Every year migratory monarch butterflies make a spectacular 4,000-kilometre journey across the Americas.   They are now Endangered with habitat destruction and the #ClimateCrisis to blame.   Learn more in the latest IUCN Red List Update bit.ly/3okopSI

A hierarchy of alienness: Pictures of animals from least to most related to you. Least-related animal: Sponges. You and sponges are both animals. That's basically all you've got in common.

This is a male Anthophora cockerelli. This a very fast moving bee. They were visiting Cleomella obtusifolia & would stop for less than a second at each flower. Note the long hairs on the back of his front leg & extremely long middle leg. #bees

NASA’s Perseverance rover collected samples from an ancient river delta on #Mars – featuring #organic molecules. ➡️What does this mean? We don't know if it indicates past life or not. To find out, scientists need to analyze it on Earth. 🌌 #astrobiology ARCHIVED - NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover

Ok folks. It’s time we talked about eels. I’m a geologist but I recently learnt about eels and… wow. Since then, I’ve been greeting strangers with ‘DO YOU KNOW ABOUT EELS?!’ Well, consider yourself a stranger in my path. Strap in. It’s a 🧵 1/so many

Why do zebras have such striking, conspicuous, black & white stripes? This >150-yr-old mystery, puzzled over by Darwin & many others before him, still isn’t solved. But one hypothesis is in the lead. Hint: it's not predator confusion, thermoregulation, or camouflage (1/9)

The disalignment between spelling and pronunciation in English has several causes. One of them is to do with how English developed as a language. Its origins lie in Old English, a Germanic language brought to Britain by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century.

The first species of our #Couchto10mosses is the lovely Wall Screw-moss (Tortula muralis), a really common, cushion-forming species that loves hanging out on - you guessed it - walls! Here are three key features to look out for: (1/8)

Lenticular cloud magnificence over Mount Shasta, California. 📸Robert Renick

Updated annual temperature anomalies in the #Arctic from 1950 to 2022 - wait until near the end... + Data from cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/datas… + Graphic at zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-ice…

Photographer Kathrin Swoboda captured amazing images of a red wing blackbird's song, visible via the bird's breath in cold air and early light #WomensArt

Have you ever noticed that the save icon is a floppy disk, even though they became obsolete twenty years ago? That's called a "skeuomorph" - when something new takes on the appearance of what it replaced. And once you start to look, they're everywhere...

Bluetooth is named after a one thousand year old Danish king with rotten teeth, and its logo is based on the Viking runes for his initials. But that's all an accident - it was originally supposed to be called Personal Area Networking...

Many people asking us about #bumblebees at the moment - why they’re seeing them on the ground - so here’s a quick thread to explain what they’re up to. Please #retweet as every #queen that survives means a new colony that gets to exist & produce new queen #bees for next year! 1/8

Fungi are among the most important and beautiful soil organisms 🦠🍄🌱 Explore the fungal tree of life, with an emphasis on the macroscopic diversity of fungi. 📷Laszlo G. Nagy University of Szeged

Even in the Poison Garden, this little guy is in isolation. Why? Because it is one of the most venomous and dangerous plants in the world - if you touch it, the sensation is likened to being burned and electrocuted at the same time, and the effects can persist for YEARS. a 🧵

Last week Thursday's European hail size record was broken again 😲:

New Danish study just out in Nature Communications, titled "Warning of a forthcoming collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation". Is it serious? Here's my take on it: buff.ly/3O95c2M

Hot off the presses! “The Evolutionary History of Bees in Time and Space" is freely available (ONLY UNTIL SEPT 15) here: authors.elsevier.com/c/1hUY83QW8S2R…. Download it while it lasts! Co-authors include Dr. Laurence Packer of BEEc, @yorkuniversity @yorkuscience.

Last January, I noticed something peculiar in my 2yo’s bedroom that - after a year of obsessive reporting - led me to a profound cosmic revelation about what’s even possible in our universe. A 🧵.