#Animal Behavior

[orcinus-veterinarius]

sorry if this has already been asked/answered, but do you have any thoughts on the orcas that have been attacking boats? genuinley curious whats going on there behaviourly and paychologically

So it seems this unusual behavior started when the pod’s matriarch, known to researchers as Gladis, was struck and injured by a boat propeller. The most viable theory is that Gladis then lashed out in an act of extreme frustration. Subsequently, she either taught her offspring the same behavior or—more likely—they observed her and decided to try it out for themselves. Mimicry is a huge part of how intelligent, highly social cetaceans like killer whales learn.

Since most of the attacks are perpetrated by youngsters, I’m honestly chalking it up to kids being dumb. Orcas, especially as juveniles, are very playful and very destructive, and this is all a super fun game. Far less likely, but still possible I suppose, is that they now truly see the boats as threats and are neutralizing them.

As fun as the memes about the orca uprising have been, there is no malice or vengeance at work here. To claim so is blatant anthropomorphism (but hey, people anthropomorphizing killer whales, what else is new). Hopefully, the behavior dies down soon, before another orca is hurt by a propeller or, worse, humans decide to put an end to it.

Because if there’s one animal that practices revenge, it’s the human being.

[bluedotjpeg]

That's because that's not what is happening here. These animals don't understand lying, what they do understand is that there are ways humans behave that they view as nonsensical but that they understand will have consequence for them. Most of these are displacement behaviors, cats recognizing that what they want to do may have negative consequence and so replacing it with something that won't. They aren't thinking "oh no I am caught, better pretend I'm doing something else." They are thinking "oh damn this nonsense again, what else can I do instead."

Cats getting caught doing crimes

[chao-studios]

Best quality: his wiggles

[great-and-small]

A manatee rescue that I follow responded to a call about a female manatee with two calves because one of her babies had been injured by a boat strike. The entire family was temporarily relocated from the wild into a wildlife rehab facility for the injured male calf to undergo treatment. While there, vets noted the female calf was significantly larger than the little injured male. They did genetic testing and determined that big sister calf actually wasn’t related to the other two manatees at all! She was in fact an orphan calf that the adult manatee had found and taken in to care for right alongside her own little one.

Wild to think this manatee calf was literally adopted and nobody would have ever known if it weren’t for random coincidence and human curiosity. Every animal that you cross paths with in life has a fascinating personal story that you’ll only ever catch a glimpse of (and that’s if you’re lucky).

[art-deco-shrimp]

Finally fucking remembered that I was supposed to tag people when I posted the fic argh 🤦‍♀️

@tk-duveraun, @oakskull, you wanted to see it?

Acts of Worship, 3k words, Explicit MoShang

Inspirational post by @sunderwight:

Mobei Jun figures out Shang Qinghua is a god and builds an elaborate temple with a big fancy altar for them to one day have sex on (once Qinghua deems him worthy and admits his godhood to him), and Shang Qinghua is freaking out because he thinks it's for blood sacrifices probably. Every time Mobei Jun says something about worship that is heavy with subtext & implication, Shang Qinghua is just like fuck fuck he's gonna decapitate me on that thing fuck...

Summary: Today's the day that Shang Qinghua finds out who and what the shrine is for.

---

(Also inspired by Summer of the 69's Body Worship 69 theme. Fic mirrored on Dreamwidth at this link, so you can still find it if the archive's down.)

Edit: Proper AO3 link now actually included, orz... I need to go lay down for a while and practice my hand-brain coordination.

Someone wanna help me figure out how SQH might accidentally out himself as a "god" to MBJ? I need it for a fic.

Edit: Okay, I think I've got something. Thanks to the friend on Discord who helped out!

[violetsandshrikes]

Really cool write up that links to the original paper that just came out this year (2025)!

This is a really cool example of foraging innovation.

[craftingcreatures]

So I was watching a video on ptarmigans and it was mentioned that they dig burrows in the snow for shelter and protection. Which, cool! Burrowing bird! Then they showed this picture and

It's perfect

[protectoursharks]

The body shape of a fish can tell you a lot about it! It can tell you where they like to hang out, how they hunt, what they eat, and more!

Let's use the Asian Arowana (Scleropages formosus) as an example!

Based off the rounded caudal fin (the "tail"), this fish is not a very fast swimmer

Having the dorsal fin and anal fin right near the end of the fish's body suggests it is an ambush predator

The flat head suggests it hunts at the surface

The upturned, large mouth suggests it catches its prey from below

Arowana are ambush predators that hunt at the surface!

They don't need to go very far very fast, hence the rounded caudal fin (which is the slowest moving fin)

Having posterior dorsal and anal fins are a common trait amongst ambush predator

They primarily hunt at the surface! They will sit near the surface and grab small fish, bugs, crustaceans, and even occasionally a bird!

4. Fish that catch their prey from below sometimes do it via suction. They'll open their large mouth, and as the water gets sucked in, so does anything in the water. And the larger the mouth, more water will more quickly fill into the mouth, catching larger and faster prey

[rebeccathenaturalist]

So--long story short, a FedEx driver killed a rattlesnake that happened to be on someone's porch, not causing any immediate problems. This is an all too common practice here in the United States, where a significant portion of the population has the backwards idea that "the only good snake is a dead snake" and that the only way to deal with a venomous snake in the proximity of a house, or people in general, is to kill it. Never mind that snakes tend to move on if left alone, and that there are numerous entities that can be contacted to move the snake safely to another place if so desired, and that most bites occur when someone is harassing, handling, or trying to kill the snake.

Dr. Emily Taylor of California Polytechnic State University (@snakeymama on Twitter) has requested that people contact FedEx about their recent commercial glorifying the killing of the snake, which you can view here. I've included both her and my letters to the appropriate folks at FedEx. There are options for both email and snail mail correspondence, and the more people FedEx hears from about this appalling matter, the better.

It's 2024, almost 2025. We have tons of information on rattlesnake behavior and best practices in coexisting with them (to include training your dogs in snake avoidance). We know plenty about the importance they have in local ecosystems, and the devastation that has been done through people slaughtering them, sometimes in the thousands (I wrote about the ongoing problem of rattlesnake roundups and their inherent cruelty here.) There are multiple rattlesnake species that are endangered or otherwise threatened with extinction.

The vast majority of encounters with venomous snakes are benign, and the vast majority of bites come from someone (person, dog, etc.) confronting the snake that was just trying to defend itself. We've spent a lot of time in this country defaulting to killing anything that inconveniences us, but there are better ways to live safely in proximity to wildlife that don't involve violence. It just takes a little more effort and awareness, and most importantly a significant attitude change that no longer vilifies native wildlife simply trying to live their lives.

As Dr. Taylor mentioned, if you want to contact FedEx, here are your options:

"You can help by reposting this or by emailing to express your concern about the commercial: mediarelations@fedex.com and to the CEO at FWSmith@fedex.com. Or send letters to: Fred Smith, CEO Brie Carere, Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Officer Ryan Kelly, Vice President of Marketing FedEx Corporation 942 South Shady Grove Road Memphis, TN 38120 USA"

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Woman at the zoo: Why do they look so sad? 😔

Sign literally 10 feet away:

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

the monster-fication of perfectly normal animals

a topic that's just on my mind sometimes.

We've all seen fantasy stories that do this (scifi too, honestly). Wolves that are just relentless hunters, seeming to pursue the protagonists for absolutely no reason except to be scary predators, even needlessly risking their own lives just to recklessly keep attacking people. Snakes that leap into furious action the moment anyone happens to come near them, or even actively tracking people down just to bite and leave, only caring about creating a fatal injury. Poison and venom being used as interchangeable terms and even being given unusually strong acidic properties with no other indication that these were supposed to be fantastical snakes of any sort. Bats and birds of prey and so many other animals also get similar treatment. If it's "scary", it gets the monster treatment.

I hate this trope.

It relies on common misconceptions about real life animals and how they behave. It also feels lazy; if you want some kind of scary relentless monster creature, just create one! you're writing a fictional story in a fictional world, why not just make a new monster? Or find some other way to increase the stakes and give some tension to the story?

Wild animals do attack people occasionally, this is true. But they're not relentless about it, and they'll usually be more cautious and strategic when they're hunting for food. Most wild animals will only attack humans if they're provoked into it. They are dangerous, but they're not evil monsters.

Snakes get the worst of it, in my opinion. No snake is out there hunting people down just to dramatically bite them. Their venom is not horribly acidic. They're usually just chilling and want to be left alone. They can't eat people, so why would they hunt anyone? Stop the snake slander!

And please, please research how real animals behave. Get creative and make actual fantasy monsters if you really need some sort of relentless predator. Maybe have a little fun making fantasy animals or alien creatures that are totally mundane in their own world and have believable behaviors and interact with their environment and food chains like real animals.

[foldingfittedsheets]

Imagine you were roommates with someone who didn’t speak your language. And like. You guys are best friends, you love your roommate so much. You hang out all the time and it’s great.

But sometimes when you go to scratch an itch they suddenly get so upset. Like they’ll yell or clap or make weird sounds. You have no idea why because you’re itchy. You gotta scratch the itch! But it makes them so upset that you only scratch itches when they aren’t around.

Otherwise stuff is fine, they feed you and you’re happy living with them. You play games and stuff and even though you don’t speak the same language you both have a lot of fun. It’s just that sometimes they’ll burst out for no reason and you just get to deal with it.

That’s basically what it’s like for our pets, I think.

[snailkites]

love learning about odd-couple interspecies joint-nesting events

nesties (nest besties)

[grison-in-space]

golly, I am being wordy today.

Via Metafilter:

Someone on MeFi tagged me in and asked me to chime in in my capacity as a rodent person, so here were my thoughts and observations:

First thought, looking at that video: that is no house mouse. Not only is the head wrong--too narrow at the back, eyes are a bit big--but that very clear countershading is not something you generally see on wild house mice. So what kind of mouse is it? If this was in the US, I would assume it was a Peromyscus (deer mouse) species, which often gleefully invade our homes, but do they have Peromyscus in Wales? In North America, this is relevant because deer mouse species often have very elaborated burrowing and pair bonding systems, and this looks like nesting behavior off the top of my head. What sort of mouse is this? The Woodland UK Trust suggests that this is probably a wood (or field) mouse: Apodemus sylvaticus. (There are glorious big photos there which can help you see what I mean.) Okay, I don't know that much about Apodemus spp. behavior, so what do we know about their nesting behavior? Well, I chased a couple of false leads, then circled back to find out what is notable about wood mice, which is that they are known to not only navigate by the use of landmarks, but to organize their environments to place small objects around their environments in order to make navigation and orienting themselves across their large territories more effectively! So this mouse is probably irritably putting things back in place as an aid to its own memory of where everything is and where it can most effectively pilfer snacks, nest locations, or other useful mouse items within its environment. That is, the mouse wants a tidy shed for exactly the same reasons a human might want a tidy shed: so it can find things it's looking for when it wants to! Wood mice, by the way, are human commensals and quite common in Europe and the British Isles, so this is in no way a refutation of the idea that this behavior might have influenced human folklore and ideas about house spirits or similar. Certainly wood mice, like any mouse, are unlikely to turn up a bowl of milk if there's one put out for it--although neither are house cats, which would certainly prey on them.

rather delighted, so I'm sharing this more widely over here.

[great-and-small]

Teaspoons absolutely bopping while dad tries to keep his shit together

[tsalala]

The tigress Machli has always been a special mother. Not only was she most ferocious and attentive to her offspring while in command of a large territory centered around the highly coveted lakes area of Ranthambhore during the 2000s poaching crisis, but she was just special.

Along with the guide Salim Ali, filmmaker Colin Stafford-Johnson had tracked Machli as she cared for one of her earlier litters and managed to document an inexplicable scene: Machli’s sons, now bigger than her, began suckling from her despite their mother not having had any milk for a year. This was the first time such a thing was ever captured on camera - and the last time this family unit was ever seen together. The boys soon dispersed from their mother and died separately from each other.

Taken in Ranthambore National Park, India Stills from Broken Tail: A Tiger’s Last Journey (2011)