Discovery Science 🧬

Fossa: Madagascar lion. But this is not a cat, but something strange There are no cats in Madagascar. And yet, someone is sneaking in the shadows, gracefully arching their back. Someone's eyes sparkle in the darkness, causing the lemurs to hug each other and scream in horror. And although there are no cats in Madagascar, fossas live there. And these are top predators that none of the locals can cope with. The Fossa looks like a small and stocky puma. Her weight is 7-12 kg. She has an elongated and strong body with a long graceful tail and short, but very tenacious legs, under the short hair of which muscles roll. And the look of a wild cat, ready to devour you whole. It’s all the more strange to realize that the Fossa’s closest relatives are mongooses and hyenas, which were previously considered to be relatives of dogs! The external features of the Fossa are truly unique. You can't see a dog or a cat in this carcass. Fossa belongs to a separate family of predatory mammals - Madagascar civets. Fossa is so different from her relatives because while hyenas were adapting to life in the savannas, and mongooses were learning to hunt snakes, she mastered the dense forests of Madagascar. The predator quickly developed a taste for it and multi-level forests with a huge amount of arboreal life became her home. Fosse especially liked the lemurs. The pseudocat's diet consists of about 50% primates, and for them the fossa is a real nightmare. Yes, they are able to run away from it, because primates are more agile and can jump far, they can simply jump from tree to tree and hide. But there is not a single place in the Madagascar forests that the fossa cannot reach. Sooner or later she will reach them. To avoid a sad fate, lemurs have to always be on the alert. After all, fossas do not have a clear daily routine; they go hunting at any time of the day, so they can attack poor primates in the dead of night, at dawn, and at noon. Needless to say that not a single creature on the planet can always be on guard? Therefore, it is not surprising that the mere smell of fossa drives lemurs into hysterics. However, despite all their special abilities and power over the lower primates, the Fossa are unable to defend their forests from the higher primate, which is cutting them down hectare by hectare. Although it is not hunted directly, the number of predators is declining along with the forest area. And this is very bad, because apex predators, even such small ones, never have high numbers. Even if the process of their disappearance can be reversed - and for now it is quite reversible - it will take centuries, if not millennia, to restore genetic diversity. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

A new comedy “Doctor Gough” is coming out in cinemas, in which animals are the main actors. The plot is based on a very unusual story: a 12-year-old girl and a veterinarian with the gift of understanding animal language save little animals from experiments carried out by a secret corporation. The premiere will take place on March 19. 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

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<b>Why is snail reproduction so strange? Love in a hermaphrodite society </b> In spring, the chance of meeting Cupid with arrows is greater than ever. And we are not talking about the plump little archer, familiar to us from the masterpieces of the Renaissance. The real Cupid is hidden in the bodies of slimy armored mollusks, melancholy devouring varietal seedlings. Yes, we are talking about snails - they are real experts in matters of love. And today we will learn about the secrets of mastery first hand. First, try to get into your partner's shoes. Snails have no problem with this; most gastropods are hermaphrodites. This means that when two romantically inclined snails meet, both will go away happy and pregnant, having passed on their genetic material to each other. Secondly, love like the last time. Snails are one of the few creatures that know how to please their soulmate for several years, or even for life. One intercourse is enough for mollusks to produce several successful clutches. Thirdly, don't rush things. Snails do THIS for hours. Moreover, most of the time is spent on foreplay. Gastropods bite each other, gently tickle each other with their “antennae” and merge in a savory kiss before moving on to the process itself. By the way, he himself is no less intricate. The reproductive organ is located on the neck of snails and is called the genital pore. During the breeding season, this time swells, signaling to the rest of the snails that they are ready to become friends with the organisms. As soon as such a “friend” is found, the mollusks make a kind of handshake - a process appears from the pore, with which the gastropods penetrate their “comrade”. This is how they exchange seed material. And fourthly, don't be afraid of diversity! Some snails use special lubricants - the mucus literally binds lovers together. And some are not shy about brightening up the intimate process with toys. Biologists nicknamed them “arrows of love.” These are hard, calcium-shaped formations; they serve the snails to stimulate the partner so that the process of exchanging genetic material occurs faster. The size of the process can reach up to 2 centimeters, and there are simply a lot of variations in shape: multi-pointed, spiral-shaped, and dagger-like - it all depends on the species. So it turns out that a simple grape snail is filled with more knowledge of love than most of us. Remember that in the still waters there can be such sophisticated devils that you can also learn from them. - - - - - 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! <b>🏀

Good afternoon Once I was in Altai and met such beetles. I couldn’t find it on the Internet, but maybe there are people here who know what it is? I found these beetles in or near the river and they were hiding under rocks. It was on the Chuisky tract, up to Chike-Taman, somewhere 50-100 km from the pass. 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

And our second part is about cryptids. Cool video to enjoy eating and drinking tea with! 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

Frog Crab: Chimera of the Ocean. Creature between cancer and crab Yes, yes, that’s exactly it, all the oddities in the appearance of the frog crab - except, perhaps, the color of its shell - are explained by the fact that the arthropod smoothly rolls into a completely different group of crustaceans. And, apparently, quite successfully! See for yourself: a normal crab looks like a shell on legs, the width of which is either equal to or greater than its length. It is round or oval, in short. But cancer is structured fundamentally differently. Its cephalothorax is very elongated in length, and there is also an abdomen, often very massive. Now that you've read the paragraph above, take another look at the frog crab's body structure. He's stuck somewhere in the middle! His cephalothorax has already greatly elongated in length, but his abdomen clearly cannot keep up with it - it is still very small. However, the consequences of such a restructuring have already affected the crab’s lifestyle: it has forgotten how to walk sideways. Either forward or backward, as it should be for cancer. However, the frog crab usually does not crawl along the bottom of tropical seas, but sits in the sand, buried up to its eyes. Thanks to the layer of sand, it becomes almost invisible to passing fish, which the arthropod easily grabs with its crab claws. Why crab fish? But because they, too, are stuck between two extremes. Crabs are accustomed to relying on short but very wide claws. These may not be very convenient for eating or catching small things, but it is nice to tear off pieces of flesh from carrion or prey, fight with each other and hold all sorts of cool things. For example, a knife. Crayfish claws are more like tweezers. They are longer and thinner, which makes it easier to catch prey by twisting and ensures better disassembly of carcasses. But at the same time, such claws are weaker and are no longer so convenient in fights or when catching large prey. But frog crayfish have claws that are both wide and thin, which allows them to cope equally well with both large and small prey. But with such shovels it is very convenient to shovel sand onto yourself, hiding the bright red shell under a camouflage mound. And the most important thing: the ability of red crabs to camouflage and catch prey is multiplied by excellent fertility - the female lays up to 200 thousand eggs per year. Therefore, the half-crab, half-crab is an amazingly successful creature that has adapted to life in almost all coastal regions of the tropical regions of the World Ocean. They are excellent at obtaining food, multiply quickly and, most importantly for humans, have a very good taste. Every year we catch tens of thousands of tons of frog crabs, and researchers still see no signs of overfishing. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

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