And from the U.S. Dept. of the Interior, a hitchhiking red-winged blackbird:
h/t: Grania, John W.
Tw**ts: Zebrafish larvae and hitchhiking blackbirds
August 4, 2015 • 2:45 pm
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Next, hitch-hiking zebra fish?
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What a cheeky blackbird! [/awe]
Oops, forgot to check the site/my brain first. It is likely a harassing, shot at the right angle of overlap or time of contact. [/less awe]
Still pretty awe-inspiring, given the disparity in size and death-dealing capabilities.
Yes, I know that; it clearly couldn’t just be taking a ride on the raptor. Still, that’s one brave red-wing!
Hitchhiking it ain’t…it’s mobbing and this RWB is giving the hawk the boot!
They seem to know no fear – one attacked me this spring. Not entirely sure what he thought he’d do if I didn’t leave, I don’t think his 75g or so body mass was going to match up well against nearly 100kg of human, but he wasn’t in the least impressed with the odds and kept it up until I moved along.
They can give your head quite a stab, though.
That blackbird is either very trusting or very confident in its ability to fly faster than a hawk.
faster and much more maneuverable!
Really? I had no idea. Thanks for the bird knowledge.
I wonder what the zebrafish larvae found so surprising.
Excellent!
The danios look like baby cybermen.
That was my first thought!
Hitchhiking is definitely an overstatement. I am sure that the blackbird was defending it’s turf and only in contact with the hawk for as long as the camera shutter was open.
As I said above, I realized this. “Hitchhiking” was just a metaphor.
That is clearly Gandalf riding to the rescue of Frodo at Mt Doom.
The Zebrafish – “Oh, no! Not again!”
Wait, is that a soul? Ah, probably just the yolk sac.
Mike
Getting a portrait taken in a standard SEM involves getting plated in metal, often gold. Next the specimen is placed in the chamber and a hard vacuum is pulled. Finally electrons are accelerated with a high voltage and the beam is scanned across the specimen in a raster pattern. This may cause X-Ray emission. More sophisticated machines can skip the metal plating and the high vacuum requirements but fixatives like formaldehyde come into play.
All of this is to say any souls those fish may have had are long since departed. They are ex-fish. The only remaining question is whether they ended up flushed.
Aiiieeeee!
Run, run!!!
(Crawls into bed, shaking….)
Oh well, since no one else has said it for the zebra fish:
“Oh my God, they killed Kenny!”
“The bastards!”
Cool bird picture, but not too hard to find these, the relations between raptors & certain passerines being what they are. But those zebrafish larvae–fanTAStic!!
Speaking of zebra fish larvae
this I thought was amazing:
Wow, that is so cool! For some reason it almost gave me goose bumps.