For me, I’ve been thinking about the fact that flamingos are considered extremophiles, it’s such a random trait for them to have I love it

The order Artiodactyla in mammals includes both even-toed ungulates (like deer, cattle, pigs, antelope, etc.) and cetaceans (whales, dolphins). It has to be the most morphologically diverse order of any animal. Hippos and whales are actually included in the same suborder (in contrast, snakes and l…

[image] jnstuart: It has to be the most morphologically diverse order of any animal. Littorinimorpha might be a contender here. Terrestrial, freshwater, and intertidal to deep sea snails. Differences in size of factors up to 30,000,000. Very diverse body plans.

Yeah, I should have said “of any vertebrate animal”.

Squamata has forms from tube with only front limbs (mole lizard), to toothy lizard whale(mosasaur). I’m sure an argument can be made for almost any order to be most morphologically diverse, if you know enough of them.

Ilex crenata and Osmanthus look nearly identical but are actually in different orders. Paulownia tomentosa(princess tree) closest relatives are Orobanchaceae, Phrymaceae, and Mazaceae, which are not trees at all but small shrubs.

I like the fact that some butterfly caterpillars eat nothing but ant larvae.

Often on my mind: that I (and each of us) have an unbroken genetic connection to every other living (and previously living) thing on our planet. The only variable is how deep in the past each connection diverged.

i cant get over that those deep sea tubes have a stomach but no tube in or out of it :face_with_spiral_eyes: their digestive system is kind of like a circulatory system edit to add scishow video

Rats will actually free another rat that’s trapped, even when there’s nothing in it for them. Once they figure out how to open the little cage, they pretty much keep doing it. And when scientists put chocolate in the room, the free rat still freed the other one first… then shared the chocolate. Lin…

The colors of dinosaurs are virtually unknown; except for Sinosauropteryx , which had the exact same colors as a raccoon: Black mask, stripy tail White-throated sparrows have two color morphs, tan-striped and white-striped. But White-stripes will only mate with tan-stripes and tan-stripes will only …

Plant/animal facts you can’t stop thinking about?

Nature Talk

keeana January 27, 2026, 8:31am 12

i cant get over that those deep sea tubes have a stomach but no tube in or out of it their digestive system is kind of like a circulatory system

edit to add scishow video

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