Discovery Science 🧬

oup, 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

Why is it not cold for birds to run barefoot in the snow and swim in icy lakes? “What a fool,” you think, leaving the entrance in winter. There is snow and ice all around, your toes curl up in your winter boots from the memory of the weather forecast for today. And then you notice how the neighbor’s granny feeds the pigeons, sparrows and other feathered brethren. And all these birds are completely barefoot! How can that be? Why do all kinds of feathered cabbage rolls walk in the snow, sleep on metal cornices, and ducks also swim in icy water without the slightest harm to their health? Let's start with the fact that barefoot birds can still freeze their paws at very low temperatures - nature does not provide absolute protection to anyone. However, it can provide a lot of interesting benefits that, when used correctly, help animals survive in not very favorable conditions. And the first bonus that evolution provided to our frost-resistant friends is thick skin on their paws. The birds' legs are covered with shields made of dense leathery plates, which act as a heat insulator. There are almost no muscles in the paws of birds (they are mainly in the body, they control the paws through tendons), little fat and nerve endings. Less fabric = less heat loss and less sensitivity to cold. Well, let's say, at -2 or even at -5 this will help. But what about at -30? Let's remember: how is the body heated? Hot blood from the body goes through the arteries to the limbs, where it cools down and returns through the veins to the body to warm up. Remember how your fingers get numb in the cold, preventing you from tying your shoelaces? It's all about vascular spasm - your body, conserving heat, automatically reduces blood flow in the extremities. Such vascular spasm reduces the performance of the arms and legs, but protects the internal organs from hypothermia. The body, as it were, locks the heat in the body, not releasing the hot blood to cool “to the periphery”, so that you do not become completely stiff. So, if the legs and arms of people literally freeze from cold due to a lack of hot blood in the extremities, then birds have overcome this limitation! They regulate the blood flow in their paws themselves, so their limbs don’t get cold at all! The fact is that the arteries carrying hot blood are tightly intertwined in the bird’s legs with veins that return cold blood to the body. The average temperature of arterial blood is 40 degrees, and cold venous blood can drop as much as 3! If such cold blood entered directly into the bird’s body, it would quickly become numb. But venous blood uses the arteries running near it like a battery, warming up on its way into the body. A pigeon or a duck decides for itself whether to contract or dilate blood vessels, but you cannot decide which socks to wear today. Shame on you, man! Photo 5 - Foot of a polar owl. So they really have to insulate themselves in extreme winters. - - - - - We have a huge gr

Gladiator Spider: Human Look, Distorted Body and Special Web Gladiator spiders look creepy even by eight-legged standards. Their bodies seem to be distorted by an unknown force, stretched so much that they can cause disgust even among arachnophiles. But the most unpleasant thing is their eyes. Large and unblinking, they look at you with inhuman attention and otherworldly malice. Overall, these are my favorite spiders! After all, if you leave their appearance behind, then gladiators are beautiful spiders and real smart guys. While the boring gray mass of eight-legged animals simply hangs their nets everywhere and fixes passive income, my favorite has turned the net into a tool, indispensable in active hunting. As for appearance, it is not needed to intimidate, it’s just that such a constitution increases the chances of a successful hunt. If the gladiator spider wants to eat, it hangs above the ground from a temporary web, after which it weaves a flexible and sticky trap, which it pulls between its four front legs. And just waits. When some cricket or cockroach runs under him, the gladiator will rush down and catch it with his catching net, from which it is impossible to escape. The only chance for an insect to escape is if it is poisonous and/or too spiky to be eaten, then the spider will let you go on its own. But in the microcosm it’s not enough to just come up with some cool feature; the competition there is simply enormous. Therefore, the gladiator had to not only develop tactics and learn how to accurately throw a net, but also remodel his entire body. It needs disproportionately long legs to increase the affected area - after all, the degree of stretching of the network depends on them. Huge eyes were needed to accurately focus on the prey and track any of its movements. And a long body - so that it looks like a boring stick or a dry leaf and does not attract the attention of larger predators. That's all the secrets of his interesting appearance. And now, together with the key feature, the changes in his body turned the little animal into an extremely successful creature. Today, gladiator spiders are a whole genus of predators that have inhabited the tropics and subtropics of all continents! And they somehow don’t care at all whether we think they’re creepy or not. Evolutionary success is theirs - and that's the only thing that matters. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

Subscriber question: Greetings! Unexpectedly, I found this very small creature (about 1 mm, maybe even a little smaller) on the sink. I've never seen anything like this before; a Google search yielded no results. It would be interesting to know who I managed to meet so unusually. Geographically the Moscow region. Answer: Judging by the photograph, this is a larva of carpet beetles (most likely from the family Dermestidae). These tiny creatures, measuring about 1-2 mm in size, have a characteristic bristly, "hairy" appearance with tufts of bristles on the sides of the body. If you find one larva, this is not a disaster, but it is worth checking closets with clothes, carpets and upholstered furniture. Regular cleaning and ventilation usually solve the problem. 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

Just a month after hatching, the new chthonic entity goes through the inflated stage and begins an independent life, full of sad howls and nightly wanderings through the jungle! Author: Egor Churakov Editor: Elizaveta Isaeva 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

A messenger of death with an upright tablet. The gigantic nightjar scared the Indians with its howl, and now it makes everyone laugh with its appearance If everyone really is greeted by their clothes, then I would prefer not to meet the gigantic nightjar, at least not under the cover of darkness. Mournful crying in the dark, two burning lights of huge eyes and silent flight - insomnia from meeting a feathered ghost is guaranteed! However, it’s worth taking a closer look at the animal and you realize that it’s not an alien or evil spirits, but a cute feathered amphibian native to South America. Birds looks like he was trying to hold back a powerful sneeze and went a little overboard. The bright yellow eyes bulged and squeezed out in different directions, and the chirping spread out from ear to ear, forming a truly huge pink mouth for its modest dimensions of 30-40 cm. However, you are unlikely to see such a scarecrow during the day. Gigantic nightjars are not fans of the warmth of the sun and good lighting; they are children of the night and behave accordingly. When the light is high, nightjars take the pose of a person who is trying to correct their posture - they stretch their neck and everything that is screwed to it as straight as possible. In this way, the bird magically turns into a pop-eyed twig, fortunately the camouflage color helps with authenticity. The animal puts all its talent into camouflage; often nightjars stoically tolerate violations of personal space, just so as not to give themselves away. In this standing position, nightjars wait until dusk to go hunting. Who makes them hungry? In ancient times, people believed that nightjars had a special passion for the milk of goats and cows. Obviously, since they swarm around the cattle in whole flocks, it means they want to steal our milk! However, the unfairly accused birds did not need anyone's milk; they came for clouds of flies, mosquitoes and moths that had flown on the scent of sweat and manure left over from the cows. Like a tiny whale among schools of buzzing fish, the nightjar heads for the ram and opens its mouth wide and begins to eat, cruising back and forth, scooping up all these insects with its built-in net. Nightjars devote their free time from filling their stomachs to music. A mournful howl, a little like crying, is heard over the night forest. Such background music frightened the superstitious ancestors of the current inhabitants of Argentina and Brazil to the point that the poor whippoorwill was recorded as an evil spirit. Now the bird's songs do not cause such an effect. Even if the nightjar’s serenades didn’t work out well, their family ties are still strong. Monogamous birds prefer to raise only one offspring at a time. For this act, they select a stump or a broken branch with a small cavity, where a single egg is accurately placed. The new parents then begin cosplaying as a continuation of the lumber being used, taking turns incubating the chick.

one, birds deserve endless respect from ecologists and beekeepers. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot

Eagle-Buzzard: Alone against a poisonous army. This bird crushes beehives every day Who will win? 60,000 poisonous flying insects that know how to work in a team and sacrifice themselves for the sake of the team. OR A bird the size of one and a half crows? If it were any other bird, I would bet on the bees to win, and I would also advise you. But today in the red corner of the ring there is a honey-buzzard eagle, and for him these striped insects are one tooth long! More precisely, one beak. I think there is no need to explain why the honey beetle was called the honey beetle. The share of bumblebees, wasps, hornets and bees in its diet can reach 80%! There is only a nuance - it does not eat adult insects encased in chitin, but honey, larvae and pupae hidden in the very depths of the nest. . I just tore out a piece of a high-rise building to feed the chicks. The honey beetle is capable of breaking through the defenses of any yellow-striped nest, and it doesn’t matter whether they rely on numbers, hide underground, or the nest is guarded by 500 selected hornets the size of half a finger. But here’s what’s unexpected: the honey buzzard itself does not have absolute protection from its own prey. Yes, its dense plumage fits perfectly to the body and is real scaly armor, but getting under it is more than possible. Yes, the honey buzzard has high resistance to the components of bee venom, but this resistance is not absolute. A dozen injections - and the honey buzzard will fall, just like any of us would fall. The honey beetle's strength lies not so much in the defense mechanisms it uses, but rather in its competent attack tactics. Its main advantage over bees is speed and the element of surprise. And in order not to lose them, he must carry out the attack in just a couple of minutes. And the honey buzzard copes. He quickly swoops down on the bees' house, tears it apart with his powerful claws and beak, greedily swallows the larvae and retreats before most of the nest's air force has time to figure out what actually happened. And it was his brazen, predatory style of getting food that made the honey buzzard special. It is Europe's only natural barrier to the invasive Asian hornets. About 20 years ago, they escaped beyond their natural habitat and entered Western Europe, where they found a real paradise for themselves. Local bees cannot defend themselves from the hornets' war squads, and their hives are destroyed one after another. And even hardy and strong, but clumsy bears give in to their nests. Nobody is able to stop him. Nobody except the wasp. The honey beetle's rapid strike abilities and effective armor give it enough time to eat a significant portion of the nest's offspring, destroy them, and escape unharmed. And some pairs of honey beetles are so good at this that they can destroy up to 60 nests of Asian hornets in 1 season! They are humanity's only allies in protecting European bees from final defeat. And for this al