'different lizard'- also fragile

Toki | she/her |  loves  biology, palaeontology, pen and paper and videogames 

[honeyluvsw]

medieval sword & dagger pngs ! all images from the met open access free to use! likes and reblogs appreciated :)

[allosaurus-fragilis]

G is for Gigantspinosaurus getting distracted

[pocketss]

distressing things to say to your friends

[monstrous-ideas]

Its been five years of it’s august and the flow of time still haunts me

[bunjywunjy]

Have you seen the videos of orca exploding a sunfish?

yeah man that shit is nuts

[bunjywunjy]

for real though they figured out that if one orca holds a sunfish carcass still while a big male winds up and rams it at top speed, the fish basically disintegrates:

there are many reasons they could be doing this, but a small juvenile orca was later seen scooping up the shreds, so my bet is that this was just a family making Orca Baby Food.

sunfish have extremely tough leathery skin with a thick layer of disgusting-tasting gel under it that gives the sunfish neutral buoyancy and also makes it too gross to bite. the traditional way to get around these issues and get at the tender flesh inside is to be a human with a fillet knife, but I guess just fucking exploding them also does the trick.

[drachenmagier]

I love seeing wonky beginner art of people who are clearly exited about creating. Because with every line they draw, they get better. And it makes me wonder what kind of masterpieces they will come up with in the years to come.

Someone picking up painting today will create the legends of tomorrow.

And I love the idea that this person will try to create something for the first time because they saw our art today.

And went: "why not?"

[syncarida]

I love that there are scorpions with really robust chelae that don't even bother to sting in defence or prey capture and just grab stuff with their pedipalps. grisps youuu

[syncarida]

grisps youuuu

scorpion defensive behaviour from here, image from here

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

One scorpion grisps you, one scorpion stings you,,,, you'll never guess which

[michaelnordeman]

Wood pigeon/Columba palumbus/skogsduva. Värmland, Sweden (30 July 2025).

[toasthaste]

according to An Immense World, apparently giant squid eyes are, like, UNREASONABLY large, even for something their size living at those depths. the next largest eyes on earth, blue whale eyes, are less than half the size, and swordfish, who live at similar depths as giant squid and have the largest eyes of any fish, have eyes that could fit inside a giant squid's pupil.

eyes hit serious diminishing returns wrt resource costs vs vision quality as they get bigger, so the question became: what the FUCK do giant (and colossal) squid need to see so badly that they couldn't see with swordfish-sized eyes that's justifying that massive energy cost? that nothing else in the deep ocean needs to see so fucking badly??

turns out the one strength eyes that big really have over much smaller eyes is: seeing large glowing objects in water deeper than 500 meters from an appreciable distance.

sperm whales are the primary predator of giant squid. sperm whales don't glow. BUT! water that deep is full of bioluminescent creatures-- these creatures light up when bumped into. something a sperm whale's size is continuously bumping into those critters, it's just surrounded by a glowing field all the time when it's swimming at those depths, visible from a distance-- if you have the right eyes-- as a massive glowing shape. so basically the only reason to have eyes the size of soccer balls is if you live in the deep ocean and your life depends on having a heads up when a hungry sperm whale lurking around

and also I gotta say, the imagery... the huge lurking threat betrayed only by the ambiguous glowing shape of its movements through the water, is really evocative, if spooky deep-sea games aren't already using that to make things extremely ominous then they should really start

[allosaurus-fragilis]

F is for Fukuiraptor watching some Fukuititan

[papayajuan2019]

paper and pen seems so powerful now. on account of all the. surveillance

[marmorada]

[dernisseznirp]

Merz so: "Extremisten haben bei uns keinen Platz"

Cool, dann mach AfD Verbotsverfahren.

[allosaurus-fragilis]

E is for Eoraptor observing a buge

[crabussy]

"being a human is so boring why can't I be one of the COOL animals" okay hey. I hear you. but I actually really super love being an omnivorous persistence hunting primate with a stomach capable of dissolving many literal poisons and the ability to smell geosmin (released in the soil after it rains) at five parts per trillion. I super enjoy being a bipedal terrifyingly agile mammal with some of the most efficient sweat glands in the animal kingdom. I find a lot of joy in being an endotherm with mimicry abilities that rival most other animals with vocal chords. it's sick as hell I'm having a lot of fun

[wizzardhat]

Chronic pain is like: I'm in pain. "Well, you really shouldn't let that stop you from doing things." Ok, I guess I'll keep doing this even though I'm in pain. "Well, if the pain was really that bad, then it would stop you from doing things, so it's probably not that bad." Actually, it got worse because I kept doing things. "Well, why would you overdo it and hurt yourself? You should know your limits." Ok, fine. I know my limit, and I have reached it. I need to rest. "Okay, but last week you did all this other stuff, so I know you CAN do more, so I think you're just making excuses?" Ok.

[polychaete-of-the-day]

Polychaete of the day is Cistenides. You can find them living their wormy life in these pretty geometrically patterned tubes .

Photos by Gonzalo Giribet (top) & Claude Nozères (bottom)

[allosaurus-fragilis]

D is for Diabloceratops wanting a treat

[allosaurus-fragilis]

C is for coelophysis, who guards her eggs