[fungalinstinct]

spent my birthday visiting lawílatɬa <3

[mammalianmammals]

Long-eared Hedgehog (Hemiechinus auritus), family Erinaceidae, order Eulipotyphla, found in parts of Central Asia

photograph by Vladimir Blinov

[porterfieldlol]

sa nàı̨hxe łiwe (sunset fish)

by dene artist morgan tsetta

[rocktheholygrail]

Hannibal (2013-2015)

happy pride! 🌈

[safije]

Katie Harris is photographed with her Appaloosa. Harris made most of the horse trappings as well as her own traditional outfits herself, including the bead work. Some of the trappings are passed down from older generations but the girls like to make their own to continue the tradition.

By Erika Larsen

[mymotherthemountain]

Katie is Nez Perce, Cayuse, Umatilla and Karuk

[chondrichthyes-nuts]

@draconym you've prob seen this, but I think all the trappings are just so lovely!

[amadryada]

NASA captures insane new shot of a perfect Hexagonal Storm on Saturn's North pole.

This is one of the biggest mysteries in the known Universe.

A six-sided jet stream known as "the hexagon" — which measures approximately 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) wide — swirls above Saturn's north pole, with wind speeds reaching upward of 200 mph (322 km/h).

[oni-tengu]

@asexualboner wanted me to draw this from our recent library visit

[asexualboner]

best friends tell you when you just talked to the librarian with blood on your face

[asexualboner]

[your-internet-bf]

[forgetting I am mentally ill] why do I feel so Bad

[fictionalgod]

[smoqueen-deactivated20251108]

im not horny it’s something else entirely. really wish there was a word for it

[smoqueen-deactivated20251108]

i think i just want to run. Like i just want to run

[hawkscaled]

Considering introducing a controlled burn to the prairies of my mind

[king-incarnadine]

Horseshoe Crab

[bunniope]

i skink therefore i scram...!

[bunniope]

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[nemfrog]

Meteor shower observed from the coast. The Romance of Our Wonderful World. 1926. Cover detail.

Internet Archive

[madame-hagfish]

species with funny binomials discovered this year

Zig (genus de novo) zag (a Malagasy legless skink related to Paracontias), March 2026. Zig is the first new genus of Malagasy skinks discovered since the 19th century, so this is quite notable! New species discoveries are common, new genus discoveries are much rarer. Some new Scincidae genera have been named recently in the form of splits from other (wastebasket taxon) genera, however, discovering a completely unknown highly divergent lineage like this is a rarity. Zig zag is a special little boop noodle.

Solenostomus snuffleupagus (sp. nov), May 2026 (literally, study was released a week ago), a new species of ghost pipefish, named for its fuzzy appearance bearing resemblance to Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street (pictured above). The genus Solenostomus contains six other species of ghost pipefishes. However S. snuffleupagus is so highly divergent in appearance, that when it was spotted in 2001 it was immediately known to be strange. It took 25 years of searching the Great Barrier Reef to officially find & scientifically describe this bizarre fish.

S. paradoxus, the type species of Solenostomus.

S. leptosoma, another species, to make clear the typical appearance of a ghost pipefish and why S. snuffleupagus is distinctive.

Though not all species were sequenced, genome sequencing suggests that S. snuffleupagus is the most evolutionary divergent of all Solenostomus (Maroubra, a syngnathid true pipefish, is used as the outgroup).

For context, what Solenostomus is:

Solenostomus is a monotypic genus (the only genus in its family) in the family Solenostomidae. They comprise the sister taxon to the Syngnathidae (the true pipefishes, seadragons, and kin, which contains the famous seahorse Hippocampus). Unfortunately, in Solenostomus, males do not get pregnant (the only thing that would have made S. snuffleupagus even more incredible), but they are closely related to the true pipefishes (all of which exhibit male pregnancy).

Those are two incredible discoveries within just the span of two months, here's to more wonderful scientific names!

[ryebreadedd]

im a protected species you fucking asshole