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Greater Blue-eared Glossy-starling (Lamprotornis chalybaeus), family Sturnidae, Kruger National Park, South Africa

photograph by PanWoyteczek

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What the sneef? I'm snorfin' here!

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spanish moon moth (graellsia isabellae) | source

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Hot damn. Great question, I'd love to tell you.

High Fantasy

Look, this rainfrog is called Breviceps bagginsi, so I don't have a lot of choice, now do I?

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Also, I would go with them to the end. Into the very fires of Mordor.

Low Fantasy

Phyllomedusine hylids have a certain weird clown marionette vibe to them. Just look at these Pithecopus rohdei.

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Lovecraftian

The male Rhinoderma darwinii raises his tadpoles in his vocal sac.

Sci-Fi

Gephyromantis pseudoasper sometimes wear handsome stripes—very Space Age™

But more importantly, their calls evoke a battle with laser-blasters.

I filmed this calling male in 2017 at an obscene hour of the morning.

Horror

Trichobatrachus robustus, aka the Hairy Frog, has flanks and thighs covered in weird, hair-like outgrowths that increase oxygen exchange over its skin, and BREAKS ITS FINGERS TO STAB YOU WITH CLAWS MADE OF BONE

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Romance

Breviceps males physically glue themselves to the back-ends of females, and if that's not romance, I don't know what is.

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Comedy

Nyctimantis arapapa are probably amongst the funniest-looking frogs out there.

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Adult

The 'poly' in Polypedates may be a double entendre

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Crime and Mystery

Calyptocephalella gayi is a Galaxy Brain frog.

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Speculative

Myobatrachus gouldii is basically what would happen if you decided to try to build a turtle, but you only had frog pieces in the kit.

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[auri-and-vio]

Manul / Pallas's cat

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orchid mantis (hymenopus coronatus) | source

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december is here and this cutie loves it (inkstaboy instagram)

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A spotted pardalote explores a hand.

🦜 Birds on earth on IG

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blue-banded king crow (euploea eunice) | source

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domestic silk moth (bombyx mori) | source

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A cute little kitty sleeping in the snow...

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mimic octopus (thaumoctopus mimicus) | source

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🪼 The Story of A Biologist on IG

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Completely happy foxy  ❤️

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Margays are small felines that spend most of their lives in the trees. Margays can rotate their ankles 180 degrees, allowing them to climb down trees headfirst. They have been observed jumping up to 12 feet horizontally and have been known to mimic the voices of infant monkeys so they can eat the parents.

🐾 1minuteanimals on IG

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🐟 Gregwittstockthepondguy on IG

[auri-and-vio]

Give me weird daemons. Give me ugly, creepy, fragile, impractical daemons. Give me spiders and slugs and hyenas and poisonous frogs and easily-crushed butterflies and daemons that are too big to take into crowds or through a doorway and aquatic daemons that mean you can’t ever leave the coast. Daemons that come with more symbolism than their human was prepared to deal with. Daemons that don’t settle “properly”.

Give me daemons that bicker with their humans. That drag them out of bed in the morning when they don’t want to face the world and force their humans to face things they don’t think they’re ready for. Give me the fallout from daemons that push their humans too hard. Daemons that don’t follow the usual social protocols, that don’t like interacting with other daemons, that talk directly to other humans even though it makes some people scandalized. 

Give me daemons that are the same sex as their humans. Daemons that are the same sex as their humans and their humans realize they’re trans because of it. Daemons that are the same sex as their humans and their humans are cis. Daemons that are trans. Daemons that transition when their humans do or before their humans do. Daemons that are as fluid as their humans, that can present along the entire spectrum of their species’ sexual dimorphism, that sometimes have manes and sometimes have more colourful plumage and sometimes grow extra horns.

Give me daemons that intentionally settle as something soft because that’s what their human needs to hold. Daemons that settle as something small because they’ll both be happier if they can ride in their human’s pocket and always be in contact or always be out of the way of others or be more easily hidden from the prying eyes of others. Daemons that settle as huge, dangerous things even though their humans don’t feel very scary at all - daemons that settle as huge and dangerous things because their humans don’t feel scary or safe. Give me daemons that are misunderstood. Snake daemons that have similar markings to a much more venomous cousin but are harmless. Daemons that are huge but gentle. Swan daemons that look graceful and pretty and have broken 3 people’s arms already.

Give me daemons that pull back. Daemons that hide in pockets or in shadows. Daemons that aren’t ever going to let their human’s romantic partner touch them, and that’s okay. Daemons that don’t understand or like their humans sometimes, because they are their humans, and honestly how often do we understand and like ourselves, especially when we’re young?

Give me daemons that mirror their human’s health, and daemons that don’t. Daemons whose fur loses its gloss when their humans are stressed or ill. Daemons and humans that are both deaf. Daemons who lose a paw when their human has to have a limb amputated. Daemons who are missing a limb in every shape they take in childhood because their human was born without it. Daemons that share their human’s disability because it’s a part of them just like the way they both hate the smell of citrus or they can both curl up their tongues. 

Daemons who don’t match their humans, or who settle as creatures with abilities that let them make the world more accessible to their humans. Daemons who settle as birds so that they can grab things off of shelves for their wheelchair-using humans. Daemons who settle as something big so their humans can climb on top when they’re tired or in pain. Monkey daemons that can type on their human’s behalf when they’re having a migraine and don’t want to look at a screen. Daemons that can perch on their blind human’s shoulder and whisper directions and sights into their ear, that describe colours and prints so their humans can paint and be fashion designers. 

Give me humans and daemons that fall in love at different speeds. Give me daemons that keep secrets from their humans. Give me daemons with unusually short ranges who can’t be parted from their humans, and daemons with unusually long ones that creep people out. Give me daemons that will check your teeth after you eat a salad to tell you if you have spinach stuck there. Give me humans that will check out a library book in a genre they never read because the main character settled as the same wildly obscure species their daemon is and they’re trying to make them feel better about it. Give me human/daemon pairs who have to re-evaluate the assumptions they’ve made about some species when they meet their college roommate and they’re a scorpion and you’re a frog and you’ve read this story - but you end up being best friends. Give me human/daemon pairs that so far have only dated people with big burly predator daemons, who are absolutely floored when they instantly fall for someone with a ladybug.

Give me daemons, please.