Freak of Nature

By hedera.baltica from Wrocław, Poland - Long-tailed baby, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Southern brown brocket Subulo gouazoubira

The larval stage of the Mealybug Destroyer Ladybird. The name is very literal. Both the larval stage and adult beetle hunt down and consume mealybugs and will also eat soft scale so they’re a very beneficial insect in the garden. As larvae they create that white waxy filament structure as a disguise to make themselves resemble a large Mealybug. This allows them to evade the ants that often farm and protect Mealybugs for the sweet ‘dew’ they produce. Photos 1 & 2 are taken with a macro lens to show it in detail. Photo 3 is without the lens. This individual was on a Black Wattle tree where it was feeding on a group of mealybugs.

I finished my kingfisher illustration! probably one of the most colourful pieces I've drawn in my life 🩵🌈

featuring the following species: ruddy kingfisher, buff-breasted paradise kingfisher, green kingfisher, belted kingfisher, stork-billed kingfisher, little kingfisher, common kingfisher, grey-headed kingfisher, banded kingfisher, white-throated kingfisher, kookaburra, woodland kingfisher, pied kingfisher and oriental dwarf kingfisher

‘Feast For Precious Hearts’ 🕸🍒🕊🌺🌬

An Arabian sand boa (Eryx jayakari) in Biddiya, Oman

For 15 years, Sébastien Fontaine has been trying to kill dirt. The biochemist, who runs a lab at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment, wanted to know how much carbon is released by soil — just dirt alone, completely devoid of life. His team sealed dirt into jars and blasted them with sterilizing gamma radiation. Then they waited for the carbon dioxide released by the soil — a sign of ongoing microbial respiration — to drop.

They waited, and waited, and waited some more: weeks, then months. Under a microscope, the irradiated soil showed no signs of life, but it continued to emit carbon dioxide. The soil wouldn’t stop breathing.

Fontaine’s lab repeated the experiments and produced the same results. Finally, convinced that they weren’t dealing with an artifact of the experimental setup, they set out to find the source of breath in dead soil.

Now, Fontaine and his colleagues have reported that their soil samples continued to consume oxygen and spew carbon dioxide (opens a new tab) for six years. In a 2025 paper in Science Advances, they proposed that a metabolic process that powers much of life is also possible outside living cells. Their experiments point to how it could work in dirt, absent the living proteins that would typically organize it. If they’re right, some biochemical reactions, such as those that release the energy of carbon-rich sugar molecules, may not be unique to living things. Such reactions — known as metabolism when performed by cells — could even predate life on Earth, Fontaine said.

Green Jay (Cyanocorax luxuosus), family Corvidae, order Passeriformes, South TX, USA

Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula), male, family Icteridae, order Passeriformes, WV, USA

Southern barasingha Rucervus duvaucelii branderi