Vampire amoeba

sometimes I think about how red is the first color in the visible light spectrum to be absorbed in ocean water

and how many deep-sea creatures evolved to be red as a stealth adaptation, making them near invisible when there’s little to no light present

and it makes me think. If there’s never any visible light present in these animals’ lifetimes, if no ROV shines a little flashlight in depths that would otherwise not have light, would these animals ever get the opportunity to actually be red? that might be a stupid question.

imagine being a little deep sea creature and having no idea you’re red until something comes along and shines a light on you except you still wouldn’t be able to tell because you’re probably colorblind. anyway. I don’t know where I was going with this post

As someone who has a very strong hyperfixation on biology and Pokémon, i need to rant about heights and how people spread things without researching or reflecting about them.

My subject this time is FURRET.

So, everyone knows Furret, the gen 2 normal ferret haha Furret walk haha meme. Furret is, in its pokedex, stated to be 6'/1,80m tall. The problem is: people are not properly representing this height.

You see, in real life, we measure an animal from head to tail. A good example of this would be the snow leopard.

A snow leopard is said to be 7'/2,1m long, head to tail. Its body measures 4'/1,1m long and its tail is 3'/1m long.

In Furret, we must apply the same logic, because if we don't, it's going to look like THIS

Ridiculous, right? Many people like to represent Furret like this for the shock value.

But when we apply the head-tail logic to its length...

Voilá! A perfectly believable little boy!

Please tell me what y'all think!

Forgot I made these quick refs once!! It’s not that you should feel obligated to portray every part of an animal correctly, but in some cases these are very unique, interesting features that very few artists are ever utilizing creatively!

I visited a puffin colony a few days ago.

I want you to meet my friend... the porb

Evil biology facts that fill me with Fear :)

hey, I heard y’all like evil biology facts like knowledge about horse blood types.

well! today I was researching alternative biochemistries extraterrestrial life could use and. man. I think Earth life is fucked up enough for me thanks

biological dark matter. WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY BLOOD HAS DNA IN IT FROM NO KNOWN SOURCE. YOU CAN’T JUST SAY THAT COME BACK HERE

One specific cave that has been sealed for 5.5 million years and has developed an ecosystem completely dependent on chemosynthetic bacteria.

Was anybody going to tell me that bacteria have decided iron is yummy and are eating the Titanic, or was I supposed to just read that myself

Terrible Berry (yes, that’s what the genus name means). This whole thing is so fucked up. These scientists were testing whether radiation could be used to kill pathogens in food, so they dosed a tin of meat with enough radiation to kill any known living organism (as one does) but guess what, it still fucking spoiled because of THIS BASTARD FUCKER.

(seriously, why is it like this? WHY has a bacterium evolved to chill in radioactive waste like it’s a soothing Jacuzzi tub? What does it know that we don’t know?)

(ANSWERS. I WANT ANSWERS, YOU CHERNOBYL ASS BITCH.)

Cursed worm, which has no mouth or digestive system and depends entirely on five (5) different species of bacteria, which consume hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen monoxide, and carbon monoxide, for food. How do you, a worm, even...figure out how to do...all that?

Bone worms. At least they like their bones already dead. I still could have gone without knowing this was a thing.

“Oh, parasitic plant, that sounds c—WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING”

I am like half convinced this is made up. Seriously, bacteria grow their own electrical wires and we just let them?

The context:  Crabs and crab-like body plans have evolved independently (convergently) at least 5 times in earth's history.  This is called carcinisation.

keeping beetles

Shrimp Colors Are a Lie

Well, lie is a bit of a strong word, but scientists have known since 2014 that those special colors that mantis shrimp can see actually Aren’t A Thing.

Mantis shrimp (which aren’t a shrimp but a “stomatopod” which are more closely related to krill) have 12 types of color receptors in their eyes compared to our measly 3 receptors. We used to think this meant they could see a whole range of dazzling colors beyond our comprehension.

Some people were (rightfully) jealous.

However, it turns out that mantis shrimp probably have so many color receptors because they don’t blend colors the way we do. When you look at something purple, your red and blue receptors are strongly stimulated while your green receptors are not and your brain synthesizes this information into purple. When a mantis shrimp looks at something purple, they have a specific purple receptor that is stimulated.

Why this weird system? Probably because it is faster and more efficient. Mantis shrimp need to distinguish between prey species and react extremely quickly (some species can punch 50x faster than the blink of an eye), so they don’t have time to do the mental calculations to blend colors.

Not only is the Forbidden Shrimp Color Knowledge a sham, but mantis shrimp can actually see fewer colors than we can because they can’t distinguish as many shades between colors. They also can’t see those cursed Imaginary Colors.

Images Sources (1) (2) (3)

See, if you google “frog tongue” you’ll get these fake as hell photoshops because a frog’s real tongue isn’t really much longer than its skull. These other photos are real ones, most of them extended about as far as they go:

Here’s pretty much the VERY longest their tongues ever look:

And even this isn’t as long as it looks, because like I mention in a other post, the tongue begins at the front rather than the back of their mouth. What’s actually cool and unique about it is that it therefore has to fold backwards to fit inside the mouth and flips forward to catch bugs. There aren’t perfectly clear photos of that so here’s more doodles:

NEW FISH JUST DROPPED

imagine you’re looking at rocks at the beach and you get jumped by an octopus

The wrong Dodo went extinct

Letters and Numbers Found on the Wings of Various Moths and Butterflies.

Another thing about the importance of parasites and other “pesky” organisms is that they are a non-stop irritation to almost all other animals on the planet.....and the impact of that cannot possibly be overstated. It affects EVERYTHING those animals do. It even affects what they look like and how they’re shaped. The clouds of biting midges breeding in a marsh are going to affect how long an animal stops to graze on wetland greenery and how much of that greenery it takes. Explosions of mosquitoes that follow a wet season are what drive larger herd animals to seek drier prairies and meadows, allowing a completely different set of animals and plants to surge. Population booms of ticks and lice drive animals to practice mud-wallowing, social grooming, population splits and even mass migrations. Flies are the entire reason zebras have stripes. These are just a couple of examples, but basically the whole face of our planet looks the way it does because some of the tiniest animals are constantly pissing off the largest.

Dogor is the 18,000 year old pup that was found within the Siberian Permafrost, yet is not quite a dog nor a wolf, but a puzzling connection to both. 

Dogor has been miraculously preserved within the permafrost, with its fur, teeth and even whiskers incredibly intact. Radiocarbon dating has placed the animal at 18,000 years old and researchers have suggested that the animal passed away at just 2 months old. The name Dogor means “Friend” in Yakut, a language spoken within Eastern Siberia. 

Generally, genetic analysis can quite easily discern whether a discovered canine is a wolf or dog, but in this instance, the genetics suggest that it could be an ancestral link to both. Interestingly, Dogor lived at a time in canine evolutionary history when dogs and wolves began to branch off from each other.The general scientific consensus is that dogs and wolves split from a common ancestor, however, the process of how “dogs became dogs” is certainly contested, and Dogor could be a crucial piece in that puzzle.

If Dogor is determined to be a dog, it will be the oldest ever discovered. The next oldest, the Bonn-Oberkassel puppy, was discovered in Germany and was clearly determined to be a dog of around 14,000 years old, buried with a man and a woman. 

The progression of climate change is melting the permafrost more rapidly, and discoveries like these are becoming more and more commonplace.

Images via Sergey Fedorov/The Siberian Times