These hornets live right outside Tokyo, can fly upwards of 50 miles a day, and presumably kill around 40 people each year.

Image Credit to Muenster

While stopping by Digg.com today, I also read this hilarious comment… “Instead of stinging you, it just scares you to death.” I then proceeded to continue doing research on these gigantic hornets periodically throughout the day.

The video below, courtesy of National Geographic gives a first look into how these creatures live and behave, which is “aggressive” to say the least. Here the giant hornets band together to slaughter an entire European honeybee hive within minutes. Not purely for the sake of terror, some evolution babble has to go into the frenzy. The hornets need the honeybee larvae which they feed to their own offspring for weeks.

Cracked.com listed the hornet as one of the “5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World.”

The video below is called The Crisis of Credit: Visualized. It attempts to depict the economic meltdown through a nicely done animation. Until the government figures out how to effectively communicate to the masses, maybe they should turn to creative mediums.

“The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated.” Crisis of Credit is a nice project by Jonathan Jarvis. Thanx to my buddy Casey for pointing me to this.

What’s really interesting is that fossils of these creatures can be found in Asia, Europe, North America and there’s some disputes over whether fossils have turned up in Africa or not. Particularly whether the fossils were actually Tarsiers, not whether they were found. However, due to their 45 year million long record of existence, it’s hard to compare seemingly 35 million year old bones to other creatures of similar size.

These days, Tarsiers are bound to Southeast Asian islands including the Philippines, Sulawesi, Borneo, and Sumatra.

From Wikipedia: Tarsiers are small animals with enormous eyes; each eyeball is approximately 16 mm in diameter and is as large as their entire brain.[3] Tarsiers also have very long hind limbs. In fact, their feet have extremely elongated tarsus bones, from which the animals get their name. The head and body range from 10 to 15 cm in length, but the hind limbs are about twice this long (including the feet), and they also have a slender tail from 20 to 25 cm long. Their fingers are also elongated, with the third finger being about the same length as the upper arm. Most of the digits have nails, but the second and third toes of the hind feet bear claws instead, which are used for grooming. Tarsiers have very soft, velvety fur, which is generally buff, beige, or ochre in color.

They catch insects by jumping at them, but they’re also known to prey on small vertebrates, like birds, snakes, bats and lizards. They can even catch birds in mid-flight when they’re jumping from tree to tree. Quite surprising when compared to the way they look when resting in a tree. You can see them in action for yourself in the video below.

“Gestation takes about six months, and tarsiers give birth to single offspring. Young tarsiers are born furred, and with open eyes, and are able to climb within a day of birth. They reach sexual maturity after one year. Adults live in pairs, with a home range of around one hectare.”

THE TARSIER IN ACTION:

Thanx to various flickr users for the photos.

• Eat yogurt every single morning with coffee
• Eat at a restaurant of different ethnicity every week
• Yoga stretches before bed, not just in the morning
• Consciously practice patience until it becomes natural
• Start working on that six pack (for real)
• Budget my money better
• Stay in contact with people that are important to me
• Build out a more diverse and global business network
• Double the traffic on my main websites
• Scout a new office

Whether you have new years resolutions or not, it’s important to take this chance and reflect on your life. Look back on the last year, think about everything that has happened to you. Were you in control of it? Could it have been better? Would changing something within your core mentality change your outlook on life? Make it more positive? Increase your patience? If you think anything can be done to improve your overall well-being, boost your happiness and feed your soul… Just do it.