festival – the parade of the air balloons of an unusual form. These days, the clouds were torn aerostats in the form of heroes of computer games, fabulous characters, fantastic animals, Wang Gogh’s heads and everything you can (and can’t) imagine. This year more than 750 aeronauts took part in the festival. Flashmob took place in one day, during which all the balls rose to the sky almost simultaneously. Timelaps of this spectacular flight You can see on video.

Work nose!

What happens in this photo? And this London boys in 1938 play on the sidewalk to rolling the peanut nose. The wider probably took away from other pocket money. However, peanutation was far from the only game in those times. So, the children loved to throw a rope loop through a lamppost and ride the resulting improvised swings. Even in the go there were races on the sheep (they even put on a special break), launching paper ships and jumping with an umbrella instead of a parachute with visors of houses (and this hobby was unsafe!). That I had to go when the iPads have not yet invented. Earlier, "my planet" talked about the history of the origin of toys.

Backway wind

Admire how the athlete-paraglider takes off. On the wing, he will be able to rise to a height of up to 4000 m and fly to 300 km! Paraglider weighs only 5-7 kg and folded quietly fit in a backpack. The dome for flights was invented in the 1940s in the United States, but the first art competition events were held only in 1968. And in 1980, paragliding declared independent sports.

Nowadays, a paragliding contest (one more name of this sport) is held regularly. Pilots compete in the height of lifting, the speed of the route and the duration of staying in the air. In addition, there is an unusual view of sports tourism called Bivak Fly: Paraplaneers take with them the tourist equipment and stock of products and go on the air travel. They overcome dozens (and at successful conditions and hundreds!) kilometers per day and stop overnight at sites suitable for starting the next day. As a rule, it happens in the mountains. Especially popular for Bivak Flaw Himalayas in Nepal and India and Karakorum Mountain Chains in Pakistan.