"Those little white flowers you see here are known as the Arctic mountain heather, and they are highly toxic to this little pika.
Collared pika create what we call haypiles under the rocks that will serve as food for the 9 months of winter they endure beneath the snow. That’s 9 months of dead rotting plants for fungi, bacteria, and other parasites to completely destroy. That is, unless the pika layers toxic species like this arctic heather through the haypile.
This particular species of flower releases its toxic brew of phenolic compounds into the the pika's cache of food as it begins to break down. Those very same toxins, it turns out, are a natural food preservative that kills the very fungi and bacteria that would otherwise ruin an entire winter’s worth of food for the pika. And amazingly, by the time the pika makes it down to these layers, those toxins are completely harmless to the little mammal.
None of this is by accident. Researchers have documented that not only are pika meticulous at how they layer toxic plants into their haypiles, they use different species, with differing levels of toxicity, at specific levels through the cache to ensure that their food is not only well preserved but also timed to be edible for themselves as they work their way through it.
This is the most sophisticated pharmacological knowledge and behavior ever documented outside of humans."
photo and text by jaredlloydphoto
#Photographie #Photography #Fotografie #Nature #Wildlife #NaturePhotography #WildlifePhotography
Been a while since we've had a boop, and not gonna lie, Friend & I were a little unsure about where to boop a wasp, but you have to just make a best guess at times.
🚨 Since Trump became U.S. president once again, the country's global reputation has fallen below China for the first time. 🚨
Chinese President Xi Jinping is the first Chinese leader who is more respected than a US president.
Trump's criminal and thuggish behavior is handing the world to China on a golden platter.
RE: https://mastodon.social/@JennyList/116925302711084762
I'm a very boring straight cis white male in my mid-50s and I look around at what's happening in the UK and think "just why?".
Intellectually I know it's all part of a well funded push from reactionary types that won't stop with trans people, but also it all just reeks of "hobbyless behaviour" done at the national level.
Steve:
frequent overthinker, compulsive fixer, digester-then-explainer, "why?" question relishing father, minor-irritant partner, excessive disassembler, original-form hacker, high-efficiency googler, borderline-competent car-fixer, expert-level car-breaker, faster-by-qwerty communicator, indiscriminate photo-taker, Leatherman owner.