the dinosaurs are gay @auxins-insanities - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
the dinosaurs are gay
@auxins-insanities
animation vs autism
transmasc agender they/he/it/xe/raptor/star+
unknown origins plural . I LOVE ENDOGENIC SYSTEMS AND TRAUMAGENIC SYSTEMS AND WILLOGENIC SYSTEMS . IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WIRH ANY KIND OF SYSTEMS JUST BECAUSE OF THEIR ORIGINS THIS IS NOT THE BLOG FOR YOU .
Oregon's Fender's Blue butterfly is soon to be only the second-ever insect downlisted from Endangered to Threatened on the ESA.
In the Willamette Valley of Oregon, the long study of a butterfly once thought extinct has led to a chain reaction of conservation in a long-cultivated region.
The conservation work, along with helping other species, has been so successful that the Fender’s blue butterfly is slated to be downlisted from Endangered to Threatened on the Endangered Species List—only the second time an insect has made such a recovery.
[Note: "the second time" is as of the article publication in November 2022.]
To live out its nectar-drinking existence in the upland prairie ecosystem in northwest Oregon, Fender’s blue relies on the help of other species, including humans, but also ants, and a particular species of lupine.
After Fender’s blue was rediscovered in the 1980s, 50 years after being declared extinct, scientists realized that the net had to be cast wide to ensure its continued survival; work which is now restoring these upland ecosystems to their pre-colonial state, welcoming indigenous knowledge back onto the land, and spreading the Kincaid lupine around the Willamette Valley.
First collected in 1929 [more like "first formally documented by Western scientists"], Fender’s blue disappeared for decades. By the time it was rediscovered only 3,400 or so were estimated to exist, while much of the Willamette Valley that was its home had been turned over to farming on the lowland prairie, and grazing on the slopes and buttes.
Pictured: Female and male Fender’s blue butterflies.
Now its numbers have quadrupled, largely due to a recovery plan enacted by the Fish and Wildlife Service that targeted the revival at scale of Kincaid’s lupine, a perennial flower of equal rarity. Grown en-masse by inmates of correctional facility programs that teach green-thumb skills for when they rejoin society, these finicky flowers have also exploded in numbers.
[Note: Okay, I looked it up, and this is NOT a new kind of shitty greenwashing prison labor. This is in partnership with the Sustainability in Prisons Project, which honestly sounds like pretty good/genuine organization/program to me. These programs specifically offer incarcerated people college credits and professional training/certifications, and many of the courses are written and/or taught by incarcerated individuals, in addition to the substantial mental health benefits (see x, x, x) associated with contact with nature.]
The lupines needed the kind of upland prairie that’s now hard to find in the valley where they once flourished because of the native Kalapuya people’s regular cultural burning of the meadows.
While it sounds counterintuitive to burn a meadow to increase numbers of flowers and butterflies, grasses and forbs [a.k.a. herbs] become too dense in the absence of such disturbances, while their fine soil building eventually creates ideal terrain for woody shrubs, trees, and thus the end of the grassland altogether.
Fender’s blue caterpillars produce a little bit of nectar, which nearby ants eat. This has led over evolutionary time to a co-dependent relationship, where the ants actively protect the caterpillars. High grasses and woody shrubs however prevent the ants from finding the caterpillars, who are then preyed on by other insects.
Now the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde are being welcomed back onto these prairie landscapes to apply their [traditional burning practices], after the FWS discovered that actively managing the grasslands by removing invasive species and keeping the grass short allowed the lupines to flourish.
By restoring the lupines with sweat and fire, the butterflies have returned. There are now more than 10,000 found on the buttes of the Willamette Valley."
Reminder that the meburgers weren't something they made as a solution to the nutrition problem. That was already solved at that point. They were purely for Grace's enrichment. It was recreational cannibalism.
sometimes you see Takes™ that make you go "mmmhmmm okay yeah i see we both interpreted that differently based on what the show gave us, but i see how you arrived at your ideas even if they're different from mine," and then sometimes you see Takes™ that make you go "brother what show did you even fucking watch"
also yeah the best feature tumblr has (or lacks, i guess) is the inability to see other people’s follower count. not knowing how many followers anyone has makes this site more fun it’s easier to pretend we’re all just like, hanging out in a cave together.
my favourite bit right now is saying "scientists still don't know" in relation to something I (One Single Scientist) specifically do not know the answer to
prguitarman
ellievsbear
amandla
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
discoholicmusic
