European Starling!

ScienceAlert

Stunning Fossil Reveals Fireflies Glowed When Dinosaurs Ruled Earth

One of the most beautiful sights in the summer twilight is the gentle glow of fireflies lighting up the crepuscular gloom.

One of the most beautiful sights in the summer twilight is the gentle glow of fireflies lighting up the crepuscular gloom. These twinkling insects are the most abundant bioluminescent beetles, with roughly 2,500 species known around the world. Their glowing abdomens serve multiple purposes – but what we don't really have a good handle on is how this trait evolved. According to a team led by paleontologist Chenyang Cai of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a firefly magnificently preserved for eons in golden amber may have some answers. Some 99 million years ago, Flammarionella hehaikuni was already lighting up the dusk, suggesting its ancestors had well-and-truly evolved their characteristic glowing butt by the Mesozoic.

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did u go protest today

good evening officer

I don’t want an AI assistant in my browser I don’t want an AI chat bot built into every website I don’t want AI images appearing in searches I don’t want AI to help me write I don’t want AI integrated into every facet of my life in a completely useless and unnecessary way just because it’s trendy and it sounded futuristic to investors. AI has genuinely helpful applications and has the potential to make people’s lives easier and instead it’s being forced upon us in totally absurd ways that no one wants or needs just because tech companies want to increase their stock value and I’m going to fucking scream

now vs. 10 months ago, same pattern and same balls of yarn.

my cats deserved to have their balls confiscated

"guys we're so cooked" "it's wraps" "the end is near" shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up. i say that with love because you are probably saying it out of distress and hopelessness, but for your own well-being and for everyone else's, please stop saying this shit.

no we are not "cooked." and by saying that, by the way, you are giving more power to the neo-nazi oligarchy in charge.

they want you to abandon all hope of a better life. they want you to believe "oh well, it's over, we might as well stop trying to fight back and just resign ourselves to despair forever."

every time you get on tiktok and comment "guys we're so cooked haha it's over," you are feeding into the mindset of hopeless compliance. you are, unknowingly, spreading this infectious idea that just because we've lost one battle, we've lost the entire war.

your words matter. i am saying this out of love and concern for our future, but please stop choosing words of defeat.

my dudes but in this specific ace attorney pose

I think about this post so often. Here it is again for the few of you that see my reblogs. Remember that there's always one thing you can do, even if it's planning for the future:)

i learned about Tim Wong who successfully and singlehandedly repopulated the rare California Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly in San Francisco. In the past few years, he’s cultivated more than 200 pipevine plants (their only food source) and gives thousands of caterpillars to his local Botanical Garden (x)