#there's no such thing as fish

[mashounen1945]

Here's a commentary by @mondengel2 [tumblr.com/mondengel2/737069143339171840]:

I wonder how this messes with evolutionary lines as they've been mapped out so far, or if it explains some strange gaps. Maybe this is the first time two so completely unrelated species produced hybrids, but maybe it's not.

Meanwhile, the replies have a few people quoting Ian Malcolm's "life finds a way" line from Jurassic Park, as well as a few others pointing out the uncanny similarity between this scientific discovery and how Pokémon breeding works.

The replies also include this detail @jlokate117 pointed out:

Hang on: the chromosomes doubled... and the hybrid survived?! I distinctly remember my Genetics professor talking about euploidy a few weeks ago, mentioning that plants generally survive this but animals do not, so that's amazing! With it still being a hybrid, it's probably a triploid organism, which is gonna be fun to try and study, and almost definitely means it's sterile.

And there's this question brought up by @ddddiamond:

This is "spaghetti on wall", but I wonder if the lack of an adaptive immune system in fish/complicated placental gene regulation of development/and plants' weird chromosome counts... or maybe these two fish just randomly, out of everything, are compatible. The weird serendipity of science accidents.

There's also this commentary by @tetrafelino:

Honestly, this just makes me think the current taxonomy might be a bit faulty and misleading.

Here's @muerodelata adding a little "fun fact" about how sturgeon genes work:

Not to mention how freaky sturgeon gamete genetics is. Like... You don't know if a fish is male or female until they're about 3 or 4 years old because their sex doesn't express before, and making genetic tests is kinda difficult because... Well, humans have 2 forms of sex chromosomes, X and Y, right? Sturgeons have 24... Twenty-f***ing-four. So having this f***ed-up genetics mix viably with another fish is, like... miraculous?!?!?

Lastly, there's this thread of replies on a bit of data that was mentioned in this post:

@theriu:

The interesting thing for me, based on some of the reblogs in this chain, is the assumptions regarding the Evolution Theory and our own accuracy at dating things. Like... It says they separated 140 million years ago as if that is an established fact, rather than a calculated guess that cannot be indisputably proven (because there's no time travel). I wonder if a few scientists will look at this and go "Maybe, based on this, we need to reexamine a few things". Which is good science!

@princeofbadassery:

My guess is that the estimation is based on fossil records of both species. Like... If you find fossils of both in 140-million-year-old rocks, then you know they had already diverged at that point.

@theriu:

I agree! I was actually raising an argument about, firstly, whether our dating methods are as accurate as we think they are (we often get highly different results among those different methods), and secondly, whether our understanding of DNA and what makes one animal a distinct species from another is accurate.

And this other thread of replies with regards to what exactly allows hybridization to happen:

@d-jevil:

So, it turns out the good ol' method of "If it looks alike, it fits" works better than Evolutionary Science. Got it.

@thinking-about-bats-again:

Is it because fish are similar even if they've evolved a lot? Like... Did mammals genetically diversify way more than fish ever did?

@cheetour:

Zoology graduate here! It's actually the reverse: even most genetically distant mammals are all much more related to each other than the most distant fish species are. In terms of genetics, "Fish" is a taxonomic group that contains most of the Animalia kingdom within its evolutionary tree. Amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals... All of these have a fish as their common ancestor. Physiology tends to be a greater factor in crossbreeding than genetics. Genetic variation and physiological variation don't always correlate! The physiology between a squirrel and a whale is wildly different, and on top of that, they've only got a small set of evolutionary traits to work with between them. These two fish, on the other hand, had plenty of base materials with which to develop the same physiology in two different genetic ways. So, it's not exactly like if a squirrel and a whale had offspring. It's more like if you took two squirrels and separated them for 140 million years, then you checked back and they had both separately turned into two different kinds of whale.

@the-mercurial-star-o-vesper:

Do you mean to tell me that, eventually, fish are gonna evolve into Fish? That all fish evolution, no matter how distant, leads to Fish?

@wasabikitcat:

Actually, it's more that all evolution starts with fish. "Fish" literally isn't an actual taxonomical category because, if it is, either everything is fish or nothing is fish. Many fish species are more unrelated to each other than they are to us. We all come from fish. Fish is All.

NEW FISH JUST DROPPED

[kiiingsnake]

(college stuff) everyone give it up for the humble arapaima

[pangur-and-grim]

Grim is showing him the ropes

[ruby-lith]

Garfield

[hellsitegenetics]

i love you aroallo people i love you pan people i love you bi people i love you nonbinary people i love you lesbians i love you trans women i love you intersex people i love you everyone in every body or identity with discourse surrounding if you should exist or not i love you so much i love you i love you i love you. you are so so loved i promise you

a very tired but hopeful trans lesbian 🙏

String identified: aa a a a ta t tt t c g t t c . a

a t t ta a 🙏

Closest match: Sepioteuthis lessoniana genome assembly, chromosome: 33 Common name: Bigfin Reef Squid

[trudlejack]

[faggotfungus]

KI MORA Swedish Fish Knife

Shaped like a Trout [Listing]

[polina-kov]

the mutation must survive.

Art Print!!!

[frennziee]

prime ratchet doodles bc i love this cranky old man :)

also im actually going to try and post more again i miss it🥺

[ehnrat]

fishing doodle break<3

[heartnosekid]

tiny pet collection 🐱🪲🐶🐠 | achycollects on ig

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[spookberry]

I like to headcanon that it was his job to take care of the bathroom fish tank

[nhura]

QUICK NO ONE'S LOOKING

(See readmore for thoughts, cope, bonus, etc.)

Anyone else up thinking about Ratio's big, strong, secure arms and how warm and all-consuming they could be in a hug or embrace. :/ Anyway

I just wanted to draw them being cute and seizing a sliver of a moment where they could have some PDA silly time without actually having any eyes on them. They're public figures and working adults with very clear boundaries between public persona and private life (to varying degrees of "in a sad way"), so while it may be in Aventurine's nature to constantly blur lines for various agendas and self-preservation (read: play "the flirt" without an aligned goal), I believe that in an actual relationship they'd be fairly private.

It's kind of fun to break your own rules, though! Ratio would be more upset about the consequences, though. He's a little bit of a hypocrite, which is devastating for someone of such discipline, but nobody's perfect.

I'm of the mentality of, "If you're tired of working on it, then just post it!", so here are some fun peripherals that I didn't feel like adding:

Some staff in the background sweeping up to evoke a blended sense of fragile privacy and liminal time.

A laptop on the aquarium/bar/counter because there's something fascinating about seeing people on their work laptops in public.

The rest of their clothes (casual friday)

[ruby-lith]

Fishtober day 2: hybrids

[angiemaniac]

Patch 7 is finally working for me! So, I decided to make a custom Durge run. Here's some Durgetash art