this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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Biodiversity

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Welcome to c/Biodiversity @ Mander.xyz!

A community about the variety of life on Earth at all levels; including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi.



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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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One kind of Australian moth looks to the stars on its voyage to a summertime refuge.

Stellar cues from the Milky Way’s bright band may help Bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) chart a path from the sizzling plains of southeastern Australia to cool caves in the country’s Snowy Mountains, researchers report June 18 in Nature. While people, some birds and possibly seals rely on the night sky to navigate, Bogong moths are the first known invertebrates to reach a destination they’ve never seen before with help from the stars.

In spring, mounting temperatures and dwindling food sources send the moths roughly 1,000 kilometers south toward the caves, says David Dreyer, a neurobiologist at the Lund University in Sweden. “When they arrive … they line up [on] the walls [and look] like the skin of a rattlesnake.” The moths lie dormant until the fall, when they return to the plains to mate and die.

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