Animal Facts - Tumblr Posts
This is bush snail (Fruticicola fruticum) definitely one of the cutest snails in existence. It can be found only in Europe and it prefers warm mountains with as little pollution as possible. The shell color varies from this brown, to pinkish orange, to green, to yellow, but it’s almost always decorated with these dark blotches in adults. The snail itself is usually yellow or whitish.
This adorable little cutie pie is actually biting me on the second picture. And she thinks that I’m rather tasty because her eyes are droopy and she’s face down munching on my skin. Snails are actually omnivorous and they rarely miss the opportunity to eat some tasty meat (in this case me). The feeling is extremely hard to describe, you literally have to get munched on by a snail to understand it. It’s actually kinda sweet, because when they eat they take their cutest pose and you know that you didn’t disturb them at all, since snails don’t bite in response to danger, they only bite to eat. So by eating me, it tells me that it feels super safe in my hand which makes my heart melt.
(Another possibility is that she thinks that I’m another snail and she’s ready to mate. Snails are very very kinky and they loooove biting each other while they mate. And they also stab each other with love darts, but that’s a whole different can of worms).
Day 9 of posting cute creatures we found on the field trip:
This big boy is Roman snail (Helix pomatia) one of the largest snails in Europe (but not the largest, you will see that one in a few days ;)). Roman snails have been cultivated for centuries as food source and they were also collected heavily from the wild which made their populations dwindle in some areas. Today they are a protected species and cannot be collected from the wild commercially even though they have the Least concern label on IUCN. However, they can be bred on snail farms still and in many countries they can be held as pets. I had them as pets when I was a kid and boy are they adorable. They make cute ASMR noise when they eat and they are big enough for you to pet them and they like pets and when you rub their shell with a toothbrush. I’m not here to talk about their care, but if you’re interested, I will provide.
Roman snails can live well over 20 years, the oldest one died at the age of 35! In the wild they average around 10 years. They also grow slowly and need around 2-5 years to reach sexual maturity. That’s why collecting them commercially can destroy their populations and it does not help that their babies like to cannibalize their siblings. But they are hermaphrodites so they can mate with anyone they meet. They sometimes even try to mate with snails of other species but hybridization is rare.
Day 10 of posting cute creatures we found on the field trip:
This is one of my favorite reptiles in the world. Behold:
slow worm (Anguis fragilis)! This is a legless lizard, not a snake and you can easily tell because she blinks (snakes don’t have eyelids and can’t blink) and look at her tongue: it’s not forked, more like spoon shaped.
She also has a tiny ear hole right behind her eye. It looks like white > sign. Can you spot it? Snakes don’t have external ears!
I know it’s a female because males have blue spots and an exaggerated dark stripe on their back. This girl is tiny which means that she’s not gravid this year. Or maybe she’s already laid her eggs!
Here she tried posing but got super bored. Slow worms feed on insects, other invertebrates and rarely eggs. They spend most of their lives digging through earth. There was a belief that they were made of glass and if you dropped them, they would shatter. This was because of their very hard, but also very smooth scales. They do kind of feel like rough glass and such scales help them move through earth and not get hurt. They rarely bite and even if they do, their teeth are tiny and can’t do any damage. They will however poop on you. She sure did.
Day 18 of posting cute creatures we found on our field trip:
Green frog (Pelophylax sp.) also known as water frog and edible frog is the largest frog in Europe. It’s famous for its ability to make semi-fertile hybrids. These hybrids can produce offspring with their parent species, but not with each other. The bad part is that it’s basically impossible to differentiate hybrids from “pure” species without looking at their chromosomes.
These frogs come in many shades of green:
Juveniles are usually more dull in color and not as fat:
These are the only frogs that are not under strict protection in my country, because they are edible and every year there are frog hunts in some areas. I’ve never eaten frogs.
So I just discovered that elephants can communicate via seismics!
And now I want to design a fantasy proboscidea species for my world that are intelligent, nonverbal, and communicate with said seismic waves. Maybe they can even harness magic this way!
fun fact it would take a corgi 45.11 days to run around the world if it was running full speed the entire fucking time and never slept and could run over water. just so you know.
Animal of the day: Lemon shark!
Today is a very special animal because it is my personal favourite, the lemon shark! They live in shallow, subtropical waters and give birth to live young. These pups grow up in mangrove forests, because the adults sometimes eat the babies but they are too big to fit through the mangrove roots, so it makes for a safe nursery for the little ones.
These little guys are super friendly and love being pet by divers!
Lemon sharks do not pose a threat to humans. There have only been 10 recorded unprovoked lemon shark bites, none of which were fatal.
this is so fucking funny I love sharks
Octopuses can fit through any gap larger than their beak.
I-
BRIGHT NEON BITCH LETS GOOOOOOO
Hedgehogs are UV reactive, why hasn't Sega done anything with this information. I want neon rave shadow so bad, make shadow glow in the Black comet.
Vida's Sheep Jumping Spider: researchers believe that these tiny spiders developed their "woolly" appearance as a way to mimic lacewing larvae or scale insects
The scientific name for this species is Oviballus vidae, but it has also been referred to as the "sheepy jumping spider" or "Vida's jumping spider." It was discovered in 2015, and first described (in a formal context) back in 2020.
As this article (PDF) describes:
Recently, two new salticids, R. legitima and Oviballus vidae were described from South Africa, and suggested to be mimics of either scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) or lacewing larvae (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae), due to their white colouration and the presence of peculiar tufts of white setae on the body.
The possibility of [scale insects] being the model is supported by Oviballus vidae being regularly collected from plants with woolly scales, although the movements of O. vidae quite closely resemble those of chrysopid larvae.
In fact, a fourth species of possible scale mimic, a new Rhene species, was recently discovered in a collection of salticids from southern Mozambique, indicating that this phenomenon may be more widespread than has previously been known or even suspected.
O. vidae was named after Vida van der Walt, the photographer who captured some of the first images of these spiders back in 2015, just after the species was discovered by Dr. Galina Azarkina. Vida van der Walt also took the photographs that appear in this post.
Sources & More Info:
Arthropoda Selecta (scientific journal): Rediscovery and Redescription of Rhene cooperi, another possible mimic of scale insects (PDF)
Spider Club of South Africa: Two New Species Named After SA Photographer (PDF, with the relevant info on page 5)
Field Guide to the Spiders of South Africa: Section on Vida's Sheep Jumping Spider
Rainbow Jumping Spider (Chrysilla volupe): these colorful spiders were regarded as an extinct species for nearly 150 years, until they were finally rediscovered in 2018
The males of this species have a stunning, almost rainbow-like appearance, thanks to the bands of color and iridescent scales that cover their bodies.
Despite the fact that Chrysilla volupe is probably the most flamboyant spider in the world, it was still lost to science for nearly 150 years. The species was first described in 1879, but there were no documented sightings of it for 139 years after that, until researchers finally tracked it down again in 2018. The female of this species was also described for the very first time in 2018 -- prior to that, Chrysilla volupe was known only from male specimens.
The spiders have been found in certain parts of India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan. Like most jumping spiders, they are quite small: the males can measure up to 5.44mm long (and that includes their outstretched legs), while the females are less than half that size.
Sources & More Info:
Journal of Entomology & Zoology Studies: Chrysilla volupe Spider Spotted in Eastern Ghats, India (PDF)
The Hindu: Rare Chrysilla volupe Spiders Discovered at Puttenahalli Lake
Arthropoda Selecta: First Description of the Female of Chrysilla volupe from India, with Notes on the Species' Distribution & Life History
Peckhamia: New Records of Jumping Spiders from Nepal
Global Biodiversity Information Facility: C. volupe
Footnote: Recognize this? Feel like reading some more? Well, here is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing both series!
Creacher Feature Friday 4: Ligers, Tigons, and Mules, oh my! A Cursory Look at Sterile Hybrids
I’m supposing it’s safe to assume most of the human population knows what a mule is, pretty visible concept. Take a horse and a donkey, let ‘em have a tumble in the hay, and out comes something that’s a bit of both species, but still something pretty different, they can’t themselves reproduce. If you understand that much, then you’re already walking in with a little bit of baseline knowledge of a phenomenon known as hybrid incompatibility.
Now, animals can be incompatible to each other as hybrids in a whole list of ways because of the broadness of the term. It doesn’t exactly mean that two different species cannot produce offspring together, but it encompasses any case where two different species mate and produce an offspring that suffers from a reduced fitness as compared to its parents- Fitness in this context of course meaning the ability of an animal to thrive and reproduce in its environment, so that can include anything from a pure genetical problem to just the mixing of traits not being as well suited to a habitat as the parent’s more specialized adaptations. Very often, though, a downgrade will take the form of the offspring just outright having a reduced or eliminated fertility. Like the mule, like the liger, many hybrids simply dead-end their lines just by virtue of being unable to continue mating and reproducing. That’s what applies to the critters what I want to get into today. Without further ado, here’s a whacky little list I got of some worthy mentions I find MUCH cooler than mules.
*Side Note: the actual mechanics for how hybrid sterility happens is something that comes down to DNA and is to put it lightly, freaking complicated, and ultimately (like most boxes we try to apply to nature) is more of a messy spectrum than a strict is/is not binary. There are actual freak cases of mules that have managed to be the exception to the rule, believe it or not. But as a general it applies to broadly call them, and the following examples of sterile hybrids. Just a thing to keep in mind!
• Ligers and Tigons
Whether through word or mouth, actual articles, or some old animal planet shows, ligers are probably one of the most well-known “exotic” hybrids because of the attention they started getting in zoos that managed to breed them. And yeah, they’re pretty cool. For obvious reasons they only exist in captivity, and they’re the direct result of a male lion mating with a female tiger. Tigons, on the vise versa other hand, are a hybrid between a male tiger and a female lion. You wouldn’t think that would make such a huge difference, but it really does. For one, there’s some noticeable differences in the offspring’s mane (in males) and the pattern of their coat. Personally I find Tigons much more gorgeous than their counterpart on this front.
Second, ligers are absolute units. Not just compared to tigons, but compared to big cats in general. They very typically grow much larger than either of their parents, reaching lengths of about 10-12 feet and easily being able to clock in at weights of over 900 pounds on average. You wanna talk about “chonkers”?
Yeah. Yeah.
It’s not particularly a great thing either and it makes them especially controversial to create. Basically, they don’t inherit key growth-limiting genes from a lioness that a pure cub would, but they are carrying a now completely unrestrained growth-encouraging gene from the male lion parent. It essentially causes all ligers to be born with a form of gigantism, which can predispose them to a bunch of health complications. Tigons still have their own issues as well, which is a predictable enough fact considering this is more or less parallel to some of those “because we can” designer dog mutts.
Something tigons and ligers do share is that all males of either case are born completely sterile. Females, however, have been on some occasions able to produce second generation hybrids, which is a whole can of worms on itself once you start getting into Titagons, Tiligers, Litigons, Liligers… real things by the way. This is a problematic lasagna with many strange layers, indeed. Personally, I’d just steer clear of any institution that intentionally interbreeds big cats in ways like this, and leave it at that.
• Hybrid Iguanas
Hey look, an example that was actually found happening in the wild! There’s a rarity alright. So, there are a handful of iguana species native to the Galápagos Islands. Three of them are terrestrial, and one is the impressively unique marine iguana- the only modern seafaring lizard species, in fact. I’ll give them their own Friday feature one day but anyway. Typically, the land and sea iguanas don’t have much of an overlap in breeding season or territory, but there was a curious incident we discovered on the South Plaza island back in 80s-90s.
Marine Amblyrhynchus cristatus (top left), the land-dwelling Conolophus subcristatus (top right), and a hybrid offspring of the two species (bottom)
At the time, see, the Galapagos were going through a pretty intense round of warm tropical cycles that caused a substantial loss of seabed kelp surrounding the islands. Since this is what makes up almost the entirely of the marine iguana’s diet, it led to an epidemic of scarce pickings among their species. Many of them starved off, but others, including the more aggressive, explorative, in-season males, started encroaching inland out of desperation for food. And this, along with the south island’s generally small size, is the main posed explanation for the dozens of hybrid land-sea iguanas that have been spotted on the strip over the years. Genetic testing has shown them to be the result of male marine lizards and female land iguanas, specifically, and though our knowledge could still change in the future, these hybrids are also assumed to be sterile first gens, which would explain why we don’t see many of them at once when we do.
• Commercial Bananas
Come on, you know I Just had to throw a plant in with the lot. They’d feel left out otherwise after I dedicated two of the last 3 write ups to fungus. There’s a number of crops that could have gotten this mention, but nanners is a funny word, so here’s the spill. We royally fucked up banana genetics a long time ago in their domestication. Every, single, banana you have ever grabbed out of the produce section of your local grocery is an asexual clone unfit for wild survival. They’re hybrids, too. Specifically, nearly all domestic varieties can trace a lineage back to a crossing between Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana, originally two wild natives to South Asia. One of which just had some unappetizing flesh and the other was too chock flipping full of seeds for human preferences, real big seeds. It’s not really even recognizable as a “banana” to us now. See what I mean.
Well, the good news was that the offspring of the two, by some random miracle, produces fruit that was just culinarily superior in every single way to either of the parents’. It was effectively seedless, tastier, more vibrant, more nutrient packed, more “banana” if you will. The bad news was that these seedlings were completely sterile. Oops…unless👀?
The game changing good news 2.0 was that farmers realized they could still be easily propagated into genetically identical new plants off of cuttings from the original hybrids. And that’s how we got to the current state of commercial bananas. Personal confession, I still can’t freaking stand the smell, taste, or texture of them either way. Never have, never will, but maybe some of you can feel an appreciation for this happy little accident of agriculture that I cant.
I had some more examples to add onto the list that came up in my research, like Zebra-donkey/horse mixes, but I think I’m pretty comfortable with the length of this for the week. Perhaps I’ll give it a second part in the future. Until then, peace~
Footnote: Heya, Feel like seeing more ramblings like this? Here is my current blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing both lil series further on!
Creacher Feature Friday 5: I’m Utterly Terrified of Moose and You Should Be Too
I have noticed, on occasion that some people, even avid animal lovers, can still have that one critter that just gives them a passive comic dread. And I don’t mean the normal “spiders scary” or “rodents have gross vibes” gut reactions that society virtually conditions into anyone, I’m talking about the “I know way too much of this animal for my own good” kind of irrational, obscure fear. An organism that has a trivia card that makes you feel like you had some kind of innocence robbed from you ever since the knowledge was allowed to permeate into your prefrontal wrinkles, laying their dastardly seeds of hyper-specific heebies and jeebies.
I’m not gonna pretend you didn’t read the title, so I’ll cut to the chase for the tea I’m about to spill about these utter beasts of the North.
Everyone for years has always been “do X to avoid/survive grizzlies” this or “watch out for cougars” that but DON’T let the framing of Bambi or The Land Before Time Make you overlook the one thing that makes the largest wolves and even brown bears look almost harmless: the herbivore that must be ready to defend itself against them at the drop of a hat.
By the numbers alone, moose are responsible for more injuries and deaths annually than grizzlies and Timberwolves combined.
Despite being another (the largest) member of the deer family, these things are no freaking whitetail. Throw away everything you have come to understand about smaller deer if you find yourself in the presence of a moose. For one, they largely do not have a strong baseline fear of human beings like more common deer would. In the temperate US and beyond, deer are more known to just immediately flee the area if an ant farts 5 feet away. Moose give z e r o fucks about your presence until you give them a reason to. And this in part leads to some horrible accidents and danger, because less savvy people sometimes mistake their boldness to being “friendly” or open to further approach. While not quite so temperamental as a hippo, they can quickly turn from apathetic to downright deadly from provocation or harassment. This is doubly a jeopardizing position to remain in when dealing with rutting bulls or calving mothers, both of which more likely to decide against fleeing and choose ruining your entire day and then some.
Ideally, at such point, you would have scurried as soon as humanely possible for cover or anything sturdy you could weave around to have between you, and that angry moose. Let’s say you don’t manage that, or that you were the kind of idiot that tries to stand their ground against a provoked moose instead of taking the first few hints. The good news is that you don’t have to worry too much about those horns bearing down on you, they’re mostly just for flexing on other moose anyway. The bad news is, you’re free and open to receiving the business end of those front hooves, instead. Try to struggle back or get back up and you’ll basically recreate that bear attack scene from The Revenant, only with less slashing and more rib-breaking blunt trauma in its place. Probably the same amount of screaming. Moose attack to eliminate a threat, so the only thing you can viably do in a trampling is to assume the fetal position, pray, and more or less play dead until the moose has moved on. Not “stopped stomping”, but straight on wandered a safe enough distance away to allow you to make a proper retreat to safety and some much needed medical attention, if you’ve survived.
And if you still have no idea how much of a bad time you’re in for against a pissed moose, look. at. The. Size. Of. Them.
Seriously, not even counting the antlers or the head, these behemoth beefstacks can tick a 7 foot or more height just from hoof to shoulder. In fact, even forgetting their spicy behavior for a second, one reason their sheer size is such a public hazard on its own is because of what happens when a moose and a car meet on the road.
You know how any common wisdom or Driver’s Ed course will tell you up and down, “Whatever you do, don’t swerve for animals! Hit the brakes and hope that deer/dog/opossum makes it, but for all that’s good and holy don’t rocket off into the ditch for them!”
Moose turn this lesson ass over tea kettle. They’re probably the only animal I know of where the explicit expert advice is to take your chances with the ditch over hitting one of these head on. Note this additional size comparison with an compact car.
Notice how the front of this thing is uh… right on level with being able to leg sweep a moose rather than directly hit it? I’m not going to go into too graphic detail of what happens when gravity gifts a 1,200 pound deer straight into one’s windshield, but let’s just say it’s not pretty.
Here’s some other cursed facts about NA Moose, besides their size put into perspective:
• They can move each eye and ear independently of the other.
•Their stomach can hold around 100 pounds of food at once.
• They can sprint about 35 miles an hour (in case you thought running was a valid option).
• They can easily kick in a 360 degree radius around themselves.
• Another term for “The fear of moose” is apparently Alkiphobia
• That flappy bit of flesh that sags beneath their chin is known as a “bell”, or dewlap. Males and females both develop one, and no one knows for sure what their main purpose is.
• One of the warning signs they can give before an attack, is to pee fiercely, staring you down.
• Due to wolves being a natural predator of theirs, they really, really hate dogs. Having a dog or few in tow has in some cases caused moose to go out of their way to attack them along with their human owners.
• You’re not safe in the water either! They’re not just competent swimmers, but natural professionals, able to dive almost 20 feet deep and hold their breath for a full minute.
• The above ^ fact is why there have been reported occasions of killer whales feeding on moose, as a treat.
• We should probably be grateful their even larger cousins aren’t still around instead.
• And, something a little haunting for me above the rest: North America moose can sometimes fall dead-end host to an infection of actual, unironic brain worms, which can make them behave much more aggressively and confused in the later stages of the disease. Here’s a video, in fact, of an individual with brainworm charging a man minding his own business.
I’ve never seen a moose up close in my entire life, I don’t live remotely close to where I would have to to even be able to do that, and you know what? I think I’m extremely and comfortably ok with that, but I am cursed with the knowledge that they are out there, like some Monster-Hunter esque boss that found itself a cozy footing (hoofing?) in the real world. Pouring one out for you, moose, you rudely massive ruminants. You have earned my distant respect, by which I mean you intimidate me enormously.
Footnote: How I 'doin? Feel like seeing more rambles? This is my new blog! Due to pesky technical issues with the old one, both the CFF and the MMM lil write up series have been moved to continue here!
Creacher Feature Friday 9: Cachalots Are Pretty Badass
Okay, I needed something a bit easier to get back into the swing of this stick. Something with a funny name. Something maybe a little relevant to the huge Moby Dick kick I've been getting back on lately. Here's just the thing,
Now I'd hope you already know what the common cachalot of all things was. They're big, they're blocky looking, they dive real deep, and they're also known as sperm whales to most people these days. Be very assured there's a lot more to these marine hulks than meets the eye, and it's pretty hardcore stuff to say the least.
Bet you at least wondered what the colloquial name was all about, to make middle schoolers chuckle at the very mention of such a creature? As much as it does indeed have that effect, it's actually because the animals were long-hunted over the seas precisely for their enormous amounts of sperm…-aceti, that is! Say it again, spermaceti! This was the stuff 17th century dudes were so laser focused on these specific whales over in the first place. I wish I could tell you to get your mind out of the gutter on the word, but spermaceti does basically translate from its latin origins to 'Whale jizz'. No, that's not what it really is, but that's what the first bozos who discovered it thought it seemed like, so you can go and blame them for this. Not sure if i prefer this timeline or the one where we call them "Spunk Whales" instead.
But about this not-jizz itself, inside the living leviathan, it exists as a waxy substance, housed in no more fitting place than the whale's own Spermaceti organ. If you've ever wondered what the inside of those big fat heads of theirs was so stuffed with, well, they're literally big fat heads after all.
So much of a Sperm whale's noggin is dedicated to just these two big sections. The Melon, or simply "junk" (cause whalers tended to regard it as the more useless bits) is a dedicated section of fatty mass that all toothed whales have. The raw spermaceti on the other hand is more of a liquidy grease, and this level of evolutionary commitment to the concentration of it in such a way as above is something special about these fellas. While it does look evidently pretty damn important in some way, experts still debate a little on exactly how it is to the whales. The most likely answer so far is that it plays a role in the creatures' calls and sonar interpretations, sensible with how key to their hunting and communication sound is. Because of many complicated adaptations to their sonar, their echolocation isn’t just able to sense where their prey is, but also the direction it’s moving toward.
Whalers meanwhile were nuts for the stuff, because after processing, it made for a cornerstone driver of the entire whaling economy age: fueling superior lamps and candles and becoming incorporated into cosmetics, ointments, industrial lubricants, all kinds of uses.
And a bonus whaling fact! Herman Melville’s Moby Dick was actually inspired by real historical events, the white whale itself having been a direct reference to the 100% legit case of “Mocha Dick”, an albino, 70 foot long, and particularly aggressive sperm whale bull that garnered a reputation for his pale hide and propensity to evade/attack several whaling ships.
Even more overtly is how that novel ripped the events of the sinking of the Essex, a 1800s whale ship that straight up sank after a sperm whale, which mind you, the crew were not even actively hunting, rammed their vessel completely unprovoked. This kind of thing was not that unheard of even only a few generations ago. There’s a dozen of things to be said of how much media survived from not even 3 full centuries ago we have to look back on where Sperm whales are not just prized hunts or resources, but feared so greatly by humans that they have been compared to the literal biblical Leviathan. It’s fascinating how we hyped these animals up to mythological, even religious proportion. The average deckhand on a whaling ship, to his perception, was surviving and participating through a real-life Monster Hunter game.
But,, that’s not quite the feeling around them today, is it? Noooo, today everyone knows these creatures as some of the gentlest of giants, and I’m not even saying they’re wrong. Modern cachalots are amazingly docile and chill around humans today, at most usually choosing to just leave the area when boats pull up and they’re not happy.
So, something changed?
Yeah, a lot did, especially the part where we usurped even orca whales as their main natural predator. In a ton of ways, cachalots are virtually the elephants of the sea. They travel in matrilineal herds, their males are called bulls, they're pretty clever cookies, and wouldn't you know it... they sure don't forget easy. They didn't just catch on to what humans were up to when we were harpooning their buddies, but researcher logs dating back from the 19th century recorded that whales were teaching each other how to ram and escape whalers! Not only had the beasties figured out to communicate with their pods and coordinate defensive retaliations against the harpooners, but they even took advantage of the fact that the wooden ships were entirely sail-propelled, so the pods would flee upwind from them!
The ONLY reason that sperm whales are not so aggro'd toward and beefing with humans anymore is purely because they don't feel like they have to anymore. But even if what you're hearing from me is that they're mostly peaceful, that doesn't mean I'm saying they're mostly harmless.
Though mere flesh and bone they may be, cachalots are still near-Lovecraftian levels of powerful alongside a speck of flotsam like you. For one, free-swimming near, especially behind any large enough cetacean is a lot like being a gnat flying around the personal space of a person. You're pretty much at the mercy of whether or not the giant you're following so close to decides it's getting a little annoyed with you. You ever seen how cows can use their tails to swat large flies right out of the air? Except in this case the tail is nearly 20 feet long and powers a 60+ ton mammal like a majestic blimp through the ocean.
Truth be told though that's not even necessary to consider when a grown cachalot could theoretically just shout you to death without a lick of contact. Get me, while under water, these whales are LOUD. Louder than loud, literally the loudest living organism we know of. Remember how I said this species has a ton of unique adaptations devoted to their ability to make noise. A blue whale, the biggest whale, can make "clicks" that register at around 188 decibels of sound. The sperm whale's own can get up to as far as 233 decibels.
*For refence, the human eardrum risks instantly rupturing upon exposure to about 165 db and up. Sounds from 170-200 db can literally just vibrate the utter hell out of your organs, causing potentially life-threatening injuries. Let me reiterate, if you are near a sperm whale, and (unlikely as it may be) that whale decided it wanted to let rip with a full volume click, your own lungs could theoretically just explode and kill you. It could hypothetically be like idling at the receiving end of a sonic cannon.
And You know what else is something everyone knows is badass? Battle scars, and boy oh boy if you would look at the war tapestries these older gents can carry on them.
And there's a lot of stories they can tell. Larger bulls may collect a scratch or two from a scuffle with a rival male, or any adult whale can have an unlucky run in with our fishing gear, but the most notable? Look no further than one of the cachalot's favorite snacks: Enormous, deep sea squids. If you truly are what you eat, than sperm whales are bad. asses. Because for being mostly soft-bodied abyssal spaghetti, large squids put up a hell of a good fight. So, in the process, they often leave a few marks in the whale's skin with their beaks and tentacles in a struggle. "Hol up, they do THAT ^ with their arms? What do they have on those things, teeth? meat hooks???" Yes, in fact.
Giant squid suckers on the left, colossal squid suckers on the right~
And before you get too impressed at what the squids were packing I need to take a second to remind you what kind of tools the spermies are coming at them and their own competition with.
There’s a lot of toothed whales out there in the world, but hats off to these ones, largest of all toothed predators, period. You are survivors, you are majestic wonders, and you. are. badasses.
Creacher Feature Friday 10: That’s No Spoonbill, but it’s Pretty in Pink!
Or should it be called Flamingo Friday, ha ha! eyyyy 👉🥴👉
Requiring little more introduction than that, most people already perceive these as unique enough birds at face value, with their odd shapes, famously salmon-to-pink plumage, and stylish struts; indeed, these bubblegum swans have captured the hearts of many the bird enthusiast and the intrepid lawn decorator. Nonetheless, all that shimmers in the sun is not cheap plastic, and there are many layers of deeper weirdness behind the flamingo than most could imagine. Let’s see if we can take a crack at it below!
As we begin with our triple Fs (fun flamingo facts), there’s no better place to begin covering like the basics. Flamingos, of the family Phoenicopteridae, are omnivorous shorebirds which live in large social flocks, or “flamboyances”, and use their specialized beaks to filter feed algae and small organisms from the waters they do love to wade. Though we often refer to them as one sort of animal, there’s actually six total species of flamingo. Two of them can be found in Africa, and the other four call the central and southern Americas their native home.
Very fittingly, you may notice that the smallest species has been dubbed the Lesser flamingo, while the largest of the family is the Greater bird, at least in height! Besides general size, the bulk of the morphological difference between these species actually goes into the specialization of their bills. Which does make sense, as their different migratory patterns and natural ranges have long fine tuned them for maximizing what they could gain of their own localized food sources.
Personally, I’d call the American Flamingo my favorite of the batch. It’s just almost about as big as the tallest ones, while standing apart as their most vibrantly colored cousins. Also known as the Caribbean flamingo, it’s also the only species actually native to the North American range as well as the Caribbean and Galápagos Islands.
For some, it’s a commonly held, intuitive misconception that flamingos find close relatives in that of the spoonbill storks or water-wading cranes, but it actually turns out that they share a much closer evolutionary line with that of grebes. What’s a grebe? They’re little and funny and they look like this
So certainly another funky bird of all time. What’s an even stranger piece of their history is the fact that these two animal types share a closer genetic lineage to that of land doves than they do to other water birds. Yeah, that’s including herons and ducks. The things we would near never guess without DNA analysis is such a head screw, sometimes. Or at least, a head scratcher.
You are what you eat
To speak again of the firey fashion sense of the marsh prowling American Flamingo, they in fact, like all Phoenicopteridae species, owe their coloration to a steady diet of aquatic organisms and plant matter they separate from the water with their teeth- well, not “teeth” per se, more like these unnerving, toothy ridges along their bills and yes, tongue.
Both mouth features act together much like the bristles of a baleen whale’s own jaws to comb and trap all manner of delicious critters and algae that the birds so love to snack on. Critters and algae that just so happen to also be filthy rich in carotenoids (organic, warm-color pigments) responsible for the natural colors of MANY living things, in fact: from the pink flesh of salmon who draw from the same food web, to lobsters, to pumpkins, and especially carrots, which can even alter the color of human skin if eaten in huge excess. In other words, you can tell a lot about how a flamingo’s been eating lately from the vibrance of its feathers. Their offspring, logically, come out as an adorably blank, fresh canvas of sort.
Unfortunately, though, you may notice they also enter the world with wimpy little bills not as equipped to start scooping krill and small fish out of the shore. So, how’s the grey lil goober to eat, then? Easy, the same way pigeons and male emperor penguins feed their own young, interestingly:
🍼🦩Bird Milk~! ✨
Yeah that’s right, lactation is yet one more thing mammals can’t say they hold a true monopoly on! Okay fine, there are a few differences. In this handful of avians, milk produced to nurture hatchlings is secreted by the lining of the crop (the first major stop in the digestive tract of a bird) and then regurgitated into the younger’s waiting mouth. This is also why the formal name for the stuff is “crop milk”. Nutritionally speaking, it’s high in protein and fats, but where it really differs from mammalian secretions is that it lacks carbohydrates. Most fascinatingly, though, the process of making crop milk and the process of mammalian milk production are induced by the same hormone- prolactin. What makes this phenomenon all the weirder in flamingos is all of those aforementioned carotenoids I mentioned them eating… well, funny side effect of that seems to be that it turns their milk blood red. Big part of why this specific “creepy” photo circulated like wildfire in some places of the internet.
Brutal as it may appear on first glance, it’s actually a wholesome demonstration of two proud parents working together to grow up a healthy and well-fed baby! You may also notice that the parents themselves look practically ghostly in the image. Just another side effect of good parenting. All of that sharing food means less pretty color juice for mom and dad to spare on their own appearance.
But this all this cozy attention within the nest site marks only the first few days of a chick’s life. By the passage of the first couple weeks, the newborn has begun to waddle around and explore well beyond the spot it hatched from, eventually joining up into massive groupings (called crèches) with the rest of the colony’s wee ones.
While mom and dad will still feed their own children, the crèche itself is guarded communally by the flock’s adults, related or not. It’s a behavior also seen in some penguin species to maximize the safety of an entire community’s offspring from predation. And these communities can be massive in the wild, made up of anywhere from hundreds to even thousands of breeding flamingos. Recent study has even indicated a greater depth to their social behavior than we’ve suspected before, complete with complex inter-group dynamics, the forming of cliques between birds of similar personality, and even what resembled friendship bonds between individual flamingos that would play a social support role for one another during conflicts. As well, the colony itself sticks together tightly and acts as one unit when it comes to the most essential stuff- migrating, feeding, and most particularly in breeding. Courting and nesting rituals are synchronized among the entire flock, with individual flamingos pairing off into monogamous partnerships for the whole of the season. Typically, they will lay one egg, sometimes more rarely fostering an unrelated hatchling, as in the case of the occasional same-sex pairing (another similarity they seem to hold in common with penguins).
And what time they are given to fill with such rich social lives! In the wild, flamingos are known to live between 20 and 30 years, but under captive care they have been known to top out into their 40s-50s. On the most extreme end, we have even seen outliers such as Betty, a captive Caribbean flamingo who passed away at 67 years old, and the world record achieving Greater, who stretched out to an astounding 83 years old in an Australian zoo before being humanly euthanized. Whoever said that the brightest flame must also burn the fastest was clearly leaving these wonderful birds out of their metaphor.
And so fare thee well, flamingos. For a first, we have a relatively popular animal to hand the spotlight moment for this tidbit. Hoping that I played at least a tiny part to mystify and then immediately demystify something new about a quirky, frilly dinosaur. Until next 💞
Alligator Body Language and You, or: How To Know When An Alligator On Social Media is Being Stressed for Views
Alligators are wild animals. Despite the idiotic claims of animal abusers like Jay Brewer, they cannot be domesticated, which means they are always going to react on the same natural instincts they've had for millions of years. Habituated, yes. Tamed, yes. Trained, definitely. Crocodilians can form bonds with people- they're social and quite intelligent. They can solve problems, use tools, and they're actually quite playful. Alligators are also really good at communicating how they're feeling, but to somebody who doesn't spend much time around them, their body language can be a bit mystifying. And it doesn't help when social media influencers are saying shit like this:
That is not what a happy gator looks like.
That's a terrified, furious gator who isn't attacking because the ogre handling her has her in a chokehold. She's doing everything she can to express her displeasure, and he's lying about it because he knows his audience doesn't even know how to think critically about what he's doing. He knows that because his audience doesn't know anything about these animals, he can get away with it. This I think is why I hate him so much- he deliberately miseducates his audience. He knows what he's doing is factually inaccurate, he just doesn't care because attention means more to him than anything else in the world.
Let's change that! Here are two really important lessons for understanding alligator body language on social media.
Lesson 1: Alligators Don't Smile (in fact, most animals don't)
So what's going on in this video? Jay Brewer is aggressively choking his white alligator Coconut while scrubbing algae off of her with a toothbrush. And make no mistake, he is digging into the creature's throat while she is visibly distressed. He claims she's happy- but she's not. He is willfully misrepresenting what this animal is feeling. That's a problem, because people... well, we actually kind of suck at reading other species' body language. The reason for this is that we tend to overlay our own responses on their physical cues, and that's a problem. For example, let's look at an animal with a really similar face to ours, the chimpanzee. Check out Ama's toothy grin!
Wait, no. That's not a happy smile. That's a threat display. When a chimpanzee "smiles," it's either terrified and doing a fear grimace, or it's showing you its teeth because it intends on using them in your face.
How about a dog? Look at my smiling, happy puppy!
Oh wait no, this is a picture of Ryder when he was super overwhelmed by noise and people during a holiday party. He'd hopped up in my sister's lap to get away from stuff that was happening on the floor and was panting quite heavily. See the tension in the corners of his mouth and his eyes? A lot of the time when a dog "smiles," the smile isn't happy. It's stress! Why Animals Do The Thing has a nice writeup about that, but the point is, our body language is not the same as other species. And for reptiles, body language is wildly different.
For instance, look at these two alligators. Pretty cute, right? Look at 'em, they're posing for a Christmas card or something! How do you think they're feeling?
Well, I'll tell you how the normal one is feeling. He's annoyed! Why is he annoyed? Because the albino just rolled up, pushed another gator off the platform, and is trying to push this guy, too. I know this because I actually saw it happen. It was pretty funny, not gonna lie. He's not gaping all the way, but he was hissing- you can actually see him getting annoyed in the sequence I took right before this shot. Look at him in this first shot here- he's just relaxing, and you can see he isn't gaping even a little bit.
By the end, he's expressing displeasure, but not enough to actually do anything about it. He's annoyed, but he's comfy and that's where one of the best basking areas is, so he'll put up with it.
Reptiles open their mouths wide for a lot of reasons, but never because they are actively enjoying a sensation. Unless they're eating. No reptile smiles- they can't. They don't even have moveable lips. If a reptile is gaping, it's doing so because:
It is doing a threat display.
It is making certain vocalizations, all of which are threats. Alligators are one of the rare reptiles that do regularly vocalize, but most of their calls aren't made with a wide open mouth.
It is about to bite something delicious or somebody stupid. Check out this video- virtually all of the gaping here is anticipatory because these trained gators know darn well that the bowl is full of delicious snacks. (I have some issues with Florida's Wildest, but the man knows how to train a gator AND he is honest about explaining what they're doing and why, and all of his animals are healthy and well-cared for, and he doesn't put the public or his staff at risk- just himself.)
It's too hot and it has opened its mouth to vent some of that heat and thermoregulate. This is the main reason why alligators will often have their mouths part of the way open, but sometimes they'll open all the way for thermoregulation. This is what a thermoregulatory gape looks like- usually it's not all the way open, kinda more like < rather than V, but you can't say that 100% of the time. Additionally, a thermoregulatory gape... typically happens when it's hot out. If they're inside, maybe they've been under their basking light for too long. Heat's the dominant factor, is what I'm getting at.
There is another reason that a captive crocodilian might be gaping, and that's because it's doing so on command. Some places have their gators trained to gape on cue, like St. Augustine Alligator Farm and other good zoos. They have the animals do this in presentations that are genuinely educational. They ask the animals to open their mouths so that they can show off their teeth and demonstrate how their tongues seal off the back of their mouth. They'll also do it as part of routine healthcare, because looking at their teeth is important.
In this case, the animals aren't gaping because they're stressed, they're gaping because they know they're gonna get a piece of chicken or fish if they do it. And what's more, they're doing it on cue. They have a specific command or signal that tells them to open wide. It's not an instinctive response to a situation. It's trained. If the animal provides the behavior after a cue, the situation is much less likely to be negatively impactful.
It's also important to remember that there's a difference between a partially open mouth and a gape! As discussed above, alligators will often have their mouths a little bit open just to maintain temperature homeostasis. It helps them stay comfy, temperature-wise. These guys are all doing thermoregulatory open-mouthed behavior- that slight open and relaxed body posture is a dead giveaway. (That and it's the hottest spot in the enclosure.)
Lesson 2: A Happy Gator Is A Chill Gator
So if alligators don't smile or have facial expressions other than the :V that typically signifies distress, how else can you tell how they're feeling? One way is stillness. See, alligators subscribe to the philosophy of if it sucks... hit da bricks.
Basically, if they hate it, they'll leave. Unless, y'know, somebody has their meaty claws digging into their throat or is otherwise restraining them. (Restraint isn't always bad, btw. Sometimes the animal is going through a medical thing or needs to be restrained for their safety- which a responsible educator will explain.)
Let's look at a very similar scenario, in which a captive alligator is getting his back scrubbed.
As you can see, it's quite different. First, he's not being restrained at all. Second, look at how relaxed he is! He's just chilling there vibing! He could simply get up and leave if he wanted to, because he's not being held. Towards the end of the video, as he lifts his head, you can see that his respiratory rate is very even as his throat flutters a bit. I'm not sure what this facility is, so I can't comment on care/general ethics, but like. In this specific case, this is an alligator enjoying being scrubbed! And you can tell because he's not doing anything. A happy gator is content to be doing what they're doing.
Why Should I Listen To You?
Now, you should ask yourself, why should you listen to me? Why should you trust me, who does not own an alligator, versus Jay Brewer, who owns several?
Well, first off, there's no profit for me in telling you that what you're seeing on social media is in fact not what you're being told you're seeing. I'm not getting paid to do this. That's the thing with people who make social media content. The big names aren't doing it just for fun. They're doing it for money. Whether that's profit through partnerships or sponsorships, or getting more people to visit their facilities, or ad revenue, you can't ignore the factor of money. And this is NOT a bad thing, because it allows educators to do what they're passionate about! People deserve to be paid for the work that they do!
But the problem starts when you chase the algorithm instead of actually educating. A "smiling" alligator gets the views, and if people don't know enough to know better, it keeps getting the views. People love unconventional animal stories and they want those animals to be happy- but the inability to even know where to start with critically evaluating these posts really hinders the ability to spread real information. Like, this post will probably get a couple hundred notes, but that video of Coconut being scrubbed had almost 400,000 likes when I took that screenshot. Think about how many eyeballs that's reached by now. What I'm saying here is that it's just... really important to think critically about who you're getting your information from. What do dissenters say in the comments? What do other professionals say? You won't find a single herpetologist that has anything good to say about Prehistoric Pets, I can tell you that right now.
Another reason you can trust me is that my sources are not "just trust me bro," or "years of experience pretending my pet shop where animals come to die is a real zoo." Instead, here are my primary sources for my information on alligator behavior:
Dragon Songs: Love and Adventure among Crocodiles, Alligators, and Other Dinosaur Relations- Vladimir Dinets
The Secret Social Lives of Reptiles- J. Sean Doody, Vladimir Dinets, Gordon M. Burghardt
Social Behavior Deficiencies in Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Z Walsh, H Olson, M Clendening, A Rycyk
Social Displays of the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)- Kent Vliet
Social Signals and Behaviors of Adult Alligators and Crocodiles- Leslie Garrick, Jeffery Lang
Never smile at a crocodile: Gaping behaviour in the Nile crocodile at Ndumo Game Reserve, South Africa- Cormac Price, Mohamed Ezat, Céline Hanzen, Colleen Downs (this one's Nile crocs, not American alligators, but it's really useful for modeling an understanding of gape behaviors and proximity)
Thermoregulatory Behavior of Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Cheryl S. Asa, Gary D. London, Ronald R. Goellner, Norman Haskell, Glenn Roberts, Crispen Wilson
Unprovoked Mouth Gaping Behavior in Extant Crocodylia- Noah J. Carl, Heather A. Stewart, Jenny S. Paul
Thank you for reading! Here's a very happy wild alligator from Sanibel for your trouble.
Vultures are holy creatures.
Tending the dead.
Bowing low.
Bared head.
Whispers to cold flesh,
“Your old name is not your king.
I rename you ‘Everything.’”
This is actually so cute
cutest shark facts?
Nurse sharks and white tip reef sharks form a pile and cuddle!
It's believed to be a form of social bonding and has helped challenge the "lone shark" assumption, allowing us to learn more about shark ecology and interaction!