Spores and Stuff

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Spider mites infesting a rose

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The venom of the beaked sea snake is a potent cocktail of neurotoxins and myotoxins. 

Neurotoxins inhibit nerve cells from communicating to their neighbors, resulting in paralysis and respiratory obstruction. 

Myotoxins rapidly kill muscle cells, which causes both paralysis and necrosis as the afflicted body part dies.

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Happy Birthday to all crows

Source

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Elephant Shrew.

That low-to-the-ground snout is great for smelling tasty insects.

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Source

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The sinking feast

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Autumn came and left so quickly. Now it’s winter, and that’s okay too.

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Puffball mushroom releasing spores.

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Home

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Articulate mandibles.

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Deceptive morphology.

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Defensive posture.

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Happy Autumn,

From one friend of biology to another.

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An Amanita virosa, AKA European Destroying Angel.

If ingested, amatoxins will enter your bloodstream and cause the cells of your internal organs to liquify.

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So many of us struggle to find purpose in our lives. For insects, the cordyceps fungus provides a clear path to enlightenment. The missive this fungus places in the simple mind of an insect is this: Go to a high place and die. The result? The spores of this fungus can be carried further to reach more of the same species, and lead them to a purposeful death as well.

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Pit viper! Pit viper! Stay the heck away! This green pile produces a hemotoxin. Hemotoxins, as the name suggest, cause your blood to stop working as it normally should. Sometimes a hemotoxin will destroy red blood cells, sometimes it will cause your blood to congeal to stop oxygen from reaching your vital organs. In all cases, your tissue will be partially to completely destroyed by these little cuties.

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