Life is hard when you’re only 30 μms

Bro wake up 116 new genders just dropped

My gender

ah, yes

I always forget that gas giants are, you know, made of gas, and not just smooth plastic color. The atmosphere is full of clouds, and the entire planet is atmosphere!

I’ve literally been laughing at this for the past five minutes

made some semi-educational sunfish memes since they’re my favorite animal rn

have you ever seen a swallowtail caterpillar defend itself?

I can't get over how it has Instant Eyebrows

This is called an osmeterium! It’s a defensive organ found in all swallowtails caterpillars. They evert it when disturbed, as you saw above, to either startle their foe or gross them out with the foul-smelling secretions the organ emits :)

What you call given em the ol' stink eye.

me doing that thing princesses do where they lift up their dresses when they run so they don't trip but i'm wearing a lab coat

good morning exclusively to the atlantic’s science editor, or whoever it is that titles their animal biology articles

fellas, they’ve done it again

doctor: you’re also fresh out of potassium me: 0K

doctor: wanna guess your salt level?

me: Na

STOP showing woodpeckers as just this!!!!

those are wonderful but there is actually LOTS of woodpeckers and they’re all diverse and awesome!!

Also this!

PARENT BUS PARENT BUS

WHERE ARE THEY GOOOOOING

ON A FAMILY VACATIOOOOON

The last picture is, in fact, a duckling! The parents lost their baby and adopted an orphaned duckling and raised it.

FAMILY VACATION

Okay so like, I can’t get over this adopted baby duckling. In relation to loons, ducklings are an r-selected species. Like, there’s the understanding that some baby ducklings get eaten by turtles and so they lay big batches of eggs to make up for it.

But loons are k-selected and invest a ton of time into their babies. They only have one or two babies, both parents take care of them, and they ride around on their parents so they don’t become turtle food.

This is like, the best taken care of duckling in the world. They are gonna be such good parents, even though their kid is a weird vegan who can’t swim underwater.

I love these birds 😍

An array of fossils, including a large Leptaena brachiopod at left, that lived during the Ordovician to the Devonian Period, 485 million to 444 million years ago.

Credit…Biophoto Associates/Science Source

The large brachiopod has BRYOZOANS on it! Ough…

Look at these birbs

R O T U N D

Nudibranchs don’t mess around

Cnidarians (jellyfish, sea anemones, etc) have these little stinging cells called cnidocytes that release a barb into their victim after a stimulus. However, some species of nudibrach have pulled an uno reverse card on the Cnidaria and can not only eat these creatures, but also repurpose the stinging cells into their own bodies for self defense against other predators.

It’s one of the reason nudibranchs are usually so brightly colored; it’s a warning for other predators who think this soft and squishy sea slug will be an easy, painless meal (spoiler IT WON’T).