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Photinus fireflies are probably one of North America’s most iconic and beloved beetles, and rightfully so. P. pyralis is big and bright, with a yellow-green color to its bioluminescence

I also often see these smaller Photinus with a warm orange glow. I think they could be P. scintillans, which aligns with their size, flash pattern, the yellow sclerites on males, and where I’m located. females of that species are short-winged and flightless, so I’ll try to find one to figure out the ID for sure.

reminder that fireflies eat slugs and snails as larvae! if you like seeing them in your garden, stop trying to exterminate land gastropods and leave some vegetation where the adults can sleep during the day. slugs and “weeds” = more magic glowing bugs

Wake up babe new fish dropped

Beetles 🪲🐞

lil epaulette and sea bunnies hanging out 🫧☁️🦈 the 9 month reward sticker for silly society members!! it’s going to be a clear sticker and im so excited to see how it turns out!! it’s so exciting especially because weve reached over 100 members in silly society, thank you thank you thank you ^_^ check out silly society here!

ScienceAlert

The Y Chromosome Is Slowly Vanishing. A New Sex Gene May Be The Future of Men.

The sex of human and other mammal babies is decided by a male-determining gene on the Y chromosome.

The sex of human and other mammal babies is decided by a male-determining gene on the Y chromosome. But the human Y chromosome is degenerating and may disappear in a few million years, leading to our extinction unless we evolve a new sex gene. The good news is two branches of rodents have already lost their Y chromosome and have lived to tell the tale. A 2022 paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science shows how the spiny rat has evolved a new male-determining gene.

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ScienceAlert

Lost Age of Monotremes Revealed by Fossils From 100 Million Years Ago

As bones encased in rock rotted away, water-borne silica seeped into the crevices, solidifying into opal and preserving precious details for

As bones encased in rock rotted away, water-borne silica seeped into the crevices, solidifying into opal and preserving precious details for 100 million years. The resulting fossils now provide evidence that there really may have been an Age of Monotremes, before other mammals came to dominate. "It's like discovering a whole new civilization," says Australian Museum paleontologist Tim Flannery. "Today, Australia is known as a land of marsupials, but discovering these new fossils is the first indication that Australia was previously home to a diversity of monotremes." Only five of these rare mammals still cling to existence: one platypus and four echidna species, shared between Australia and Papua New Guinea. But due to their reptilian-like egg-laying feature, it has long been thought these animals evolved before placental mammals like us and marsupials.

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