― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:56 (nineteen years ago) link
Can we get more than a name and pic, like say, a brief description of what makes its awesomeness?
xpost Michael do you mean analogous?
― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:56 (nineteen years ago) link
Naked mole rat.
― Alba (Alba), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:03 (nineteen years ago) link
Yes, but my brane is sputtering.
― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Maria D. (Maria D.), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:53 (nineteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:53 (nineteen years ago) link
― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Friday, 30 July 2004 21:57 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.reefed.edu.au/images/25-7-6.jpg
If one of these stings you, you die. The solution: wear stocking material. Transvestitism has never been so adviseable.
― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:26 (nineteen years ago) link
I know there was another one, but I think it's extinct now.
That's the rhea which I believe is situated in South America. There was a gigantic flightless bird, something like 15 feet tall, but I think it went extinct during the Ice Age or summat.
― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:42 (nineteen years ago) link
― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 22:51 (nineteen years ago) link
But the tiny males are just a bag of sperm and yolk and have no mouth or gut. Instead they live inside the female, and survive on the store of yolk inside their own fatty bodies. Some large females have over 100 males living inside them.
― oops (Oops), Sunday, 1 August 2004 17:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― Gear! (Gear!), Sunday, 1 August 2004 17:47 (nineteen years ago) link
Kick ass!
― Wooden (Wooden), Sunday, 1 August 2004 18:13 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.chaparraltree.com/photos/pp-nudibranch-med.jpg
These are nudibranchs.
― Wooden (Wooden), Sunday, 1 August 2004 18:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Sunday, 1 August 2004 19:41 (nineteen years ago) link
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 1 August 2004 21:40 (nineteen years ago) link
You have seen that Simpsons episode? I've often wondered about that myself.
― the music mole (colin s barrow), Sunday, 1 August 2004 21:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 1 August 2004 21:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 1 August 2004 21:54 (nineteen years ago) link
― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 1 August 2004 22:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 1 August 2004 22:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 1 August 2004 22:09 (nineteen years ago) link
― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Sunday, 1 August 2004 22:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 1 August 2004 23:15 (nineteen years ago) link
quokkas are kinda weird, like a cross between a rat, a wallaby and a meerkat
― gem (trisk), Sunday, 1 August 2004 23:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― gem (trisk), Sunday, 1 August 2004 23:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― Wooden (Wooden), Sunday, 1 August 2004 23:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― Wooden (Wooden), Sunday, 1 August 2004 23:24 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.abrolhosbat.com.au/images/quokka_small.jpg
― gem (trisk), Sunday, 1 August 2004 23:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 2 August 2004 00:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― Kenan (kenan), Monday, 2 August 2004 00:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― gem (trisk), Monday, 2 August 2004 02:01 (nineteen years ago) link
These eels freak me the fark out.
In fact all those weirdy deep-sea creatures do. How do we know they're not aliens or something!?
― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 2 August 2004 02:04 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.abc.net.au/science/ocean/monsters/img/squid.jpg
― gem (trisk), Monday, 2 August 2004 02:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Monday, 2 August 2004 02:06 (nineteen years ago) link
a toast! to beans!
https://catsasscoffee.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/coffee-luwak-plantation.jpg
(image mostly unrelated)
― Aloysius's delicious dishes of vicious fishes (cat), Tuesday, 7 February 2023 01:03 (one year ago) link
https://i.ibb.co/tHyyDzp/image.png
― 龜, Tuesday, 7 February 2023 02:23 (one year ago) link
oh whoops, didn't see your post about millipedes!
― 龜, Tuesday, 7 February 2023 02:24 (one year ago) link
you mean like this?
https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2017/01/06/08/beansontoast1.jpg
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Tuesday, 7 February 2023 02:54 (one year ago) link
I am okay with eating millions of insects before i die as long as they're dead and they don't catch in my throat and don't taste bad
― POLIZISTEN VERSINKEN IM SCHLAMM (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 7 February 2023 04:02 (one year ago) link
and aren't poisonous or spoiled and make my breath smell bad or any other monkeypaw catches
― POLIZISTEN VERSINKEN IM SCHLAMM (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 7 February 2023 04:03 (one year ago) link
https://lifehacker.com/deter-garden-pests-naturally-with-a-diy-caffeine-spray-486055048#:~:text=Gather%20any%20or%20all%20of,placing%20into%20a%20spray%20bottle.
― | (Latham Green), Tuesday, 7 February 2023 17:45 (one year ago) link
Ed Yong, you rogue:
"That’s why our stories and myths are so full of characters who can transfer their consciousness into the bodies of animals—the Norse god Odin, for example, or Bran from the once-popular series Game of Thrones."
― Shartreuse (Leee), Tuesday, 28 February 2023 22:25 (one year ago) link
still traumatized by that wasp post fyi
last week i was ripping apart some dates and came across one with that freaky granular interior thing going on, wondered "what's up with that" and remembered fig wasps before i could stop myself
was putting dried fruit in my tea this morning, noticed unidentifiable fruit bits* floating to the top and remembered again
* they were fruit bits. this is settled. this is canon. i did not drink bug tea. i did not. no.
― peaceful abiding clamness (cat), Wednesday, 1 March 2023 16:50 (one year ago) link
I thought about it while eating out of this big jar of spiced fig preserves, but I mean... it's extra protein, right?
― beard papa, Wednesday, 1 March 2023 19:06 (one year ago) link
It's usually well absorbed into the fig is my understanding so you're probably not eating wasp thoraxes.
To take your mind off of fig wasps, how about a worm with a hundred butts, each with their own sets of eyes and brain, that can detach and swim around to find mates?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9632hMjUr00
― Shartreuse (Leee), Sunday, 5 March 2023 02:35 (one year ago) link
i applaud this enigmatic worm with all of my butts
― the royal y'all (cat), Thursday, 9 March 2023 06:37 (one year ago) link
https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/643305f12500005c00822afe.jpg
Texas park officials are facing quite the conundrum after a “mystery animal” was caught on camera inside a South Texas state park.
Badger?
― Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 10 April 2023 21:12 (one year ago) link
that is obviously a chupacabra
― Perverted By Linguiça (sleeve), Monday, 10 April 2023 21:42 (one year ago) link
Behold the Dracula ant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9E-vO4Pkgs
See also https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dracula-ants-snapping-jaws-are-fastest-known-appendage-any-animal-180971061/:
The force generated by this action is so great that it can stun or kill prey, which the ants then feed to their larvae. According to Hannah Devlin of the Guardian, adult Dracula ants cannot eat solid foods, so they survive by feasting on the blood of their well-fed young. This behavior is known as “non-destructive parental cannibalism” because it doesn’t kill the larvae; it just leaves them “full of holes.”
― Sid Bream You My Love (Leee), Friday, 5 May 2023 00:44 (one year ago) link
oh dag is that not how parenting is supposed to go
― De Smurfführer (cat), Friday, 5 May 2023 00:54 (one year ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/science/contagious-cancer-shellfish-dna.html
Contagious cancers in mollusks, which are some of the few examples of multicellular animals evolving into single-celled organisms (see also: Tasmanian devils, and doggos):
Beata Ujvari, an evolutionary ecologist at Deakin University in Australia who was not involved in the study, said that the massive mutations might be explained by the way the contagious cancers reproduce. Instead of combining two sets of DNA from a shellfish egg and sperm, the cancers clone themselves.In that way, they’ve become more like bacteria than animals. And like bacteria, they might try to beat their competition — other cancers — by mutating faster, Dr. Ujvari said. She noted that the new cockle study revealed that two different contagious cancers will sometimes invade a single animal.
In that way, they’ve become more like bacteria than animals. And like bacteria, they might try to beat their competition — other cancers — by mutating faster, Dr. Ujvari said. She noted that the new cockle study revealed that two different contagious cancers will sometimes invade a single animal.
― Hoisted by your own Picard (Leee), Thursday, 5 October 2023 18:48 (seven months ago) link
There's hope for chuds:
In the lab, researchers produced images of alternating dark and light stripes, representing the mangrove roots and water, and used them to line the insides of buckets about six inches wide. When the stripes were a stark black and white, representing optimum water clarity, box jellies never got close to the bucket walls. With less contrast between the stripes, however, box jellies immediately began to run into them. This was the scientists’ chance to see if they would learn.After a handful of collisions, the box jellies changed their behavior. Less than eight minutes after arriving in the bucket, they were swimming 50 percent farther from the pattern on the walls, and they had nearly quadrupled the number of times they performed their about-face maneuver. They seemed to have made a connection between the stripes ahead of them and the sensation of collision.
After a handful of collisions, the box jellies changed their behavior. Less than eight minutes after arriving in the bucket, they were swimming 50 percent farther from the pattern on the walls, and they had nearly quadrupled the number of times they performed their about-face maneuver. They seemed to have made a connection between the stripes ahead of them and the sensation of collision.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/science/jellyfish-learning-neurons.html
― Hoisted by your own Picard (Leee), Monday, 9 October 2023 20:32 (six months ago) link
Doh, forgot to include the part that mentions that box jellies have no brains and yet are still capable of learning.
― Hoisted by your own Picard (Leee), Monday, 9 October 2023 20:33 (six months ago) link
Poor frog!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKEu90Zsh4A
― Iguodalai Lama (Leee), Friday, 3 November 2023 17:12 (six months ago) link
More beetle but stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFbu21AGSho
― Iguodalai Lama (Leee), Friday, 3 November 2023 17:23 (six months ago) link
Admittedly not weird and falls into the charismatic megafauna tap but it's my thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvM89vyn5pE
― Rimbaud: First Blood (Leee), Sunday, 26 November 2023 01:09 (five months ago) link
Usually, a belly-up fish isn’t long for this world. But video evidence from the deep ocean suggests that some species of anglerfish — the nightmarish deep-sea fish with bioluminescent lures — live their whole lives upside down.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/science/upside-down-angler-fish.html
― Rimbaud: First Blood (Leee), Monday, 4 December 2023 22:31 (five months ago) link
Oh, has no one yet posted the absolute nightmare fodder that is the bloodworm aka the befanged extruded anus worm?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL2p9i0wwNg
― Great-Tasting Burger Perceptions (Old Lunch), Monday, 4 December 2023 22:51 (five months ago) link
There is no god.
― Rimbaud: First Blood (Leee), Monday, 4 December 2023 23:01 (five months ago) link
counterpoint: god loves all creatures, even the fanged anus worm
― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Monday, 4 December 2023 23:04 (five months ago) link
I've bought those for bait before, they're pretty scary
― Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 4 December 2023 23:23 (five months ago) link
Let's see if those embeds:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ad/17/a6/ad17a67682929e201588a804a40d15e8.jpg
Anyway, those are harpy eagle talons, which apparently can be as large as grizzly claws, and these MFs ~fly~.
https://www.audubon.org/news/10-fun-facts-about-harpy-eagle
― Rimbaud: First Blood (Leee), Thursday, 14 December 2023 21:16 (four months ago) link
at first I thought the anus worms from slightly upthread had claws
― Formica Jordan (Neanderthal), Thursday, 14 December 2023 22:12 (four months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_epxKOztHH8
1. Some sea slugs can steal (and receive energy from) chloroplasts from algae that they feed on.2. Some of those same sea slugs can also detach their heads from their bodies and eventually regrow a new body.
― Captain Sisko and Ebert (Leee), Friday, 5 January 2024 21:03 (four months ago) link
Have the Spider-tailed horned viper been posted yet?
(caution - bird hunting)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFjoqyVRmOU
― brownie, Thursday, 18 January 2024 17:56 (three months ago) link
Was that featured in an Attenborough doc (Planet Earth maybe)? Mind-boggling that that mimicry behavior happens through natural selection!
― Ella Minnow Pea (Leee), Thursday, 18 January 2024 18:02 (three months ago) link
@undeadpresident4 years agoJust when you thought spiders couldn't get creepier you discover one that turns out to be a snake.
― Kim Kimberly, Thursday, 18 January 2024 18:14 (three months ago) link
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/nine-weirdest-penises-animal-kingdom-180976274/
― 龜, Sunday, 28 January 2024 17:42 (three months ago) link
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/nine-weirdest-penises-manhattan-180976274
― m0stly clean (Slowsquatch), Sunday, 28 January 2024 23:57 (three months ago) link
If you can get past the (IMO very gross) surfeit of limbs, these poorly named tadpole shrimps have some very weird reproductive strategies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ucm-ds2DA58
― Temple of Selune Gomez (Leee), Saturday, 3 February 2024 05:04 (three months ago) link
surinam toads...
― m0stly clean (Slowsquatch), Tuesday, 6 February 2024 10:32 (three months ago) link
Wonderful
― willem, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 17:05 (three months ago) link
Caecilians: not just the dick newts of the animal kingdom: their babies eat pays off their mothers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc5Yt7tF910
― Selune Gomez (Leee), Saturday, 2 March 2024 03:28 (two months ago) link
*pieces of