#biology

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evolutionary folks: it occurred to me today to wonder how closely related rodents and lagomorphs are, and that's taken me down a serious
uh
rabbit hole
but not one I can get anywhere in with my level of knowledge.

how accepted is Glires as a clade, and what's a good current source for what we know about the tree?

My needs a refresh.

I'm a student at the University of , studying the of . I'm into , , , and , because I want to understand , , and using my native language of . I share my musings and on my . I love generally, and am full of bitchy .

I was a in for many years, but left in 2021. I'm glad I did, and now I feel a bit betrayed by the . I've been going back to my roots, and gradually ing my life. I still love to talk about ,

How will humans into the future? How might humans evolve if our civilization was lost and the climate was unforgiving for millions of years? Or if two populations of humans were geographically isolated for that long? For this years can get a free copy of HUMAN. Visit https://bretthodnett.com/FreeHUMAN.html and use the code ‘fedihuman’ to get your free EPUB!
https://bretthodnett.com/HUMAN.html

Hi!
Let's have this .

I'm a biology student based in Northern Germany, interested in and , especially

Currently, I'm working on my bachelor's thesis about the biodiversity of rove beetles () in a Hamburg nature reserve.

My posts will be in English and German and you'll hopefully find a lot of pictures here.

Besides , I'm also interested in , / and

I'm not new on Mastodon itself, but I missed related content, so be the change, I guess.

Living organisms are assumed to produce same- .

But this is not the case for Messor ibericus, an that lays individuals from two distinct .

In this life cycle, females must clone males of another species because they require their sperm to produce the worker caste.

As a result, males from the same mother exhibit distinct genomes and morphologies, as they belong to species that diverged over 5 million years ago.

The evolutionary history of this system appears as sexual parasitism that evolved into a natural case of cross-species cloning, resulting in the maintenance of a male-only lineage cloned through distinct species’ ova.


https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09425-w

Defying classification, fantastical artworks reframe the racism of Carl Linnaeus

In the 18th century, the Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus set out to classify life, creating a system of taxonomy that still endures. But, as Firelei Báez explains, his work included hierarchies of humans based on race that were ‘sheer nonsense’, embedding racist ideas into science that echo to this day.

https://aeon.co/videos/defying-classification-fantastical-artworks-reframe-the-racism-of-carl-linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/9516

Linnaeus: Örtaboken (Herb book), early manuscript by L., 1725. "Earliest manuscript by L." The image shows Örtaboken (“The Herb Book”), the earliest known manuscript by Carl Linnaeus, created in 1725 when he was still a young student. The page, yellowed with age, is filled with neat, handwritten text in dark ink, written in Swedish and Latin. Botanical names and descriptions are carefully arranged, often accompanied by delicate ink or pencil sketches of plants, leaves, or flowers in the margins. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Carl_von_Linn%C3%A9#/media/File:Linnaeus_-_%C3%96rtaboken,_early_manuscript,_1725.jpg

🐝🌻 More than 4,000 species of wild were already thriving in when European honeybees arrived in 1622. From tiny metallic green sweat bees to bumblebees that vibrate pollen loose through buzz pollination, these native species are often more effective pollinators than their famous cousins.

Many wild bees specialize in just one or a few species, creating partnerships that have developed over millions of years where each partner's survival depends on the other.

👉 Learn more: https://zurl.co/b0YJp

A fuzzy golden-brown native bee with visible antennae and wings feeds on a pale yellow flower with prominent white stamens against a blurred green background.
A fuzzy golden-brown native bee with visible antennae and wings feeds on a pale yellow flower with prominent white stamens against a blurred green background.
A fuzzy golden-brown native bee with visible antennae and wings feeds on a pale yellow flower with prominent white stamens against a blurred green background.

Because life can be full of bullshit, here's some pleasant counterprogramming:

Meet 3.3 m/11 ft

(Old people like me will get the reference)

First spotted off in 2015

The only we've discovered in the world, now or ever

Researchers have studied him (yes, a he) as to cause

Diet: no. Stress: no. Toxins: no. Infection: no

They now think it is just a rare genetic mutation

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rare-pink-manta-ray-spotted-near-australias-lady-elliot-island-180974196/

a pink manta ray
a pink manta ray
a pink manta ray
a pink manta ray

Sign up for an author's newsletter, get a free book. This one includes my cyberpunk thriller Biodigital. I wrote it in 2012 but it's about today. It's freakily prescient, I promise. If it doesn't give you nightmares I'll eat my (virtual) hat.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/freeadventures/2negu05zwk

It's always weirded me out that humans think of any (other) animals as pests or invaders in our space, since WE are the ones technically invading THEIR space, as they've already been living on the land for so long.

This is a really cool piece about coyotes, urban wildlife, and co-existing together: https://www.biographic.com/the-coyote-next-door