My Hobby Comes Naturally

I'm an Animal Sciences major with an interest in all kinds of animals and the natural world. I have a particular affinity for cats, as well as marine biology, but really I made the blog to share interesting facts about any part of nature, animal or environmental science that catches my eye. (Hobby Falcon avatar photo property of Mark Sisson, obtained through Arkive.org)

[venndaai]

have you guys heard about the greenland shark. some crazy shit happening there.

[venndaai]

they are sexually mature at ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OLD.

their (live!) young gestate for. wait for it. eight to eighteen (??) YEARS. can have up to 10 at a time. good grief.

longest lifespan of any vertebrate, up to five hundred years

toxic flesh

has giant eyes but is usually blind because of a weird little crustacean that's evolved to live on and eat their eyes. this doesn't seem to bother them much.

lives in deep cold water and has the lowest swim speed and tail-beat frequency for its size across all fish species. just generally lives life in extreme slow motion

largest genome of any shark

eats everything including moose and polar bears

ma'am you are delightfully strange and I'm privileged to share a planet with you

[fluorescentbrains]

this post prompted me to refresh my memory on Greenland Shark Facts and this detail about how they feed goes so hard

just vacuuming up their unsuspecting prey. whole !

[muffinlance]

Good news good news good news! Recent research suggests the eye parasites do NOT blind them!

Eye-opening research: Greenland sharks maintain vision for centuries through DNA repair mechanism

Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk sits in her office, eyes fixed on the computer monitor in front of her. "You see it move its eye," says the UC Ir

I <3 you a normal amount Greenland sharks

[mammalianmammals]

Giant-striped Vontsira aka Grenedier's Mongoose (Galidictis grandidieri), family Eupleridae, Parc National de Tsimanampetsotsa, Madagascar

ENDANGERED.

photographs by Patrick Madagascar Tour Guide

[taylornprice]

just some little intertidal guys

[spacefroggoo]

[moniquill]

[reasonsforhope]

Source:

Eastern Monarch Butterfly Population Nearly Doubles

The population wintering in central Mexico's forests occupied 4.42 acres, up from 2.22 acres during the previous winter.

-via World Wildlife Fund, March 6, 2025

[goddessflorasparks]

omggggggg such good news

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

OP: Look at the 'fire-butterfly' we managed to film. The picture really doesn't do its beauty justice. (cr 鸟王艾雅康，观鸟景jhin，生态摄影阿博特，毕强，Sjxxphotograph，Fische，鱼摆摆，Shanalotte，冰鹡鸰）

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

I love this Chinese guy who is so excited to show everyone this really cool bird. This is why the internet was created, so we could show strangers on the other side of the world cool things we know about. Xie xie gege <3333333

[mellifluouscountess]

When I was drunk one night and watching the Jellyfish livestream, I reached out to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with a dumb question about their jellyfish... And they actually emailed me back.

(yes, these are actually my own screenshots, I am in tears laughing)

DO YOUR ANIMAL EXPERTS HAVE TO UNTANGLE THE JELLYFISH

AND THE ANSWER IS FUCKING YES, THE JELLIES GET TANGLED SOMETIMES LMAO

[kedreeva]

I sat down outside to hang out, and Bug jumped up to get some love (and a break from the children)

[kedreeva]

oh no

[kedreeva]

Can you believe this child

no respect at all

[kedreeva]

oh well, can still get pets and love

[rainbow-femme]

The three kinds of bird species name

1. God’s Specialist Little Boy

2. Hot Breasted Milf

3. Grey Bird With Brown Head

4. Walter’s Fingernail

[rainbow-femme]

[semutamusic]

[birdidentifier]

[catboybiologist]

[cheshires-wonderland]

@doveghost

[doveghost]

[greensmile-thatisnotdream]

@todaysbird

[coyotesmokebreak]

[blondebrainpowered]

Leucistic Loon on a remote lake in British Columbia, Canada.

Photographer: Chris Whitty

[yaoiblackmold]

'They're a very elusive species': The 10-year effort to photograph the rare hyena stalking a diamond mining ghost town

Ten years in the making: The story behind the award-winning photo of an elusive brown hyena stalking Namibia's diamond ghost towns.

LOOK AT THEM THEY'RE SO CUTE 😭😭😭

[likesplatterpaint]

Please be looking at Yamuel

Here he is.

Please LOOMK

PLEASE

✨Thank you ✨

[herpsandbirds]

One-Of-A-Kind Orange Snowy Owl Leaves Scientists Scratching Their Heads

Wildlife photographer Julie Maggert has been taking pictures of snowy owls for years. So when she heard that a strange, orange-colored snowy owl had been spotted flying around Michigan’s Thumb area, she knew she had to see the bird for herself. Maggert drove two hours out to where the owl had been observed. Before long, she spotted her in the middle of a field. She couldn’t believe her eyes — she really was orange...

Read more: One-Of-A-Kind Orange Snowy Owl Leaves Scientists Scratching Their Heads - The Dodo

[gamer-crow-deactivated20250412]

That is the face of an owl who KNOWS they are prettier than us...

[pseudomantis]

WHO ELSE REMEMBERS:

The Western Interior Seaway

[normalwomansstuff-deactivated20]

[wachinyeya]

https://english.radio.cz/beavers-build-planned-dams-protected-landscape-area-while-local-officials-still-8841536

A beaver colony in the Brdy region has gained overnight fame by building several dams in the Brdy protected landscape area, creating a natural wetland exactly where it was needed. It saved the local authorities 30 million crowns, and has the public cracking jokes about public administration and red tape.

The administration of the Brdy protected landscape area, which had gained approval for the 30 million crown project, was dealing with red tape and seeking the respective building permits from the Vltava River Basin authorities when the dam project was completed almost overnight by a local colony of beavers.

They could not have chosen their location better –erecting the dams on a bypass gully that was built by soldiers in the former military base years ago, so as to drain the area. The revitalization project drafted by environmentalists was supposed to remedy this. Bohumil Fišer, head of the Brdy Protected Landscape Area Administration says Nature took its course and the beavers created the necessary biotope conditions practically overnight.

[bot]

🥹

[plaguedocboi]

Wait, beneath the sea floor?

OUGHGH??

OIUOHGHHVOIH!!!!!

[curiousobsession101]

HOLY SHIT

So I looked this up and there's three things I think should be mentioned:

Yes, this is real.

They found this ecosystem in underground hydrothermal caves where the water was 75 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius) and when it says "volcanic fluids" it means that, or where the hot water in the caves comes up through cracks to mix with the colder water above, allowing minerals and nutrients from the volcanic caves to escape and dissolved oxygen from the open ocean to enter.

The robot that tested the hypothesis of life under the seafloor was called SuBastian.

[bogleech]

So basically we thought hydrothermal vents were these distant isolated islands of weird habitat and everything dependent on them was always either unique to that one vent or had to send eggs and larvae drifting out into the sea until those find a vent.

And that's likely the case for many species, yes, but apparently there's also just vast interconnected networks of toxic bathwater between vents and that's just what we know from the tiny sliver of one that we got to peek in on. There's probably much more to it we may never be able to see, and probably many many undiscovered species that spend their entire life cycles down there.

Up here on the surface there's caves full of weird creatures isolated for millions of years....what the fuck could there be UNDER the fucking FLOOR of the ABYSS that we'll never know.

What if there's like one single little species of trilobite that's still around but that's the kind of place where it is. 😡