#going extinct

[kensatou]

good thing from jp twitter this week is queen of old man yaoi michiru sonoo discovering the term old man yaoi

update: somehow it got impossibly more wholesome

quick translation: おかえり: welcome home あ 終わった 終わった: ahhh, it's over! it's done! コ��ヒー? お茶?: coffee? tea? コ~ヒ~ ありがと: coffee, thank you~ ネクタイレア★★ ネクタイ取るレア★★★★: seeing him with a tie on, rarity level ★★, seeing him take a tie off, rarity level ★★★★ にあうな~: it suits him~

also please do follow: AraigumaSha: sensei's twitter account marureviere: maru, who does such valuable work highlighting bl manga for an international audience

[mollyeep]

how r u people bullshitting this still like "ughhhh i hate this" eats it anyway

[gothamite-rambler]

Damian (nearly crying): I just saw a video about manatees and they're really nice... and some sharks don't want to eat them because they're so nice.

Damian sniffled, getting sadder as he talked. Bruce and the others weren't sure what to say.

Damian: They don't have the gene in their brain to be mean!!!

Damian hugged his father, moaning as he tried to smother his emotions.

Damian: And they're endangered... and I'm emotional! Why can't we have good things, baba? Why?!

Bruce (patting his son the head while feeling uncomfortable with the hug): It's the... Circle of life.

Dick (shaking his head): Lion King? Really?!

Damian (muffled): Now... I'm thinking about how Simba's dad died protecting him! Baba hold me!

Bruce: I'm here... I'm here. And if anyone has their phone out please take a picture.

Tim and Stephanie were already recording the incident as Bruce slowly enjoyed the hug from his son although he had yet to explain why the animal kingdom is dangerous and sad at times.

[pantheratigrisaltaica]

'some zoos pair their cheetahs up with dogs' is one of the worst things to have ever blown up on tumblr

[pmd-explorersofspace]

A Cartographer's Dream

[milkywayes]

space monkey x earth dinosaur costumes purchased off space temu (a subdivision of elkoss combine)

[emacrow]

First, It was Barb was doing night checks on wayne manor cameras surveillance pt 2

Previous post pt 1

She was in a bit of awe when she saw the newest very rare exotic flower Alfred got bloom under the light of the full moon, revealing beautiful crystallized like petals blossom, only for her widening eyes to take noticed of a tiny little pixie like child to pop his little head out of the center of the flower.

His hair was unnatural white fluff like a dandelion in her opinion, eyes glowing an otherworldly green, freckles that sparkle like the stars themselves, ears a bit long and pointy, wearing a odd clothing with a needles strapped to his back, that she could barely catch in camera, the static buzzing sound from her cameras was making it a bit difficult to hear what sound the tiny little fairy boy made as he floated above zooming around the garden a bit like he was excited.

It made barb's inner child squeals, screaming, flipping her tiny princess table at the possibly of Nederland being possible.

Curious little bug, floating around like the fairies in Disney like except of the Glow pixie dust like she seen on the movies, he left a trail of blueish green light that faded away rather quickly with the way he was flying into the slightly opened kitchen's window...

Wait a goddamm minutes..

Barb immediately switch cameras to the kitchen, looking around, only to see it went through the hallway already, switching cameras again, checking the living room, the hallways, only to catch a glimpse of trail glow zooming around.

Crap crap. OK, no need to panic Barb. What do curious pixie like fairies out in the human world.. bring the season right?!, play with children like that Bell fairy did? Finds and take lost things and secretly repair lost things?..! Fairies are weak without pixie dust, they don't live long without it, each fairies has a different part of the seasons, and if you don't believe in them then they immediately die and that cause imbalance in the world without their influence unless you truly believe in fairies to bring back one fairy.(she went through a whole fairy obsession phase as a kid, she still mourns the lost of the create your fairy open world game)

The fairy must've Found a new type of pixie dust to fly without wings if she could recall that one sequel with the new pixie dusts colors thing..?

It was like a game of Where Waldo except where the little mythical fairy boy that couldn't possibly- no no barb don't think about the taboo words, if you think about it and this poor mythical being dies due to your words then the guilt will haunt you Forever.

3 hours in the catch the glimpse of the fairy boy, flying back at to his little flower holding a tiny cube of sugar, a shiny tiny object that she can't get a clear of, and a plump blueberry the size of his little head as he lands in the petals that were closing around him. Crystallized back close as if to guard this little fairy being with its own life.

Right when the full moon glimpse was gone out of the sight of the garden from the sky when the smog cloud from the city covering once more.. Barb is writing that down in her notes..

Part 3 link Here <-

[shark-a-day]

Todays shark is...

The Helicoprion!

Fun Fact: They lived during the Permian age approximately 290 million years ago!

[valyrfia]

while i don’t think wag bashing is EVER acceptable i do sometimes think we need to care less about them as a society. i am worried with this backwards slide i see happening especially amongst younger fans about obsessing over wags/wanting to be them and i think it ties into the cultural slide towards tradwife content/conservatism but you didnt hear it from me

[leftexpertbread]

Bumblebee after receiving the command of the Autobots because nobody knew if Optimus was alive or not. But he shouldn't be the leader because he can't decide between waffles and pancakes and now he's wondering why the hell the Autobots chose him for the leadership role if he can't even make the most simplest choicest without internally breaking down and Optimus you better be alive or I swear on our dead friends I'm coming for yo-

[mikasa-imadebiscults]

Optimus Prime as a Father Figure Hcs

(A/N- You can imagine any version of Optimus Prime like the g1 series, movies, etc. I hope y’all enjoy this wholesome post)

(Warning: Random platonic and wholesome hcs)

- He’s good at giving advice, though it honestly depends on what you need advice about. He’s always there to listen if you ever need to talk.

- He always lets you know that you can count on him for anything.

- The other Autobots are like brothers to you, especially Bumblebee. Sometimes you all will be hanging out, having fun, and Prime will watch over y’all with a smile on his face.

- Speaking of the other Autobots, they are protective of you. Not overly protective but like in a big brother way, y’know?

- Optimus will take extra precautions to ensure your safety. Since you’re close to the Autobots, the Decepticon’s might plan to capture you as bait or some other heinous plan. He’ll be damned if he lets Megatron hurt you.

- Sometimes when the both of you have free time to spare, y’all and some of the others will watch the sunset together or stargaze. Sharing stories and hanging out.

- Speaking of sharing stories, Optimus has some interesting stories. They’re mainly about Cybertron and fighting but still entertaining. He also tells you what it’s like back on his planet.

- A good listener. He’ll listen to you ramble and talk about your interests/hobbies. Even though he may not completely understand it.

- Doesn’t know slang at all so when he hears you say any type of slang he’ll be confused. He’ll ask you what it means and will sound like a grandpa too.

- If you’re ever going through some mental health issues, he’ll ask about your symptoms and what you’re diagnosed with. So that he can do some research on how to help and support you.

..

[spookyratking]

i've been trying to experiment and find a style i like for my cosmo becuase i love him so much my bautfil man.

[mammoth-clangen]

So, first off, as a paleontologist… thank you for that rant. It’s been driving me up the wall that people are going “oh look we revived the dire wolf using gray wolves!!” Even if you ignore the whole issue of de-extinction wolves aren’t even the closest living relative! Jackals and African wild dogs are more closely related to it, and they aren’t anywhere close to being in the same genus.

And of course, de-extinction is a whole other issue. Why are they so focused on the mammoth? At least the thylacine went extinct about a hundred years ago so the niche could still be there. But still, why focus on them? If you want to de-extinct something, why not focus on, oh I don’t know, the northern white rhino which still has two living members for sequencing and who have a living subspecies.

And further more, it’s genuinely cruel to bring most of these back. You think a wooly mammoth that lived in the last glacial maximum would be happy in todays climate that is consistently getting hotter? You think the dodo would appreciate the fact that it’s one habitat has been mostly destroyed? You think the thylacine would enjoy trying to outcompete the dingos that have moved into its niche? No. They wouldn’t.

For the mammoths, it’s especially cruel since they are herd animals and you’d need to clone a lot of them at one time for them to be happy.

And I mean, look. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to see these creatures alive. As unlikely as it is, I keep a sliver of hope that the thylacine might still be out there. But that doesn’t mean de-extinction is good. Like it or not, they went extinct for a reason. Yes, that reason may be because of humans, but it is still a reason. You bring them back and they’ll go extinct again unless they are given extreme protection.

They need to focus on living creatures or, if they are desperate to bring something that’s completely extinct back, focus on creatures that have gone extinct within the last two decades.

Ugh, sorry for the mini rant but as someone who understands extinction (including the current Anthropocene mass extinction), bringing things back is not the way to go. I can point to multiple genuses that went extinct for a good reason.

Hello fellow palaeontologist! 🤝 My area of study was actually Dromornithid ichnotaxonomy but carnivorans are holding me hostage nowadays, it seems...

Unfortunately, you have fallen prey to another (thankfully, less insidious) piece of misinformation! Dire wolves aren't wolves, but they are no more closely related to Jackals or African Wild Dogs!

Aenocyon is an outgroup to all wolf-like canids, jackals included!

I've seen the Aenocyon/Lupulella/Lycaon relatedness touted often, and am guilty of repeating it myself before I re-read the paper.

A possible reason for this confusion that African jackals are considered the most basal of the extant, wolf-like canids; as seen on the cladogram above.

Therefore, the ~5.7million year old common ancestor of Aenocyon and the wolf/jackal/dhole lineage would likely have looked more like a jackal. Then Aenocyon convergently evolved a very wolfish skeleton because of their similar lifestyles!

This is also why I chose to reconstructed my Aenocyon with a shoulder patch, seeing many canids seem to have some sort of cape marking.

The 2021 paper that concluded the dire wolf isn't a wolf at all, is unfortunately paywalled :/ Without full access to the paper it's hard to be sure exactly where Aenocyon fits within the larger Canidae family tree (if they discussed it at all), but the abstract describes them as having "an early New World origin".

It seems they were a true outgroup to modern wolf-like canids, being the earliest branching member of Canina! They're not too different from sabercats, in that way.

Also if anyone is following the ongoing edit war on the Dire Wolf Wikipedia page, I beg you to ignore the "taxonomy based on morphology" section. It is only useful as a historical reference for how we used to view Aenocyon dirus as Canis dirus for a long time. Current science supports these morphological similarities being convergent, contrary to what Colossal Lies are being told...

---

I already partially addressed Mammoths (and the issues with their herds inbreeding) in this other ask, but I do agree completely with your points.

Having the GMO wolves raised without another older wolf or dog parental figures is frankly, just cruel. Any vet will tell you hand-reared and imprinted animals are significantly more prone to behavioural issues down the line. Mammoths would be worse again, because unlike Romulus and Remus, there is no chance of even having a twin to keep them company.

And yes; What could possibly go wrong with bringing back a polar-adapted, woolly proboscidean, into a world where even winters are getting progressively warmer?

I too, would love to see extinct animals in the wild. I'd be lying if I said I don't secretly hope for many of them to pull a coelacanth on us. But sadly, I don't think that's likely, and nor do I think we should be trying to make it happen.

---

Hank Green brought up something poignant about this dire wolf debacle, which is that extinction is not as simplistic as we imagine it to be. It's not just the death of a species.

"It's the destruction of a space in the natural environment for a species."

And that is really it, you can't just "bring back" an extinct species, because you aren't bringing their niche back with them.

Successful reintroductions of species that were locally extirpated or made entirely extinct in the wild have only worked because effort was put into securing a niche and ecosystem that had been lost.

And even well-planned, well-funded reintroductions struggle, but at least they understood the assignment.

Colossal, on the other hand, seems to think that adding back their very-roughly-wolf-shaped 'jenga block' to the ecosystem 'tower' will completely stop the collapse. But the real 'collapse' is caused by habitat destruction, and no amount of GMO wolves, mammoths or thylacines can stop that.

Bringing the species in to save the ecosystem is climbing ass-first up a tree. We need to save the ecosystem for the species. And all this is still ignoring the sad truth for a lot of extinct animals:

For many of them, there is no 'tower' to save.

[rocketbirdie]

a moment of silence

[feather-bone]

This is the devil’s hole pupfish! A tiny species that lives only in One water-filled limestone cavern in Nevada. It was one of the first animals on the endangered species list. At the last count in 2022 there were 263 pupfish observed - the most in 19 years! They’re tracked pretty carefully, as their 215 square foot habitat (the smallest of any know vertebrate) is fragile and has been disturbed in the past by groundwater extraction and other human interference.

[ID: an illustration of a shiny metallic blue fish, the male devil’s hole pupfish, facing to the right. It is on a lighter blue background with a ripple pattern. End.] l

[shark-a-day]

Todays shark is...

The Winghead Shark!

Fun Fact: They have a wing-shaped head which is nearly or quite half of its body length, the function of which is uncertain, maybe for manoeuvring or for increasing the surface area of some the sense organs!