Nature-inspired Comics?

Come on, it’s not THAT hard

Try Bird and Moon it has a TON of funny nature comics mostly birds!


this is one of their finest work

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I actually don’t know the source for this one; it was used in the Cambium newsletter. It may not seem nature-related to some people, but to me it is:

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LOL
And again backwards:LOL

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I don’t know if this has already been posted (it’s a delightfully l-o-n-g thread)

This is what’s currently going on in my corner of the world:

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A waiting ball

Explanation

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I observed a few small mating balls this spring: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/264755057 and https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/264755052

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another thing for context is

the photos should be captured with sensors handling UV, blue, green channel sensitivity as bees lack red sensitivity, and then the gadget should be reengineered to process such data and reemit such wavelengths back from display (currenty no such real display exists, as most are RGB and not UV enabled afaik) - it isn’t always necessary but UV reflectance is still very dominant - factor for bee vision

Also at long range, bees olfactory senses are dominant and when crossing to 100cm range their chromatic processing picks up while still using olfaction for certainty and associating unique rewarding flowers. they can dynamically adjust the weights based on floral size, environment noise, learned associations. at closest proximity of <10cm, they turn on multiple sensors to estimate humidity gradients, electrical potentials, temperature differences, micro textures and such. it raises very interesting questions when things are viewed in synergistic manner of how a certain flower evolved everything in relation to insects it is getting help from and how those insects systems further work.

bees also employ hierarchical vision systems with higher cognitive power chromatic system loading up at closest and lower power patterns working as it casually strolls through field (which is also why there is contrasting pattern flowers at flora edges (when compared to flora background) to hit this system better even at lower spatial resolution, also more such patterns will guide bee after landing ofc)

maybe as technology evolves a consumer gadget can capture more such sophisticated clues and iNaturalist will evolve to include all such connections better in future - such pattern things as mentioned above are also not often noticed by our vision systems - see this flower for human vs bee vision (although the resolution would be further lower for bees)


maybe the comic could also be viewed as a subtle mocking on pure data-point based matching of these things constrasted over complexity in nature and such setting up a date scenarios.

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just another caveat.

A worker bee inturn has temporal polytheism which is not strictly monotonic. its kind of like getting promotions and also not, their reversal can occur based on colony need and performance.

there is clear distinction in physiological reorganisation and hormones too within these levels of polytheism - progressing from cells cleaning/polishing, nursing, building, food processing guarding to the final stage around 3 weeks+ - foraging.


also here is a study for Apis mellifera honeybee - These results indicate that total diet quantity fed to larvae may regulate the difference between queen and worker castes in honeybees. aka the system is already biased lol.

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Wow, that misspelling threw me for a loop! Temporal polytheism? Worshipping different gods at different times?

Yeah… good thing my search engine can parse these things… you meant temporal polyethism, I assume…

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This cartoon led to the adoption of “thagomizer” as the term used by paleontologists: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/watch-out-for-that-thagomizer-98891562/

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Rumor has it that the term started being used informally at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and spread from there. If this is true, it makes me absurdly proud of my adopted hometown.

(Of course, when I heard the late and much-missed John Hurt use the term in Planet Dinosaur, I knew that, despite some lingering grumbles from more the staid members of the paleontological community, there was no going back. It’s official.) :laughing:

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I don’t get it. Pls could someone explain it?

Since it is in glass - clearly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee’s_knees

but refers a long way back - 1921 - to - prohibition-era slang meaning “the best”

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When bees flit from flower to flower the nectar sticks to their legs. The phrase “bee’s knees” means sweet and good, because the knees of the bee are where all the sweet, good stuff is collected.

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