Weird Animals

re: Ibex, y'all really missed out on the "They crave that mineral" meme?

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/882/052/483.png

new one on me. i am all for more ibex memes.

Glow in the dark shark dropped, at nearly six feet long it is the largest known bioluminescent vertebrate

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56256808
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/174D/production/_117356950_fmars-08-633582-g003.jpg

separately, cuttlefish show more restraint than gen xers
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/cuttlefish-can-pass-the-marshmallow-test/

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/this-sea-slug-can-lose-its-head-and-regenerate-new-body-in-three-weeks/

yeah, i kept meaning to post that. what a fuckin' weirdo!

The urutaú, or ghost bird, is known for its cry similar to a human wail and is rarely seen during the day. pic.twitter.com/s90dQld7y8

— 🌊🌊Raymond Alvarado, LLM🌊🌊 (@Raymond_LLM) March 9, 2021

Thirsty worms done in by their thirst: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cone-snail-venom-sea-worms-pheromones

That Cornetto looks tasty.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/hundreds-of-new-and-unusual-insects-discovered-in-the-amazon-canopy-feature?loggedin=true
super beautiful images here

and one more
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/skeleton-photos-getting-boost-gelatin-fluorescent-light

\m/__OO__\m/

http://i.imgur.com/1Y2sT35.png

old, but wow

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-thoughts-of-a-spiderweb-20170523/

https://www.amnh.org/calendar/pteropods

Geologist Rosie Oakes will introduce us to the world of pteropods–tiny ocean creatures that migrate more than 650 feet (200 meters) every day from the surface to the bottom of the sea. Find out about the function of these fascinating critters within the larger ocean ecosystem, as well as their daily struggles as they fight predators, currents, and pollution in order to survive, in this family-friendly presentation.

Join the Facebook watch party on Thursday, March 25, at 2 pm ET, or view on this page at the designated time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/science/blackwater-photography-fish-larvae.html
This whole deep-sea photography piece is a delight but especially

http://i.imgur.com/BeRYITs.png

... which i am recommending people start posting as a meme to any music discussion where they're fed up with the dialogue

Who sez scientists don't have a sense of humor?

Microscopic wasps are weird:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb5Q-wQh4GI

https://gizmodo.com/these-mutant-rabbits-walk-on-two-legs-and-geneticists-1846562358

Ok, that's a weird one

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_fit%2Cf_auto%2Cg_center%2Cpg_1%2Cq_60%2Cw_965/io3s71xgqcor9iliz1py.png
come on now
https://gizmodo.com/adorable-porg-pterosaur-flapped-above-jurassic-china-1846696801

Lots of pterosaurs in the news lately: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/monkeydactyl-jurassic-pterosaur-oldest-fossil-opposable-thumbs

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/conservation-cant-just-be-a-popularity-contest

Save the Numbat!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coyix7w4u_c

also:
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/n0bdch/the_tallest_mallard_duck_to_have_ever_lived_since/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/science/instagrammable-bird-frogmouth.html

“I thought this method, the I.A.A. score, will be a great tool to investigate bird photographs in terms of aesthetic appeal and inform people which birds are the most photogenic,” said Dr. Hayn-Leichsenring, also a postdoctoral researcher at University Hospital Jena. “Or possibly, I just wondered why nobody likes my own bird photographs.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/05/giant-wood-moth-found-queensland-australia-school
fuuuuu
http://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f12614c6b69bbf1443fd074f37c55d4b1557a64f/0_54_720_432/master/720.jpg

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
http://i.imgur.com/nrubdtl.png

Content 4 U

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2021/5/5/22408390/crazy-jumping-worms-invasive-earthworm-garden-soil

https://www.kqed.org/science/468582/the-once-in-a-lifetime-ladybug-love-in

http://livescience.com/marine-worm-with-100-butts.html

https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/552711-beachgoer-stumbles-on-rarely-seen-deep-sea

Also the polybutt worm definitely makes our threat to make a quiz out of weird animal butts that much closer to reality.

butts ahoy

Now more than ever

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/05/evolution-butts/618915/

ICYMI

Fungus full of psychedelic drugs could cause Indiana Brood X cicadas' butts to fall off

it's a hot butt summer

Yeti crabs eat bacteria:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgH0ThP0qtY

Hoatzins, the clawed (barely) flying cows of birds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HytWfqWYUQ

Yeti crabs eat bacteria

Who amongst us etc etc

and LO! there came THE TEETH OF THE WANDERING MEATLOAF to make your 3D printer more efficient

http://i.imgur.com/9VwBSme.png

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/science/mollusk-wandering-meatloaf-santabarbaraite.html

The gumboot chiton is not a glamorous creature. The large, lumpy mollusk creeps along the waters of the Pacific coast, pulling its reddish-brown body up and down the shoreline. It is sometimes known, not unreasonably, as “the wandering meatloaf.” But the chiton’s unassuming body hides an array of tiny but formidable teeth. These teeth, which the creature uses to scrape algae from rocks, are among the hardest materials known to exist in a living organism.

Now, a team of scientists has discovered a surprising ingredient in the chiton’s rock-hard dentition: a rare, iron-based mineral that previously had been found only in actual rocks. Tiny particles of the mineral, which is strong but lightweight, help harden the root of the mollusk’s teeth, the researchers reported in the journal PNAS on Monday.

I should have been a meatloaf, wondering the floors of silent seas

good shots in here
https://www.bigpicturecompetition.org/2021-winners

Vocal mimicry is reasonably common in birds, but European starlings are particularly gifted mimics. As this clip shows. Just incredible. https://t.co/pbfGD8sT9b pic.twitter.com/9sLenFJ1az

— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) June 5, 2021

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-sea-snot
charming

Sea snot is more scientifically known as “marine mucilage,” and it’s an ecosystem of its own. In a 2009 paper in the journal PLOS One, a team of scientists led by Roberto Danovaro, a marine biologist at Italy’s Polytechnic University of Marche, described it as a “gelatinous” stage of marine snow, the jumble of organic material—such as feces and fragments of dead plants and animals—that drifts from the surface to the ocean floor.

The snot is produced by a bunch of microorganisms, one Turkish research team explained in a UNESCO bulletin called Harmful Algae News, especially microalgae known as diatoms. These petite algae are known to exude polysaccharides, sugary carbohydrates that can get quite sticky. Sampling sea snot that clotted several locations in the Sea of Marmara in 2007 and 2008, the researchers also identified species of dinoflagellates and more.

welcome to my nightmare
i think you're gonna like it

📹 Watch a moray eating on land, caught on video for the first time!

🎣While most fish need water to feed, a new study by @ucsc researcher Rita Mehta has found that snowflake moray eels have an extra set of jaws in their throats that allows them to grab & swallow prey on land. pic.twitter.com/Pf6Wi4EbCn

— UC Santa Cruz Science (@UCSCscience) June 14, 2021

More wombats and their butts: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/04/wombats-deadly-bums-how-they-use-their-skull-crushing-rumps-to-fight-play-and-flirt

i had no idea!

that moray video blew up thanks to a clever headline which i won't bother repeating and i got annoyed at everyone forwarding it to me.

You should repeat it.

Sigh:
When an eel climbs a ramp to eat meals from a clamp that’s a moray

Ah, it’s ok.

I loved that headline, I did not forward it to anyone tho.

Beavers are kinda weird, but mostly just awesome. And this story rules.

A dry California creek bed looked like a wildfire risk. Then the beavers went to work

Seven years ago, ecologists looking to restore a dried-out Placer County floodplain faced a choice: Spend at least $1 million bringing in heavy machines to revive habitat or try a new approach.

They went for the second option, and turned to nature’s original flood manager to do the work — the beaver.

The creek bed, altered by decades of agricultural use, had looked like a wildfire risk. It came back to life far faster than anticipated after the beavers began building dams that retained water longer.

“It was insane, it was awesome,” said Lynnette Batt, the conservation director of the Placer Land Trust, which owns and maintains the Doty Ravine Preserve.

“It went from dry grassland. .. to totally revegetated, trees popping up, willows, wetland plants of all types, different meandering stream channels across about 60 acres of floodplain,” she said.

The Doty Ravine project cost about $58,000, money that went toward preparing the site for beavers to do their work.

In comparison, a traditional constructed restoration project using heavy equipment across that much land could cost $1 to $2 million, according to Batt.