Just Found Out That Giant Squid Meat Is Chock Fucking Full Of Ammonium Ions To Increase Buoyancy So They

Byzantine history be like:

In 874 Emperor Kostalogous IV ascended to the throne after blinding sixteen nephews, and married his wife, Theodora.

However, he soon ran afoul of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Theopelagionikus, and his wife Theodora.

In 895 he was deposed by his general, Justiniapelomaxorianous II, and his wife Theodora.

This created nine new church schisms.

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

I get so confused whenever I see an AI-generated sea slug of a species that doesn't even exist, like is the world not beautiful enough for you? Do you care not for Babakina anadoni...?

Nemesignis banyulensis?

Bornella anguilla?

Phyllodesmium poindimiei?

Sea angel??

goodgoodgood.co

Conservation good news: Giant anteaters are returning to south Brazil thanks to rewilding efforts

Recent giant anteater sightings in Rio Grande do Sul state indicate the species has returned to southern Brazil, where it had been considere

— Recent giant anteater sightings in Rio Grande do Sul state indicate the species has returned to southern Brazil, where it had been considered extinct for more than a century.

— Experts concluded that the giant anteater ventured across the border from the Iberá Park in northeastern Argentina where a rewilding project has released around 110 individuals back into the habitat.

— The sightings emphasize the importance of rewilding projects, both to restore animal populations in specific regions and help ecosystems farther afield.

— Organizations across Brazil are working to protect and maintain current giant anteater populations, including rallying for safer highways to prevent wildlife-vehicle collisions that cause local extinctions.

Playing back hours of footage from a camera trap set in Espinilho State Park in the south of Brazil in August 2023, Fábio Mazim and his team banked on possible sightings of the maned wolf or the Pantanal deer and had their fingers crossed for a glimpse of a Pampas cat (Leopardus pajeros), one of the most threatened felines in the world.

What they didn’t expect to see was an animal long presumed extinct in the region. To their surprise, the unmistakable long snout and bushy tail of a giant anteater ambled into shot.

"We shouted and cried when we saw it,” the ecologist from the nonprofit Pró-Carnívoros Institute told Mongabay. “It took a few days to grasp the importance of this record. A sighting of a giant anteater was never, ever expected.”

Last seen alive in the southwest of the Rio Grande do Sul state in 1890, the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) has since been spotted 11 times since August 2023, although the scientists are unsure whether it’s the same one or different individuals. However, the sightings confirm one clear fact: The giant anteater is back.

It's a huge win for the environment. Giant anteaters play an important role in their ecosystems, helping to control insect numbers, create watering holes through digging and are prey for big cats such as jaguars and pumas.

The habitat of the giant anteater stretches from Central America toward the south cone of Latin America.

Its conservation status is “vulnerable,” although it is considered extinct in several countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala and Uruguay, as well as specific regions such as the states of Rio de Janeiro, Espirito Santo, Santa Catarina and (until now) Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and the Cordoba and Entre Rios regions in Argentina.

‍In the last six months, the giant anteater was spotted on camera 11 times in the Espinilho State Park in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. It was the first time in 130 years that the species has been seen alive there.

Yet not only is it a triumph for conservationists to see these animals returning to Brazilian biomes, it’s also a surprising mark of success for a rewilding program about 150 kilometers (93 miles) away in neighboring Argentina.

‍Rewilding Argentina’s biomes

‍Iberá National Park in Corrientes province in northeastern Argentina is a 758,000-hectare (1.9 million-acre) expanse of protected land comprising a part of the Iberá wetlands with its swaths of grasslands, marshes, lagoons and forests. The region was once home to just a handful of giant anteaters after habitat loss, hunting and vehicle collisions decimated the population.

Since 2007, the NGO Rewilding Argentina, an offspring of the nonprofit Tompkins Conservation, has been reintroducing the species back to the area, most individuals being orphaned pups rescued from vehicle collisions or poaching.

So far, they have released 110 giant anteaters back into the wild. Nowadays, several generations inhabit the park, transforming it from “a place of massive defaunation to abundance,” Sebastián Di Martino, director of conservation for Rewilding Argentina, was quoted as saying in an official statement.

The project has been so successful that the giant anteaters appear to be venturing farther afield and moving to new territories beyond national borders, such as Espinilho State Park in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul region...

Experts now hope that a giant anteater population can reestablish itself naturally in Espinilho State Park without the need for human intervention.

“The giant anteater returning to Rio Grande do Sul shows the success of the work done in Argentina and how it’s viable, possible and important to do rewilding and fauna reintroduction projects,” Mazim said. “It is also an indication that the management of conservation units and also the agricultural areas of the ecosystems are working,” he added. “Because if large mammals are coming from one region and settling in another, it is because there is a support capacity for them. It is an indication of the health of the environment.”

-via GoodGoodGood, via May 25, 2024

What is senescence?

I just discovered the blanket octopus. Would you do a fact on them if not already done? 👀

Sure friend! I am a daily fish fact account only, but I simply couldn't not say something about the magnificent blanket octopus :)

Here is a blanket octopus female! How do I know that? Simple: the males of the species only reach about 2 and a half centimeters, while the females can be as large as two meters long! The species is named after this gorgeous lady's webs that connect to her arms.

"Blanket octopus" refers to four different species actually! And they're all immune to the extremely venomous Portuguese man o' war, young females and males will in fact rip out a dangerous and venomous tentacle from these animals to defend themselves! It is extremely interesting and exciting what kinds of things octopuses are capable of :)

Snails in the genus Julia have a bivalved shell, like a clam!

Even though they have a clam like shell, with 2 sections, they are in fact snails (class Gastropoda). They are marine snails, found throughout the Ino-Pacific. There are 6 species which are various shades of green. Julia are tiny, only reaching a length of up to 6 mm long. They feed on algae, and incorporate the chloroplasts from the algae into their bodies. Some of the chloroplasts remain photosynthetic, and the snails are able to feed on the products of this photosynthesis. This process is called kleptoplasty.

Photos: Julia sp. from Australia  - profmollusc | Inaturalist cc; Julia exquisita from Reuinion Island - Alexandre LaPorte | Wikipedia cc

Going into 2024 like… 🦀 🖤 😞