I love peregrine falcons and golden eagles because their fast and they look so nice. Pergrine falcon: 390 km/h Maximum, Diving. Golden eagle:320 km/h Maximum
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Golden eagles can carry and throw a mountain goat of a high mountain. The goat falls from the height and dies. The Eagle eats its prey
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It’s not a real fun fact though, is it? What makes it worse is that many people still believe it to be the ‘ugliest’ creature on earth and it’s still reported as such. Makes me wonder what a person would look like if they were brought to the blobfish’s neighbourhood for a visit.
I feel the same way about the word dinosaur being used as a metaphor for something that is obsolete or for something that simply deserves to go extinct because it can’t adapt quick enough.
I wonder how many of us would ‘think fast’ our way out of extinction by an incoming asteroid?
Fact is, as adaptable creatures, dinosaurs (yes, including birds) collectively have evolved some of the most diverse, marvelous and spectacular adaptions that have ever existed on our world.
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I’ve got one more fact for you all!
Before drifting towards the south pole and freezing over completely, the mammal fauna of Antartica was likely dominated by marsupials, like Australia and prehistoric South America. Antarctica may have served as a “landbridge” of sorts for South American marsupials to make the journey to Australia all those millions of years ago.
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Nah, justice for the blobfish. They only look like that on the surface because their bodies cannot physically handle the pressure differences between the layers of the ocean where they normally reside and the surface.
In their habitat, fish of the genus Psychrolutes just like… kind of look like fish. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/91537-Psychrolutes
Also ugly feels like less of a fact and more of an opinion
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Its a shame! I have an encyclopedia that calls blobfish ugly with a picture of them decompressed stating it as a fact! When encyclopedias have incorrect facts, it bothers me.
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Yes! Yes! (I had to add a second Yes! because Inat won’t let me post less than 5 characters.)
I have a cat who sits funny on his back legs and has bald spots near his calcaneum. Learning what to call it was fun because I hadn’t realized that cats back feet are similar to ours but long and streched out, where I had previously assumed that where the phalanges are was like a human wrist:
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The Acmon blue butterfly lays its egg near an ant colony. The larvae not only release a hormone like that of the ants (Which helps it to not be attacked by the ants) but it also makes noises just like ant larvae, So when the ants carry the butterfly larva into the nest, they will actually feed it, and care for it as they would one of their own.
This boggles my mind, I mean, how did the butterfly figure out not only how to create the hormone that’s like an aunt, but that to mimic the noises ant larva make.
Mice cannot fart or burp.
Scientists are currently compiling an animal fart data base
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@robberfly is/was helping restore blue butterflies to The Presidio and told me there are still native ants there. But without the right ants it would be difficult.
My favorite nature-related fact: God created everything in six days… and gave everything the ability to live in amazing, mind-boggling ways that man has still not fully discovered or comprehended!
Others more directly related to the topic:
Great-crested Flycatchers often incorporate snake skins into their nests.
Christmas tree worms (an amazing animal in many ways) can help deter crown-of-thorns starfish from eating the coral they are on.
Some birds recognize and reject cowbird eggs in their nests, building a second nest on top of the first.
Capuchin monkeys have made good service animals, with amazing capabilities.
Rainbow eucalyptus are arguably the prettiest trees, with bark that changes color as it ages.
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That’s pretty cool!
Convergent evolution!
Countless examples of this can be found in nature and the fossil record (this is not even counting the mimicry found in countless organisms that make them look similar to poisonous creatures, or plant structures, or dung). Two disparate organisms, found in different regions, occupying similar enough niches to converge on similar habits, body type, colouration, lifestyle, etc:
Eastern meadowlark
… and Yellow-throated Longclaw:
Boat-tailed grackle
… and Long-tailed Glossy Starling:
More famous examples include toucans and hornbills:
Falcons, which are related to parrots and songbirds, and hawks/eagles/kites which are their own thing:
A species of cockroach (Saltoblattella montistabularis) that leaps like a grasshopper or cricket:
We get lots of convergence in mammals too!
Kinkajou:
Binturong:
Pronghorn:
… and Goitered gazelle:
And who can but forget the process of carcinisation, where many a lobster-looking creature inevitably, inexorably, through countless generations, evolves towards that of the perfect lifeform: a crab.
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Ok, I knew about a few of these, but falcons being their own thing blew my mind. Which reveals my appalling lack of knowledge.
Saltoblattella montistabularis is also amazing and has a really fun name.
Thank you for these!
blobfish only look like that because they are designed for the pressure of deep seas. Like @fluffyinca said, they look pretty normal when they are in their habitat. It makes me sad to see pics of these guys, I used to think they looked funny but they just look so sad and confused as to why they are in so much discomfort.
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And anole lizards are a great example of that too! Watch A Lizard’s Tale For more on that. It’s all so fascinating.
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Another example in mammals - sirenians (manatees and dugongs) and cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises). They may appear closely related at first glance, but the two groups are in fact extremely distant relatives - their many similarities are due to convergent evolution, both being large fully aquatic mammals. Whales are more closely related to bats than they are to manatees!
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Better yet, even toed ungulates are more close related to cetaceans than they are to odd-tord ungulates.
And AFAIK genus Homo is more closely related to genus Pan then Pan is to Gorilla
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The parasitic wasp Copidosoma floridanum will lay one egg in a caterpillar that divides into thousands of larvae. Many of these are typical larvae but around five percent are a soldier caste with highly developed mandibles that kill off other parasites using the same host! So many larvae inhabit one caterpillar that they fill the entire body cavity.
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Eusocial parasitoids?!?!? Mind: blown!
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