Taking liberties here, but:
Rather than the fully-formed, free-living cells we know today, the last common ancestor of all living things (known as LUCA) was a hollow piece of rock.
― sunn o))) dude (Leee), Saturday, 5 January 2013 18:17 (eleven years ago) link
http://24.media.tumblr.com/0e954b0469c281a9a09eb1378daada3e/tumblr_mh0cpm19zR1s3yrubo1_1280.jpg
Wolffish, derrr.
― SOPA Middleton (Leee), Saturday, 26 January 2013 21:33 (eleven years ago) link
http://25.media.tumblr.com/2f4d4957e3ee785be0350ccee8bc5e6f/tumblr_mhfynesy4J1s3yrubo1_500.jpg
― SOPA Middleton (Leee), Friday, 1 February 2013 04:56 (eleven years ago) link
^^Red-lipped batfish, btw.
― SOPA Middleton (Leee), Friday, 1 February 2013 06:57 (eleven years ago) link
Just found this thread to post http://wtfevolution.tumblr.com/ - looks like Leee already got there!
http://25.media.tumblr.com/fcf782ba878b03c484d9bd8395707bb8/tumblr_mhurkyOYo71s3yrubo1_1280.jpg
― brogue element (seandalai), Friday, 8 February 2013 12:07 (eleven years ago) link
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/files/2013/02/Nudibranch.jpg
Nudibranch:
Ayami Sekizawa from Osaka City University watched the mating slugs, she noticed something odd. After they finished mating, they would crawl away with their penises still extruded from their bodies. Twenty minutes later, these trailing genitals broke off completely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIUk08iYZKE
― Ultramega OK Cupid (Leee), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 06:07 (eleven years ago) link
Leaf-nosed snake:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N-smWGi7SUA/UPc6YA5L7GI/AAAAAAAAMqI/VxweN-_7JEE/s320/Langaha_nasuta_female_DB.jpg
― Ultramega OK Cupid (Leee), Wednesday, 13 February 2013 06:15 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ED_exG3qLk&feature=player_embedded
― Ultramega OK Cupid (Leee), Friday, 15 February 2013 05:05 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBkWhkAZ9ds
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 19 February 2013 13:36 (eleven years ago) link
Omfg!
― Margaret Vegemite Sanger (Leee), Wednesday, 20 February 2013 06:58 (eleven years ago) link
Hyenas: more closely related to cats than dogs!
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1575
― R = J - L (Leee), Monday, 15 April 2013 03:34 (eleven years ago) link
once in college, standing around in the quad, i was talking with a girl from europe and she saw something out of the corner of her eye and gasped, "What kind of animal is that!" it was a squirrel, but she had looked at it backwards, believing the tail was the head and neck, and so thought it was some kind of exotic american animal she had never seen before.
― Pat Finn, Monday, 15 April 2013 04:35 (eleven years ago) link
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/octopus-chronicles/2013/04/19/unusual-offshore-octopods-does-the-worlds-largest-octopus-only-have-seven-arms-video/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw8zl5vrAu8
― 乒乓, Sunday, 21 April 2013 13:09 (eleven years ago) link
― 乒乓, Sunday, 21 April 2013 13:11 (eleven years ago) link
Combining weirdness with cephalopods, <3
― R = J - L (Leee), Sunday, 21 April 2013 17:54 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSB71jNq-yQ
― 乒乓, Wednesday, 24 April 2013 16:29 (eleven years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/kR3PVOC.jpg
― 乒乓, Friday, 26 April 2013 19:15 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.featureshoot.com/2013/05/endangered-frogs-of-ecuador-photographed-by-peter-lipton/
http://i.imgur.com/z76zx7B.jpg
― 乒乓, Sunday, 5 May 2013 14:03 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/science/blaschka-glass-menagerie-inspires-marine-expedition.html?_r=0
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 12:03 (eleven years ago) link
Wish that the blobfrog url did not include the word "endangered." :(
― Gregor Sansa (Leee), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 02:39 (eleven years ago) link
I've caught these before. They bark!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRluB6eyN3c
― beach situations (Austerity Ponies), Thursday, 9 May 2013 17:34 (eleven years ago) link
Couple more keepers in the gallery, but this mite deserves special recognition:
Microscope studies showed that, inside each impregnated female, her own eggs hatch a brood consisting of some half-dozen sisters and a single male. As the brood develops, the lone male copulates with his sisters; by this time, mom has died. By the time the sisters are old enough to chew through her body and reproduce anew, the male's job is done, and he dies soon afterwards. Sometimes he never even crawls outside, spending the entirety of life inside mom.
― Ou sont les Sonneywolferines d'antan? (Leee), Wednesday, 5 June 2013 03:49 (ten years ago) link
i know a guy like that.
― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Wednesday, 5 June 2013 04:02 (ten years ago) link
the wasp one is amazing
― 乒乓, Wednesday, 5 June 2013 11:31 (ten years ago) link
Weird animals, now with smackdown of idiot Republicans!
Ostrea puelchana is a South American oyster with a reproductive strategy known as rhythmic successive hermphroditism. Larvae settle and, after about a year, become sexualy mature males. Then, as they continue to develop, they turn into hermaphrodites. Finally, they end their several year life as females....If the spoonworm larvae lands on the seafloor it becomes female and begins to secrete a potent toxin called bonellin. Should the larvae come in contact with this toxin, it will be masculinized and sucked into the spoonworm’s body through her feeding proboscis, where it will be absorbed into her genital sac and spend the rest of its life producing sperm.
...
If the spoonworm larvae lands on the seafloor it becomes female and begins to secrete a potent toxin called bonellin. Should the larvae come in contact with this toxin, it will be masculinized and sucked into the spoonworm’s body through her feeding proboscis, where it will be absorbed into her genital sac and spend the rest of its life producing sperm.
― Ou sont les Sonneywolferines d'antan? (Leee), Sunday, 9 June 2013 05:26 (ten years ago) link
bats are pretty weird
― Treeship, Sunday, 9 June 2013 05:46 (ten years ago) link
"If you think about it, that's like having your urethra melting your penis," says Kelly.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/06/06/how-chickens-lost-their-penises-ducks-kept-theirs/
― Ou sont les Sonneywolferines d'antan? (Leee), Tuesday, 11 June 2013 15:43 (ten years ago) link
the links at the end of that are so good
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/13/the-alligator-has-a-permanently-erect-bungee-penis/
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 11 June 2013 19:26 (ten years ago) link
Weird Animals
― Ou sont les Sonneywolferines d'antan? (Leee), Wednesday, 12 June 2013 05:25 (ten years ago) link
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/files/2013/06/Croatobranchus-mestrovi.jpg
White, subterranean leeches.
― Mike Foucault (Leee), Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:22 (ten years ago) link
that is kind of cute. it seems like it could be a pokemon.
― Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:30 (ten years ago) link
Funny you should say that, there's already a cartoon tee shirt.
(Ace d/n btw.)
― Mike Foucault (Leee), Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:40 (ten years ago) link
thanks Leee. i like your display name too. i was just explaining madness and civilization to people at dinner but i don't think they were listening.
i like the t-shirt but i don't think i am going to get one.
― Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 01:46 (ten years ago) link
You just gave me an idea.
― Stateleee, plump Carey Mulligan (Leee), Sunday, 30 June 2013 04:37 (ten years ago) link
i am imagining that display name as a really mean caption for an unflattering photo of Carey Mulligan in OK! magazine or some other celebrity tabloid.
― Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Sunday, 30 June 2013 04:56 (ten years ago) link
http://25.media.tumblr.com/86a3bd6344d460f399adbb21cf056f5e/tumblr_mp9xi8oAT41spgl94o1_500.jpg
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 2 July 2013 08:04 (ten years ago) link
courtesy of another ilxor, who posted it to facebook:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/files/2012/06/Pyura_chilensis.jpeg
Despite appearances, this is not some kind of cruelly bisected alien stone organism or a tomato thunderegg. This is Pyura chilensis, a sea creature that lives on the rocky coast of Chile and Peru. And if (like me, very recently) you’ve never seen one of these before, you’ll probably be interested to know that in Chile, they are fished commercially, and the locals eat them raw or cooked with salad and rice because apparently they’re delicious.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/2012/06/21/pyura-chilensis-the-closest-thing-to-getting-blood-from-a-stone/
― just1n3, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 03:36 (ten years ago) link
video left me a little traumatized
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot-_xTDJgVI
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 03:50 (ten years ago) link
The obvious question remains: How can a worm remember things after losing its head?“We have no idea,” Levin admitted.
“We have no idea,” Levin admitted.
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/16/decapitated-worms-regrow-heads-keep-old-memories/
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Thursday, 25 July 2013 03:33 (ten years ago) link
YES.
― Louie Althusser (Leee), Thursday, 25 July 2013 03:34 (ten years ago) link
Great spider gallery: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/07/weirdest-spiders-ever/
― May I Call You Jiggleee? (Leee), Saturday, 10 August 2013 03:55 (ten years ago) link
Also the butcher bird: http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2013/07/30/the-macabre-habits-of-the-butcher-bird/
― May I Call You Jiggleee? (Leee), Saturday, 10 August 2013 03:57 (ten years ago) link
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2428971/Is-beautiful-squid-world-Underwater-photographers-incredible-pictures-capture-amazing-colours-bobtail-squid.html
― 乒乓, Wednesday, 25 September 2013 13:47 (ten years ago) link
Not clicking Daily Mail link, even for weird animals. So apologies if this is the same:
http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/nature/post/cookie-monster-of-the-sea-photographed-off-curacao/
http://cdn.grindtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/MH_NGIC0610_0183-Web.jpg
― emil.y, Wednesday, 25 September 2013 13:58 (ten years ago) link
It doesn't actually look that much like the cookie monster, but it is cute.
non daily mail link here http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/09/brilliant-photos-of-the-bobtail-squid/
― 乒乓, Wednesday, 25 September 2013 14:03 (ten years ago) link
Thanks, d. That squid is trippy.
― emil.y, Wednesday, 25 September 2013 14:10 (ten years ago) link
Gossamer spiders are best known for their bizarre “ballooning” stunts, but it’s only this week that we’ve learned how they pull them off.They disperse by spinning strands of silk into the open air, which allows them to float through the atmosphere miles above the surface of the earth and out to sea far beyond the reach of land.These 8-legged kites can apparently survive 25 days without food during their aeronautical journeys.
They disperse by spinning strands of silk into the open air, which allows them to float through the atmosphere miles above the surface of the earth and out to sea far beyond the reach of land.
These 8-legged kites can apparently survive 25 days without food during their aeronautical journeys.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2013/09/23/ballooning-spiders-fly-without-wind/
― Shannon Leeedles (Leee), Friday, 27 September 2013 04:13 (ten years ago) link
Who'd have thunk that Birds of Paradise would be weird?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYbn9R11Rrs#action=share
More here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/09/birds-of-paradise-videos/?pid=12691&viewall=true
― Shannon Leeedles (Leee), Saturday, 12 October 2013 00:58 (ten years ago) link
the oarfish!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24620755
http://i.imgur.com/2gzVedJ.jpg
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 22 October 2013 13:17 (ten years ago) link