An Assortment of Bird Testes

Left to right: Rock Dove/Pigeon, Cedar Waxwing, Violet Green Swallow

The two pale ovals in each of these photos are the bird’s male gonads, tucked along the back wall of the internal organs right above the kidneys. Bird testes change size depending on breeding condition so they aren't always obvious, which is why it's taken me so long to share a photo, but now I’ve got a small collection of photos from breeding birds. The violet green swallow particularly was in great breeding condition…

The testes aren’t always the same size (I believe some species can lose one sort of like the fact that most female birds only have one ovary). Thus Brown Creeper had two very different sized testes.

ringtail cat (Utah) - full pelt - F

this lady was in need of a dust bath to fluff her up but I forgot to do it before taking pictures, adorable little thing though! For now I plan to keep her, she had a large wound on her hind leg that was bald from life but she’s still a great looking ringtail

In fact, it is just as much “remembering” as “learning.” A fungus won’t produce an enzyme it doesn’t need. Enzymes, or even entire metabolic pathways, can lie dormant in fungal genomes for generations. For the Pleurotus mycelium to digest the used cigarette butts it might have to dust off an unused metabolic move. Or it might deploy an enzyme normally used for something else and press it into the service of a new cause. Many fungal enzymes, like lignin peroxidases, are not specific. This means that a single enzyme can serve as a multitool, allowing the fungus to metabolize different compounds with similar structures.

As it happens, many toxic pollutants—including those in cigarette butts—resemble the by-products of lignin breakdown. In this sense, to confront Pleurotus mycelium with used cigarette butts is to offer it a commonplace challenge. Much of radical mycology is underwritten by the radical chemistry of white rot fungi. However, it isn’t always easy to predict what a given fungal strain will metabolize. McCoy told us about his attempts to grow Pleurotus mycelium on dishes spotted with drops of the herbicide glyphosate. Some of the Pleurotus strains avoided the drops. Some grew straight through them. Some grew up to the edge of a drop and stopped growing. “It took those ones a week to work out how to break it down,” McCoy recalled. He likened fungi to jailers with bunches of enzymatic keys that can unlock certain chemical bonds. Some strains might have the right key ready to go. Others might have it buried somewhere inside their genome but choose to avoid the new substance anyway. Others might take a week to riffle through the bunch of keys, trying different ones until they get lucky.”]

One of the data points we take during prep is skull ossification. Baby birds start out with a thin single layer skull and as they age they develop a thicker two layers skull. Most orders of birds have a fully ossified skull when they fledge from the nest but passerines take a bit longer, so it can give us a lot of information about how old a bird is.

This Fox Sparrow died by hitting a window in December, and from the outside appeared identical to an adult bird, but because of the presence of a bursa near the cloaca and this partially ossified skull, I know it was a first year bird.

Incredibly, banders can determine skull ossification on a live bird by looking through the thin skin. I'm not entirely sure how they pull that off, because I typically have to remove the brain and look through the skull in the light to feel confident that I'm actually looking at a partially ossified skull. I do so many non-passerines that I don't get enough practice.

In the first photo, I circled the window section that appears transparent compared to the rest of the skull. I also included a diagram of the skull ossification process under the break.

hi sorry uh. incredible miscommunication on my part lmfao.

Scolopax minor, American woodcock

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Take 1 pill in the morning, at least 2 hours before any other medication and at least 4 hours before a meal. Side effect: (if dose is too low) fatigue, (if dose is too high) heart attack. 🆘️

Take 2 pills at night before bed. Do not take on an empty stomach. Side effect: extreme drowsiness (effect exacerbated by Narcolepsy), (if dose too high) coma, cardiac arrest, severe respiratory depression (O.D. is treatment resistant) ⚠️

Take 1 pill, as needed. Take with food and 8 oz of water. Side effect: dizziness, drowsiness.