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This is the first egg-laying amphibian found to feed its babies ‘milk’ (www.sciencenews.org)

submitted 8 months ago by ZeroCool@slrpnk.net to c/biodiversity@mander.xyz

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[-] janNatan@lemmy.ml 31 points 8 months ago

An interesting case of convergent evolution. I wanna know what this fluid looks like.

[-] Sal@mander.xyz 30 points 8 months ago

The authors of the paper uploaded 6 videos in the supporting info. It looks like mucus to me, but it is difficult to see. I cropped one video in which you can see strings of the "milk": https://i.imgur.com/9RvVSgz.mp4

You can get the zip file with the 6 videos here: https://www.science.org/doi/suppl/10.1126/science.adi5379/suppl_file/science.adi5379_movies_s1_to_s6.zip

I also found a video of a frog feeding its tadpoles through the skin: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1007%2Fs10682-023-10259-z/MediaObjects/10682_2023_10259_MOESM2_ESM.mp4

The frog video comes from this paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10682-023-10259-z

[-] janNatan@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago

Wow, thank you very much!

[-] Sal@mander.xyz 2 points 8 months ago

You are welcome!

I also have a snippet from one of the videos that shows in more detail how the fluid is excreted. I will hide it under a spoiler tag to make sure people are warned of the content before clicking the link, because I think these images might be uncomfortable to watch for some people.

spoiler

Here’s the video in which you can see the mom excreting a thick fluid through her cloaca: https://i.imgur.com/sB22z5G.mp4

This snippet comes from the video 5 from the supporting information.

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this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024

256 points (98.9% liked)

Biodiversity

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Biodiversity is a term used to describe the enormous variety of life on Earth. It can be used more specifically to refer to all of the species in one region or ecosystem. Biodiversity refers to every living thing, including plants, bacteria, animals, and humans. Scientists have estimated that there are around 8.7 million species of plants and animals in existence. However, only around 1.2 million species have been identified and described so far, most of which are insects. This means that millions of other organisms remain a complete mystery.

Over generations, all of the species that are currently alive today have evolved unique traits that make them distinct from other species. These differences are what scientists use to tell one species from another. Organisms that have evolved to be so different from one another that they can no longer reproduce with each other are considered different species. All organisms that can reproduce with each other fall into one species. Read more...

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