Turritopsis Nutricula

lickystickypickywe:

REPRODUCTIVE TRICKS OF THE “LESBIAN LIZARDS”

As if being able to re-grow a tail isn’t cool enough, some species of whiptail lizards (genus Cnemidophorus) have another trick: They can clone themselves. These species actually consist completely of females able to reproduce by parthenogenesis.

The original sexless females, known as parthenogens, come from the hybridization of two separate lizard lines. The parthenogen has one copy of chromosomes from its mother, and one analogous but slightly different copy from its father. It can give rise to offspring that are their exact clones, without their two genetic copies recombining.

Asexual whiptails have a special trick for making spermless reproduction work: The egg cells in other animals first double their chromosomes once and then divide twice, leaving them as haploid cells, with half the normal number of genetic material. But the whiptails’ egg cells first double their chromosomes twice and then divide twice, leaving them with the normal number of chromosomes and rendering a sperm cell unnecessary.

Pairs of female whiptails sometimes engage in mock sex, which led to the nickname “lesbian lizards” and seems to encourage the production of egg cells. But they do seem to have some interest in the opposite gender: Sometimes these parthenogens are mate with males of different species, creating a species with 50 percent more genes than normal.

The animal kingdom upstaged humans this time……..

(via lickypickystickyme)

tablogs:

fyeahpokenon:

ectobandit:

ofpaperandponies:

jtotheizzoe:

The creepiest thing I will see all day …

We all know that children lose their baby teeth over the course of several years, and they are replaced by adult chompers.

With that in mind, here it is: The skull of a child with adult teeth coming in.

(from Scotland’s Hunterian Museum)

I blogged this a few months ago, but I feel you guys need a reminder of the skulls awesome continued existence. 

shit’s wicked, god damn

I call bullshit, the other teeth are far too worn down, I’m 20 and my teeth still have the ridges

I took forensic anthropology and we analyzed skulls like this. This is what it actually looks like. The ridges usually do go a way with age, and if this child still has all his/her baby teeth it would be shocking for the teeth to not have ridges, but it really depends on the environment in which this child grew up (what s/he ate or chewed on or need to use his/her teeth to open, etc). I still think it’s incredibly awesome!

allthingseurope: Malta - Valletta (by vanto5)

(via aesthettte)