Discovery Science 🧬

Wombat: Fights, scars, seizure of property. The dark side of a cute animal After all, how can you not love this cutest and almost tame underground bear with an armored butt? And yet there is a sore subject with wombats, in which the cute marsupial turns into an angry watchdog. And this is interaction with other wombats. It cannot be said that wombats are completely antisocial animals, but their reserve of sociability is extremely small. The wombat is ready to tolerate other wombats on its territory and even feed with them in the same field, but this only applies to two or three proven neighbors who have already shown that they will not try to squeeze the territory from the owner. There will be no mercy for the rest. As soon as a wombat notices an unfamiliar individual on its land, its tower immediately breaks down. He begins to hiss, growl and just doesn't start foaming at the mouth. Moreover, at this stage of aggression, the marsupial does not stay long: if the alien does not leave immediately, the wombat will rush to attack. Now the candidate for neighbor will have to find out the hard way how dangerous a marsupial weighing 45 kilos and with sharp, rodent-like teeth can be. At first glance, such aggressiveness seems excessive, but in fact there are good reasons for it. After all, successful wombats don’t wander around other people’s areas—they would like to protect their own. This means that someone passing by is either a young wombat looking for a home, or an adult loser who was kicked out of his hole. In other words: a beast with nothing to lose. And if the owner hesitates even a little, this most restless wombat will occupy his hole and proclaim himself the owner of the land - and now try to drive him out! Any attempt to pull a wombat out of the ground ends with it sticking its butt out into the tunnel, under the skin of which cartilaginous plates are hidden. Not only is it impossible for another wombat to bite through it, let alone for a predator! The real owner finds himself in an extremely precarious position. He, unlike the impudent intruder, has access to food, but cannot hide from dingoes - the main enemies of wombats. Therefore, if the owner fails to drive out the invader in a few hours, he will get out of harm’s way and go look for a new home. For example, a cozy mink whose owner was away for a while. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

Once upon a time we made memes...Book of Animals, 2018. Now they seem ashamed))) By the way, add your memes, stories, photos, we’ll publish the best one of these days. 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

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<b>Tripod Fish: In the darkness of the deep ocean, fish stand on thin legs. It's creepy, but understandable! </b> You descend into the depths of the ocean. It’s not very deep, only about 6 kilometers away. And there the fish stands, not even on its paws, but on three thin arms, like a cheap, lumpy stool. No, I understand that you can expect anything from the depths of the sea, but why does an animal that can literally lie in the water choose to stand instead? Because the tripod fish is a real master of overacting. The fact is that in the World Ocean there is a whole ecological group of animals that swim near the bottom, where they feed on carrion and bottom living creatures. All plankton and small crustaceans. And the smartest of them realized long ago that there is no need to strain yourself. You can simply surrender to the current, and it will drag you along the bottom. But for every tricky bolt there is a threaded nut. And in our case, tripod fish became this nut. They stand against the current, anchor themselves with the help of processes on their fins and look out for prey that the ocean carries towards them. However, “looking out” is too strong a word. The fish is practically blind, and even at depths of more than a kilometer there is still eternal darkness, where even the sharpest vision will not help. Therefore, the animal relies more on its lateral line, a special organ for sensing water flows. Well, and the same blind fools who will simply crash into it. Fortunately, the rays of the tripod grow in all directions, forming a touch-sensitive collar. It is more than possible to come across such a fish by chance. And all this is very interesting, but does not answer one question: how do they reproduce? Since a fish spends most of its life hanging around in one place and doesn’t really understand what’s going on around it, the task of finding a soul mate in complete darkness looks quite difficult. Answer: with difficulty. It is very difficult for tripods to find each other. But it’s realistic, because fish have two chips at once that increase their chances of reproduction. The first is simple and ancient, like multicellular life - seasonal spawning. Tripods begin looking for a mate in April or May, and their peak activity occurs in early summer. And this greatly simplifies the task, because if everyone starts looking for a mate at the same time, then the chances of success increase greatly. But the second feature is much more interesting - all tripods are hermaphrodites, each fish has both female and male genital organs. Therefore, when the fish do meet, they fertilize each other's eggs. And even though after mating they disperse like fish in a sea, each of them contributes to the increase in the number of the species. And apparently, it works! Fish numbers seem to remain stable. Although we are not sure for sure, it is very difficult to monitor them. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin <b>🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — </b><b>ht

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Pycnopodia: The largest starfish is also the fastest. Without it, the ocean is doomed to be enslaved by sea urchins Who lives at the bottom of the ocean? Children will answer this simple question very clearly and loudly, and biologists will list the animals until the evening. However, there is a bottom dweller that both of them recognize - the starfish. But today we will talk about the most titled species of these animals - the sunflower star, or pycnopodia. Why the most titled? Well, firstly, because sunflower stars are the largest among their relatives. A creeping “flower” can fatten itself up to a meter in diameter. With such a size, five processes, like standard stars, are clearly not enough. At least, that’s what the starfish itself decided, increasing their number by 3-4 times! But that’s another thing, turn the starfish upside down and you will see hundreds of thousands more micro-legs (photo 4)! Such a number of walking and grasping accessories gives the animal a second title - the title of the fastest sea star. Pycnopodia “rush” at a speed of one meter per minute! Not impressive? And if I say that her relatives have an average acceleration of about 5 times less? What, do you still doubt our heroine’s speed abilities? Oh well. The main thing is that the pycnopodia itself does not need high speeds to be happy - the predator’s prey barely crawls, if at all, it moves, so it has no problems catching up. You can find “sunflower fields” on the picturesque reliefs of the North Pacific Ocean. Here there are underwater algae forests rich in a variety of living creatures. In the hunt for its inhabitants, the animal honed its skills to the level of a serial killer. She easily catches up with sea urchins, hermit crabs and weakened fish. By the way, in reality, the friendship between SpongeBob and Patrick would last exactly as long as the pycnopodia would creep up to the sea sponge. Their stars are eaten with the same pleasure as everyone else. Neither scales, nor chitinous shell, nor even needles can save you from the invasion of a starfish! The star swallows its prey whole, leaving naked skeletons after its meal. And if the food turns out to be too big, the pycnopodia will release its stomach and begin to digest lunch just like that! But now there is every chance that pycnopodia will completely disappear. Moreover, the sapiens are not even to blame. Starfish were suddenly hit by an unknown infection 10 years ago, and they died en masse - only a few small populations remained. Without a bottom-dwelling super-predator, the sea urchins became so prolific that they almost completely ate up the seaweed forests. Scientists are trying to breed pycnopodia in captivity and release them into their old habitats, but so far the population of giant Patricks is still hanging by a thread. - - - - - 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 sp

Magpie Goose: Immoral, but effective. How did harem families help you survive? If ordinary geese had social networks, they would collectively poison the magpie geese. After all, instead of building normal, conventional families, they are engaged in some kind of harem obscenity! Just imagine: for one male there are two, or even three females. And they are often sisters! Strange black and white geese don't just make strange families. They live in bustling communities throughout Australia and Southern New Guinea. Colonies of thousands of birds are found along river banks and in the middle of swamps, and their inhabitants scream loudly for kilometers around. And if you hear magpie geese, it’s better not to come close, because the geese are doing absolutely unacceptable things there. They sit on trees and even build nests on them, which anseriformes are generally not supposed to do! Despite the fact that the magpie-goose is also an anseriform bird, their evolutionary lines diverged from real geese a very long time ago. About 70 million years ago. So the “goose” in the name is more of an external impression than an indication of a close relationship. This is a kind of “living fossil” among Anseriformes. But if you look at their dubious families with a more sober look and do not involve human morality in this, then the geese are doing surprisingly well. They do not divide children into theirs and others and take care of them equally. Although the male builds the nest alone, the rest of the responsibilities are divided equally between the parents. While one parent sits on the nest or looks after the babies, the rest fly around and get food: stems of aquatic plants, cereal seeds and other relatively high-calorie greens. In the arid regions of Australia, they sometimes have to fly several kilometers from home. And in this case, the more parents there are, the more time each individual can spend searching for food. Именно в тяжёлых жизненных условиях и кроется причина создания странных семей. Not all magpies suit Swedish families, but in regions with a lack of food and/or an abundance of enemies, such families are in the majority. Indeed, in this case, the death of one of the parents does not lead to the death of the nest, the rest will be able to raise offspring, and the legacy of the dead bird will continue to live. And if the living conditions are close to comfortable, then in most nests there live 1 male, 1 female and 5-14 goslings mature. It turns out that there is no question of any debauchery here, because all they care about is the survival of their offspring. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

All 4 of our cartoons in one post. 1. Sperm whale (2018) 2. Secretary Bird (2019) 3. Termites (2024) 4. Water Scorpion (2026) Which is the best and who to choose for the next cartoons? 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot