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[herpsandbirds]

Velvet Ant (Odontomutilla haematocephala), female, family Mutillidae, Thailand

Velvet ants are actually wasps. The females are wingless, and the males are winged.

They are known for having exceptionally painful stings!

photograph by Phatsakorn Phaengnakhorn

[herpsandbirds]

Brilliant Carpenter-Bee Mimic Hawk Moth (Sataspes tagalica), family Sphingidae, Chiang Dao, Thailand

photograph by Antonio Giudici

[herpsandbirds]

Anna's Eighty-Eight or Finita Burrasca (Diaethria anna), family Nymphalidae, found in much of Central and South America

photos: Charles J. Sharp & Gabriel Bienzobas Fernandez

[dougdimmadodo]

Fast Fauna Facts #1 - Common Hoopoe (Upupa epops)

Family: Hoopoe Family (Upupidae)

IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern

Widely distributed across temperate Eurasia and western Africa, Common Hoopoes live specifically in areas which provide both plentiful open ground (which they need to feed, using their long beaks to poke through soil in search of insects and seeds) and a small number or large trees in which to nest. Hoopoes nest in naturally occurring tree holes and work in pairs to raise their chicks, with females incubating the eggs and guarding the chicks while males provide food. When threatened during nesting both chicks and adult females of this species will produce a strong and unpleasant smell that has been likened to manure or rotting flesh, but if this initial deterrent fails the mother will jab at threats with her beak's sharp tip.

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[todaysbird]

the scarlet-and-white tanager is a passerine bird native to columbia and northern ecuador. they are recognized due to the male’s bright scarlet plumage; females share the same patterning, but scarlet plumage is replaced by olive coloration. they feed on fruit and arthropods. they are social birds who may forage by themselves or in groups, sometimes forming mixed-species flocks.

[todaysbird]

the curl-crested aracari is a small to medium sized member of the toucan family, found in moist tropical forests in south america. while similar in coloration to some other aracaris, the curl-crested is distinct due to its uniquely curled head feathers. they primarily feed on fruit, but insects and small prey are occasionally taken.

[fascinator-birds]

Marvelous Spatuletail (Loddigesia mirabilis)

© Luis Panamá

[todaysbird]

the superb lyrebird is one of the largest passerine (songbird) species in the world, pheasant-sized with males sporting an impressive train of tail feathers. this australian species is renowned as one of the most talented mimics of the bird world - their mimicry of other birds’ songs is so impressive that birds of those species may be unable to distinguish the difference. in addition, they can mimic non-avian species, including humans when in captivity. despite their strong vocal talents, these birds are often solitary outside of the breeding season.

[amnhnyc]

Get to know the crocodile monitor (Varanus salvadorii)! One of the longest lizards in the world, this hefty reptile grows on average around 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) long with a weight of about 44 pounds (20 kilograms). It inhabits New Guinea, where mangrove swamps and rainforests are its preferred terrain. This arboreal critter enjoys spending the day sunbathing and munching on small mammals, birds, and reptiles. Photo: cuatrok77, CC BY-SA 2.0, flickr

#amnh #naturalhistory #reptiles #lizardsofinstagram #lizard #sciencefacts https://www.instagram.com/p/CYsg9bwt3bX/?utm_medium=tumblr

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Fun fact: Despite its size, the crocodile monitor spends much of its time in the trees. It is an excellent climber, and can use its hinds legs and prehensile tail to hang down from branches or to jump from one branch to another.

[bunjywunjy]

any GOOD pelican facts? they’re definitely weird but i love them …

we like to poke some good-natured fun at pelicans on this website, with their awkward gait, doofy faces, and pragmatic "if it fits, a snack is its" attitude towards any animal that it can physically fit into its beak!

HOWEVER. there is one VERY IMPORTANT FACT that we regularly fail to consider here:

pelicans are fucking Ginormous.

these fuckers can be up to five feet in length, with 10-foot wingspans, putting them right up there with SWANS in the Fuckoff Huge waterfowl tier!

HOWEVER, (again! that's two uppercase "however's" in one post!) while pelicans are comparable to swans in terms of sheer bonkers size, the two are not at ALL similar in terms of temperament!

while swans are unpredictable, easily angered, and dangerous animals, pelicans really... aren't.

they're really just dudes, is what I'm saying here.

yeah, the worst you might get off a pelican unprovoked is an accidental wing bonk, or an experimental beak nibble to see If You Fit In The Beak.

"you do not. my apologies, have a good day."

a pelican is more likely to steal your phone than to do you any serious bodily harm!

hooray?

*muffled ringing from inside the beak*

[bogleech]

Things about arthropods I was most surprised to learn were not always common knowledge:

That caterpillars and other larvae can’t lay eggs or make babies

That termites are not related to ants

That not all wasps sting

That insects even have distinct sexes and need to mate

That ticks and fleas are different things

That crustaceans count (as arthropods) just as much as insects or arachnids do and are not in fact “their own thing”

That scorpions are arachnids

That there are arachnids other than spiders

That “venomous” isn’t synonymous with “dangerous”

That bed bugs are a specific kind of insect (some people assume the old rhyme is broadly referring to biting pests in general)

That not every introduced species is necessarily invasive and needs to be killed on sight

That not everything in your house is a pest

That winged ants exist

That winged ants aren’t a species, but a special caste of a typical ant colony

That fleas, lice and ticks are all totally wingless

That there are no winged arachnids

That there are virtually no insects that live in the ocean

That mosquitoes breed in water

That spiders do not lay their eggs in or on other living things

That “bugs” have brains

That they have any organs at all and are not just walking shells “full of juice”

That they breathe oxygen like we do

That they have muscle tissues

The biggest one that never ends: that they’re animals at all

[everythingfox]

Fishy fish

(via)

[badassdemonsword]

i hereby order this soft velveteen animal to give me gentle whiskered kisses on my left cheek

[todaysbird]

the grey trembler is a member of the mimidae family (mockingbirds & thrashers) found only on the islands of martinique & saint lucia. this unique bird sports a distinct overly long beak. sexes have no distinction between plumages but females have a slightly longer beak. the species is named for the unusual trembling motion frequently made with their wings. they feed primarily on insects and fruits, using their large beak to tear open brush in a violent manner to find food.

[debelice]

[harmalite]

CLADISTICS ruined my life

[aquaticpaleo]

yall joke but this is actually a serious conundrun with cladistic-based classification

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

The choice is this: 

Birds are reptiles 

Or crocodilians (and probably turtles) ARENT 

That’s it, that’s the choice 

[shadybacon]

What if Bird and reptiles are two different things that came from the same thing

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Nope 

Because you can’t group (lizards, snakes, tuatara, turtles, crocodilians) without also including (birds) 

So if you don’t want to include birds in reptiles then you have to leave out some things we’ve called reptiles 

birds are dinosaurs though, full stop. we’ve already defined what a dinosaur is and it includes birds. but reptiles isn’t really defined so much as thrown against a wall angrily. 

[shadybacon]

But don’t turtles and alligators have more in common with modern reptiles than modern birds have in common with modern reptiles? I’m not trying to contradict, I’m trying to understand. Mammals and reptiles have a common ancestor as well, but we do not make them the same group.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

It’s not about having things in common. It’s about common ancestry, which is how we classify animals in light of extinct species, which defy trait-based classification. 

And, the common ancestor of [lizards, snakes, tuatara, turtles, crocodilians] by definition is also the common ancestor of birds. It is NOT the common ancestor of mammals. 

So, either we decide that Tuatara Lizards and Snakes are the only reptiles, or we include birds as reptiles. Or we just decide reptiles are no longer a thing. 

[anais-ninja-bitch]

don’t throw reptiles against the wall? please? some of them are small and delicate. you could hurt them.

[virovac]

Basically, unless we’re maybe talking massive horizontal gene transfer, everything is still part of the group that came before it. 

You are technically a fish.

[haltraveler]

IIRC the fish thing is so frustrating that scientists have decided fish is just not real cladistic grouping at all

[aethersea]

hey could we go back please to the bit where the closest relative of Birds is Crocodiles? bc I am alarmed

[haltraveler]

Well, technically they’re equally-closely related to crocodiles, alligators, gharials and tomistomas. As archosaurs, they’re all descended from small reptiles that looked something like this 

The two main groups of archosaurs are the Pseudosuchia, or crocodile-line archosaurs, and the Ornithodira, or bird-line archosaurs. Both groups were massively diverse in prehistory, with the Pseudosuchia dominating most land-based niches in the Triassic, and the Ornithodira, especially the dinosaurs, doing the same during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. However, most of them have been wiped out due to the Triassic and Cretaceous mass extinctions, leaving them each with only one surviving clade: Aves, the true birds, and Crocodylia, the semiaquatic, ambush predators like crocs and gators. 

[alexaloraetheris]

This entire post sums up everything we’re not allowed to mention in our Vertebrata classes because the last time someone started that argument they had to break up a fistfight.

[knitordeath]

I’m just hung up on the humans evolving from fish comment.

Like, we evolved from tiny tree-climbing squirrels. To the best of our knowledge.

[theclockworkjudas]

…which evolved from tiny tree-climbing reptiles

…which evolved from amphibians

…which evolved from fish.

[invisible-goats]

*runs in ten minutes late with a plucked chicken* BEHOLD A LIZARD

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

you could have left the feathers on this time tbh

[dee-the-red-witch]

It was already plucked. They just STOLE IT from philosophy 101.

[generouslyandrogynousdragon]

Every turn on this post has been a left, but somehow it hasn’t hit itself, and instead just spiralled outwards like some Ancient Greco-Roman floor design, enveloping taxonomy Tumblr in chaos.

[palominocorn]

LMFAO

My evolutionary bio professor took the class to a museum of natural science once and pointed out that of, like, a dozen skeletons in the “dinosaur” exhibit only one was actually a dinosaur. There were more dinosaurs next door. In the bird room.

Also: carcinization. Nature loves evolving crabs. What we call “crabs” are actually five different groups that all happened to evolve the same body shape.

[everythingfox]

Fishy fish

(via)

[typhlonectes]

The Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit: A Big Plan to Save a Tiny Rabbit

For two decades scientists have fought to rescue America’s smallest bunny.

For thousands of years, these rabbits have lived on the Columbia Plateau, which stretches across eastern Washington and Oregon and into Idaho. Under normal circumstances, they play a critical role in the local food chain: They feast on the plateau’s pungent sagebrush for at least half of their diet, and in turn raptors, weasels and coyotes feast on them.

But human presence has battered their existence. The rabbits’ native habitat has been fragmented by development and farming. In 2001, biologists monitoring the rabbits could only find one colony, landing the species on the federal endangered species list. With fewer than 50 individuals left, the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit was a whisker away from extinction.

In the last two decades, hopeful state and federal wildlife biologists, rabbit fans, farmers and ranchers, conservation research zoos, and nonprofits have all come together to give the rabbits a fighting chance against seemingly insurmountable odds. It’s not easy—even when the species they’re trying to save can breed like, well, rabbits…

Read more: https://www.nature.org/en-us/magazine/magazine-articles/pygmy-rabbits/