why, Genetics? @whygenetics - Tumblr Blog

May I present to you Wheel Running In the Wild, a published research paper that delights me to no end:

This paper intended to test whether would mice would run on a wheel if they found one, to try and determine if this was a natural behavior or a stress response in captivity. They put a wheel in a protected little box with a camera that took pictures any time the wheel turned, and tallied up how often it was used by what.

Mice were, happily, the most common users of the wheel, and their patterns of use indicated they were doing so voluntarily once they figured it out.

But the second most common users.

Those were slugs.

asteroidtroglodyte

Nature Documentary: these deep sea creatures can withstand crushing pressures of thousands of pounds per square inch!

Me: they’re not withstanding a goddamn thing. The pressure is a part of them. Their interiors and exteriors are equalized. Just because your respiratory system is built around a pair of fragile poppable bubbles-

asteroidtroglodyte

You don’t know me

mariolanzas

PALEONTOLOGY EVOLUTION

How our perception of Prehistoric animals evolved as more discoveries were made over the decades. Many moe examples at these videos

These posters are available for prints and more HERE

_____

Youtube Channel

Instagram (new account)

Prints and more items of my artwork

herpsandbirds

Southern Gastric Brooding Frog (Rheobatrachus silus), family Myobtrachidae, found in the Blackall Range and Conondale Ranges in southeast Queensland, north of Brisbane, Australia

EXTINCT.

First discovered by western science in 1972 (possibly 1914), the last wild specimen was encountered in 1981, and the last captive specimen died in 1983.

The cause(s) for decline and extinction are unclear, but may include introduced species, habitat degradation, and the Chyrtrid fungus.

There is a project currently working to clone this frog. They have only been successful, so far, in cloning an embryo.

Females would swallow fertilized eggs, and brood them and tadpoles in her stomach. The metamorphosed froglets would emerge from her mouth later on.

There is considerable disagreement as to which family they should be included in (with some herpetologists putting the 2 species of Rheobatrachus into their own family).

illustrations via: MAHN Museum of Natural History

photograph by Michael Tyler

corvids-corner

I have a degree in environmental biology you can trust me 👍

whencartoonsruletheworld

did i tell u guys i got into an argument on twitter bc i said foxes are dogs and someone tried to bring up their actual fuckin. classification or whatever and i just said “foxes are dogs cause they are fluffye” and they kept arguing with me. the entire time i was like “you will not survive the immigration to tumblr you are lucky we are not there right now”

neopolitanfox

This is especially funny because they aren’t even right. Foxes *ARE* dogs.

trojanhorse8-2

No they aren’t.

supreme-leader-stoat

yes they are. because they are fluffye.

trojanhorse8-2

OK yes they are.

mr-deep-downer

Dog

jooshthepunished-deactivated202

Dog

utah-mountain-drifter-deactivat

Different family, but same order as @pictures-of-dogs

zarabithia12365-deactivated2022

No, they are the same family. They are the same kingdom, phylum, order and family. They separate at the genus.

They’re a dog.

birdsareblooming

yeah they’re fluffye

dacavendishtime

theyre literally not dogs theyre not even fluffy. can we get science tumblr over hear or what!?

birdsareblooming

checkmate athiests

ajarofpickledtears

fluffye

pa-pa-plasma

okay but they literally are dogs, for those who are confused

stele3

If foxes are dogs, then so are wolves, coyotes, dingoes, jackals, and several other extant and extinct species.

Behold! A dog.

lemon-badgeress

of course it’s a dog you buffoon. it’s fluffye.

findingfeather

Why on earth would someone think “BUT IF THEY’RE DOGS SO AR -”

Like yes of course wolves are dogs, where have you been. Jackals are excellent doggies! So are coyotes. Why is this confusing.

theknightlywolfe

I love that this is literally two completely different arguments running simultaneously.

derinthescarletpescatarian

That guy up there who said they’re not even fluffy was thinking of sharks

thebelovedlion

sharks are also dogs. ravenous water dogs, but still dogs

derinthescarletpescatarian

Sharks can NOT be dogs they are SMOOTH

porcupine-girl

Tags via @jenroses

gabyluvsxena

sharks are smooth dogs

grubby-gerblin

BEHOLD, a SHARK

bamboozled-bumblefuck

17 clown car pileup 84 injured 193 dead

etherealthistle

sharks are obviously not dogs. sharks are smooth lions, and therefore sharks are clearly cats.

asteroidtroglodyte

Fucking love Peregrine Falcons

Marvelous

asteroidtroglodyte

In urban areas, where it tends to nest on tall buildings or bridges, it subsists mostly on a variety of pigeons. Among pigeons, the rock dove or feral pigeon comprises 80% or more of the dietary intake of peregrines.

asteroidtroglodyte

In many parts of its range, peregrines now also nest regularly on tall buildings or bridges; these human-made structures used for breeding closely resemble the natural cliff ledges that the peregrine prefers for its nesting locations.

asteroidtroglodyte

A study testing the flight physics of an "ideal falcon" found a theoretical speed limit at 400 km/h (250 mph) for low-altitude flight and 625 km/h (388 mph) for high-altitude flight. In 2005, Ken Franklin recorded a falcon stooping at a top speed of 389 km/h (242 mph).

curlicuecal

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1ac1g6c/pigeon_tries_to_court_falcon/

Ok but is anyone going to bring up

naughtypiggy

The boy saw a baddie and decided to swing hard out of his league. Props.

asteroidtroglodyte

Who are you to be so wise in the ways of science

t00thpasteface

being an effective educator is about yes-anding people so you can find unique connections between your material and their interests

hellish-undeath

i love my fans 💚

(for context anon (blank account) is trying to figure out how to misgender me)

hellish-undeath

she's been trying to guess my gender for 3+ hours so now we're talking about eels 💚

dragoncarrion

i love male birds because they HAVE to serve absolute catastrophic cunt in order to get the females

gryffongull

and all the females look like pocket lint

crabussy

and then there are birds like the tūī, in which the females ALSO serve equal amounts of catastrophic cunt. it's like a woman and a man getting married in matching sequin bedazzled suits and silk bowties.

these two are Bird Flirting. they're endemic to aotearoa, polynesia!

batmanisagatewaydrug

always some new bullshit in the ocean

local-demon-in-your-area

Why is it always orcas or dolphins

Why can't a salmon do some bullshit for once

batmanisagatewaydrug

worry not ☝️ they're doing coke

ratbugs

bugs making mud balls

nwmo

NEW FISH JUST DROPPED

cannibalcaprine-deactivated2024

I KNOW that playing God is morally wrong, but holy HELL, it looks fun.

ninjakittenarmy

Why is it playing God? We aren’t violating any natural laws. God set the parameters of the universe to allow these things. There’s nothing wrong with it, there’s no hubris in learning more about how to manipulate the universe around us.

cannibalcaprine-deactivated2024

We made a whole-ass fish.

ospreyonthemoon

The reason this was accidental BTW is because they used paddlefish eggs as a negative control group for a breeding experiment on sturgeons because the scientists, quite naturally, assumed that they were SO unrelated it would be genetically impossible for them to mate. Like. I cannot stress enough to you how these creatures last related ancestors were

140 MILLION YEARS BACK.

If you don't know how far that is, that's basically the start of the cretaceous. Let me simplify that for you even further. Chimpanzees and humans seperated, what, 5 or 6 million years ago?

This is basically like if humans could hybridise with THESE THINGS.

This is the sort of thing that should be impossible. They used those eggs to be ABSOLUTELY 100% SURE NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN.

And then THEY GOT FISH OUT OF IT.

Like. You can quite clearly understand why they didn't think anything would happen. WE ARE MORE RELATED TO BLUE WHALES THAN THESE THINGS.

THE AMERICAN PADDLEFISH AND THE STURGEON ARE SO COMPLETELY UNRELATED THAT THIS IS NOT PLAYING GOD. IF ANYTHING THIS IS AN ACT OF GOD.

THE SCIENTISTS HAD NO BLAME IN THIS BECAUSE NOTHING LIKE THIS HAD EVER HAPPENED BEFORE

It sort of goes against the rules of genetics a bit.

ospreyonthemoon

Oh i forgot to add

THESE THINGS, FOR HYBRIDS, HAD A REALLY HIGH SURVIVAL RATING. LIKE 70% OF THEM SURVIVED.

To put that into perspective, getting a blue whale and a squirrel and trying to hybridise them is more sensible, and that wouldn't produce anything but getting you banned from science. Most animals that aren't plants can barely hybridise two degrees away from each other.

BUT THESE TWO ENTIRELY UNRELATED FISH create PERFECTLY HEALTHY HYBRIDS.

the scientists literally had to do the tests AGAIN just to be like "okay this is real right. This is actually like, not a fluke, this works right" and it worked again. They just Can!

jackofacetrades

So for those who don't know what the original fishes look like, this is an American Paddlefish:

And this is a Russian Sturgeon:

So honestly, saying the hybrid is "weird looking" is a bit fort de café when you see its parents. I think the sturddlefish looks cute.

marlinspirkhall

"these creatures last related ancestors were 140 million years back"

(glances at fish)

Yeah that's exactly what I thought you'd look like, you Mesozoic fuck

thriceandonce

#Holding a red squirrel in my left hand and a blue whale in my right desperately hoping to make a purple squale (via @dykepuffs)

kedreeva

placental mammals (eutheria) diverged from marsupials around 100 million years ago. whales and squirrels (rodents at least), being both placental animals, would have diverged at or after that time, meaning sturgeon and paddlefish still have 40 million years more separation.

before the sturddlefish, a purple squale would have seemed more likely- and since that's ridiculous and obviously no one would think that's possible except as a joke, that should speak to HOW impossible this situation seemed, and why they thought obviously this will be perfectly fine. If you took squirrel eggs (the gamete) and tried to use whale sperm to fertilize them, you could reasonably expect that to not work. That should be a good control. The eggs would definitely not actually be fertilized, and even if sperm somehow made it into the egg and some kind of development started, you would expect them to not make it to term and definitely not make a whole ass new animal that's perfectly fine actually.

And yet there is a purple squale in your fish tank, in fact there's like 100 of them and everyone is saying you played god but this was not what should have gone down, this was never the plan. This isn't you playing god, you think, this is god having a laugh at your expense.

amnhnyc

Happy Father’s Day from the gold-specs jawfish (Opistognathus randalli)! Dads-to-be of many jawfish species carry eggs in their mouths. This behavior helps protect offspring from predators. To attract females, male jawfish do a “dance” that involves a series of sweeping movements and fin-flashing. And the crescendo of this courtship ritual? Males open their mouths as wide as possible to boast their mouthbrooding potential!

Photo: Wayne and Pam Osborn, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist