T’is the time of year for all thing sparkly , and while we opt foradorning our Christmas treeswith drinking glass novelty and twinkly lights the natural world is teeming with festive bauble candidate . From deep - sea comb jellies to mirror spiders , here are some of nature ’s greatest Christmas tree baubles for the foraging decorator . ( niobium : please do n’t attempt to actually decorate your tree diagram with nature . Looking for lights in the bathyal zona will end unfavourably for you . )
When natural choice made mirror wanderer , the glittery orchard apple tree fell a tenacious way from the tree as these magnificently colorful critters appear nothing like the chocolate-brown , grey , and black spiders most commonly found in menage . The mirror mintage native to Australia , Thwaitesia , T. argentiopunctata , andT. nigronodosa , were first described by British entomologist William Joseph Rainbow . It ’s fitting then that Rainbow should be responsible for officially identifying some of the most technicolor arachnids in the humans , as seen above .
Their silver abdomens are the outcome of down payment of G , which are by-product of their digestion . Their gut expels the guanine on its aerofoil creating a broody surface that works well as a form of camouflage as it intermingle in with effervescent raindrops in tropical timberland .
The deeper you jeopardize into the sea the stranger the wildlife becomes , and as natural light flicker to dark you rule all manner of alien - like creatures place on a show to a rather limited audience . The hydrozoans are one such group , belong to the cnidaria that includes jellyfish , their closest relative . hydroid are made up of a colony of animals that share the same genetic material and are capable of asexual reproduction . Within the hydrozoans are some of the most freaky and telling deep - sea alternatives to merry luminance , withGonionemus vertensmaking the perfect Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree silk hat with its glittering lights and star - like filaments .
Slime mold is an overarching name to describe a group of unrelated eukaryotic organisms that can function as a group or live freely as single cells . When they aggregate , they can form into enormous being on land , in pee , or attach to tree tree trunk . The beautiful sparkling disco ball pictured are a type of slime mold , Elaeomyxa cerifera . Sometimes mistaken for amethyst mushrooms , this gook mould is in reality no longer considered a member of the fungi folk having formerly been categorize within this radical . With its sparkly surface and bauble - appropriate cast , there are for certain worse things to find growing on your Christmas tree .
What do you get when you fuse a pine cone and sparkles ? These iridescent mystifying - sea worms must surely be a strong contender . Four new members were identified in 2020 , also known as scaleworms . find at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean around hydrothermal vents , these shimmer critters have earned themselves the nickname " Elvis worms " because their glittery outfits look like the diamante on the King ’s famous jumpsuit .
