Diasemocera petrolei, aka the petroleum fly, is a fascinating insect that not only survives in petroleum, a highly toxic substance to other animals, but actually thrives in it.

For tens of thousands of years, the La Brea Tar Pits near Los Angeles, California, have been a death trap to millions of animals, some extinct, some still around today. Insects, birds, mammals, and even dinosaurs, all found their end in these gooey pits at some point in time, but one tiny insect species managed to adapt to this incredibly toxic environment and actually use it to its advantage. The petroleum fly, a flying insect about the size of a fruit fly, is the only known insect species that can not only survive in the natural asphalt of the La Brea Tar Pits but actually calls it home. Its larvae develop in the viscous petroleum while the mature flies spend most of their lives strolling on the surface of the tar pits in search of food.

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A photo of a tattooed man’s hand with the top layer if skin damaged by a minor kitchen burn sparked a heated debate on social media site Reddit last week. That’s because the section where the skin was burned off revealed a tattoo so bright you could swear it was just inked.

The photo, posted by Reddit user uhmodijia, reportedly shows the hand of a “friend of a friend” who had just suffered a minor burn which only affected the top layer of his skin, exposing the dermis. The man had a blue rose tattooed on his skin a while ago, and like all tattoos do in time, it had started to fade. However, the patch of burned skin that had peeled off because of the burn revealed a much more vibrant copy of the same tattoo on his dermis. Apparently, tattoo guns reach deep into the skin, and while the tattoos on the first layer begin to fade just months after they’ve been inked due to multiple factors, they remain vibrant under this first layer of protective skin.

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