jul-li - Tumblr blog

[jul-li]

Rusałka kratowiec - Araschnia levana

Didn't expect at the moment, that this photo made on-the-go, would look sooo stunning!

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{ 29.04.2024 }

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Bombylius sp.

Soo fluffy! *v*

{ 29.04.2024 }

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Creature 72

Keesingia gigas

These funky jellyfish live off the coast of western Australia. They have dangerous stings that can cause severe pain and in some cases heart failure. Keesingia gigas are strange in that supposedly they should have tentacles, however all specimens found so far haven’t had any.

fact sources: wikipedia and smithsonian magazine

image source: i naturalist

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Eukaryotic cell gang!! We love women in STEM.

The organelles of the cells have been translated into human anatomy, so the nucleus is the brain, the vacuole function as the lungs, and the mitochondria is the heart since it’s the… you already know, I don’t have to say it ;)

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My first yellow-bellied toad!

This one was such an adorable small baby.

This genus of toads tend to lay at their backs to show off their yellow bellies, to scare off any predators if their feel threatened.

Ochotnica, near Gorczański Park Narodowy, Poland

28.08.2023

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The red crowned crane traditionally nests in marshes, but most have been drained. So the cranes are raising their offspring in an irrigation channel. All through the summer, the chick is entirely dependent its parents for food. The family won't be able to move on until the chick can fly. BBC Earth

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Say hello to a cephalopod you should know—the corkscrew squid, Planctoteuthis danae. 👋🏼🦑

We're kicking off Cephalopod Week, aka our favorite week of the year, with this extraordinary denizen of the deep. MBARI's remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) have encountered the relatively rare deep-sea squid Planctoteuthis oligobessa fewer than 20 times in over 30 years.

This species' long, decorative tail remained unknown until MBARI ROVs captured the first images of the animal out in the wild. In trawl nets, many delicate deep-sea animals are damaged, so we often don't get the whole picture until we can take ROVs equipped with cameras into their environment. ⁠

⁠Other squids in the family Chiroteuthidae also have ornate tails that they use for various reasons, like imitating siphonophores.

As we continue to dive into the depths of our ocean, MBARI researchers are discovering more about the species that live in this vast, mysterious habitat.

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Sleepy little mason bee :>

04.2023

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"Paleontology can be really petty and stupid"

In 1898 Santiago Roth discovered the armored tail of a large turtle in Patagonia, which he showed to British paleontologist A.S. Woodward. Recognizing it as the remains of a meiolaniid, Roth was told to go on an expedition to find more material, which he did. This material, which included an almost fully preserved skull, was initially published on in a brief communication in 1899.

Strangely, also in 1899, Florentino Ameghino published his own communication claiming that his brother Carlos had found the almost fully preserved skull of that same kind of turtle, a meiolaniid he dubbed Niolamia argentina.

It is curious how both Ameghino and Roth seem to have found the exact same material of a meiolaniid in different localities at the same time, but weirder things have happened. Tho it is further pretty weird how Ameghino rushed to get a name out, but didn't bother describing what defined the animal nor designated a holotype. Hell he didn't even illustrate his skull. But lets give him some time.

Two years pass, its 1901 now. Woodward publishes a proper description of Roth's skull, illustrating the animal in detail. Having heard that Ameghino found a remarkably similar fossil, Woodward assigns the Roth skull to the same species as the Ameghino skull. Although he doesn't carry over the genus Niolamia, instead placing the fossils in Miolania (a misspelling of Meiolania, described a few years prior from Australia). Ameghino didn't seem to mind or disagree, tho he still hadn't properly described nor figured his skull.

1938: Ameghino is dead at this point and weirdly, his Niolamia skull is still nowhere to be found. Since his initial description was wholy insufficient, George Gaylord Simpson (yes thats his actual name) decides to declare the Roth skull the type specimen for Niolamia (the neoptype). Meaning that the genus is now defined on this skull rather than the one Ameghino had when coining the name.

Fast forward to 2011. It is now generally accepted that Roth's skull is the fossil that defines what Niolamia is. Of course Ameghino still gets credit, after all he described the first remains, even tho nobody has ever seen those...ever really. Over a 100 years passed and far as anyone could tell, the last person to have seen those bones were Ameghino and his brother, after which they just disappeared. But we still got the Roth skull, and Juliana Sterli and Marcelo de la Fuente could readily redescribe Niolamia based on that.

But Sterli seems to suspect that something very fishy is going on. Remember, Ameghino just happened to find a perfectly preserved skull at the same time as Roth did. Ameghino made sure to get a name out before Woodward got around to fully describe it. Ameghino only vaguely compared the skull to Meiolania, but didn't specify its unique features nor did he actually illustrate his material. So Sterli said out loud what I'm sure many people must have been thinking. "Did Ameghino just make it all up?"

In 2015 Sterli comments on the matter by noting how awfully convenient the whole situation was. Although no concrete evidence exists, Sterli suggests that Ameghino may have found out about Roth's skull, lied about having found a similar one, and named Niolamia not on a fossil he actually had but based on what little he knew about Roth's discovery.

This is just a basic summary of a rabbit hole I recently went into and my god its so frustrating on so many levels. Again we don't have concrete evidence that Ameghino's skull didn't actually exist, but the way the timing lined up and the fact that he was in a feude with Francisco Moreno, which has been likened to an Argentinian Bone War, means that this suggestion isn't that out there. It really doesn't help that his supposed skull was only ever mentioned by him in 1899 and never again. Ameghino never claimed it was destroyed or stolen, hell, far as I could find he even agreed with Woodwards research.

What's also fascinating is that seemingly, for over a hundred years, nothing was written in scientific literature casting doubt over his claim. I'm sure some people must have called bullshit on him in private, but the only resource I could find that actually goes as far as to say "Hey isn't his weird that the Ameghino skull is basically a phantom" came out in 2015. Everything in-between seemed content with just assuming that Ameghino and Roth both had skulls and just never followed up on whatever happened to the former. Then again I could just as much understand if people just didn't want to deal with this nightmare of a backstory.

[jul-li]

holy SHIT please read the whole thread and many more of these images right here, this artist put together an updated Opabinia reconstruction where every single one of these minute details (except coloration, obviously) are fully sourced making this most likely the first depiction factoring in 100% of current knowledge about it. Even I didn’t know it had little feet like a velvet worm and could have walked around on them! I never knew exactly how the trunk is oriented or how many “teeth” it is! I especially didn’t know the mouth was that weird! And I kind of assumed this since it’s a lobopod and all, but the whole animal was soft and squishy except for the eyes and the teeth. It did not have armor plates or a jointed exoskeleton like a lot of people portray. This also means all five of the eyes would have been able to bend and look around independently! The eye structure in fossils also indicates that they would have PSEUDOPUPILS! That’s the pupil-like dot in the eyes of insects like mantises!

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https://twitter.com/Mills_bomb1969/status/1644004083601141760 A fight between male velvet mites!! A mite fite!!!!!!

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Photos of slug caterpillars in the most un-caterpillar shapes:

(Photo one: monkey slug caterpillar. Photo two: idonauton apicalis. Photo three: exact name unknown, type of cup moth larvae. Photo four: flipped over skiff moth caterpillar. Photo five: gelatine slug caterpillar.)

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He sleepy. Me too. And I want to dream of mandarin ducks.

Mandarinente ♂️ (mandarin duck) am Pfaffensee, Stuttgart-West.

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Just after I complained again that this is a such a slow season, I saw this on my tree cam - a Brown Creeper, and he's banded! What a cute and quirky little thing, I hope he comes back.

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next time you make baseless claims about how scary sharks are, look at a salmon shark.

look at him. you’re gonna look at him and tell me he’s infesting our waters? that this is a creature of terror?

look at him. look at him real good. this is a sea puppy. how fucking dare you talk about him this way. he’s gonna cry now, look at what you did. bet you feel real fucking stupid, huh? real silly? you better. think about what you’ve done. bitch

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Sunday snuggles 💤