They have also discovered a new way to make me say “Well, goddamn”.
“Contrary to popular belief, the presence or absence of certain sex organs isn’t the determining factor when deciding which animal of a species is female and which is male.”
“Contrary to popular belief, the presence or absence of certain sex organs isn’t the determining factor when deciding which animal of a species is female and which is male.”
“Contrary to popular belief, the presence or absence of certain sex organs isn’t the determining factor when deciding which animal of a species is female and which is male.”
YO CISSEXISTS WHO LIKE SCIENCE SO MUCH. CHECK THIS OUT.
“Here in the Pacific, 200 metres down, we enter an alien world… This is barreleye a fish with a transparent head filled with jelly so that it can look up through its skull.”– Sir David Attenborough
Blue Planet II
most fish just grow their eyes on the sides of they head but okay
They do that because it lets them look up and spot fish that are silhouetted against the light coming from above, and because it gives them a really wide field of vision, but keeps their eyes tucked inside and protected.
All aboard the dad train! This male horned land frog [Sphenophryne cornuta] carries his offspring to safety in the jungles of New Guinea. Unlike most frogs, the offspring of Sphenophryne cornuta grow by direct development, hatching as tiny versions of adult frogs instead of having a tadpole stage. The male of the pair watches the eggs, and when they hatch he gathers them up on his back and takes them to a less exposed location where they can grow in safety. Image by Michael Pennay.
cows are so wild like here I am walking through a field surrounded by 30, 1200 pound animals who are Fully Convinced I am capable of killing them with my bare hands so they are dutifully cautious of me
but then sometimes they suddenly think “hey wait…maybe WE could kill HER” and they start getting uppity so I have to pick up a stick and walk toward them as if I could do anything about it and they think
“oh hm wait….she has a branch now……… … We wouldn’t stand a chance……”
The fact that the location of the world’s oldest tree has to be kept secret encapsulates everything that’s bad about humanity.
There’s a story about that, actually.
According to the smithsonianmag.com, the world’s oldest bristlecone pine was a nearly 5,000 year old tree later named Prometheus. In 1964, a man named Donald Rusk Currey decided to use an increment borer to determine its age (a process that cuts a small hole into the center of the tree trunk, and is not intended to kill the tree). Unfortunately, the borer got stuck. He and a park ranger cut the tree down to remove the equipment, and when they counted the tree rings, they realized their mistake. Oops. This incident lead to better protection of the remaining bristlecone pines.
There’s some wiggle room about what can be called “the world’s oldest living tree.” The world’s oldest living single tree is the tree that the OP is referring to. Its name is Methuselah,and it is also around 5,000 years old. Since its location is unknown, nobody knows what it looks like. But it might be this tree here:
But technically, it isn’t the oldest living tree. Let me explain.
It turns out that root systems of trees can send up genetically identical saplings (aka clones) via their root systems. Like so:
Which means the original trunk can die, but since the root system is attached to other trees which give it nutrients, it lives on. The root system can theoretically do this indefinitely. So the tree trunks could be fairly young, but the roots could be large and very, very, very old. So the oldest “tree” isn’t a small grove, it’s a logic-defyingforest.
I’d like you to meet Pando.
This male quaking aspen covers 106 acres and is ancient. I’m talking an estimate of 80,000 years. The trees you can see are just “shoots” he sent up, and their average age is 130 years old. He is his own forest. If trees could talk, I’d love to hear what he had to say.
He might be dying, due to insects and drought (hmm, wonder what could have happened to cause that). A section of Pando is being studied in an attempt to find a solution. But in the meantime, we can enjoy him for his beauty.
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 