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alpaca-clouds · 2 months ago

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The Technology We Have Already

Today I want to talk about one Solarpunk-thingie, that kinda annoys me - and has to do with a lot with how real-life politians deal with talking about technology and especially energy technologies.

And this is the following fact:

We already have the technology! This is not some SciFi shit!

See, the issue within the politics tends to be, that a lot of folks go: "Oh, yeah, we would LOVE to go renewable. But right it is not possible! Once the technology gets there, we will totally go 100% renewable!"

And basically a lot of Solarpunks online are also waiting for the technology to get there. Again, there is sadly a big group of folks who technically love the aesthetics of Solarpunk and also generally the idea of a Solarpunk future, but do not engage with it over it. And they usually will also wait for technology to get there.

But it already is.

Let me talk about it.

We can produce enough renewable energy

In a way I get it. If you are not working in any fields related to this - and do not follow science news - you might just not know how fast the renewable energy field is moving right now. 10 years ago, yes, a lot of countries would have been able to go 100% renewable, but not all. It depended basically on the climate and environment. Partly because the photovoltaic (what most people call solar, but us engineers use solar for something a bit different) cells were just not as efficient in certain climates. And while the mix of wind and hydro power could do A LOT for many countries, it could not for all.

However, that was mainly before China really pulled all the stops for their research. No, it is not only China, but holy shit, China's research in terms of photovoltaic is insane. If you follow this, you basically will see a new breakthrough - often from China - every couple months. And by now, the efficiency of photovoltaic is insane. Sure, it might not make sense as the only source of energy in places were you basically do not get any sunlight for half the year, but outside of that? It is so darn good.

Other than that, we are really darn good with wind energy (which to my opinion is still the best way of producing energy) and hydro energy.

Don't get me wrong: We can totally improve those things further and further. But we can absolutely power the world on renewables right now. We do not need fossile fuels right now!

We can build climate-friendly transport!

I will remind y'all once more: Electric cars are definitely better than gas powered cars, for those people and situations in which cars are needed. (Read: For emergency services, certain forms of service work who need to transport stuff outside of the rail network, and probably also some people who live very isolated for certain reasons.) However, they are still cars and suck for this reason, if you do not REALLY need them.

Still, we are fucking good by now in building electric cars and for those scenarios where they are needed. Heck, by now in my city pretty much all public transport runs electric, including the busses. And no, they are not tram busses.

And yeah, turns out, we figured out how to build railways more than 200 years ago, and we figured out how to electricize them in 1881. Yes. 1881. 18 in the front. Almost 150 years ago. Sure, back then we were not that good with it, but we managed to build one for intracity transport that worked - and worked for long.

Yes, admittedly, there are some forms of transport that right now we might indeed need fossil fuels for. Right now, we have no method to fly planes and helicopters in a way that is both mass-producable and renewable. And the same is with transcontinental transport via the ocean.

Yeah, sure. We can technically just go fully low tech and just sail. That works. Heck, while it is about half as quick as modern ways to transport over the ocean, it is feasible. However, we just cannot move the amounts of cargo we might need to move with sailing. There are people figuring this out (partly through creating much better sails that work for MUCH BIGGER ships) but yeah, we are not there yet.

Still, a) a lot of the intercontinental stuff we technically do not need to transport (most of it is using cheap quasi-slave labor to save money), and b) that should not stop us from just doing sustainable on-land transport which we can do.

We also know how to build a better society

Now, a lot of the folks going for the Solarpunk aesthetics rather than philosophy are quite often very mistrustful of both anarchism and communism - or heck, just socialism. They often have drunken the capitalist cool-aid of capitalism being the "only system that works". But here is the thing: It doesn't.

Sure, there are versions of capitalism that would work a whole lot better than the Chicago-flavored one, but it will never really work - especially in regards to saving the environment. I talked about that a lot before.

But here is the thing. We know how it works better. We know how to build a better society. We know how to make economics work better. We know how to make better schools. We know how to build better cities. We know how to prevent at least a lot of wars. We know how to make society safer for kids. We know how to make healthier families. We know how to make medicine as a system work better. We know it all.

Heck, we have known how to make schools that are better in every way since the early 20th century - so more than a hundred years. This proposed school system since has been proofen time and time again in studies to be better for kids, and better in terms of education. But do we use them? No.

Again, politicians love to go: "We would love to change things, but we do not have a better system." But it is not true. We know how to do it better.

Same with the police and prison and stuff. We know how to do it better.

But right now, a) a lot of the stuff works in the favor of those who hold most power (aka the billionaires), b) a lot of people just do not like the idea of changing stuff majorly (which makes politicians who want change unpopular), and c) politicians also would need to fund the change - and that is going to be hard.

So, yeah. Change would be hard.

But it is not because we do not know how to do better.

And I really just wish people would stop propagating this idea that we do not know better. We do. But folks right now profit from things staying the same. And it sucks.

#solarpunk #punk #environmentalism #renewable energy #sustainability #sustainable energy #anarchism #anarcho communism #lunarpunk #sustainable transport

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bestanimal · 3 months ago

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Round 3 - Mammalia - Pilosa

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our next and last order of xenarthrans is Pilosa, the “anteaters” and “sloths”. Pilosa comprises the families Cyclopedidae (“Silky Anteater”), Myrmecophagidae (“Giant Anteater” and “tamanduas”), Bradypodidae (“three-toed sloths”), and Choloepodidae (“two-toed sloths”).

Pilosa is derived from the Latin word for “hairy”, and refers to these animals’ characteristic bushy, wiry fur. Most living pilosans are arboreal or semi-arboreal (the only exception being the Giant Anteater [Myrmecophaga tridactyla]), with long, strong claws for gripping tree branches, defending from predators, and/or digging up insects. Pilosans have thick necks and forelimbs adapted for gripping, climbing, and/or digging. Their eyesight is poor, but they have a good sense of smell which they use to find food.

Anteaters use a long, sticky tongue to lap up termites, ants, and other insects. As they have no teeth, they press their tongues against the roof of their mouth to smash the insects for swallowing. Their stomachs, similar to a bird's gizzard, have hardened folds to crush food, assisted by ingested sand and soil. They cannot produce stomach acid of their own, but digest using their prey’s own formic acid. Giant Anteaters walk on their front knuckles, similar to gorillas and chimpanzees, to protect their long, sharp claws from scraping on the ground, while tamanduas walk on the sides of their clenched forefeet when walking on the ground.

Two-toed sloths are omnivorous, with a diverse diet of insects, carrion, fruits, leaves, and small lizards. Three-toed sloths, on the other hand, are almost entirely herbivorous. Most living sloths mainly eat the leaves of Cecropia trees. They have made many adaptations for arboreal browsing. Leaves, their main food source, provide very little energy or nutrients, and do not digest easily, so sloths have large, slow-acting, multi-chambered stomachs in which symbiotic bacteria break down the tough leaves. Their digestive process can take a month or more to complete. Sloths are adapted for a life spent entirely in the trees. While they sometimes sit on top of branches, they usually eat, sleep, and even give birth hanging from branches. They sometimes remain hanging from branches even after death. Their limbs are adapted for hanging and grasping, not for supporting their weight, and they have very little muscle mass. Sloths descend about once a week to urinate and defecate on the ground. They cannot walk on the ground, but must drag themselves when needed. However, they are capable of swimming quite well, as are other pilosans.

Pilosans are generally solitary, though females tend to tolerate each other’s presence more than males. They come together only for mating, sometimes spending a courtship period of several days together. They give birth to one baby, once or twice a year (sometimes longer for sloths as their slow movement can make it hard to locate mates). Young pilosans are born with a full coat of fur. The young will ride on the back or belly of its parents until weaned, or are left in a nest or on a branch while the mother forages.

The biogeographic origins of Pilosa are still unclear, but they can be traced back in South America as far as the early Paleogene (about 60 million years ago). Anteaters and sloths diverged around 55 MYA, between the Paleocene and Eocene epochs. Both the Giant Anteater and the Southern Tamandua are well represented in the fossil record of the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene.

Propaganda under the cut:

The Silky Anteater’s (Cyclopes didactylus) (image 4) feet are highly modified for climbing. Its hind feet nearly encircle a branch while clinging, while it has a large third claw on each front foot. It also has a semi-prehensile tail to increase its grip on tree branches.

The Silky Anteater usually dwells in Silk Cotton Trees (genus Ceiba), curled up in a ball sleeping during the day. Because of its resemblance to the fluffy seed pod fibers of these trees, it can use the trees as camouflage and avoid attacks of predators such as hawks and Harpy Eagles (Harpia harpyja).

The largest living pilosan is the Giant Anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) (image 1), which is on average 182 to 217 cm (6 to 7 feet) in length, with weights of 27 to 50 kg (60 to 110 lb).

The Giant Anteater is the most terrestrial of the living anteater species. Specialization for life on the ground appears to be a new trait in anteater evolution, an adaptation to the expansion of open savanna habitats in South America, and the abundance of native colonial insects, such as termites, that provided a larger potential food source.

The Giant Anteater has poor eyesight, but a powerful sense of smell: 40 times that of a human.

When Giant Anteaters need to rest, they carve a shallow cavity in the ground. They then sleep with their bushy tail draped over their body like a blanket, both to keep warm and to camouflage from predators. Sometimes, they will sleep splayed out in order to sunbathe.

Male Giant Anteaters are territorial and will challenge each other by approaching and circling each other while uttering a "harrr" noise. This can escalate into chasing and actual fighting. Combat includes wrestling, slashing with the claws, and bellowing.

Giant Anteaters are not typically aggressive, choosing to run from danger. But when they need to fight, they can rear up and use their front claws defensively. The front claws of the Giant Anteater are formidable weapons, capable of potentially killing a jaguar. At least three humans have been killed by defensive Giant Anteaters.

Southern Tamanduas (Tamandua tetradactyla) (see gif above) are used as pest control, specifically for termites and ants, by Indigenous peoples, who sometimes bring the tamanduas into their homes to take care of these insects.

Southern Tamanduas avoid eating ant and beetle species that have strong chemical defenses.

The most famous extinct sloth is the elephant-sized Giant Ground Sloth, Megatherium americanum, but there were a wide diversity of not just smaller ground sloths, but also semi-aquatic sloths like Thalassocnus and large, omnivorous sloths like Mylodon. Today, only the slow-moving, arboreal tree sloths remain, showing that the best way to survive extinction (for a sloth) is to take to the trees, and be as inedible as possible.

The two living groups of tree sloths are from different, distantly related families, and are thought to have evolved their morphology via parallel evolution from separate terrestrial ancestors.

The shaggy coat of sloths has grooved hair that is host to symbiotic green algae which camouflage the animal in the trees and provide it nutrients. The algae also nourish sloth moths, some species of which exist solely on sloths. Sloths benefit from their relationship with moths because the moths are responsible for fertilizing the algae on the sloth.

Sloths are unusual among mammals in not having seven cervical vertebrae. Two-toed sloths have five to seven, while three-toed sloths have eight or nine. (The other mammals not having seven are manatees, with six.)

Sloths can hold their breath underwater for up to 40 minutes. They do this by reducing their already slow metabolism even further and slowing their heart rate to less than a third of normal.

Individual sloths tend to spend the bulk of their time feeding on a single tree. By burying their dung near the trunk of that tree, they also help fertilize it. Their symbiotic moths also lay their eggs in their dung at the base of the tree; the caterpillars eat the dung and then fly up to the sloth as adult moths.

Sloths are victims of animal trafficking where they are sold as exotic pets. However, they make very poor pets, as they have such specialized ecology.

The critically endangered Pygmy Three-toed Sloth (Bradypus pygmaeus) is found exclusively on Isla Escudo de Veraguas.

The Maned Sloth (Bradypus torquatus) is one of the only sloths which show any form of sexual dimorphism, with their mane of black hair being larger and darker in males than in females.

The Pale-throated Sloth (Bradypus tridactylus) is occasionally known as the “Ai”, due to its bird-like whistle described as an "ai-ai" sound.

The Southern Maned Sloth (Bradypus crinitus) is described as having a head that looks like a coconut, with its species name crinitus (meaning “hairy”) even being a reference to its coconut-like head.

Female Brown-throated Sloths (Bradypus variegatus) (image 2) are known to emit a loud, shrill scream during the mating season to attract males. Their cry is reported to sound like that of a woman screaming.

Linnaeus's Two-toed Sloth (Choloepus didactylus) is the largest living sloths species, growing to lengths of approximately 53 to 89 cm (1.9 to 2.9 ft), and weighing approximately 4 to 11 kg (9 to 24 lb).

Hoffmann's Two-toed Sloths (Choloepus hoffmanni) (image 3) have actually been seen walking on their palms and soles, rather than dragging themselves across the ground like other sloths.

Sloths are not entirely defenseless, and can slash a predator with their long claws or bite with their sharp canines if threatened.

#animal polls #round 3 #mammalia #first of my personal favs in Mammalia it’s the Giant Anteater!

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rebeccathenaturalist · 2 months ago

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De-Extinction and Dire Wolves: Should We Clone Extinct Animals?

This article originally appeared on my website at https://rebeccalexa.com/de-extinction-and-dire-wolves-should-we-clone-extinct-animals/

My social media feeds this week have been full of headlines about how a trio of genetically engineered dire wolves are the newest advance in the quest to clone extinct animals. The short version is that researchers from Colossal Biosciences altered fourteen genes in the gray wolf (Canis lupus) genome to resemble genes taken from dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) fossils. The DNA was then inserted into denucleated domestic dog (Canis familiaris) egg cells which were then implanted in domestic dog surrogates.

Romulus and Remus, two of Colossal Bioscience’s genetically engineered “dire” wolves.

Three of these eggs resulted in viable pups. Romulus and Remus are six months old, while Khaleesi is two months. The pups are white-furred, heavier-boned than gray wolves, and show wolf-like wariness of humans. But are they true dire wolves?

That’s the real question. You can add in genes from a dire wolf to an extant canid, but that doesn’t make them identical to the extinct species. Moreover, dire wolves are not as closely related to gray wolves as was previously thought; they were recently reassigned to a new genus that reflects their closer resemblance to modern-day jackals. There really isn’t a good analogue to them alive today, particularly when compared to the aurochs, another extinct species, and its domestic cattle descendants.

Is this really a good idea? Find out my thoughts on the matter under the cut!

There have been attempts to backbreed domestic cattle (Bos taurus) to aurochs (Bos primigenius), which went extinct a mere 400 years ago. Heck cattle and the Tauros programme are two examples of efforts to create cattle that more closely resemble their wild forebears. Aurochs backbreeding involves choosing animals that physically resemble the extinct animals, such as having longer faces and legs, curled horns, and dark coloration with a white muzzle. However, just as you can’t make a gray wolf by breeding wolf-like domestic dogs, you can’t make a true aurochs with domesticated cattle.

This gets us into phenotype (appearance and other physical characteristics) vs. genotype (genetic material). We don’t know exactly what dire wolves looked like, beyond their preserved bones, and possibly the genes that gave the three pups their thick, white pelage. We also don’t know how they behaved, and there are no living dire wolves to teach the pups the ways of their world. While we can make some educated guesses based on the behaviors of extant social canids like gray wolves and African painted dogs (Lycaon pictus), we can’t say with full certainty that dire wolves behaved the same way.

Let’s say we could clone extinct animals and somehow make a genotypically perfect dire wolf. The youngest reliably dated dire wolf remains are from about 10,000 years ago. This may seem like a relatively short time, and from a geological perspective it is. But a lot can happen in that time biologically and ecologically–for example, mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) only appeared as a distinct species 10,000 years ago from hybridization of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus). And while human overhunting likely contributed to the extinction of many species of megafauna at the end of the last ice age 11,000-12,000 years ago, climate change was almost certainly a major factor as well. Given that the planet is heating up even more rapidly due to anthropogenic climate change, would it even be ethical to bring these cold-weather animals back under current conditions?

And, finally, would they still fulfill the same ecological role that they did thousands of years ago? Plains bison (Bison bison bison) and domestic cattle may be related, and share some behaviors, but cattle absolutely are not good replacements for bison. Their grazing patterns and migratory tendencies vary significantly, as does the makeup of their manure, all of which have impacts on local ecology. Some people argue that feral domestic horses (Equus caballus) belong in North America because they may fill a niche left when the last native North American horse, Equus occidentalis, went extinct along with other ice age megafauna. However, once again the landscape has changed significantly in 12,000 years, and niches have shifted in intervening millennia, and so domesticated horses are not the perfect replacement for their extinct counterparts.

This isn’t even getting into the ethics of bringing back an extinct species when there’s no place set for them in the wild. The debate over de-extinction overshadows the grim reality that we are still chewing up wild habitat at unprecedented rates, putting an increasing number of species at risk of extinction–or driving them entirely over the edge. It’s easier to get excited about sexy headlines featuring Jurassic Park-style wild science than the ongoing fight to not only put the brakes on environmental destruction–no small feat–but repair the damage.

All of which is to say while it’s interesting to see the genetic engineering advances represented by the three “dire wolves” now revealed to the world, it doesn’t mean that we’ve brought back an entire extinct species. And really, is the best tactic right now to clone extinct animals? While we could potentially use this technology to clone critically endangered species and reinject preserved DNA from long-dead individuals into the active gene pool, it’s very resource-intensive. And none of this is as important as preserving the habitats that these rare species need to survive. Eye-catching headlines about dire wolves may help raise awareness and funding, but they are not a replacement for the ongoing hard work of conservation.

Did you enjoy this post? Consider preordering my book The Everyday Naturalist, taking one of my online foraging and natural history classes or hiring me for a guided nature tour, or checking out my other articles! You can even buy me a coffee here!

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qu1cks1lversb1tch · 1 year ago

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A Deal | Vox x Gen Z Reader

A/N— Decided to turn my little drabble into a little series of one-shots based off of ideas I come up with and any requests y'all may have for it 💅🏻 ALSO a huge thank you to @writteninlunarlight-years for the idea that inspired me to kickstart the series! It's very much 'enemies to lovers' core (kinda, I guess?), but I have no idea how far this will go lol. Hope everyone enjoys this — sorry it took so long :)

Warnings: Reader is implied female, Valentino existing, mentions of souls being owned, reader is close to being an overlord

Word Count: 1,724

Summary: You were a growing threat — and what better way to keep an eye on said threat, than to have you start living under the same roof as three of the most influential overlords in Hell? This is only the beginning. . .

Since your arrival to Hell, things had been nothing short of interesting — from your offers that couldn't be refused, all the way to the demon's that warily approached or backed off when you were near.

It was quite the spectacle.

You were quickly rising within the ranks of Hell, from a mere sinner to damn near an overlord — for all the souls you claimed in a few short months. It was noticeable — your social climbing.

What you hadn't expected was two overlords reaching out in the same day, both itching for some sort of deal.

You'd heard whispers of the feared Radio Demon and practically laughed at the thought of people being scared of him — sure his smile was off-putting, but other than that, you didn't really see the hype.

So when he approached you outside of the Café you'd began to frequent, striking up casual conversation as if you were old friends, you quickly understood what was going on.

He was powerful. You were becoming more powerful. He offered guidance and you knew there was a 'but' coming.

When it dropped, you sighed, before sipping on your warm beverage.

"I can offer you guidance, and in return, I want your soul as a pledge of undying loyalty, my dear!" He made a hand motion, as if he planned on writing your name in the stars — could you even see the stars from Hell?

"I'm sorry — but other than guidance, what do I get out of it? I've done well on my own for the last six months."

Protection. Respect. Free housing. It had almost been tempting — especially the free housing, especially in that economy. . . But in the end, you had told him that you'd think about it.

In reality, you wouldn't.

Giving up your freedom for half the shit you could get on your own? He had you fucked up.

Then there was Vox; the wide open rival of Alastor. You'd actually seen him around, having been in a couple clubs he was coincidentally visiting at the same time.

When he approached you, it was three hours later and you were actively sending a message to the group chat of demons whose souls you owned, over Sinstagram. You were simply reminding them of the consequences if they took the food that CLEARLY had your name written on it.

You didn't care that you were sitting in a restaurant — if any of them touched that leftover sub quarter, you'd kill them, and not in a funny or ironic way. You'd actually kill them double dead with no return.

When you looked up, he questioned your business with 'the fossil' and was met with a blank stare rather than words.

He clarified that he meant Alastor.

"Oh. I don't have any." You replied simply, reading the few messages that popped up on screen.

At the revelation, he was pleased and began listing off all of the things he could provide that Alastor 'would fail miserably at'.

Money. Protection. Respect. A sounding board for ideas. Anything your heart desired. All at a small cost of being under his surveillance almost 24/7.

That snatched your attention away from the two demons who began arguing in their native languages. Did you understand them? Fuck no. Would you be translating that later? Abso-fuckin-lutely.

"And what's in it for you?" You asked the TV demon. You didn't like the thought of being under surveillance and having little to no privacy, but his deal had already been sweetened by Vox not wanting your soul.

"Power all the way around. With my influence, you can be a billion times better than that staticky prick. You'll practically have demons begging on their knees."

"Tempting." You admitted.

"What do you think?"

"Eh, fuck it. Why the hell not?"

From there it was a flurry of events — you remembered eating, but then you were leaving with Vox and then quickly found yourself in a meeting room with the other Vees and shit you had to sign, stating that you wouldn't spill any details of the inner workings of any of the three companies.

Who did he take you for?

Once you read each document thoroughly, making sure it wasn't a contract for your soul, you signed your name on the tablets screen and sat back in your seat, pulling out your phone to begin translating the argument from the beginning.

"Great! Ground rules — our private spaces are off limits unless we explicitly tell you otherwise, that includes bedrooms, offices, and basically everything that isn't a —"

"Uh-huh, got it." You mumbled — snorting at the beyond creative insults that began to flood the screen in English.

"Listen—"

"It's my nap time, TV boy. If you can put this conversation in a text, do it." You sighed, stretching your limbs. They popped as you stood — who showed these fuckers how to make gifs of each other?

Oh.

You did. HA!

"You know I can kill you, right?" Vox questioned, his claws digging into the table.

"So could a really motivated duck — or a Canadian goose. Those things are straight out of Hell, Box."

"It's Vox." He growled.

Ooh spicy. "Whatever —"

"Can you be serious for five minutes?"

"Ok boomer."

His screen glitched and his claws dug further into the desk as he stared at you.

Velvette barked a laugh and looked away from her phone long enough to see Vox on the verge of malfunctioning, a smirk slipping onto her face. "Can we keep her? I like this one."

"This one's more tolerable than the last." Valentino mused, blowing his smoke into the air. He leaned forward in his seat, uncrossing his legs. "And we don't even know her name."

"The name's Y/N. Don't wear it out." You winked before turning around and exiting the door you had been ushered through, however long ago. The moment the door closed, you heard Vox angrily talking with Velvette and Valentino, who were much calmer than the TV overlord.

Oh, this will be fun. A good idea, for sure.

Thirty minutes later, when you were in the room Vox had told you was yours, both Velvette and Valentino followed you on Sinstagram before adding you to the Vees official group chat.

Your first week living with the Vees went by rather quickly — of course, you respected their privacy as requested, spending most of your time in your room or the common areas which mostly consisted of the kitchen, living room, and game room.

Still, you'd managed to piss Vox off three more times, and got Velvette and Valentino to join in without trying.

Velvette quickly picked up your terminology, calling Vox a boomer at any given opportunity. It pissed him off to no end. Valentino had only done it twice, mostly because they both spent a lot of time working and only interacted with Vox when he had the time to.

Within the first seventy-two hours, you noticed the weird obsession Vox had with Alastor and you sarcastically quoted a scene from a movie at dinner that night.

"Is this love, Agent Romanoff?"

And he had looked at you weirdly, pausing mid rant. Later you had to explain to the other two that it was from a movie — and who Agent Romanoff was.

Vox avoided you mostly, which you chalked up to him thinking you were annoying. Good.

By the end of the first month, Velvette had you chilling with her while she worked, usually with you being the sounding board for her ideas.

More often than not, you had good ideas.

That little fact prompted her to throw you a sketch book, telling you to get to work.

You were getting paid to be there, so whatever.

When you weren't with Velvette, you were declining Valentino's countless invitations to sit with him while he worked — you wanted nothing to do with that. Porn wasn't really your thing, even when you were alive, but you had a bunch of friends who were super into it.

Instead you went out alone, claiming you were getting lunch for yourself. You'd get lunch, after making a few deals with wayward demons who would thrive under your influence.

That one particular day, you hadn't noticed either presence behind you, until a fight broke out, causing you to turn around to see Alastor and Vox going at each other's throats — and not in an interesting way.

You somehow broke it up just after Alastor cracked Vox's screen.

"Why the fuck are you here?" You bit out harshly, directed at the two overlords who now stood three feet apart like scolded children, neither pleased to be there.

"You left without saying anything." Vox crossed his arms.

"You hadn't reached out, my dear." Alastor hummed, distastefully glancing over at the TV demon.

You groaned, throwing your head back. "Listen, get the fuck over yourselves! At this rate, I answer to Velvette, not the two of you boomers. Got it?"

Alastors eyes began to twitch as static filled the air, whereas Vox's cracked screen glitched as you walked away.

Later, when Vox approached you, you noticed that his screen was fixed. That was good.

"Got a minute, [Y/N]?" He questioned.

You looked up from the sketch book in hand and nodded, mumbling 'sure' as you closed it. You were tired from the long day.

So his next question caught you off guard.

"Why do you do this to me?"

"Do what?"

"Why do you purposely piss me off? You get along with everyone else, yet you call me names and disrespect my entire existence. Why?"

You sighed, not really having a real answer. "That's just the way I am, how I've always been. . . And in my defense, I call everyone names. . . Not just you. So, don't think you're special, Box—"

"— Vox —"

"I'm a bitch to everyone, just most don't realize it because their bitch scale broke a long time ago. Now, go. I have shit to do that doesn't involve stroking your fragile ego."

Vox wasn't sure what it was, but he knew he was going to keep a closer eye on you. What was so different about you?

You were close enough in biological age to Velvette, yet while there were similarities, there were so many differences. . . He wasn't sure what to think about any of it. Especially with you climbing up the power ladder.

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fishenjoyer1 · 7 months ago

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Fish of the Day

Today's fish of the day is the spotted gar!

The spotted gar, known by scientific name Lepisosteus oculatus, is a common North American freshwater fish. Found across the South and Midwestern sections of the country, the spotted gar has a range stretching from South of Ontario Canada, to the Northern Gulf of Mexico. In Longitude their range is from Devils river in Western Texas to Florida, with particularly notable populations in the great lakes and Florida rivers. Within this range they can be found around clear and slow moving rivers and lakes, although they will put up with saltier brackish water, and areas with low dissolved oxygen. Spotted gars in particular are known for hiding along the shoreline, where they use vegetation as a cover from larger predators. However despite their large range, their numbers have been dwindling. Previously large populations of spotted gars, once found in Illinois their numbers have dwindled due to increasing lack of clear waters and habitat destruction by humans.

Gars themselves are an incredibly old living fossil animal, having evolved into existence 240 million years ago, in the middle Triassic period, they can still be found almost exactly the same as they were back then. There are only 7 extant species nowadays, spread almost equally across two families. The spotted gar in particular belongs to the Lepisosteus genus in particular, which it shares with the Florida gar, longnose gar, and shortnose gar. It can be visually distinct from these family members by the spotting patterns along the mature gars dorsal side. Other than the Lepisoteus genus, there is the Atractosteus genus, which is known for their ability to better withstand marine conditions, being made up of the alligator gar, tropical gar, and Cuban gar. Gars can be identified by the armored scales around their body and thin knife-like mouth. All gar contain a swim bladder that can be repurposed as a lung temporarily when not in oxygenated water, similar to many other living fossil fish from around this same time period.

Focusing once more on just spotted gar, their diet consists of fast moving prey. Primarily minnows, bluegills, sunfish, and other small fish in their shared environments.Other than fish, the gars diet is made up of freshwater shrimp, learvae, and other crustacean invertebrates. This diet supports them getting to a length of 2-3 feet, relatively small compared to other gar. Other than acting as a predator though, the spotted gar is predated on by larger fish, alligator, and heron. The life cycle of the spotted gar is like that of all other gar. Spawning occurs in the months of late spring to early summer from April-June, depending on sufficient water temperatures (70 degrees or higher) and amount of vegetation. Females can lay up to 20,000 eggs in a single breeding season but on average lay only 13,000. Like many gar eggs, these are adhesive and toxic to predators, taking only 10-14 days before hatching. over 80% of all fry hatched will die in this stage. But, of those who survive, they will sexually mature at an age of 2-4 years old, with most only living to the ripe age of 8-10. Although, in captivity some spotted gar have lived as long as 18 years before meeting their end.

That's the spotted gar, everybody! Have a wonderful day!

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arminreindl · 8 months ago

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Eocene gators and Miocene gharials

It's been a busy two-ish weeks for me once again with two "new" crocodilians dropping not even a week apart. These two newcommers couldn't be any more different, as you'll see soon enough.

The first of the two is not exactly a stranger, in more than one way. Sutekhsuchus dowsoni in truth has been known since 1920, when it was described as Tomistoma dowsoni based on fossils from Wadi Moghra in Egypt. Tomistoma being one of those genera that was a popular wastebasket for crocs. Broad snout and overbite? Alligator. Narrow snout? Tomistoma. Everything else? Crocodylus.

Tomistoma is still heavily affected by that, with the paper still referencing about half a dozen species of Tomistoma that are almost definitely not Tomistoma. In that regard, tho its not super new its fantastic to see that one of these Miocene circum-mediterranean forms finally gets its due (especially after having been unceremoniously been lumped into T. lusitanica for a while). Additional fun fact, the original "missinterpretation" as a species of Tomistoma is used as the basis for the new name, basically meaning "Set's crocodile" in reference to Sutekh/Set being god of deception.

Left: Sutekhsuchus by @paleomiguel Right: Sutekhsuchus by @manusuchus Go give them a follow

Another way in which Sutekhsuchus is not "new new" is that, intentional or not, the name was actually dropped a month ago without many people noticing. As has been pointed out to me by @paleomiguel, a recent paper on Eogavialis featured a phylogeny that contained Sutekhsuchus, a name I was not familiar with. However, the species name did ring a bell and after a brief search on google scholar I did find a reference to the then unpublished redescription.

Anyways, background aside Sutekhsuchus has some cool stuff going for it. Its anatomy is in some regards intermediate between the modern false gharial (which the paper regards as one of the basalmost gavialoids) and the Indian gharial (a highly derived weirdo). Ultimately, its just one of several species that lived around the broader Tethys Sea during the Miocene as part of a flourishing croc ecosystem. Given the warmer temperatures, it was in pretty good company. We know it from Gebel Zelten and Wadi Moghra, both of which preserve the bones of the robust Rimasuchus and the bizarre Euthecodon, both members of the Osteolaemines ("dwarf crocodiles", a name that makes more sense when you ignore these fossil forms). Both localities are interpreted as being somewhat coastal, consisting of lagoons, estuaries, slow moving rivers and surrounding forests.

Left: Rimasuchus attacking Zygolophodon by Michael Tripoli Right: Euthecodon arambourgi by yours truly

The other new crocodilian was much more of a surprise to me personally. Ahdeskatanka russlanddeutsche is a species of basal alligatorine from the Eocene of North Dakota. The genus name derives from the Dakota word for alligator, the species name references ethnic Germans that settled the region after emmigrating from the Russian Empire.

Ahdeskatanka via Cossette & Tarailo

It lived during the early Eocene in the Golden Valley Formation of North Dakota and in many regards resembles many early alligators of the time, having been small with a short and blunt snout and globular teeth well suited for crushing hard shelled prey.

During this time period North Dakota experienced the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum, an exceptional warm period that saw lush subtropical to tropical forests grow along the banks of meandering rivers and extensive swamps. Not great for mammalian carnivores but fantastic for crocodilians, of which there were plenty. The Golden Valley was home to at least 4. In addition to Ahdeskatanka there was a similar, possibly closely related unnamed form, a large crocodyloid similar to the ubiquitous Borealosuchus and the large caiman Chrysochampsa, a relic of a Cretaceous offshoot of the family.

Left: Borealosuchus by Wayne Hsieh Right: Chrysochampsa via Cossette & Tarailo

As always, here the respective Wikipedia pages and relevant publications

Sutekhsuchus: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutekhsuchus https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14772019.2024.2384548

Ahdeskatanka: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahdeskatanka https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2024.2403579

#Sutekhsuchus #Ahdesktatanka #Tomistoma dowsoni #Wadi moghra #Gebel zelten #Golden valley formation #Prehistory #eocene #Miocene #croc #crocodilia #Alligatoridae #Gavialidae #Palaeoblr #paleontology #prehistory #cenozoic

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buckybuckyboo · 2 years ago

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Bucky's home!!

Summary: You've been waiting for Bucky to get home from his mission. 3 months is a long time.

Word count: 1,510

A/N: All mistakes are my own. I DO NOT give permission for my work to be copied, translated or posted on other sites. Feedback is always welcome and I'd love to hear what you think! Should there be a part 2?

It's been a few weeks since Bucky had left for his mission with Steve but it comes with the territory. You just wanted him to come home in one piece. Hearing your phone chime and taking it out of your robe pocket, unlocking it, and seeing it's a message from Nat.

{text}: Hey killer! Fossil 1 and Fossil 2 are on their way home!

You giggle a little and text her back.

{text} Nat you're so mean! Thanks for letting me know x

Yes! He was coming home! After 3 long months, he's coming home but you knew he wouldn't be home straight away because he had his paperwork to do. As soon as you finished your thought your phone rang and your face lit up when you saw Bucky's name come up.

"Hi, baby! I missed you so much" You say softly into the phone and he answers with a groan

"My god sweetheart, you have no idea how badly I've wanted to hear your voice"

"Me too baby, are you okay? Are you hurt? Is Steve okay?"

"We are fine baby just some little scrapes, nothing to worry about"

"Will you be long at the tower?"

"I shouldn't be baby, Steve has offered to do the bulk of the paperwork. He's sick of me telling him how much I missed you" He chuckles.

"Aw baby, okay, I'll be here waiting for you my love"

"I love you sweetheart I'll see you soon, bye."

You were smiling so hard your cheeks hurt.

Going about your day as normal, doing some food shopping in case Bucky wanted something when he got home, although you were hoping he would only want you. Heading back home and putting the food away then heading upstairs to shower and change your clothes. Making sure to use Bucky's favorite body wash, he won't be able to keep his hands off you. Putting on some lingerie and one of Bucky's oversized t-shirts and heading downstairs to watch some TV until he came home. Making yourself some tea, grab a big fluffy blanket, settle in on the couch, and wait for your man to come home.

Some hours have passed and you haven't heard from Bucky. Looking at your phone to make sure you didn't accidentally put it on silent and miss his calls. Nope, nothing there. Leaving your phone back down on the coffee table, you lay down on the couch watching TV and eventually fall asleep. Some more hours pass and Bucky finally gets home. He come's into the house and it's dark, the light from the TV lighting up the living room. He peeks around the corner of the door and sees you asleep. His heart feels like it's going to melt in his chest at the sight of you. He's missed you so much. He quietly makes his way over to the couch and settles in behind you, pulling the blanket over himself.

He rested his hand on your leg and felt bare skin.

"Di you do this for me doll?"

Whispering into your ear. Bucky pulls you back so you are laying flat on your back pulling your leg up over his so he has access to your pussy. Pulling back the blanket to see your lingerie.

"Fuck" he whispers. He gets off the couch and kneels in front of you slipping your panties off and hooking your leg over his shoulder. Running his finger through your folds, he feels you shift on the couch.

"Feeling needy my love? Don't worry, Daddy's home and I'll take good care of you"

Bucky slowly drags his tongue through your folds moaning at your taste. You let out a sigh feeling something between your legs, you lift your hips off the couch and grind against his face.

"That feel good baby girl? I bet it does. You better be dreaming about me" He jokes and goes back to sucking on your clit.

Bucky watches you as he flicks his tongue against your clit making you jerk your body. Your moans bringing you out of your sleepy state, looking down and seeing Bucky between your legs almost makes you cum right there. Biting your bottom lip as you run your fingers through his hair.

"Why hello sleeping beauty"

Smiling down at him. "I'm sorry baby, I tried to stay awake for you"

"It's okay sweetheart, now if you don't mind I'm a little busy here" He smirks and goes back to sucking on your clit and pushing a finger inside you and curling it.

Throwing your head back on the armrest of the couch you let Bucky do his work. You missed his mouth on you so much. You could feel your orgasm rising as you moved your hips against him.

"Oh fuck Bucky please don't stop! I'm so close!"

He knows when you say that, that he's not to go any faster or slower. Just stay in the same rhythm. You cum all over his face in a loud moan. He holds your hips still never stopping his tongue.

"Oh fuck! Fuck! My god Bucky!"

Bringing you through your orgasm, he slowly licks through your folds cleaning up your mess. He kisses up your body removing your t-shirt and pulling your bra down to suck on your nipples.

"Oh, Bucky I missed you so fucking much! Please fuck me"

He leans up fumbling with his belt and the button on his jeans. You sit up kissing him sweetly and taking his Hanley off, kissing his chest as your hand disappears into his jeans stroking his cock.

"Fuck I missed you so much too baby" Smiling up at him as you free his cock from his boxers and took his tip into your mouth. The moan that leaves his mouth is almost pornographic. Taking him deeper into your mouth and moaning around him.

"I'm sorry baby girl but I can't wait any longer"

He lays you down on the couch, pushing his jeans down as he climbs on top of you lining himself up at your entrance and slowly pushing in.

"Fuck, baby! I missed the feeling of you around my cock"

"I missed you inside me, baby, my fingers weren't enough, needed you, needed your huge cock inside me"

"Oh yeah? Baby girl needs to be stuffed good huh?"

"Yes Daddy please stuff me full of you"

"Fuck baby girl you drive me fucking crazy"

He leans in kissing you fiercely while filling you to the hilt with his cock. Your breath hitches, feeling the stretch of your pussy around his cock. three months is way too long for Bucky to be away from you, if you could, you would hide in his backpack to be with him. Thinking about that didn't matter now, he's home.

"Please baby don't go easy I need to feel you"

He groans at your words, burying his head in the crook of your neck as his cock slowly slides out of your aching pussy and he slams back in, hard, making you almost scream out.

"Fuck! Yes baby just like that"

Wrapping your legs around him, your hands running through his hair pulling on it as you come closer to your release.

"That's it baby you squeeze me all you want"

He whispers against your skin, sucking and biting at your neck leaving those sweet marks of him that you love looking at in the mirror after.

"Please Daddy, want you to fill me up. Missed being so full of you"

Moving your hips to meet his as you both moan.

"I'm gonna cum baby, you gonna cum with me?

"Yes, Daddy! Feels so fucking good!"

His hands hold your hips in place as he slams into you again and again. Pushing his cock deep inside you as you both cum. Your pussy milking his cock for all it's got. You feel him twitching inside you. Both of you are out of breath as he kisses you.

"I missed you so fucking much baby girl"

"Really? I couldn't tell" You giggle and kiss him again.

"You seem like you've been pent up baby, you couldn't relieve yourself on your mission?"

"I tried to baby but it just wasn't the same, even watching porn doesn't even help. I just always need you"

"What if we made our own?"

Bucky shifts on the couch to look at you.

"What?"

"What if we made our own little video, just for you to watch"

"Are you sure doll?"

"You would have to be very careful with it but if it helps when you're away"

"I promise baby, nobody will see it"

It's been a few days later and you're sure Bucky has forgotten your little chat about making a little sex video. You wait for him to come home, when he enters the front door, he sees you standing in your silk robe.

"Welcome home baby, we have a sex video to make"

You undo your robe reviling black lingerie. His eyes grow wide at the sight of you.

"Let's go, big boy"

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes smut #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky x y/n #bucky fanfic #bucky smut #sabastian stan #beefy bucky

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thehopefuljournalist · 2 years ago

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This article isn't solely about the environment, but some of the things there are, so I'll summarize them for you :)

Bhutan and India boosted tiger numbers

According to Bhutan's latest tiger census, tigers have increased their population from 103 to 131 since 2015 - which is a rise of 27 per-cent.

This follows the country's major interventions to help the wild tiger population, including community based tiger conservation programmes, habitat improvement and human-wildlife conflict management projects.

Tigers are, of course, still at risk, but Bhutan's dedication to help and preserve their population is inspiring.

India has also reported a six pre-cent rise in their wild tiger population since last year. The country is believed to be populated by 3,682 tigers now.

Germany’s €49 travel pass

A part of a green new policy in Germany, a €49 (£42)-a-month pass allowing unlimited travel on buses and trains in Germany.

This will result in about 25 per-cent rise (per year) in the numbers of people choosing public transport instead of cars - a low carbon way of transport (according to the national rail operator Deutsche Bahn (DB)).

The Deutschlandticket launched on 1 May as a plan to lower the cost of living and encourage people to take the train instead of driving.

It seems to already have some great results: The Association of German Transport Companies says that almost 10 million people had used the pass by the end of June. DB has also said that trains to holiday destinations were busier this summer.

UK crop yields rose despite a fall in fertiliser use

New data from the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) revealed that UK crop yields rose last year, despite a sharp decline in fossil fuel fertiliser use. Many believed that these fertilisers were necessary, but this data proves that belief wrong.

According to Defra, wheat, barley, oilseed rape and sugar beet yields rose by 2.4 per cent in 2022, while fertiliser use fell by a reported 27 per cent.

These artificial fertilisers are made using natural gas, and because the prices soared in 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, farmers had to either use much less of them, or embrace more natural alternatives.

England’s plastic bag charge was hailed a success

Since the government in England forced supermarkets to charge 5p a plastic bag, there's been a 98 per-cent reduction of single use plastic bags.

That’s according to figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which introduced the charge in 2015, then increased it to 10p in 2021.

Environmental campaigners welcomed the figures, but urged the UK government not to row back on other green policies, including a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles and rules to make plastic producers contribute to clean-up costs. Both policies have been delayed until 2025.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Let me know, what good news have yo read or heard about lately?

#climate change #climate #hope #good news #more to come #climate emergency #news #climate justice #hopeful #positive news

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mrtequilasunset · 2 months ago

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I was scrolling thru your blog and since your DE / Animal Crossing post was below that weird anon I thought they were just. really mad about your Animal Crossing assignments. Like "how dare you put this out there Coco would NOT be Ruud!!"

Anyway, if you didn't know there is a yellow hippo with sorta muttonchops facial hair named Harry in ACNH, he has lived on my island for months. Every day I give him expensice fossils and yet he has not gifted me his portrait. Why. Just let me love you Hippo Harry 😔

Honestly maybe they were THAT mad about disco crossing like it's hard to say on this site

Anyways I almost put Harry as Harry but beardo just spoke to me esp with his suit and tie and bush. Sorry he hasn't given you his portrait tho have you tried offering him speed

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ochrearia · 9 months ago

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More RGBFverse shenanigans

I wanted to write a one-on-one with Beefer (cs!BF) and Yourself. cs!BF is one of my versions of BF, from my Fossil Fighters AU that I'm totally NOT neglecting rn. It's okay. Also Peacock (SFA!BF) is mentioned like once and he belongs to Shed!!! yeah

Caeru jumpscare.

Coming into his room to find he was not alone was the last thing Yourself had originally been expecting. But he supposed when he’d made the choice to tell his other selves they were allowed around whenever they needed, paired with their better versions of mirror-walking, there were going to be times where he came home to find obnoxious intruders. Beefer was the only one here this time, so at least it wasn’t everyone at once. YS would rather be notified ahead of time if everyone was going to show up. He didn’t mind one or two.

“Most people would, you know, send a text telling me that they’re coming to visit. I’m not prone to experiencing heart attacks when I’m surprised and find something that wasn’t here when I left.” YS snarked lightly, falling into the usual banter that would normally go on. Though when he crossed the room, he could tell something wasn’t right. “You okay?”

Beefer was curled rather pathetically around himself on YS’s bed, eyes half-lidded and sad. “Slipped away, for a little bit. Things are still… bad, with my situation. Feels like it never ends, like one day stretching out over months and months and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“It’s not your job to fix something you didn’t cause.” YS said slowly, moving to sit next to him on the bed. “Has nothing really changed? Haven’t you gotten to talk to your Pico and Cherry by now?”

“Hah. As if. Living on the run now, I have to be jumping through puddles to mirror-walk. At least any reflection works… They don’t know I’m gone. Maybe that’s for the best anyway. I don’t know how to talk to Pico right now, and Cherry… I messed up, she saw. My Alectro convinced me to vent to them and I didn’t originally mean to fall asleep after, but I did. They told her everything. I didn’t want to give her more guilt, she already has enough. I can’t talk to them.”

Making a face, YS extended his hand out and let it rest gently on the top of Beefer’s head. “Venting is good, you know. I told you not to bottle shit up. It’s not healthy. You clearly need someone to talk to but you’re not letting yourself have that. Someone that isn’t one of your dinosaurs. Vivosaurs? Is that what they’re called?”

“Yeah.” Beefer sighed, shifting slightly. “Vivosaurs. They’re better listeners than you might think. I know you can’t understand them, only Dinaurians can. But… that’s kind of why I came here. I’m pretending to be okay with being changed into something completely alien. Pretending. But I don’t really have anyone else who’d understand that. Pico is… complicated. I don’t know if I can trust him right now. So that leaves you.”

“Me, huh?” YS chuckled softly. “Well, I’ll do my best to understand then.”

“You do understand.” Beefer looked him in the eyes with an almost unnerving look. “Takes one to know one, YS. I’m not human anymore. And you never were.”

The taller one stiffened. “How…?”

“Do I know that?” The Dinaurian finished the question. “Maybe it’s a Dinaurian thing. They spend so much time disguising themselves to look human, using technology to create physical lies. Something about that makes it second nature to see through fake humans. Instinct, maybe. You look human but you’re not. You’re supernatural. Not necessarily in the same category as an alien, but still not human. Peacock is too, but he’s new to this whole fucked up family thing. You’re a better choice.”

“I… don’t follow on how I would understand your predicament the way you’re implying.”

“You’ve lost your wings, haven’t you?” Beefer asked bluntly. “I’ve seen the way the muscles on your back move sometimes. Like an old habit. Trying to move something that’s no longer there. Where I have gained, you have lost. Both changed in an instant to be something unfamiliar.”

Well that was… uncomfortable to say the least. YS hadn’t really been planning to tell any of the others about his whole fallen angel thing, and realistically he didn’t want to talk about the way he lost his wings to begin with. Secrets weren’t the greatest things to keep, especially from yourself, but it was a traumatic event and he was more than within his rights to choose not to reopen that wound. Didn’t seem like he could avoid it anymore, not with this self at least.

Beefer took his silence as a go-ahead to keep talking, though. “Maybe it’s not the same really, but… I don’t have anyone else. I really can’t justify saying I have Pico right now and Cherry doesn’t get it. Is- does it get any better? You seem to be more or less tolerating the fact you’ve lost something important to your body. You know you’re not the same anymore but you seem to handle it way better than I do, and- please tell me it gets better. I feel so fucking alien and it’s like… yeah, I literally am an alien now. God, I don’t really know how to word this. I don’t feel like myself.I feel like I’m a spectator in my own body. It’s probably dysphoria and I really didn’t think I would ever experience that, and it’s weird because sometimes I look at myself and I don’t mind. I don’t mind because I know I did this to myself, deciding to be a fucking idiot and almost get myself killed. And sometimes the features really are cool. But then I think again, and suddenly everything is so fucking suffocating. You know it still hurts?”

YS blinked, trying to process everything. “Hurts? What hurts?”

Beefer sighed, grabbing onto his shoulder and pulling up the sleeve of his Dinaurian suit. The suit was designed to camo as the skin underneath, always throwing the rest of them for a loop, and it was weird to see it peeled back like a second skin. It seemed like even the suit had its limits on what to mimic as, though, because rolling the sleeve back revealed a nasty patch of a scar in the shape of a dinosaur’s fang. He looked between YS and his arm as he continued speaking. “It wasn’t exactly painless. Kind of like a vaccine booster but 100 times worse. I didn’t have to focus on it for long because I was busy throwing up all the poison that was literally killing me, but… sometimes it still hurts. And it reminds me every time it does. Cherry offered to let me use the human disguise device, but that feels awful in my head too. Because it’s a disguise. It’s not me anymore.”

This… was a first. Yourself had tried to get the alien to open up more about how this had happened, he only really knew bits and pieces. Knowing how gruesome and traumatic it actually was, he was surprised how well he was pretending to hold it all together really.

“Please just- tell me it gets better. I know you don’t know the future, and you don’t know everything. But you’ve had extreme changes to your body too. Just tell me it gets better. Tell me that with time I’m not going to constantly flip between being numb and accepting of this and violently hating myself the next second. I don’t know what I’m doing-”

Having heard more than enough, YS shook his head and pulled Beefer in for a tight hug. “Shit, man, you have it so much worse than I thought. Sorry. I- I don’t think I know how to really help you. That’s… a first.” He paused. Of course he didn’t know how to help. He didn’t have an experience like this. Having your wings torn off was one thing, but he still at least looked like himself in every other aspect. Beefer had gone through an entire body transformation just to keep himself alive. “It… it can get better. I’ve never really gotten over losing my wings, and I don’t think lying and saying I have will do any good. Not for you. Losing a part of yourself is never not going to be tough. And you feel like you’ve lost all of yourself, not just a part. Am I correct?”

Beefer nodded into the taller’s shoulder. His arms were curling around his back, funnily enough right below where YS knew his long healed scars were. Nails were bunching up parts of his shirt, but he didn’t care.

“I can’t pretend to know what that’s like physically. But I think it can get better. This is all still very recent for you and a lot more traumatic than you’re letting yourself think about. And the way you talk about your Pico and Cherry, you’re not letting yourself have a support network either. Because, what? You think they’ll only feel more guilt? Push you away more? I’m still pissed at your Pico to be honest but that’s not really my place or relevant right now. What I’m saying is let yourself have some time. Time to process. Mourn what you’ve lost and then work on going forward.” YS sighed, worrying his lip. “The rest of us BFs are normally just… shitters, really, because that’s just how we are. But I know all of them have the capacity to care and want to care. If you really need someone to talk to I think asking any of them would be successful. And yeah, none of us are going to know fully what to say. You’re the only instance so far that is a dinosaur alien. Dunno if there’s gonna be any more but. I would say hopefully not, but maybe I should say hopefully so. At least that way you’d have someone who knows exactly what you need.”

The two fell into silence, and for a moment YS wondered if he was really at all helping. But he could feel the smaller start to melt against him, mainly out of exhaustion. He was clearly tired, holding in a lot more than he was letting on. Having been cut off from any sort of comfort when he desperately needed it.

“It’s funny.” Beefer said after a while, not moving his face away from where he buried it into the crook of YS’s arm. “You really remind me of my brother, the more that I think about it. He’d probably say the same thing.”

Never has his blood felt like it froze faster than it had done now. Yourself’s grip tightened, seemingly unnoticed by Beefer- or he just didn’t care. His jaw clenched. “Brother…?”

“Yeah.” Beefer said, finally pulling away a little. “My brother. Shit, I didn’t mention him before did I? Oh… I haven’t seen him since everything happened either. He’ll be worried sick about me I think… But yeah. I have an actual adopted older brother. Caeru, that’s what he insists on being called. You remind me of him so much. He kind of looks like you too, honestly. Just like, way cleaner and put together.”

Caeru. Does this idiot think I’m fucking stupid? Latin for blue? YS thought bitterly. Well, maybe ‘idiot’ was rude, but he wasn’t talking about Beefer. He was talking about ‘Caeru’. BFs don’t have brothers aside from Ritz in some cases. Not a single world I’ve looked into has ever mentioned having a brother named Caeru. That’s not a brother. That’s another BF, and that’s not just any other BF. That’s a fucking ME, isn’t it? Using Latin?

“You alright? You’ve gone silent.” Beefer asked. “Something wrong?”

YS startled quickly, burying his thoughts and lying once again. “No, nothing. It’s fine. Just… thinking. Look, take as much time as you need here for now. I don’t mind.” Fucking stay out of your world when another one of me is fucking running around and apparently pretending to be your brother. Jesus christ.

He’d hoped there weren’t other versions of him that aligned with him specifically. So there really was more than one universe where something happens, something so devastating they became a Yourself kind of BF, huh? And Beefer clearly didn’t know. So that one was lying more egregiously. That was dangerous. Protect Beefer. Oh, what am I saying, Beefer can handle himself. I just don’t trust another instance of me that’s like me. Guess there’s another I have to keep tabs on without alerting this one of his brother being a liar.

#RGBFverse #Im actually diabolical for putting relevant Category Six lore in this shit. Wtf is wrong with me

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vyva-melinkolya · 5 months ago

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hiiii i met you at your show in louisville in august(best night ever) and i was just wondering what some of your fav spots in louisville are? i moved here like 6 months ago and am always looking for cool places to explore and new things to do!

1# favorite spot in louisville that my heart calls out to every day is the skatepark. it was my favorite part about living there that last few years before i moved to PA. even if u don’t skate check it out. was a lot cooler before it had a curfew tho, almost felt like an autonomous zone.

other places:

Big Rock/Bear Grass Creek

the really tall hill in Iroquois park where u can see the whole city from

the parts of waterfront park that are overgrown

all of Old Louisville

idk if bars are your thing (not my thing anymore) but you should check out Kaiju. tons of lovely people hang there, would make friend almost every night and my bestie bartends there. mag bar is cool too if you like listening to Metal/want a very traditional “dive” feel. btw if you ever go to Taproom (not worth it anymore imo) watch your drink, please.

downtown there’s a free museum called 21C that’s pretty cool, they have neat art installations and it’s open pretty much all day/night

if driving’s your thing, this is going to sound cliche but, driving I65 south through downtown always gives my mood a little lift. just be careful driving it north bc it’s very easy to accidentally end up in southern indiana (which is lovely but kind of annoying if that’s not you’re destination)

speaking of southern indiana. Falls of the Ohio fossil beds are really cool.

that’s all i can think of rn. i don’t live there anymore but i still love the city deeply/ will always be “home”

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covid-safer-hotties · 10 months ago

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How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On COVID - Published Dec 22, 2021

Almost 3 years out from publication, and we can see the very real effects conservative dark money has played on public health in general, even for the liberal. (They never shift left for some strange reason.) Might be something to show your vote-blue-no-matter-who unmaskers in your life.

As Omicron surges, a shadowy institute filled with fringe doctors appears to be part of big business’ two-year strategy to legitimize attacks on pandemic interventions.

Earlier this month, as the Omicron variant began to spread, a small liberal arts school on a tree-lined campus in Michigan called Hillsdale College announced it was launching an Academy for Science and Freedom to “educate the American people about the free exchange of scientific ideas and the proper relationship between freedom and science in the pursuit of truth.”

The academy was inspired by the pandemic. “As we reflect on the worst public health fiasco in history, our pandemic response has unveiled serious issues with how science is administered,” noted the college president in a press release.

But the venture isn't exactly an effort to apply science to the COVID-19 crisis. The so-called “fiasco” was government pandemic measures like mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing, and lockdowns.

Hillsdale is a conservative Christian institution with ties to the Trump administration. And the scholars behind the academy — Scott Atlas, Jay Bhattacharya, and Martin Kulldorff — are connected to right-wing dark money attacking public health measures.

The trio also has ties to the Great Barrington Declaration, a widely-rebuked yet influential missive that encouraged governments to adopt a “herd immunity” policy letting COVID-19 spread largely unchecked, even as the virus has killed more than 800,000 Americans.

The academy is the newest initiative designed to provide intellectual cover to a nearly two-year campaign by right-wing and big business interests to force a return to normalcy to boost corporate profits amid a pandemic that is now surging once again thanks to Omicron.

That campaign’s most recent success came earlier this month when Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats joined together to pass a symbolic measure to repeal a Biden administration rule requiring large corporations to mandate vaccines or regular COVID tests for workers.

This is the story of how that corporate-bankrolled campaign originally started, and how it has continued to supplant public health experts and hijack the governmental response to the pandemic.

The War On Public Health When COVID began its spread across the United States in early March 2020, states responded by locking down to varying extents. All 24 Democratic governors and 19 of the 26 Republican governors issued weeks-long stay-at-home orders and restrictions on non-essential businesses.

Lockdown measures drove down cases in the U.S. and likely saved millions of lives globally. But the decline of in-person shopping and work, combined with factory shutdowns in places like China, disrupted the economy. A 2020 report from the corporate consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found the hardest-hit industries would take years to recover.

One sector in particular that took a big hit was the fossil fuel industry. Oil demand fell sharply in 2020, placing the global economy on uncertain footing.

Before long, business-aligned groups — particularly those connected to fossil fuels — began targeting the public health measures threatening their bottom lines. Chief among them were groups tied to billionaire Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held fossil fuel company in the world.

The war on public health measures began on March 20, 2020, when Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing nonprofit founded by Charles and David Koch, issued a press release calling on states to remain open.

“We can achieve public health without depriving the people most in need of the products and services provided by businesses across the country,” it read.

A month later, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a business lobbying group partially funded by Koch Industries, published a letter calling on President Donald Trump to enable states to reopen. That letter was signed by over 200 state legislators and “stakeholders,” including leaders from Koch-funded groups like the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the James Madison Institute.

To fight its war, the Koch network also relied on the astroturf roadmap behind the anti-government Tea Party movement, using its dark money apparatus to coordinate anti-lockdown protests.

Participants for a number of anti-lockdown rallies were recruited by FreedomWorks, a dark money group tied to Charles Koch instrumental in organizing Tea Party protests in 2009. Several of the 2020 rallies were also promoted by the Convention of States Action, a group founded by an organization with ties to the Koch network and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer that wants to rewrite the U.S. Constitution. In Michigan, a major event was organized by the Michigan Freedom Fund, a nonprofit funded by the family of Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos.

Groups funded by the Kochs and their colleagues also turned to a more insidious form of combat adapted from Tea Party strategies: building an academic and intellectual network that would create and promote its own “science” to attack COVID mitigation policies.

“Build Up Immunity… Through Natural Infection” On October 4, 2020, the Great Barrington Declaration was released to the world. Authored by Stanford University professor Jay Bhattacharya, former Harvard Medical School professor Martin Kulldorff, and Oxford University professor Sunetra Gupta, the declaration recommended governments allow younger, healthier people to become infected with COVID-19 while reserving “focused protection” for the vulnerable, in order to reach herd immunity. Suggestions included having nursing homes limit staff rotations and businesses rely on workers with “acquired immunity.”

“The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection,” read the declaration.

The document boasted a veneer of academic legitimacy. Its credentialed authors wrote the letter at a conference hosted by the auspicious-sounding American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. According to the declaration’s website, the letter has since been signed by more than 2,700 “Medical and Public Health Scientists,” and “none of the authors or co-signers received any money, honoraria, stipend, or salary from anyone.”

But the declaration arose out of the world of right-wing dark money and corporate interests, and many of its signatories aren’t verified.

AIER, which hosted and filmed the conference and registered the declaration’s website, is a Koch-tied libertarian think tank. From 2018 to 2020, the Charles Koch Foundation donated more than $100,000 to the institute. And before that, the Koch Foundation donated nearly $1.5 million to the Emergent Order Foundation, formerly Emergent Order LLC, a PR firm that engaged in hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of marketing consulting for AIER.

AIER has also received $54,000 from the Atlas Network, an anti-regulation group formerly known as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation that has received more than a half million dollars from the Charles Koch Foundation and the connected Charles Koch Institute. The Atlas Network also pocketed nearly $3.9 million from DonorsTrust, a dark money fund connected to wealthy right-wing donors such as Koch and Mercer, and its sister group, Donors Capital Fund.

In exchange, AIER has provided fellowships to academics in several Koch-funded programs. That includes economist Peter Boettke, the former president of the Mont Pelerin Society, of which Charles Koch has been a member, and Michael Munger, an adjunct scholar at the Koch-backed Cato Institute. AIER’s trustees include Benjamin Powell, director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University, which has received millions from the Koch network. Powell is known for his defense of sweatshops.

Bhattacharya, co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, is a former research fellow at the Hoover Institution, which received $430,000 from Charles Koch’s foundation between 2017 and 2018, as well as $1.4 million from the dark money fund DonorsTrust from 2016 to 2020. Since then, Bhattacharya has appeared in multiple Hoover video programs.

Bhattacharya, Gupta, and representatives of AIER did not respond to requests for comment. Kulldorff insisted that he has never received money from the Koch network.

“Koch-affiliated foundations funded pro-lockdown COVID research by Dr. Neil Ferguson at Imperial College, but they have never funded me, either directly or indirectly,” said Kulldorff. “Lockdowns have generated huge profits for Koch and other big businesses while throwing children and the working class under the bus.”

“Access To The Very Highest Levers Of Government” The Great Barrington Declaration and its natural immunity strategy were widely derided by scientists around the world. The strategy was condemned by the Infectious Diseases Society of America and its HIV Medicine Association while World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it “unethical.” Thousands of medical professionals called on governments to disregard strategies that rely on natural infection.

“Never in the history of public health has anyone suggested infecting the entire population with a pathogen with which we have no long term experience as a strategy for managing a pandemic,” said epidemiologist and physician Robert Morris, who has advised several federal agencies.

Nevertheless, the declaration and its authors were embraced by a number of political leaders, since their arguments provided their laissez-faire approaches to the pandemic with scholarly validity.

This list included President Trump. Two months before the release of the Great Barrington Declaration, Trump welcomed the document’s authors to a White House meeting, even though the administration’s COVID-19 advisor, Deborah Birx, warned colleagues that the doctors were “a fringe group without grounding in epidemics, public health, or on-the-ground common sense experience.”

Trump’s COVID-19 adviser, Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no background in infectious diseases, appeared to be one of several staff who supported the declaration’s strategy. While Atlas has denied urging the natural immunity approach, he publicly claimed that masks do not help curb the virus and called the idea of mandating vaccines for young people a “denial of science,” a claim that has been thoroughly disproved.

The president became enamored with herd immunity and the quick fix it promised for his reelection campaign. In mid-September 2020, Trump began trotting out the concepts that would soon be codified in the Great Barrington Declaration. He declared at an ABC News town hall, “And you’ll develop��a herd mentality. It’s going to be — it’s going to be herd-developed, and that’s going to happen.”

Following Trump’s lead, a number of Republican-led states adopted hands-off pandemic strategies.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered the resumption of most commerce in November 2020, including indoor dining, and barred localities from enforcing mask mandates and social distancing.

Declaration co-author Bhattacharya advised DeSantis on his approach and called the governor “extraordinary” for his handling of the pandemic. Last month, DeSantis signed legislation banning vaccine mandates statewide.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifted his state’s mask mandate and COVID business restrictions in March 2021. The next month, he declared Texas could be close to herd immunity. Recently, Abbott issued an executive order banning mask mandates, which a federal judge recently ruled unenforceable because it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Great Barrington Declaration’s central arguments also found support overseas. In September 2020, co-author Gupta met in London with U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had been slow to impose lockdowns and implement testing after the coronavirus was first identified in his country. A month after this meeting, Johnson sent a series of texts echoing talking points from the declaration, including that the virus wasn’t a real risk to people under 60.

The London meeting was also attended by Anders Tegnell, the state epidemiologist for Sweden, a country that became well known for its rejection of lockdowns. In April 2020, Sweden’s public health director asserted, “There is no clear correlation between the lockdown measures taken in countries and the effect on the pandemic.”

“You have to hand it to the [authors of the] Great Barrington declaration: They have had extraordinary access to the very highest levers of government,” said Gavin Yamey, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of global health and public policy at Duke University. “They have had a profound impact on policy-making. Time and time again, we’ve seen the [people behind the] Great Barrington Declaration get what they want.”

A Devastating Toll Despite the Great Barrington Declaration’s claim that it was delineating “the most compassionate approach” to COVID-19, states and countries that embraced its anti-interventionist strategy have all experienced a COVID massacre.

At the time of the declaration’s publication, roughly 200,000 Americans had died from the virus. Since then, that number has quadrupled, the highest known number of any country.

Florida has become a COVID-19 hotspot, accounting for nearly one in five U.S. cases last summer. Virus numbers also surged in Texas, with the two states accounting for one third of all U.S. COVID-19 deaths at the time.

Even with all those infections, herd immunity was never achieved. Last week, University of Texas researchers warned that the Omicron variant could lead to the largest surge to date in the state.

International efforts to reach natural herd immunity haven’t fared much better. A scathing report released in October by British lawmakers — many from Prime Minister Johnson’s own party — found that the country’s failure to respond to the virus quickly and aggressively was “one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced” and led to “many thousands of deaths which could have been avoided.”

And in Sweden, where roughly 11 out every 100 people had been diagnosed with the virus, COVID-19 fatalities stand at 1,476 deaths per million, many times that of its closest neighbors.

“We Are Intent On Not Letting Omicron Disrupt Work & School” Despite the costs, right-wing messaging against public health measures continues.

At first glance, lockdowns may appear beneficial to some big businesses, especially those that were deemed essential businesses and boasted robust online marketplaces. But social epidemiologist Justin Feldman, of Harvard’s FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, noted that “some regulations directly cost businesses money.”

Feldman explained that “paid quarantine and isolation means workers will be paid to stay home instead of working,” vaccine mandates could “make hiring difficult during a labor shortage,” and mask mandates “signal to the public that there is danger and they will then not patronize businesses.”

That’s likely why in March 2021, the dark money fund DonorsTrust spent nearly $800,000 to spread the narrative that the pandemic’s toll was actually due to government interventions. In May, DonorsTrust issued a press release claiming lockdowns hurt workers.

In June, Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank at George Mason University heavily funded by the Koch family, began funding a database run by Emily Oster, an economist who has argued that the drawbacks of school closures outweigh the risks of COVID-19 exposure. Oster’s work was cited by Gov. DeSantis when he signed an order last August allowing parents to defy school mask mandates.

And earlier this month, the Foundation for Economic Education, another Koch-funded nonprofit, claimed that “naive government interventions” were responsible for a rise in global malaria cases and a spike in worldwide poverty.

Such anti-public health intervention narratives have had a lasting impact.

President Joe Biden hasn’t embraced herd immunity through infection the way Trump did, and he instituted a vaccine mandate for large companies that has faced court challenges and pushback from Republican and conservative Democratic lawmakers.

But Biden, whose COVID-19 response team is headed by former investment firm CEO and so-called “businessman’s businessman” Jeffrey Zients, has continued his predecessor’s push to keep the country open, even prematurely declaring “independence” from COVID-19 on Fourth of July last summer.

Earlier this month, Biden assured reporters that lockdowns would not be returning, despite the emergence of the Omicron variant and continued spread of Delta. According to a recent scientific simulation, an eight-week stay-at-home order in response to the new surge could save 300,000 lives.

Last Friday, the White House’s coronavirus response team put out a statement reaffirming its limited approach, a stance Biden reiterated in his remarks on Omicron on Tuesday: “We are intent on not letting Omicron disrupt work & school for the vaccinated.”

The defeat of lockdowns is only part of big business’ takeover of the country’s COVID-19 response.

The country’s eviction moratorium was allowed to lapse after it faced multiple legal challenges funded in part by the Charles Koch Foundation — at the same time as Charles Koch began making new investments in real estate. A subsequent moratorium put in place by the Biden administration was also struck down by the Supreme Court.

And while one of Biden’s first presidential promises was to clarify COVID-19 workplace safety standards, the resulting guidelines ended up limited to a small subsection of workers, following months of lobbying by business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber and other corporate interests have also pushed for a corporate liability shield to protect employers from COVID-19-related lawsuits and have also been fighting against ongoing efforts to release the vaccine intellectual property at the World Trade Organization to speed up global vaccination.

The right-wing push against public health measures shows signs of success. Support for pandemic lockdown measures dropped significantly over nine months from the start of the pandemic. A Gallup poll from November 2020 found that a plurality of 49 percent of Americans said they would shelter in place in response to a serious outbreak, down from 67 percent in March. The decline was mostly due to a “sharp drop” among Republicans.

“A Shining City On A Hill” The Great Barrington Declaration’s authors continue to push herd immunity through COVID-19 infections. Gupta co-founded a U.K. nonprofit called Collateral Global dedicated to exposing alleged negative impacts of COVID mitigation measures, which has Bhattacharya on staff.

Bhattacharya, meanwhile, published an op-ed last January claiming that vaccinating people in his native India was “unethical” because most had “natural immunity” and the risk of adverse reactions outweighed the benefits of inoculation. A month later, the country experienced its worst-ever surge.

All three co-authors are also now affiliated with the Brownstone Institute for Social and Economic Research, an Austin, Texas-based nonprofit founded by former AIER editorial director Jeffrey Tucker in May 2021 to prevent “the recurrence of lockdowns.” Bhattacharya serves as the organization's senior scholar, Kulldorff is a senior scientific director, and Gupta is an author.

According to Yamey at Duke University, the institute has been actively promoting vaccine disinformation.

“Time and time again, they have peddled dreadful misinformation and disinformation about vaccines,” he said. “They are, for example, vehemently opposed to vaccinating children, even though we know that unvaccinated children are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized. They very sadly went on television to say that health workers don't need to be vaccinated because they falsely claimed vaccination has no effect on transmission.”

Now declaration co-authors Bhattacharya and Kulldorff, as well as former Trump advisor Scott Atlas have surfaced yet again, as the first three “fellows” at the new Academy for Science and Freedom at Hillsdale College.

Hillsdale, a private non-sectarian Christian school, has long been a factory for conservative thought. In 2016, during a Hillsdale commencement speech, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called it a “shining city on a hill.” Statues of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher adorn a section of its campus known as “Liberty Walk.” Hillsdale President Larry Arnn chaired Donald Trump’s reactionary 1776 Commission, which sought to craft American history curriculums around America’s strengths.

Hillsdale refuses to accept public funds so it can be free from government mandates. Instead, it accepts large sums from the foundations and donor conduits of right-wing corporate executives and their families. The Charles Koch Foundation has donated over $300,000 to Hillsdale since 2015, and DonorsTrust gave over $3.6 million since 2014, including $2.5 million in 2020. The school has also found generous benefactors in the DeVos family, known for their Amway fortune, and Betsy DeVos’ parents, the Princes.

According to the academy’s recently launched website, the new academy will work “to educate policymakers and the general public about important discoveries and ideas that might otherwise be ignored by scientific journals and corporate media.” To do so, the academy plans to host scientific workshops and conferences, publish academic papers, and engage in “media and government outreach.”

But Feldman isn’t buying it.

“They have no interest in science,” he said. “They have been wrong about the pandemic time and time again. They use their stature as 'experts' to push for policies that are indifferent to ongoing mass death.”

#covid #mask up #pandemic #covid 19 #wear a mask #coronavirus #sars cov 2 #still coviding #public health #wear a respirator

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bestanimal · 3 months ago

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Round 3 - Mammalia - Lagomorpha

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our Our next mammalian order and first of the clade Glires is Lagomorpha. Lagomorphs are separated into two living families: Leporidae (“rabbits”, including “hares”) and Ochotonidae (“pikas”).

Lagomorphs are characterized by having four incisors in the upper jaw (smaller peg teeth behind larger incisors), whereas rodents only have two. Like rodents, their incisors grow continuously, requiring constant chewing on fibrous food to prevent the teeth from growing too long. All lagomorph teeth grow continuously (for most rodents, only the incisors grow continuously). They have no paw pads, instead, the bottoms of their paws are entirely covered with fur. Rabbits move by jumping, pushing off with their strong hind legs and using their forelimbs to soften the impact on landing. Lagomorphs are almost strictly herbivorous. Pikas are known for making "haypiles" of dried vegetation which they collect and carry back to their homes to store for use during winter, since they do not hibernate. Lagomorphs are widespread around the world and inhabit every continent except Antarctica. However, they are not found in most of the southern cone of South America, in the West Indies, Indonesia, or Madagascar, nor on many islands. They are not native to Australia, but have been introduced there by humans.

Lagomorphs are unusual among terrestrial mammals in that the females are usually larger than males. Many lagomorphs breed several times a year and produce large litters. The young of rabbits and pikas (called kits, or leverets in hares) are born after a short gestation period and the mother can become pregnant again almost immediately after giving birth. Most lagomorph newborns are altricial (born with no fur and their eyes and ears closed), while true hares (genus Lepus) are precocial (born fully furred with their eyes and ears open). The mothers are able to leave their kits safely and go off to feed, returning at intervals to feed them with their unusually rich milk. In some species, the mother only visits and feeds the litter once a day but the kits grow rapidly and are usually weaned within a month. Most burrowing lagomorph species are colonial, feed together in groups, and have multiple large litters throughout the year. Non-burrowing species are typically solitary and have one or two smaller litters each year.

The evolutionary history of the lagomorphs is still not well understood. In the late 20th century, it was generally agreed that Eurymylus, which lived in eastern Asia and dates back to the Late Paleocene or Early Eocene, was an ancestor of the lagomorphs. Further examination of fossil evidence suggests that the lagomorphs may have instead descended from mimotonids, mammals present in Asia during the Paleogene with similar body size and dental structure to early European rabbits such as Megalagus turgidus, while Eurymylus was more closely related to rodents. The Leporids first appeared in the Late Eocene and rapidly spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The pikas appeared somewhat later in the Oligocene of eastern Asia. Today, lagomorph lineages seem to be declining, as they were far more diverse in prehistory.

Propaganda under the cut:

The smallest living leporid is the Pygmy Rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis) (image 3) with adults weighing between 375 and 500 grams (0.8 and 1.1 lb), and having a body length between 23.5 and 29.5 cm (9.3 and 11.6 in). The Pygmy Rabbit is the only leporid native to North America that digs its own burrow.

Unlike many other rabbits, the critically endangered Riverine Rabbit (Bunolagus monticularis) has a low breeding rate of only one to two offspring per year.

The Riverine Rabbit provides a benefit to farmers by causing the riverine vegetation that it eats to bind to the soil and prevent soil erosion through flooding. Through this process, the vegetation allows for filtration of rainwater into groundwater. This benefits farmers, who rely on windmills to draw up water from the ground for their livestock.

The endangered Hispid Hare (Caprolagus hispidus) is only seen sporadically, and was thought to be extinct prior to its rediscovery in Bornadi Wildlife Sanctuary in 1971. It was not seen between 1984 and January 2016.

Many rabbits and pikas rely on their burrows to escape from predators, but the long-legged hares (genus Lepus) rely on their speed and jinking gait to escape from danger. Hares can run up to 80 km/h (50 mph) over short distances.

Some hares turn white in the Winter, to better camouflage against the snow.

In the Spring, the normally shy and solitary hares can be seen congregating and members of both sexes will have leaping and “boxing” competitions. During the mating season, males will not only box to compete over females, but females may box to dissuade males they don’t want to mate with, or test a male’s determination and fitness. This sudden rise in chasing, leaping, and boxing behavior gave rise to the idiom "mad as a March hare".

The European Hare (Lepus europaeus) is one of the largest lagomorph species, with a head and body length of 60 to 75 cm (2 to 2.5 ft), and added tail length of 7.2 to 11 cm (2.8 to 4.3 in). Its body mass is typically between 3 and 5 kg (6.6 and 11 lb). It is rivaled by the Alaskan Hare (Lepus othus) which can measure between 50–70 centimetres (1.7–2.3 ft) in length, with the tail measuring up to an additional 8 centimetres (3.1 in), but weighing between 2.9 to 7.2 kg (6.4 to 15.9 lb).

The Snowshoe Hare (Lepus americanus) and the Arctic Hare (Lepus arcticus) (image 1) have been known to occasionally scavenge dead animals. This is an adaptation to their Wintry environment, where nutrients are scarce.

Mountain Hares (Lepus timidus) are routinely shot in the Scottish Highlands both as part of paid hunting "tours" and by gamekeepers managing Red Grouse (Lagopus scotica) populations (who believe that Mountain Hares are vectors of disease that could affect the birds). Much of this activity is secretive, but investigations have revealed that tens of thousands of hares are being culled every year.

At the Yangjiesha site of Loess Plateau, there has been found evidence of neolithic humans taming local Tolai Hares (Lepus tolai).

One of the rarest lagomorphs in the world is the Sumatran Striped Rabbit (Nesolagus netscheri). It was so rare that locals did not have a name for it, or even for rabbits, as they had never seen it. It is rarely observed in camera traps and by scientists. Nevertheless, in 2022 officials scrambled when a farmer was caught attempting to sell a Sumatran Striped Rabbit he caught in a flash flood on Facebook. Kerinci Seblat National Park authorities confiscated the rabbit and returned it to the wild.

Domestic Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus domesticus) were domesticated from European Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) for their fur and meat by the Romans around the 1st Century BC, though “house rabbits” only began to be strongly promoted around the 1980s. Today there are hundreds of rabbit breeds originating from all over the world. Domestic Rabbits can be trained to use a litter box and taught to come when called, but they require exercise and can damage a house or injure themselves if it has not been suitably “rabbit-proofed”, because of their innate need to chew. Rabbits are the third most abandoned pet in the United States, especially after the Easter holiday. Domestic Rabbits, bred for generations by humans to be docile, lack survival instincts and perish in the wild if they are abandoned or escape from captivity.

The endangered Amami Rabbit (Pentalagus furnessi) (image 2) is often called a “living fossil”, as it is a remnant of ancient rabbits that once lived on the Asian mainland, where they died out, remaining only on two small Japanese islands where they live today. They are threatened by invasive Domestic Cats, Dogs, and Small Indian Mongooses (Urva auropunctata).

When threatened, the Swamp Rabbit (Sylvilagus aquaticus) can leap into the water and swim, sometimes keeping only their nose and eyes above the water.

Lagomorphs can process easily digestible food in their gastrointestinal tract and expel it as regular feces. But, in order to get nutrients out of hard to digest fiber, lagomorphs ferment fiber in their cecum (in the GI tract) and then expel the contents as cecotropes, which are then reingested (cecotrophy) or stored for later. The cecotropes are absorbed in the small intestine to best utilize the nutrients.

The Sardinian Pika (Prolagus sardus) went extinct sometime between 393 BC and the 6th century AD. It was the last surviving member of Prolagus, a genus of lagomorph with a fossil record spanning 20 million years once widespread throughout Europe during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. The Sardinian Pika was much stockier and more robust than living pikas, and it probably resembled a sort of cross between a large wild rabbit and a pika. Its extinction was possibly due to agricultural practices, the introduction of predators (dogs, cats, and ferrets), ecological competitors (rodents and rabbits), and/or transmission of pathogens by rabbits introduced to Sardinia and Corsica by the Romans. Today, only the pika genus Ochotona remains.

The Chinese Red Pika (Ochotona erythrotis) is one of the largest pika species, averaging a length of 18 to 29 cm (7-11.4 in). They have both a Winter and Summer pelt. In the Summer, the Chinese Red Pika has a coat that is rusty-red at the head and chest and fades into grey towards the tail. In the Winter, the pika is mostly grey with a slight tint of red in the ear region.

The Ili Pika (Ochotona iliensis) is also known as the “Magic Rabbit”. It is endangered, with approximately fewer than 1,000 left.

Collared Pikas (Ochotona collaris) have been known to store dead birds in their burrows for food during winter.

The Steppe Pika (Ochotona pusilla) has been called a relict of the Late Pliocene on the basis of its fossil record, molar structure, karyological traits, and mtDNA sequence data. During the Pleistocene its range was larger and included most of Europe.

The endangered Hoffmann's Pika (Ochotona hoffmanni) is not social, except for with its mate. Pairs will claim territory together and share a hay-storage, which they store together. They are very territorial of their claimed rock formation.

In the mountains of Eurasia, pikas often share their burrows with snowfinches (genus Montifringilla), which build their nests there.

#animal polls #round 3 #mammalia

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