We should really appreciate the variety in pupae more.

Like, here we have flies doing the absolute bare minimum. It's just a pod. Fly grows inside a pod, that's it.

Butterfly chrysalises seem to have the same minimalism...but then you look closely, and can see the future butterfly parts are all outlined.

And then you have beetles just making a whole balloon animal shape to grow into.

(Beetle pupa source: http://maria.fremlin.de/stagbeetles/pupation/pupation_captivity.html )

neuropteran (lacewing) pupae should also be appreciated for being mobile. usually this is restricted to their mouthparts but in some cases also their limbs, which means they can walk around to find a better position to eclose:

or, at least in some mantidflies, even climb trees:

I was going to mention this, but was afraid the post was getting too long already. Thanks for the addition!

So, why are those mobile pupae considered pupae at all, rather than some odd new larval or subadault form? Is it just that they're too different from both the larva and the adult?

I had always thought of a pupa as a stage that's too busy being a pod, perhaps a pod that can wiggle if you poke it, to be able to do... anything. Seemed like one of the defining characteristics of a pupa. Very cool that apparently this is not the case.

time lapse of a banded sphinx moth caterpillar (Eumorpha fasciatus) devouring a water primrose leaf

(Florida, 9/18/22)

E. fasciatus caterpillars are heavily polymorphic and come in several different color morphs- those stripy rainbow ones are from the same population as the green one.

another neat thing about these guys is that most caterpillars drown easily, but since water primrose (Ludwigia) usually grows in standing water, E. fasciatus caterpillars have a propensity for swimming and are often seen wriggling their way through lakes when they need to come ashore to pupate.

That is shockingly effective swimming for a creature that exists to be a meat-producing tube with a mouth.

Good news! It gets worse!

I think it's the galactic orbit thing that really did me in

And yet, the Appalachian Mountains are even older than that.

I often hear that house centipedes have “too many legs” from people who aren’t as fond of all the Appendage as I am.

however, did you know that they aren’t born with all those legs?

this little bug nugget is an hours-old baby house centipede, with only 4 legs to her name!

as she grows, she’ll add a pair or two each time she molts her exoskeleton, until she reaches 15 pairs in the sequence 4-5-7-9-11-13-15. the purple capsule at her butt is a legless segment where the new ones will come in when they’re ready!

house centipedes can grow all their legs in just one summer, but will probably not be sexually mature for another year or two. since they keep slowly molting and growing after adulthood, some of the huge, ancient ones you see might be over 5 years old—what secrets the elder basement fairies must know, gleaned from cobwebs and crevices

I could watch for ever

Image description: a series of gifs of a common vampire bat walking (and in the last gif running) across the ground

#creepy little fucked up monkey innit

wolves in eastern USA are a really bizarre case actually because. okay, so, we have coyotes right? they're everywhere. And supposedly wolves haven't been in the eastern USA for a long time.

however. I'm on inaturalist and gray wolves have presence in many areas across the globe, whereas coyotes are restricted to North America. And iNaturalist maps largely corroborate this

However. if you just pull up coyote observations you'll see a huge variety of animals with a great range of sizes and appearances. Which is like, okay, wolves are still way bigger, the people ID-ing the photos must know what they're talking about

HOWEVER. look at observations of gray wolves, specifically in Eurasia, (where there is no overlap with coyotes) and you'll see animals that make you think. That's a Coyote. The size and shape is fully indistinguishable from the coyotes you were just looking at. BUT IT CAN'T BE A COYOTE. 'CAUSE IT'S IN POLAND.

So basically what's happening is that all photos taken in an area of the USA where wolf presence isn't officially documented are confidently identified "coyote" no matter what even if they can't actually be distinguished by a low quality photo

Looking up how to distinguish coyotes and wolves makes my brain dissolve entirely, because in Connecticut (example) there are numerous trail cam photos of BIG coyote- or wolf- like creatures with rounded, blocky muzzles, stout bodies, short, rounded ears, walking with their tails held horizontally, all definitively identified as coyotes, so it's like...is there some diagnostic trait I don't know about or is everyone just assigning taxa to an indistinct animal based on what they're "most likely" to be

What do you mean red wolves are 45-80 pounds

...

I'm trying to read about the relationships between canid species in North America and I've completely lost the plot.

So Wikipedia cites this study as evidence that red wolves are distinct from coyotes, which basically...examined their external morphological characteristics? and determined that...red wolves are more similar to red wolves than coyotes and their hybrids and they have distinct morphological traits? Is it me or is that circular?

Meanwhile the coyote page cites this study which seems far more rigorous in that it actually analyzed the animals' genetics, and this found that red wolves and coyotes form a clade separate from gray wolves, and that all the wolves, coyotes included, are monophyletic. It also found that all North American wolves contain coyote DNA, and that red wolves are around 60% coyote, whereas Eastern timber wolves and Great Lakes wolves are around 40% and 25% coyote respectively (though they are considered to be in the gray wolf clade). See also this study, which largely agrees with the idea that red wolves and coyotes are closely related and that there is a ton of hybridization, meaning essentially all North American wolves and all coyotes have some of the other's DNA. A quote from the second study linked:

This earlier study treats Eastern Wolves as conspecific with Red Wolves and identifies "Coywolves" as a genetically distinct population with wolf and coyote ancestry. It also notes that North American canids "do not conform to the species concept" because they are not reproductively isolated from each other. Here's a quote:

This is my first time diving into actual studies about this subject, and I'm just kinda stunned because the evidence appears to very clearly show that wolves and coyotes are basically the same thing existing on a spectrum of phenotypes.

This is just utterly at odds with the policies surrounding the species, where wolves are treated as this noble, essential keystone species firmly protected by law whereas Coyotes are vermin to be slaughtered by the thousands.

People are allowed to kill Coyotes with reckless abandon in the same territories where Red Wolves dwelt. This means that people are almost certainly slaughtering Red Wolves or at least slaughtering what remains of their DNA, because no one knows how or to what extent the two are different.

The second study I linked discusses how the division of the species has implications for the animals being covered under the Endangered Species Act or not. Basically, we had to separate the Eastern Wolf for Gray Wolves to retain protections, because if they were the same species, that would be considered a valid reason to kill 'em all. And obviously, the Red Wolves would not be protected if they were considered the same species as coyotes.

It's almost like the most versatile and adaptable of the wolf phenotypes was offered as a sacrifice to sate the bloodthirst of the pro-wolf-killing faction, Coyotes separated from the rest so the other wolves could be protected and thus live.

But coyotes contain a ton of genetic diversity that could help the other wolves survive. One of the studies above mentions that the 14 founding red wolves of the current population have very low inbreeding coefficients despite being the last of a dying breed. It's because the coyotes have served as a reservoir of diversity.

The divides are a political fiction, they're a complicated family of species that together contain the diversity that holds the key to survival.

the tomentose burying beetle (Nicrophorus tomentosus) looks a little different from other burying beetles- its thorax is covered with gold fuzz. It’s not really clear why it looks like this when the beetle is at rest, but when it takes flight its shiny black and orange elytra flip upside down to reveal the same golden color as the thorax. The result is that it looks and buzzes like a stinging bumblebee in flight (pardon my friend making this observation in the background)

It might not look that much like a bee in these brief clips I was able to capture, but it gets me for at least a few seconds every time I’ve seen one flying. I vividly recall watching a bumblebee instantly transform into a beetle upon hitting the ground as a kid and being deeply confused

(Massachusetts, 7/6/21)

(also if you see this post and you’re not already familiar with burying beetles in general I suggest looking them up, they’re really cool)

This Just In: Giant Beast Gingerly Eats Dandelions. More at 11.

Today's crab is: little soldier

Is it real

it is, in fact, a real crab. here's some more images of it ^^

noodle lost a front leg above the elbow when she was a kitten and its really cool to see the ways in which she's adapted; how she uses her stump to dig in the litterbox, or knows to keep it close to her body when she's stalking a toy so it wont hit the ground and make noise, or how her tail curves into a letter C because her center of balance is different. but most importantly, the fact that when she hunts her eyes favor her leg side, so they focus like this:

Owo

Apparently there's an evolutionary theory that the reason why Africa has so much wild big-ass megafauna while the big-ass megafauna on all the other continents went extinct is because they evolved right beside humans, and knew us well enough to not get hunted into extinction.

So while everything from giant koalas to giant sloths barely had the time to think "what the fuck is that" before getting pierced by a spear and getting their bone marrow gently fed to babies and the toothless elderly, Africa had elephants who had all the time in the world to learn to tell apart human languages and teach the next generations of their herd which human sounds mean that this tribe won't hurt you, but humans who make this kind of sounds are a danger. And hippos learned to conclude "I think I'll fuck up this two-legged weird shit on sight."

That’s true about African Elephants being able to distinguish between human languages, BTW.

The original study they did on this is really cool, and it showed that not only can elephants distinguish languages, they respond differently depending on the general age and gender of the person spekaing. The researchers played recordings of different people speaking either Maasai or Kamba. All the speakers were saying the same thing, "Look, look over there, a group of elephants is coming."

What they found is that when presented with voices speaking Kamba, the elephants were supremely unbothered. The Kamba are mostly farmers, many work for the park services, and they rarely present a danger to elephants.

When presented with the voices of adult men speaking Maasai, the elephants drew close to each other and started investigating. The Maasai are largely cattle herders, and they sometimes come into conflict with elephants over water and grazing lands.

However, the elephants did not seem nervous when presented with the voices of women or young boys speaking Maasai. They were aware that only humans with deep voices were a threat to them.

They also seem to recognize that if humans are talking, they aren't necessarily a threat. Humans pursuing large game like elephants are stealth hunters. If you can hear them coming, they're probably not trying to hurt you.

Anyway, elephants are amazing and one of the creatures high up on my list of "non-humans who are probably people."

Reblogging for those fabulous details.

What do you mean there are different types

Helen and Mink are sooooo animated by two different studios

Wanted to draw them

A newly described burrowing frog, Synapturanus danta, from the Peruvian Amazon has a tapir-like snoot and resembles chocolate.

Photo by Germán Chávez.

Jumping spider mimic bee fly, Geminaria canalis, Bombyliidae

Found in the American southwest, this species of bee fly is thought to mimic a jumping spider to deter predation. The false eyes are a modified scutellum (part of the thorax) and not real, functional eyes.

Photos 1-4 by kueda, 5 by tiwane, 6-7 by psyllidhipster, 8-9 by bryanjbd, and 10 by janepannor

TIL weedfish

They may look a bit scary, but these tadpoles are entirely harmless. The highly-modified mouth parts of Asian horned frog tadpoles [genus Megophrys; these specimens are Megophrys gigantica] allow them to feed on small food particles that are trapped on the water’s surface. This adaptation allows them access to detritus that would normally be difficult for tadpoles to bite. These specimens were found in the Bat Xat District of Vietnam by Benjamin Tapley.