amazing news from the natural world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKNohFicnnQ

Visible birdsong in the cold. Photo by Mikhail Kalinin. pic.twitter.com/KvXOkK6ghl

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) January 12, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/science/mice-singing-language-brain.html

High in the mountains of Central America lives a little known creature called Alston’s singing mouse. This rodent, which spends its life scuttling around the floor of the cloud forest, may not seem like it has much to tell us about ourselves.

But the mouse produces remarkable songs, and researchers have discovered some profound similarities to our own conversations. This ability may be linked evolutionarily to the ancient roots of human language.

there's a video!

So the researchers began probing the brains of the mice, searching for the neurons that led them to be “polite” raconteurs.

In one experiment, the researchers cooled down patches of mouse brain by a few degrees, slowing the neurons. One patch in the mouse cortex is essential for controlling their singing, the scientists found. If this section is cooled, the mouse sings extended songs, adding on extra notes.

Great gray shrikes impale their victims on spikes & even imitate the calls of other birds to lure them into striking distance! pic.twitter.com/7uSTCxDgdp

— A Book of Rather Strange Animals OUT NOW!!! (@StrangeAnimaIs) March 25, 2019

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/virophages-are-viruses-only-infect-other-viruses/586153/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/science/underwater-beetles-breathe-skin.html

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vb9bpm/this-bird-went-extinct-and-then-evolved-into-existence-again

just saw that!! so wild.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/insect-metamorphosis-evolution/

Biologists have not definitively determined how or why some insects began to hatch in a larval form, but Lynn Riddiford and James Truman, formerly of the University of Washington in Seattle, have constructed one of the most comprehensive theories. They point out that insects that mature through incomplete metamorphosis pass through a brief stage of life before becoming nymphs—the pro-nymphal stage, in which insects look and behave differently from their true nymphal forms. Some insects transition from pro-nymphs to nymphs while still in the egg; others remain pro-nymphs for anywhere from mere minutes to a few days after hatching.

Perhaps this pro-nymphal stage, Riddiford and Truman suggest, evolved into the larval stage of complete metamorphosis. Perhaps 280 million years ago, through a chance mutation, some pro-nymphs failed to absorb all the yolk in their eggs, leaving a precious resource unused. In response to this unfavorable situation, some pro-nymphs gained a new talent: the ability to actively feed, to slurp up the extra yolk, while still inside the egg. If such pro-nymphs emerged from their eggs before they reached the nymphal stage, they would have been able to continue feeding themselves in the outside world. Over the generations, these infant insects may have remained in a protracted pro-nymphal stage for longer and longer periods of time, growing wormier all the while and specializing in diets that differed from those of their adult selves—consuming fruits and leaves, rather than nectar or other smaller insects. Eventually these prepubescent pro-nymphs became full-fledged larvae that resembled modern caterpillars. In this way, the larval stage of complete metamorphosis corresponds to the pro-nymphal stage of incomplete metamorphosis. The pupal stage arose later as a kind of condensed nymphal phase that catapulted the wriggly larvae into their sexually active winged adult forms.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-leaps-long-assumed-to-be-instantaneous-take-time-20190605/

https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/132404/recently-discovered-rock-eating-worm-key-third-temple/

riiiight

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/science/koala-retrovirus-evolution.html

Scientists have trained rats to drive tiny cars to collect food. Kelly Lambert at @urichmond says, “I do believe that rats are smarter than most people perceive them to be, and that most animals are smarter in unique ways than we think." https://t.co/6mwPqtHfvs pic.twitter.com/07w2p1wq43

— New Scientist (@newscientist) October 24, 2019

The diving bell spider lives almost entirely under water: when submerged, an air bubble is trapped by hydrophobic hairs on its abdomen. Here it catches a shrimp and places it in an air bubble to devour it https://t.co/uAKYwvQVmR [source of the gif: https://t.co/C3I3ZMyll2] pic.twitter.com/FgPDmKvIxG

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 30, 2019

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/humpback-whales-south-atlantic-have-recovered-near-extinction

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/science/leopard-lion-adoption.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/02/27/science/27TB-LEOPARDADOPTION1/27TB-LEOPARDADOPTION1-superJumbo.jpg

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bug.identification/permalink/3201476323312053/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632881-200-weird-caterpillar-uses-its-old-heads-to-make-an-elaborate-hat/

Cool. My 10 yo had seen that in a science encyclopedia

waht

https://www.wired.com/story/a-bizarre-form-of-water-may-exist-all-over-the-universe/

Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come From All Around to Watch

here's a thread for comrade burrito to post all the masturbating orangutans

a bizarre form of water all over my keyboard

Scientists discover new organ in the throat

https://www.livescience.com/platypuses-glow-uv-light.html

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/J29hZbBGEePokbrTdRYCEi-1024-80.jpg

Top 5 critter now top 3 imo.

so cool

A+ platypus

^

Mordy returning to celebrate Biden's win with a biofluorescent platypus is an A+ move imo

Don't forget the apposite poem.

I have already privately offered him my full approbation

Leaf Sheep: The Only Animal That Can Photosynthesize

Fungus full of psychedelic drugs could cause Indiana Brood X cicadas' butts to fall off

“It’s this gender-bending, death-zombie fungus,” Lill said.

“Imagine if, after a lifetime underground, you only had a few glorious weeks to live in the sun, eat and mate,” she said. “And then your butt fell off.”

a coyote and a badger use a culvert as a wildlife crossing to pass under a busy California highway together,, the first time this type of behavior has been captured. I love how the coyote waited for the badger. pic.twitter.com/olbQgdje5d

— Köksal Akın (@newworlddd555) June 12, 2021

New species of ancient four-legged whale discovered in Egypt

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/BECD/production/_120254884_yile5nm8-1.jpg

:O

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-beetle-gets-eaten-frog-it-forces-its-way-out-back-door-180975484/