Discovery Science 🧬

Yes, we humans have mastered walking on two legs. But they handled it mediocrely. Look at the jerboas: these are the best bipedal animals on the planet! Their hind legs are incredibly good. They are 4 times longer than the front ones and are capable of accumulating some insane amount of energy. The large jerboa, for example, is capable of making a series of jumps about 3 meters long. But it only weighs 300 grams and is 20 centimeters long! To achieve such results, they radically lengthened the foot (up to 45% of the length of the legs!), and its bones were fused into a tarsus, like in birds. Now not only their hips, but also their feet have powerful muscles! Единственное лицензированное Telegram-казино 🏆 ⭐️ Ежедневные раздачи до $5000 ⭐️ Всегда здесь: https://t.me/tonplay?start=hUWcgK2Mxueree

m worth living. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin Единственное лицензированное Telegram-казино 🏆 ⭐️ Ежедневные раздачи до $5000 ⭐️ Всегда здесь: https://t.me/tonplay?start=hUWcgK2Mxueree

Hornets: Pure evil for humans, but without them the bees will kill themselves. Why are they so useful? We love bees for their honey production. We adore bumblebees for their gentle nature. We tolerate wasps, but we respect them because they are capable of giving a person back or stealing a piece of ham from the table. But hornets are some kind of monsters that deserve to be hated. After all, these are completely repelled insects that destroy bees by the millions, and can send people to the hospital with just a few bites! Who in their right mind would love hornets? The answer is me! After all, hornets are not just stereotypical villains, but something much more important. First of all, they are beautiful. Bees and bumblebees, of course, also have their own charm - they are cute and slightly awkward furry creatures that are not graceful and do not create a sense of danger. But hornets are an example of that same “predatory” beauty that is inherent in snakes and sharks. They look graceful, but not fragile, powerful, but not heavy. Their chitinous armor is perfectly tailored, and their long, narrow wings are designed for effective raids and quick retreats. In addition, this black and yellow fighter is not only beautiful, it also has excellent weapons. Its mandibles are powerful and tireless, they are capable of biting 40 bees per minute, and the length of the poisonous sting reaches 6 millimeters - it can penetrate the armor of even the strongest beetle! Strength, grace and chic design all come together to create the hornet! But all this, of course, is subjective. However, hornets also bring objective benefits to the ecosystem: they act as forest nurses. The thing is that this flying death, although capable of destroying hundreds of bees, is in no hurry to attack large and healthy hives - it is too dangerous. Therefore, they prefer to raid weakened and sick families, which begin to suffocate under the load of diseases and parasites. And, thus, they prevent local outbreaks from turning into epidemics. In addition, bees do not take up much space in their diet. Caterpillars, leaf beetles, butterflies and even aphids are the main prey of hornets. And by controlling their numbers, striped predators maintain a fragile natural balance. But the most unexpected evidence of the benefits of hornets for the ecosystem is the fact that they create new living space! The paper hives of these insects are true works of architectural art that can exist for years even after their owners have abandoned them. Therefore, over time, it is populated by other insects that are looking for a safe place. What can I say, even some birds choose hornet nests as their nesting place. If there were no hornets, these species would not exist. That's what they are, these contradictory hornets. Dangerous for bees, scary for people, beneficial for the ecosystem and beautiful in the eyes of one author of the Book of Animals. And I think this variety of roles makes the

Selection of cool photos number 12: 1. Israeli hairless chickens. This breed was bred in Israel to save on cleaning feathers. Just a joke... 2. Bird's foot hoof. They live in the steppes of Asia, and therefore they need soles to protect them from hot summers and cold winters. 3. Maltese pigeon. The decorative breed looks very unusual. 4. Leptocephalus. Ghostly larva of an eel or moray eel. These fish have a very complex reproduction cycle, which needs to be written about separately. 5. An owl regurgitates pellets - undigested remains of bones, fur and feathers. 6. Sadocus ingens is a rare and very beautiful spider from Chile. Completely unexplored. 7. Deep-sea thickets of glass sponges. There are entire alien forests growing somewhere far at the bottom. 8. Sage grouse shows his tits... So, it's a male. These are his throat sacs to attract ladies during the mating season. 9. Whale blowhole. Well, yes, it’s just a nose that has gone to the top of the head. Thank you for your attention. We are collecting interesting photos for future articles, so post them in the comments if you have any! Единственное лицензированное Telegram-казино 🏆 ⭐️ Ежедневные раздачи до $5000 ⭐️ Всегда здесь: https://t.me/tonplay?start=hUWcgK2Mxueree

ways put everything in its place. But some species will become extinct, and their secrets, which did not manage to fall into the hands of scientists, will go away with them. The planet's biodiversity will also decrease, which means it will be less able to cope with future disasters. And the region’s commercial stocks are already declining. - - - - - We have a huge group, which is 11 years old and there are many zoologists who write tons of text every day from the field in which they are specialists. Due to VK’s failed policy towards authors, all this, unfortunately, rests only on rare advertising and your support. You can support the stability of our nervous system with a minimum subscription of 100 rubles per month. You can request support directly through the button in this post. Thank you! Единственное лицензированное Telegram-казино 🏆 ⭐️ Ежедневные раздачи до $5000 ⭐️ Всегда здесь: https://t.me/tonplay?start=hUWcgK2Mxueree

Ecological meat grinder in the Suez Canal Lessepsian migration. It sounds like a mass migration of aliens from a book about high technology and other planets. In reality, the situation is worse - this is the largest invasion of invasive species in the history of mankind. The Mediterranean Sea has turned into a battlefield, where the locals are gradually losing ground. There is such a place, the Suez Canal (photo 1). It was artificially dug by people. Thanks to it, merchant ships get from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean directly, they no longer need to sail around Africa and extend the route by 8 thousand kilometers. The problem is that sea animals no longer have to take the detour either. Over the 150 years of the canal’s operation, about 1,000 tropical species moved from the Indo-Pacific region to the Mediterranean: mollusks, crustaceans, bristle worms, and fish. Most of them settled in the eastern part of the sea, but some populated it entirely and even got out into the Azov and Black Seas. Right now, at this minute, there is a fierce struggle for resources and ecological niches throughout the entire water area. And the old-timers of the Mediterranean do not always emerge victorious: in some areas, 90% of all fish are invaders. These patterned beauties (photo 2) are mollusks from the genus Anadara. Natives of the Red Sea, but now they have populated even the Black Sea. These animals are accustomed to a lack of oxygen and local conditions only benefit them. It is doubly unpleasant that ecological niches are occupied by the most tenacious and persistent species. Take the Indian lionfish (photo 3). This fish will easily drive away Mediterranean medium-sized predators from its territory. And no one can stop this - the animal is armed with poisonous needles, any attack on it ends fatally for the attacker. People don't eat it either. But Mediterranean fish are caught only on the way. As a result, the lionfish has become one of the most dangerous invasive species in Europe. Another example of an invader is the striped eel catfish (photo 4). He, like other catfish, lives at the very bottom and feeds on everything that Neptune sends. Only, unlike the catfish we are used to, this species has poisonous glands, and the fish bite is extremely painful. Predators avoid the striped eel catfish and prey on its more harmless rivals. Moreover, the game is one-sided: practically no invasive species have been found in the Red Sea. This is due to the difference in the salinity of the water. For species from the Indian Ocean, the conditions of the Mediterranean are even more comfortable than their native ones, so they quickly get used to them. Whereas it is almost impossible for animals from the Mediterranean to survive in the salty waters of the Red Sea. Common laurel (photo 5) is one of the few species that was able to get into the Red Sea. Of course, this is not the end of the world, or even the end of the ecosystem. Evolution and time al

the transfer of knowledge is the destiny of people! In the wild, such a system allows bumblebees to compile a complete database. The family knows where there are clearings rich in flowers and which flowers bring the most nectar. And the most interesting thing is that all these complex systems such as social behavior, learning abilities and even games are located in a small cluster of neurons the size of a poppy seed! It is because of this fact that people used to believe that insects are simple biorobots that work according to prescribed schemes. And it is the bumblebees that prove that we were very wrong. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin Единственное лицензированное Telegram-казино 🏆 ⭐️ Ежедневные раздачи до $5000 ⭐️ Всегда здесь: https://t.me/tonplay?start=hUWcgK2Mxueree

Bumblebees: Not just biorobots. New data on the fantastic intelligence of these insects Who would have thought that bumblebees are so full of surprises? We have already told you that they survived the nuclear bombing of the test site,] told how they took the work of farmers onto their fragile chitinous shoulders and now [https://vk.com/wall-82267971_1417906|bring them hundreds of billions of dollars a year. But that’s where neither we nor bumblebees are not going to stop! Right now, thanks to bumblebees, a small scientific revolution is taking place! They prove to us that insects are not mindless biorobots, but developed living beings who can communicate, learn new things, exchange experiences and even play! It all started in 2022, when a mixed team of Finnish and English zoologists decided to conduct an interesting experiment. They placed a hive of bumblebees in a controlled environment, where they had to wade through a chamber of small balls to get to a saucer of sweet nectar. The balls were the most ordinary, they did not smell of food, and no reward or punishment was given for rolling them. And you would know what started there! Every, absolutely every foraging bumblebee rolled balls at least once a day, and some of them spent up to an hour doing this activity! And even when the balls were moved to another room, and the bumblebees had to make a detour to get to them, they still flew to any of their toys! Centuries of animal observations have shown us that developed play behavior is a sign of an animal with a flexible mind that learns well and easily changes its behavior, and bumblebees have excellent learning abilities. In one experiment, bumblebees were taught to roll a ball into the center of a platform to obtain syrup. In another, you pull a string to get a saucer with a tasty treat from under the glass. And zoologists from the University of London taught their charges to pull two levers at once in order to remove the barrier that does not allow access to food. And in all cases, the insects did not simply mechanically repeat learned actions, but analyzed the surrounding space and changed their strategy. For example, they rolled the lightest ball out of several offered onto the platform or ignored a saucer of the wrong color, which turned out to be empty over and over again. And most importantly, they shared information with each other. Over time, scientists noticed that it was enough to teach just one bumblebee the trick, and after a few weeks the whole family would master it on their own, without human contact. It turned out that young bumblebees, on their first trips for nectar, follow their more experienced relatives and remember all their actions, adopting useful habits. In other words, insects with a brain of only a couple of million cells are able to transmit information from generation to generation, forming a stable cultural tradition. But we used to believe that