Discovery Science 🧬

Winter in Australia: How do local weirdos survive the cold? Spring has arrived! The days are getting longer, the sun is warming up, and the rooks are returning from distant lands. Even people experience a long-forgotten desire to turn their faces to the sun and breathe in the humid air deeply. But in Australia everything is not like ours, including the change of seasons. Therefore, while we are enjoying the coming spring, local animals are preparing for winter in full force. Although the Australian winter is much shorter and milder than ours, it is still merciless to the slow-witted fools who dare to ignore it. That's why there were no such fools left a long time ago. Every Australian animal somehow adapts to a temperature drop of 10/20/30 degrees. But not everyone succeeds. Small birds have it worst. Birds by nature have a high body temperature, and local species have also learned to dissipate this heat so as not to accidentally overheat in the summer. But in winter this ability works against them. Little birds have to eat three times and spend a lot of energy heating their bodies, which is not so easy. Beautiful fairywrens, for example, lose up to 50% of their population each winter. It’s good that they restore it quickly enough. Small mammals also suffer a lot. In the southern, coldest regions, possums and marsupial mice can fall into real hibernation lasting several weeks. Right now, on the day the article is published, they are gorging themselves on fat and looking for secluded places where they can pass out. Northern species have a simpler life; every night they fall into torpor, a more gentle version of hibernation - their metabolism slows down, and their body temperature drops significantly. And when the sun peeks over the horizon, the animals shake off the night's torpor and come out to warm up. And while every warm-blooded little thing suffers, large animals feel quite comfortable. Red kangaroos, for example, jump merrily across snow-covered fields and tolerate even near-zero temperatures quite tolerably. Due to their large body volume and thick undercoat, they cool down much more slowly and simply do not have time to freeze overnight. But the animals still change their habits: now they do not lazily lie in the field, but huddle under trees and bushes, protecting themselves from precipitation and cold winds. And the strangest inhabitants of the inverted continent, the platypuses, don’t even care about the changing seasons. Their wool has such excellent heat-insulating properties that it is not inferior even to the fur of animals in the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, the strange animal not only does not hibernate, it calmly hunts in icy water and even crawls through the snow - to spite everyone! Some animals meet winter not with fear and indifference, but with joy. Quokkas (strange tiny kangaroos), for example, are delighted by the winter rains, which bring respite from the eternal heat, but also transform the dry w

Why do pelican chicks crawl right inside their parents' throats? When adult pelicans fly tens of kilometers away to fish, their grown but not yet independent chicks remain in a huge colony. A sort of “nursery” under the supervision of several nannies. Young people gather in groups, play and patiently wait for their parents to return from fishing. But in this crowd of hungry beaks, how can you feed your own and not waste precious resources on the prosperity of other people’s genes? Nature has come up with an ingenious system. The parents do not keep the fish in the beak (the neighbors would steal it!), but bring it deep in the goiter - a special extension of the esophagus. To get a portion, the chick literally has to crawl its head into the parent’s mouth. From the outside it looks creepy: as if teenagers are tormenting adults. But in reality, this is the only way to make sure that dinner goes to yours. Chicks are sometimes not very selective in who they beg from, but they are guaranteed rude refusal from other people's parents. How do parents find their chick in a huge colony? Scientists suggest that identification occurs by voice. In the incredible hubbub, each pelican unmistakably recognizes the call of its offspring. Strict “face control” guarantees that the kilometers of flight and hours of hunting will pay off - and the fish will land exactly at the address. Author: Richard Rechitsky Photo: Nadezhda Dorofeeva, Andrey Maksimov Stills from the film “Pelican Island” from LNF LLC 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

rrent amusement park on the site of Escobar's former estate. - - - - - 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! 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

How are Escobar's cocaine behemoths causing an environmental disaster in South America? Invasive species are one of the serious problems of our time. They knock out local animals, change habitats and can even lead to dangerous ecological situations. And there are just tons of them all over the world: rats on small islands, rabbits in Australia, fire ants in North America and hippos in South America. Wait, how did they get on this list? The world-famous multi-billionaire, terrorist and drug lord Pablo Escobar was to blame for the great migration of hippos. He was such a big animal lover that he took and organized a home zoo on the territory of his estate, fortunately the living space allowed. Anyone could look at zebras, rhinoceroses, ostriches and other exotics absolutely free of charge. But the most honorable place in the zoo was given to a pond with 4 hippos. In the 90s of the last century, the drug empire fell, Pablo died in a shootout, and the state appropriated his property. The inhabitants of the domestic menagerie were placed in different zoos, but there was a hitch with the hippos. These guys did not want to voluntarily leave the territory of their native pond. Having compared the colossal costs and the meager benefit, the Colombian government gave up, saying that they themselves will die of hunger, why bother with them? The hippos, however, had other plans. They liked the Colombian climate so much that the animals began to reach reproductive age 5 years earlier, and the abundance of food and the absence of natural enemies only added fuel to the fire of life. In general, our friends began to eat a lot, reproduce intensively, and over 30 years they increased their livestock by more than 10 times! The additional load in the form of heavy African monsters did not please the local ecosystems: reservoirs, abundantly manured by hippopotamuses, begin to bloom vigorously. Fish suffocate and die in blooming water. If there are no fish, those who ate them disappear, and after them, those who eat fish eaters go to get nuts. By the time the public began to notice the animals, their number had approached a hundred individuals, and the rate of personnel replenishment continued to grow. Scientists are trying to sound the alarm and have even organized a program to sterilize animals, but this is of little use. Knocking down and operating on an aggressive territorial animal is not an easy task, and it requires a lot of money. But the public is not eager to allocate budgets. For locals, hippos are a tribute to history and a local landmark, which tourists flock to in droves. According to some estimates, the population could reach 1,500 individuals by 2042, while others say 1,000 by mid-century. Experts agree that action must be taken immediately. However, hunting hippos is prohibited in Colombia. In the meantime, hippos remain a popular tourist attraction, making a political solution to the problem even more difficult. Photo 5 - the cu

Irukandji Jellyfish: Its sting causes madness. 2 cm of nightmare in Australian waters When European colonists arrived in Australia, the Aborigines knew nothing about any jellyfish. They just knew that sometimes people who go into the water experience increasing pain and then go crazy. Those infected with an unknown illness shy away from every shadow, cannot lie still and constantly whisper about imminent danger. Fortunately, the obsession passed along with the pain. Unfortunately, sometimes it claimed a person's life. And neither the colonists nor their descendants for centuries could understand why they were periodically so severely twisted in coastal waters. Only in 1964, doctor and toxicologist Jack Barnes caught a jellyfish with a diameter of only 2 centimeters and let it bite him in order to reliably determine the principle of action of the baby’s poison. This is how humanity learned about the existence of the Irukandji jellyfish, and Jack received an extraordinary trip to the hospital. Fortunately, this selfless man was saved, and his nine-year-old son was not left an orphan. A little later it turned out that the microjellyfish is not only toxic and deadly, but also vile to the point of impossibility. Although it is small in itself, its tentacles can extend up to a meter from the dome. This is very convenient when you paralyze plankton and small fish with your poison, but it is very annoying for people who are trying to find the source of their troubles. Try to see it at this distance and under water! Moreover, immediately after the bite a person does not experience any unpleasant sensations at all. Only after 5 minutes does he begin to feel a slight itch - as if he had been bitten by a mosquito - which then smoothly turns into a feeling as if “an electric drill was stuck in the lower back.” This is how Irukandji syndrome begins. Pain at the site of the bite is followed by headache, muscle cramps, tachycardia and irregular breathing. The mixture of irukandji toxins skillfully disrupts the functioning of the body's nervous system and causes it to release a whole pack of neurotransmitters and hormones, driving the brain crazy. Therefore, following disturbances in the functioning of the body, the functioning of the mind is also disrupted. Nervous excitement gives way to anxiety, the person is unable to think adequately and cannot get rid of the feeling that he is being watched. Well, or from the feeling that an inevitable catastrophe is coming. Fortunately, this entire set of absolutely disgusting symptoms, with proper treatment, begins to subside between 6 and 24 hours from the moment of the bite and almost never leads to death. But all this is rather thanks to Australian medicine: treatment and prevention of poisoning costs the state 3 billion Australian dollars annually. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

Getting caught in antlers during ritual fighting is a very common (and stupid) cause of death for many deer. Fortunately, this time everything worked out. 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

eless to prove anything. Believe me, you are not the first and far from the last victim of these would-be sellers; all the schemes have been worked out for a long time. They will blame you for all the illnesses, after which they will send you to hell and block you. And very often, profitable purchases turn into endless pilgrimages to veterinarians, tests, ultrasounds, IVs and injections. And you yourself suffer, and the animal suffers. But in the end, its cost will still melt by two or even three times compared to the original one. But if physical health can still be somehow improved with the help of drugs, then coping with a problematic psyche will be much more difficult or even impossible. A puppy “for himself” can grow up to be extremely hysterical and cowardly, so that all his life he will have to suffer from endless anxious barking at everything around him, incontinence or deliberate trips to the toilet directly under himself and destructive behavior. Such animals take out their inner state on everything around them, literally dismantling the apartment brick by brick. And a cute baby can grow into an uncontrollable aggressive dog that will attack everything living within a kilometer radius, including its own beloved owners. And unfortunately, it is not always possible to correct such behavior - some watchdogs live their whole lives in a muzzle, sleeping and eating only like that. Because otherwise the owners simply won’t have a living space. Yes, these are extremes, but you need to be mentally prepared for them if you choose a puppy “for yourself and cheaper.” After all, those people who sell puppies and kittens at a price several times lower than the market price usually work according to the same scheme. The more animals you sell and the less you spend on their maintenance, the better. This means that no one bothers with the correct selection of a pair, vaccination, treatment against parasites, socialization, culling, proper feeding and maintenance. The profitability is not the same. Adult animals on such farms are kept as needed and eat haphazardly, females give birth every cycle without rest, and the babies do not receive even half of what they need. Buying a puppy or kitten “cheaper” from such people means not just getting yourself into trouble... By choosing black breeding, you are sponsoring cruelty to animals. Author: Arina Taran 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

I want a cheaper puppy for myself... How do black breeders work? Tell me, when you come to the market, you also ask the sellers: “Do you have cheaper apples, maybe even beaten and slightly rotten ones? Or maybe you have wild carrion? Well, even if it’s sour, for my own sake, I still don’t understand the varieties of apples!” Sounds absurd, right? Well, why then do people ask for a dog “for themselves and cheaper”? Indeed, in most cases, buying such a dog can end up costing several times more than an animal from a trusted kennel! With a “cheaper” puppy you can easily bring home a bunch of problems - from multi-colored parasites to bites and a destroyed apartment. But let's take things in order. As a rule, the buyer’s logic here is the simplest; they choose animals “for themselves” only according to the amount in the ad, and the lower it is, the more profitable the purchase seems. But the stingy one pays twice. The first and most harmless thing that can happen after purchasing a dog without any documents or pedigree is that you will simply get a mixed breed or a purebred mongrel. Exactly the same as those running around in the nearest trash heap, only for money. It is very easy to attribute traits of a particular breed to a small puppy. Fluffy, which means he’s definitely a Spitz, the red spots above his eyes are definitely a shepherd, and his short legs are 100% corgi. But a cute bear cub can easily grow into anything, because there are no documents confirming its origin, but you can promise anything. The would-be sellers, who deliberately push the yard instead of the breed, are counting on people to endure and fall in love. Like, people will become so attached to the puppy that they won’t take him anywhere, even if he grows up to be a mixed breed. What if you were choosing a friend for a one-room apartment or for someone with allergies, when the size and type of coat were the key factors? The second thing you can bring home with a puppy “for yourself and cheaper” are parasites and various diseases. In words, sellers can assure you that the treatments have been carried out, but until the puppy has a veterinary passport with all the marks and seals, such words are worthless. And an untreated animal can easily turn out to be a Trojan horse carrier, because some of the not-so-pleasant nasty things from the dog-cat arsenal are transmitted to humans. Ringworm, for example, will very quickly jump to you, your entire family and other pets. And this infection takes a very long time to be cured. It's the same with fleas, which love to bite your legs and multiply exponentially. There are also internal parasites - worms, some of which are also often transmitted from animals to humans. The third feature of cheaper animals is various diseases, from viral infections to severe intrauterine disorders. Often this is not visible in the first days after purchase, and when everything becomes clear that the baby came to you already sick, it will be us