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

How are they extremophiles? Second fun fact, but not well remembered. They’re pink color comes entirely fron what they eat. I forget WHAT it is they eat though.

Flamingos can thrive in environments with hypersaline and caustic water (ex lake Natron), they can survive really high ph levels, they can survive in crazy temperatures and altitudes, and they enjoy(?) drinking boiling water, to name a few reasons! They’re crazy animals!

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.

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.

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

Nature Talk

jnstuart January 27, 2026, 2:58am 7

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

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

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