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If your interest in reptiles comes from the pet hobby, you probably know these guys as sulcata tortoises- but if your interest comes from the zoo world, you're more likely to know them as African spurred tortoises, or African spur thighed tortoises. Bud here is showing off why! See those spurs on his legs? It's theorized that those are to help defend against predators. When a tortoise like this tucks into its shell, the spurs stick out and present an uncomfortable area to bite.

What's interesting to me is that the spurs that they're named after are actually the ones on their hind legs, even though they're much smaller than the big spikes on their front legs, which you can see quite clearly on Bub below:

(Yes, their names are Bub and Bud. They're rescued taken in by a man named Bob, and they came with those names, believe it or not!)

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it's important for boys to kiss one another. for the ecosystem

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Surf Scoter (Melanitta perspicillata), male, family Anatidae, order Anseriformes, WA, USA

photographs by Mike Ashbee

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The fairy lantern (Corybas barbarae) is a small terrestrial orchid endemic to eastern QLD and NSW (north of Sydney). The hairy labellum is covered by a large, curved, and inflated dorsal sepal. The linear lateral sepals are tiny (2mm), and the minute petals (1mm) are hidden by the labellum. It is believed that fungus gnats are its pollinators. Apart from that, little is known about its reproduction and dispersal mechanism.

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Removing the reblog chain from a post is an act of ecological disturbance that allows a new community of reblogs to grow by secondary succession

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If your life is horrible and you need a new source of meaning and direction.... Do NOT find religion. Learn to identify plants.

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this image came to me in a dream

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What did these scientists from the Museum, working with colleagues from the Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras, find on the beach in Colombia?

The Constantine S. Niarchos Expedition featured here was generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

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Y’all I want to throw massive kudos out to the Roger Williams Park Zoo for a choice they made today: rather than joining in on a GenAI trend all the zoos are doing right now, they chose to support and spotlight an artist on their staff!

The big thing right now is these GenAI “figurine toys” of zookeepers or zoo management. And instead they shared a version drawn by one of their staff!

Go give them some love, if you’re on FB. Too many zoos are really getting into GenAI and just whitewashing the climate change / copyright issues that come with it, so I want this zoo to get as much positive feedback as we can muster for making a better choice.

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Once you start thinking about humans as a species in a biome, it affects your entire way of looking at normal things.

The other day I referred to female morning joggers as an 'indicator species' in that if you see women jogging in the dark it means that the environment provides migration pathways (sidewalks, clear signs) and doesn't have any known predators of female morning joggers (guy with knife, bear, BigTruck, male morning joggers).

Though, I think that people consider framing humans as animals reacting to their environment as rude.

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Mom sent me a facebook link to a PBS news hour post about how the anti-lawn movement is growing. The vast majority of the comments on it were stuff like this:

Most people are on our side here, even the so-called "boomers." We just have to be spreading ecological knowledge and practical means of creating useful habitat in back yards! Educate! Protect! Resist!

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coyote play time :)

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take a hit

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You know, as the concept of “zombifying fungi” becomes more and more popular, I notice it still referred to everywhere as like a “brain parasite.” So I guess a lot of people overlooked or forgot how in 2019 it was discovered that cordyceps and other similar fungal parasites leave the brain and nervous system completely untouched. They only control the muscles. They use chemical signals to make the muscles flex in real time where they want to go :)

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Me: “The food webs we try to teach children and the public are too simple to get the point across. Why do they never bother to show the more intricate relationships between specific species? It can’t be that hard to represent with basic teaching tools... I’ll make the thing!”

The thing:

Me: “....I get it now.”

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cant find a working stream rn killing myself