Symbiotic Science

A science blog, led by a wildlife biology master's student. Follows from BML1997. Feel free to call me by my penname: Gwen. I love questions so never hesitate to ask me anything!

[symbiotic-science]

Welcome Post

So I figured it was time to actually make an introductory post to pin here. Might be a little late, seeing how I’ve had this blog a few years now, but hey, better late than never?

Hello! Welcome to a science blog, largely focused on biology, but other science related posts will pop up as they catch my interest. This is a side blog of (@bml1997 ).

You can call me Gwen. It may not be my actual name, but it’s a penname I’ve used for several years online now. She/her pronouns, though they/them is fine too. I am an adult, 24. 

My undergraduate degrees were a major in biology with minors in environmental studies and English. I have a masters degree in wildlife biology and conservation management. I am trying to get into a PhD program. 

I have 6 pets (well, my family does, I guess just 2 of them are mine-mine). 3 dogs, 2 rabbits, and a cat. One day I would love to get a pet snail.

My inbox and submissions should always be open. I love answering questions and even just chatting about science.

Fun Facts:

-I did undergraduate research testing natural ways to kill kudzu plants.

-My favorite colors are turquoise and purple.

-Penguins, especially Humboldts, are my absolute favorite animal and I can ramble at lengths about them. But really I love pretty much all animals.

-I enjoy writing in my spare time and have a few different original wips and fanfics. I also do a little doodling along with that.

-Eventually I’d like to be an undergraduate professor.

Blog Basics:

-Opinions stated here are my own. Although I have grad school experience, I will admit I do not know everything off the top of my head, so I do thoroughly research some things before I answer to doublecheck myself. I love having to do this because I usually learn things too in the process.

-If you notice I reblogged something that you know is incorrect science, by all means drop a line by and let me know! Science corrections are great because we all want to know what the truth of things are!

-This is not a drama blog. Keep inflammatory asks about other bloggers out of my inbox or else they just go in the deleted pile. LGBTQA+ in stem are great; women in stem are also great. If you think otherwise, please exit stage left because this blog is not for you, thanks.

-I do try tag for things if it is requested. So far I tag for spiders as #spiders and #arachnids. 

To Do List is under the read more.

TO DO LIST:

-Lake sturgeon

-Pitcher plants

-Moose

-Pizzlies

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

The Greater Wax Moth: this moth has the most sensitive hearing of any animal in the world, with its tiny ears detecting frequencies of up to 300,000Hz

Galleria mellonella, commonly known as the greater wax moth, has the world's highest frequency sensitivity. It can detect frequencies as high as 300,000Hz; just to put that into perspective, humans can detect frequencies of up to 20,000Hz, while dogs can detect up to 65,000Hz, and bats up to 210,000Hz.

According to this article:

Researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow have discovered that the greater wax moth is capable of hearing sound frequencies of up to 300,000 hertz (300kHz) – more than 100 times higher than the whiniest human voice and fifteen times the maximum frequency that can be heard by the sharpest-eared teenagers.

Furthermore, with a lower hearing-register of just 20Hz, the insect also has the widest range of any creature in the animal kingdom.

To put this in context, normal human speech is between a few hundred and 3,000Hz. A typical person’s hearing peaks at about 20,000Hz at around 18, dropping to about 10,000Hz by middle age. Even dolphins, who are known to be comfortable with high pitches, stop hearing at 160,000Hz.

Like many other moths, this species detects sound using a pair of eardrum-like structures known as tympanal organs. These structures, which are often described as "simple ears," allow moths to detect the calls of predatory bats and to communicate with other moths.

The super-sensitive hearing of the greater wax moth likely developed as part of the evolutionary arms race between moths and bats.

As this article explains:

An evolutionary arms race is the process of adaptations and counteradaptations between species. This is very common in predator-prey relationships. The predator and prey species are constantly adapting to outcompete each other. This sometimes leads to extremities in species evolution.

The moth-bat relationship is an example of this. Bats use ultrasounds to locate their prey, moths. As a counteradaptation, moths developed ultrasound hearing capabilities via the process of natural selection. Moths use their hearing to avoid being eaten by bats. Bats in turn started to develop even higher-frequency sounds, and so the arms race goes on.

Galleria mellonella is also known as the "honeycomb moth," because the caterpillars of this species are parasites that infest beehives and then feed on the honeycomb, pollen, and honey within.

Sources & More Info:

The Independent: Insect with Sharpest Hearing in the World Could Revolutionize Technology

BBC: Greater Wax Moth Can Sense Highest Recorded Frequency

Mongabay Conservation News: Common Moth Can Hear Higher Frequencies than Any Other Animal on Earth

Biology Letters: Extremely High Frequency Sensitivity in a "Simple" Ear

European Wilderness Society: Auditory Perception in Moths

[alphynix]

The caterpillars of this species also have saliva that can break down polyethylene plastic!

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

'One-of-a-kind' skull fossil from Brazil reveals bird brain evolution

The brains of today's birds facilitate a level of cognitive prowess and behavioral complexity rivaled only by mammals. But how the avian brain evolved over many millions of years from an ancestral dinosaurian form has long puzzled scientists. That has now changed thanks to a spectacular fossil discovery in Brazil.

Researchers unearthed the skull of a previously unknown starling-sized bird species named Navaornis hestiae that was so well preserved they were able to digitally reconstruct its brain and inner ear anatomy based on the shape of the braincase. It inhabited an arid environment about 80 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, the last chapter in the age of dinosaurs.

"This finding is one-of-a-kind," said University of Cambridge paleontologist Guillermo Navalón, co-lead author of the study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Birds evolved from small feathered dinosaurs during the Jurassic Period. The Navaornis discovery filled in a gap of 70 million years in the understanding of the evolution of avian neuroanatomy, dating back to the earliest-known bird Archaeopteryx, which lived in Europe some 150 million years ago.

Continue reading.

Tagging @mindblowingscience.

[mutant-distraction]

The Mandarinfish

This small resident of the Western Pacific is a biological exception. While most blue in nature is an optical illusion, this fish produces a true pigment using light-reflecting cells called cyanophores.

* The Shield: Since it lacks scales, it secretes a toxic, foul-smelling mucus that makes it impossible to eat.

* The Signal: Its incredible patterns are a warning to predators: stay away or deal with the chemicals.

* The Reality: It only grows to about 8 cm, using its intense colors to compensate for its small size.

Beauty that serves as a survival tactic.

Photo: pacificklaus, CC BY-NC 4.0

Text credit: The Fabulous Weird Trotters

[herpsandbirds]

Common Seadragon or Weedy Seadragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus), family Syngnathidae, order Syngnathiformes, found along the southern coast of Australia

Middle photo shows male carrying eggs under his tail.

photographs by Matt Testoni

[selkiesparrow]

Zoozve, my beloved

[ktempestbradford]

"...we don't live in a big clockwork, we live in a dance club..."

This is my favorite line.

[rabbitrah]

It is now called Zoozve :')

[autisticbisexualsokka]

"The poster was incorrect. Since I couldn't change the poster, I decided to change the world instead."

[snekdood]

but have you ever even heard of the fynbos biome ?!!?!?!?!

a biome so unique in south africa that it's earned an entirely new biome classification for itself. so many plants are endemic to this area, and ofc it's under threat of extinction.

[wiley-treehouse-gardens]

It's a wonderful place! I had the privilege of visiting the fynbos last year and it was as amazing as these photos show and more!

[sleepyowlsleeps]

is just flowers?

[babyfoxcollectionthings]

[bedupolker]

imagine having to defend yourself against a sea monster and your only weapon is a pair of chopsticks attached to your face

[sleepy-bebby]

If anyone wants to know what a leopard seal sounds like 🦷🩸

[bandydear]

Leopard Seals are what happens when god needs a lizard and all he has is a mammal

[weaselle]

leopard seal topic activated; i am so sorry to my long time followers who have seen me do this like ten times but i just can't help myself

OH MY GOD

That is a monster (respectful) If it was a lizard it would be a dragon.

They can be bigger than the biggest grizzly bears. They are about the size of a horse, just without the stilt legs. And their faces are hiding teeth like this (sorry it's kind of gross but it shows the teeth best)

Here's a leopard seal skull next to a horse skull

they can get as big as 12 feet and can weigh like 1,200 pounds. They can swim 35 miles an hour and eat only meat - regularly eating giant penguins that weigh more than 100 pounds each, and anything else they feel like they can kill. And they're pretty smart. Only an Orca is a more dangerous hunter in arctic waters, and even they usually leave a leopard seal alone.

A seal's closest land relative is a bear, and leopard seals will regularly hunt other seals, making this a bear that eats bears, but built for the ocean. You know, the terrifying ocean? A bear that lives there that eats the other bears that live there.

[drogonea]

[mindblowingscience]

An edible fungus could make paper and fabric liquid-proof

As an alternative to single-use plastic wrap and paper cup coatings, researchers in Langmuir report a way to waterproof materials using edib

As an alternative to single-use plastic wrap and paper cup coatings, researchers in Langmuir report a way to waterproof materials using edible fungus. Along with fibers made from wood, the fungus produced a layer that blocks water, oil and grease absorption. In a proof-of-concept study, the impervious film grew on common materials such as paper, denim, polyester felt and thin wood, revealing its potential to replace plastic coatings with sustainable, natural materials.

Continue Reading.

[eartharchives]

Lizard genetics provide new perspective on evolution

Using colorful Anolis lizards and math borrowed from finance, researchers have created the first model linking evolution over short and long timescales.

https://phys.org/news/2025-10-lizard-genetics-perspective-evolution.html

[kafkasapartment]

Least Bittern (Ixobrychus exilis). They do this fairly often, straddle reeds as a spot and catch fish and insects without having to fly.

[ladyrenity]

@kedreeva I hope you don't mind me tagging you, but I feel like this is something you would like

[mammalianmammals]

Short-beaked Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), family Tachyglossidae, Canberra, Australia

Also called "spiny anteaters".

Echidnas are monotremes, mammals that lay eggs (along with platypuses).

Females lay eggs and keep them in a pouch.

The hatchlings are called "puggles".

photographs by Luke Adams

[scidotnews]

Three New Species of Abyssal Snailfishes Discovered in Pacific Ocean

https://www.sci.news/biology/three-new-species-abyssal-snailfishes-pacific-ocean-14204.html

[eartharchives]

Early Cretaceous Fossil in Swiss Museum Found to Be New Species of Marine Turtle

Paleontologists have described a new species of the extinct turtle genus Craspedochelys based on a remarkable fossil shell and some of its postcranial bones from Colombia.

https://www.sci.news/paleontology/craspedochelys-renzi-14199.html

[lichenaday]

Phaeophyscia spinellosa

This foliose lichen grows in loosely-attached rosettes 5-10 cm in diameter made of irregular to dichotomously-branched, whitish-gray lobes. It has a black lower surface with black rhizines that often stick out along the lobe margins. It doesn't make any asexual propagules, and instead produces lecanorine apothecia with reddish-brown discs and margins with sparse, cortical hairs. P. spinellosa grows on mossy rocks in South Korea and Japan.

images: source | source

info: source

[mbari-blog]

Meet the newest (and cutest) addition to the snailfish family 🐟

MBARI collaborators at SUNY Geneseo, with scientists from the University of Montana and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, have described three new deep-sea snailfishes, including one first discovered using MBARI’s remotely operated vehicle Doc Ricketts. 

Snailfishes make their homes in a variety of ocean habitats—from shallow tide pools to deep-sea trenches. The newly described bumpy snailfish (Careproctus colliculi), observed in the depths of Monterey Canyon nearly 3,300 meters (10,800 feet) underwater, has a distinctive pink color and a bumpy texture. 

MBARI’s technology is helping researchers document deep-sea biodiversity, and our collaborations with expert taxonomists around the world are helping to advance the discovery of life in the largest living space on Earth.

What we’ve learned can help resource managers and policymakers make informed decisions about the future of the ocean to safeguard marine life and environments from threats like climate change and mining.

Learn more: https://www.mbari.org/news/mbaris-advanced-underwater-technology-reveals-a-new-species-of-deep-sea-snailfish