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Day two of drawing dumb little sharks until I learn how to draw sharks: The thresher shark! I spent more time on this one and I hope it shows! Also if you know how to draw sharks id love feedback! This lil guy uses his tail as a sort of whip in order to bonk their prey. A thresher sharks tail can be up to 3 meters (around 9 feet) long on the common thresher sharks (the biggest ones)! Also did you know that they're also referred to as the fox shark? I think thats pretty neat :)

phys.org

Remarkable new plant species steals nutrients from underground fungi

A distinctive plant that steals nutrients from underground fungi has been discovered as a new species by botanists from the Forest Research

A distinctive plant that steals nutrients from underground fungi has been discovered as a new species by botanists from the Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) in collaboration with local naturalists and stakeholders. The research is published in the journal PhytoKeys. Discovered in the tropical rainforests of Peninsular Malaysia, Thismia malayana belongs to a group of plants known as mycoheterotrophs. Unlike most plants, mycoheterotrophs do not perform photosynthesis. Instead, they act as a parasite, stealing carbon resources from the fungi on their roots. This adaptation takes advantage of the mycorrhizal symbiosis, which is usually a mutually beneficial relationship between colonizing fungi and a plant's root system.

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Sea stars and friends by Alycia Uyeoka (mostlymarine on Instagram)

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

The Conversation

Explainer: what is citizen science?

Public participation in science is increasing, and citizen science has a central part in this. It is a contribution by the public to researc

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

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I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

"which reptile is the most catholic?" obviously Komodo Dragons because they have virgin birth

many other reptile lineages also have virgin birth (parthenogenesis), there's even MULTIPLE species of whiptail lizards that reproduce entirely this way!

there are no males in these species. only females.

however! they still court each other and do some copulating.

that's right. MULTIPLE SPECIES OF LIZARD LESBIANS.

LIZBEANS.

ScienceAlert

Wild Elephants Invent Names For One Another in Surprise Sign of Abstract Thinking

Elephants call out to each other using individual names that they invent for their fellow pachyderms, a study said on Monday.

Elephants call out to each other using individual names that they invent for their fellow pachyderms, a study said on Monday. While dolphins and parrots have been observed addressing each other by mimicking the sound of others from their species, elephants are the first non-human animals known to use names that do not involve imitation, the researchers suggested. For the new study, a team of international researchers used an artificial intelligence algorithm to analyse the calls of two wild herds of African savannah elephants in Kenya. The research "not only shows that elephants use specific vocalisations for each individual, but that they recognise and react to a call addressed to them while ignoring those addressed to others," lead study author Michael Pardo said. "This indicates that elephants can determine whether a call was intended for them just by hearing the call, even when out of its original context," the behavioural ecologist at Colorado State University said in a statement.

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Wake up babe new fish dropped