teenmom rat edition

[arithetonberry]

Sturgeon and Red Algae

[nohoperadio]

Often when I'm reading the Wikipedia article about some zoological group, there'll be a sentence near the start that says something like "[group] varies in size from [smallest species in group] to [largest species in group]". I always immediately click on the largest species. I love to see a huge version of a thing, it's usually some crazy monster that looks sick as hell, it's always worth seeing and I have a great time.

And then I say to myself, come on now, you don't want to be someone who's just interested in the big ones, see what the smallest one looks like. So with a sense of grim duty, I click. It's not even that small usually, most small things aren't like that little frog wrapped around someone's pinkie, they maybe look a bit like the juvenile version of a more median-sized species perhaps. But I nod appreciatively and I say out loud, "Gee yeah, that is a small one of those", and then go back to the main article I started at.

Now both links are purple. No one can accuse me of being narrow-minded or unjust, and I can read my article in peace.

[llatimeria]

Apparently the Congo river is deep enough that there are several species of fish with cavedwelling adaptations (near-total to total blindness, loss of pigmentation, etc) because light doesn't reach where they live. the fuck

[llatimeria]

I'm going insane these literally look like cave fish but they're just from the bottom of a stupid deep river. What the fuck. What the fuck

[official-nature-posts]

Official nature post

[apsciencebylyn]

Blooming goldenrod attracts some silly creatures, like this monster (relatively speaking) Chalcid wasp with a very silly ovipositor. It's folded up on her back.

Leucospis sp.

[lakesbian]

cats are really useful for when you need a small animal to sit 10-15 feet away from you and stare at you with unceasing neutrality

[great-and-small]

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

[rairii]

This reminds me of when I was in my ecology course in undergrad, and our professor posed to us a question of how to conserve a species in a specific scenario I don’t remember anymore. A student raised their hand and said “make laws to protect it” and everyone nodded. I was surprised when nobody gave any other suggestions - because they never even said to enforce those laws or create patrols or figure out what the cause of their endangerment was. Maybe it’s just my experience from having lived in several countries but creating laws is never the only step. In a lot of places you can have fine laws and people will break them for survival - see the illegal artisanal mining of gold in the Amazon rainforest in Peru for an example. I think that class was the moment I realized I had no idea how environmental conservation really worked and was surprised that my classmates thought passing a law was enough.

So when I graduated from undergrad I started volunteering and then working for conservation non profits in Peru where I was living at the time. And I remember one person I worked with putting it into simple words (in Spanish, but the gist remains the same): “There is no conservation without people. You do not create a wall to exclude people from nature. You work with people on the ground and include them every step of the way. Conservation is only with people never excluding them”

That’s stuck with me since then and has informed all my work since then and I see it repeated over and over in people’s successful experiences being those where they worked with the people living there.

[rairii]

Now that I'm not typing on my phone falling half asleep, I want to talk about this some more, but it's still going to be a ramble.

Something I see a lot of in Western society (my experiences are a lot of south America, the USA, the UK, and a bit of Canada), is this idea that we are inherently damaging to nature. That the best thing we can do is to leave nature alone. We create this barrier between ourselves and nature, this separation, ignoring that we are a part of nature, and that we can coexist with nature without damaging it. That we in fact can be stewards of nature, and help it, as it helps us.

This disconnect between humanity and nature is something that people I've worked with who work with indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon don't believe, whether because they have learned from these indigenous peoples (like the Ashaninka, the Shipibo, the Yanesha), or because they already believed in humanity's inclusion in nature. I have seen brilliant people work closely with indigenous populations to protect their territories. They know their lands, their flora, their fauna - they can tell us when there's a problem, and often even identify the source of it. A wise biologist pays attention to people with this rich cultural history and knowledge. There is more and more respect for indigenous cultural knowledge, and its role in science (Source).

Did you know that deforestation is much lower in indigenous territories? (Source). But this only works when we support, respect and protect indigenous sovereignty, as can be seen by the increases in deforestation in Indigenous Lands in the Brazilian Amazon when policies protecting and providing support for them were weakened under Bolsonaro's regime (Source). People are often the problem, but they are also often the solution.

You know the Amazon, the great big wild rainforest? Well, it's not as wild and "pristine" as it was thought, and that is a good thing. (Source) We helped shape the diversity of the Amazon rainforest. We've helped protect, and spread it. Humans have been influencing, shaping, stewarding nature for as long as we've existed. That is not a bad thing. It just means we need to be wise about how we do that.

You can't do conservation without people. You can't have the wild spaces you love without humans. Stop viewing humanity as the enemy.

This is good news! It means we can, and will, survive and learn and coexist and harmonize with nature. Sustainabilty is achievable. Social environmental justice is achievable. We Can do this. Don't give up. Look for the root causes. Look for the source of the problem, and then, look for ways to help the people there, and you will see improvements in nature.

For me this meant traveling to a semi-remote series of villages in the Peruvian Amazon, and mapping the use of bodies of water, interviewing the villagers how they used, wanted to use, and wanted to protect these bodies of water. Once we had that information, we could help them create management strategies to maintain fishing (an important source of protein in the Amazon) going sustainably. I have no social training. I'm an ecologist, with a biology degree. But that lesson about protecting the environment stuck with me.

You can only do conservation with people. Not by excluding them. Not by prohibiting use. But by encouraging sustainability and providing resources and tools for vulnerable populations and peoples, most of whom had a better idea of the crisis than we do.

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Bomber Flies: these flies launch their own eggs into the nests of wasps and bees, hovering in mid-air as they do so; the females also have a unique perivaginal pouch that is known as a "sand chamber" because it is filled with sand

The flies of this family (Bombyliidae) are generally referred to as "bee flies," because they are known to mimic bees and bumblebees, but many of them are also known as "bomber flies," thanks to their unusual ovipository technique.

Above: a bomber fly of the genus Anastoechus

As the female bomber fly is preparing to lay her eggs, she will usually look for a soil-hidden nest that already contains the eggs/larvae of another insect. Most bomber flies lay their eggs in the nests of wasps and bees, but there are a few species that are known to target beetles, grasshoppers, locusts, other flies, and/or caterpillars, instead. Once the bomber fly has found a suitable nest, she will hover over the entrance to the burrow and rapidly flick her abdomen up and down until she has launched a single egg into the nest. She must then go searching for more nests in which to lay her other eggs.

Above: the greater bee fly, Bombylius major

After hatching, the parasitoid larvae of the bomber fly feeds on the eggs/larvae of the host species (i.e. the nest's original occupants). As this article explains:

When a bee fly egg hatches, a tiny larva called a planidium emerges. The planidium is quite unlike most fly larvae (also known as maggots); they are adapted for moving quickly in search of a host. Once the planidium finds a host, it will attach itself to the host’s exterior, like a leech or sea lamprey, and begin to feed. Yes folks, this is the stuff of nightmares.

Female bomber flies also have another peculiar trait: their abdomen contains a specialized perivaginal pouch known as a "sand chamber." During the ovipository process, the fly fills this pouch with fine grains of sand, and her eggs are then coated in the sand as they pass through the perivaginal pouch. The pouch is also lined with elongated setae ("hairs") and enlarged spikes that prevent the grains of sand from spilling back out.

The overall purpose of the "sand chamber" is still unclear, but many researchers believe that coating the eggs in a layer of sand may help to improve the viability of the eggs by preventing them from being damaged as they are launched to the ground, and that it also provides them with some camouflage after they have landed. Some researchers have argued that it prevents the eggs from becoming dehydrated, because the barrier helps to improve fluid retention, while others believe that it improves the mother's aim by increasing the weight of each egg. There is some evidence to suggest that it could also prevent the eggs from being detected (and then destroyed, abandoned, or ejected) by the host species, because the sand helps to mask/mute the egg's biochemical signals.

Above: Anastoechus nitidulus, a type of bomber fly that can be found throughout Eurasia

Adult bomber flies tend to feed on pollen and nectar. They are excellent pollinators, and their parasitoid larvae may also help to keep wasp and bee populations in check.

Above: Anastoechus sp.

This article argues that bee flies (particularly Anastoechus nitidulus) likely served as the inspiration for the Pokémon known as cutiefly:

Sources & More Info:

USGS: Bombyliidae Fly

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society: The Evolutionary Pattern of Host Use in the Bombyliidae (Diptera) Family

YouTube: Video of a Bomber Fly (Bombylius major) Selecting a Nest and then Launching her Egg into the Burrow

Smithsonian Institution Press: Bee Flies of the World (pages 6 and 27)

Michigan State University: Bee Flies

Animal Diversity Web: Genus Bombylius

Animal Diversity Web: Anthrax albofasciatus

Journal of Geek Studies: The Entomological Diversity of Pokémon

[jupiterswasphouse]

Ok I made a post about Ectemnius genus Square-headed Wasps before but- I just found out about Crabro genus Square-headed Wasps, aka Shield-handed Wasps. Just look at these odd little guys-

[Image Sources: iNaturalist, sarasims, and clausgiloi | Image IDs: Two photos of two shield-handed wasps, one black and white standing on a human finger and the other black and yellow and standing on a leaf /End IDs.]

It's like, where Chalcid Wasps put all their stats into their hindlegs, Shield-handed wasps put all their stats into their forelegs.

[bunjywunjy]

on the topic of different unrelated aquatic mammals wasn't there also one marsupial that became aquatic and is notable as the ONLY semiaquatic marsupial?

somehow it gets past the whole "babies might drown in the pouch" issue

yeah, the yapok! it's native to mexico and central america, and it's the result of the north american branch of opossums trying to make an otter and mostly succeeding :)

there are many many MANY partially-aquatic mammals out there, but only a few totally-aquatic marine mammals.

[bunjywunjy]

oh yapoks are also notable for evolving a second "thumb" out of a wrist bone, so I think they're currently the only mammal with six digits. love them for it

count them! 1-2-3-4-5-6!

[great-and-small]

One of my absolute favorite art/science collaborations in the world is a project by National Geographic and photographer Joel Sartore called the Photo Ark. The ark is a 25 year project with the goal of photographing every animal species in human care, with the hopes of saving as many endangered species as possible. The Ark turned 18 years old today and they’ve just photographed their 16,000th animal- the Santa Cruz long-toed salamander!

I really recommend any animal lovers or photography enthusiasts learn about this project and follow photographer Joel Sartore on this journey. He does an incredible job of highlighting lesser known species and his skill as an artist is staggering. The behind the scenes process of how he gets these shots of such a wide variety of species is always a technical marvel.

Also worth noting that if you’re an artist ever in need of reference photos for an obscure animal species, this is a great resource where you can look up high quality images by species name! Anyone looking to decorate their home with a focus on biology art can purchase beautiful animal prints while supporting conservation.

Here are some of my favorite shots over the years to celebrate the Ark’s birthday!

[asfgjfkgjnfkjgnkfjg]

If you claim to support women’s rights stop stepping on ants. They’re almost all girls. Fucking stop it

[typenull]

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Folk were really into the post I made about Tandie, the zoo lion with a (then) undergrown mane due a period of time on testosterone blockers. He's having quite the glow up this summer.

But!

Did you know that manes are hormone dependent in both sexes of lion?

Let's talk about maned lionesses!

To recap the previous post quickly: the existence of a mane, and it's color, appear to be pretty heavily androgen-dependent. Neutered males or males put on testosterone blockers, like Tandie was, will drop their manes - but like Tandie, if taken off the meds, it will generally grow it back. Darker manes are indicative of higher testosterone levels, and long/lush manes are generally a good signal of a male's fitness and mate quality. Females seem to show a preference for males with longer, darker manes and other males will preferentially avoid scuffles with them. (Yes, as many comments have pointed out, that means Scar was actually a hunk. Do with that as you will.)

The fascinating thing about androgens being linked to manes in lions is that it goes both ways - females with higher levels will also grow manes!

Mane growth in females lions is most commonly seen with elderly animals who have stopped cycling and are basically in lion menopause. And they have to get pretty old for it to happen - captive lions generally only live into their late teens and early second decade, and most of the maned ladies I know about started growing manes around like, seventeen.

Not all old female lions grow manes, but some of the career cat people I've talked to said it happened to about a quarter of the females they've worked with over the years. Which... is an interesting contrast to the news articles about Zuri, who we'll meet in a bit, that breathlessly reported in 2022 that her mane growth "left scientists baffled."

Old lady lion manes are just... precious. They grow in first at the chest and then around the sides or on the back of the head, but they don’t normally get the length, density, and connectivity seen in the mane of an adult male. It leaves the lionesses manes kind of awkward, in the way I associate with very young males, and they're absolutely adorable. Prepare yourself for the photo spam.

I have to start with Daisy, because she's the only maned lioness I've had the privilege to meet in person.

I don't know exactly when she started growing her mane, but she was over 20 years old when she passed in 2019 with these luscious locks.

Here's another female at the same facility, named Adeena. On the left is a photo of her from 2021, on the right is from this spring (I think she's mid-sneeze in the photo). She turns 20 in October.

If you've heard about maned lionesses before, it’s probably because of Zuri, at Topeka. She’s the most recent one to get media coverage and she went a little viral.

(Just a side note here, but I have some strong feelings about knowledge loss in the exotic animal management world due to political/philosophical schisms. This is one of those topics where it's clear: Topeka told a reporter that the zoo had “never" heard of this happening before, but it's common enough to be well known as a thing in other sectors of the exotic cat world. There's so much expertise and knowledge being lost due to infighting between accrediting groups, and it drives me up a wall).

Anyway. Zuri had one of the best manes I've seen on an elderly lioness. It grew long and lush and she totally could have done shampoo commercials. I mean, look at this.

Zuri lived with her sister, who didn't grow a mane in her old age. Here's the two of them together, Zuri on the left, Asante on the right.

We don't completely know what's going on with these golden girls to cause them to grow manes. It's theorized to be related to the end of estrus and higher levels of androgenic hormones, although it's not clear if that's just due to lower levels of other hormones during "meownopause" or if there's something else also going on.

There was some speculation with Zuri's mane growth that it was caused by the death of the male she lived with, in some biological need to "take over the role." The zoo dismissed that idea pretty quickly, and it makes sense, although there is one other instance where I've heard of that happening before.

The cat people I've talked to say that older lionesses who grow manes don't tend to act differently - they're not taking over new social roles in their prides or anything. Sometimes they can be less active, or be a little more nervous around males, and want to be left alone more, but it was emphasized to me that those behaviors could also just be associated with the fact that manes tends to develop in elderly lionesses.

The mane growth can happen pretty quickly, as we saw in the photos I've posted of Tandie over the last year. Here's Bridget, from the Oklahoma Zoo. The left photo was taken in March of 2017 and the right in November - look how much hair she gained over six months!

The zoo did some research into what might have cause Bridget's mane growth, and found that she had elevated levels of androstenedione, which is a hormone that can be converted by the body into either testosterone or estrogen, depending. In AFAB people, it's known to have a masculinizing effect. The zoo theorized that this was the cause of her mane growth, and that the elevated levels might have been caused by a benign tumor. Fascinatingly, though, blood draws revealed that her testosterone levels were the same as her mane-less sister, Tia.

Tia is on the left in the photo below, Bridget and the beginnings of her mane are on the right. Bridget was 17 when her mane started growing in.

I don't think there's any formal hypothesis that there might be a genetic component to lionesses growing manes in old age, but it's interesting to note that one of Tia's daughters, Zari, also grew a mane. (And she grew it young! It started around age 13, interestingly, also right after their male died). She's on the left in the photo below.

And to circle back around to where we began: Tandie is related to a number of maned ladies! His father, Xerxes, was Bridget's son; Zari was Xerxes' half-sister.

Here's a few more beautiful maned ladies to leave you with. In order, Ngala, Pepper, Skye, and Dandy Lion.

Next up, and last in this lion mane series, is the story of five younger lionesses in Botswana who not only have manes but also express a range of masculine behaviors.

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A huge thanks to all the folk who shared photos of and stories about their golden girls for this post: M. Townsen, S.W. Simpson, E. Day, S. Cook, M. Stinner, M. Paul, K. Vanaman, D. O'Halloran, R. Simpson, D. Souffrant.

[rintezukas]

i say this every time i have to mow a lawn but literally mowing lawn is the most wasteful miserable task human beings are expected to do on a regular basis for no pay except for i guess ones i dont know about or am forgetting

[rintezukas]

like its comedically bad you take a big horrible loud machine that belches smoke and you drive it over the plants you deliberately keep in your yard whenever they look too happy and alive and the machine hurts them and cuts down the flowers and kills whatever tiny animals are hiding in the grass that cant get away and kicks dust and dirt into the air and when the area youre using the machine on looks like shit again youre done

[doing-90mph-in-central-london]

There is a house centipede (extremely leggy, extremely fast nightmare creatures that scare me, but they're good so I don't want to hurt him!) that will not stop jumping into my kitchen sink at night. This is a problem because he can't get back out again. Then he won't let me fish him out. And I'm kind of very afraid of him. So, like, twice a week I have to spend the morning getting very very scared while trying to catch a house centipede who is also very very scared, and it ruins both of our days.

idk if this is a problem anyone else has. it is a problem that I have had, and so I am posting the solution. there is a picture of the house centipede under the cut just FYI.

I bought him a $5 bird ladder at the pet store and I leave it in the sink every night so he can climb out on his own.

[life-on-our-planet]

The olm is an exclusively subterranean and underwater species, and as such it's difficult to make field observations. Individuals in captivity have been observed to live up to 68 years, and in the wild they may have a life expectancy of over 100 years. ©

[corvidaemnit]

hi I’m ten seconds away from bawling my eyes out what the fuck why is it so thing ITS LITERALLY FULL OF LOVE AND JOY AND NICE I’m gonna be sick.

baby black vulture. I’m in fucking shambles. “vultures are ugly vultures are scary mimimimi” FUCK YOU THAT THING IS LITERALLY LOVE.