🦑fish with leg🐬

Mid 20s. Demisexual panromantic. ADHD. Any pronouns. Aquatic ecology/conservation education major. All wildlife is important and beautiful in its own way, no animals are worthless or evil. Space is cool.

[ihaveapproximately4bones]

Clearing up any myths, fear mongering, misinformation, exaggerated claims etc. about dolphins

They are normal animals, no different than thousands of other species. They're not evil, not rapists, not perverts, not monsters, not demons etc. Just wild animals. That's all.

Many well loved animals do very similar behaviors that dolphins get blamed for, including other highly intelligent species (crows, elephants, apes). A dolphin is no more "evil" than a dog or cat.

Most negative stereotypes surrounding dolphins are rare amongst the entirety of the dolphin family, and mostly just seen within bottlenose dolphins. Generalizing all dolphin species over the (often rare or exaggerated) behaviors of just a couple species is NOT A VALID JUDGEMENT!!

Applying human morals onto nature is wrong and a deeply flawed mindset. It warps our perspective of nature and holds wildlife accountable for their actions, when they cannot and will never be able to meet our moral and ethical standards. All this mindset does is harm animals and spreads fear and hate towards important species who need our protection. Dolphins are worth infinitely more to this planet alive, than extinct.

Romanticizing wildlife is also harmful because it tends to make people upset when they realize that their "cute and cuddly" favorite animal is actually just a wild animal like any other. Manatees, capybaras, butterflies etc. they all have aggressive sides to them and gross behaviors sometimes. And that's ok!! You shouldn't hate them because of that.

There are literally no animals (besides sea sponges or coral I guess) who don't do something "unsavory" in the eyes of humanity. And that's ok!! Nature is messy, often brutal and gross, and we have to accept that and learn to appreciate it despite all that, especially in this day and age... They can't change, but we can.

Hating dolphins or any other animal over behaviors it cannot control, or because of fear mongering and myths is WRONG.

Negative public perception around wildlife hurts wildlife, and that's a fact. Look at what happened to sharks, wolves, and thylacines. We cannot afford for this to happen again.

Dolphins deserve respect, protection, appreciation and care.

🩵🐬🩵

EDIT: removed the pufferfish intoxication slide since pufferfish toxin TTX is non addictive and non hallucinogenic. It cannot cause a high, the dazed behavior is due to the adolescent dolphins experiencing early stages of paralysis. Also other animals such as lemurs, wallabies, cats etc. like to get intoxicated off of toxic invertebrates, fungi or plants.

Also

"Cohesive" typo spotted in slides, "Coercive" is the correct word.

[virtualgirladvance]

[ritasanderson]

maybe i should draw more leviathans at some point...

[fimbry]

If I had more time to draw this year my shit would be insane. Maybe it would even be cool. Just imagine.

[thelensart]

Make my day

[d-e-w-p]

incredibly cool pose, I thought.

Is Archeops gping to land on her arm like a hawk? If so, how heavy is it. Can't be too-

oh

[thelensart]

Divas don't care about numbers

[thelensart]

Had to

[robertreich]

What are your thoughts?

[notryvn]

— Rhamphorhynchus

[mawbwehownets]

[bisonwares]

Showing off the Arapaima I made! (Pattern also made by me)

This was the test of the new pattern and I love her. 🎏💕

[worcestershirecheshirecat]

Oh my goodness, this is so beautiful. Everything about this is perfect.

[emberglowfox]

fish world…. 2!!

[luxiomahariel]

[nerd-mcgeek]

computer science is a super misleading name btw

it's neither abt "computers" nor "science"

it's just a twisted, twisted form of maths

[jameelaillustration]

One of the coolest things to remember is that because prey animals have eyes on the side of their head, they are looking at you when they're in profile, not facing you! Hot tip for artists and animal lovers!

[actuallycuteanimals]

Okay not really. The thing about animals with eyes on the side of their head: they DO in fact look directly at things and they CAN use binocular vision. I am going to use horse examples because horses are what I know best.

A horse uses binocular vision when it is trying to see something better - monocular vision gives a wider field of view but no depth perception and is not very clear.

When alert, the horse will look directly at something, facing it, using binocular vision to determine what it is and whether it is a threat.

A general rule of thumb with horses is that whatever their ears are pointed at is what they are looking at.

In the first image, the horse is looking at me. In the second, she is not.

In this set of images, she is investigating that blanket. You can clearly see her head pointed at the object and she examines with her binocular vision and nose.

Now, in this case, the horse is looking at me without his head facing me. You can tell he's looking at me with his monocular vision by how he has one ear facing me.

In most of the professionally done horse reference pics you see, the horses are going to have their ears pricked up and alert and be using their binocular vision. Why? Because it just looks better. How? Either the horse is investigating/curious about the camera or person holding the camera OR someone standing where they want the horse to look has just snapped their fingers or whistled or waved an umbrella or something to get the horses attention.

I just find it silly to say that the prey animals are not looking at you when facing head on, when the examples you gave do not seem to demonstrate that. To me, all of the squirrel and bird pictures look as if they are looking at the viewer - with the side view being a more 'relaxed/trusting' sort of look while the front view is a tenser investigation. The horse does not look like its looking at the view in either drawing - the first looks relaxed and looking somewhat to the side, the second looks alert and gazing directly in front of it.

[kedreeva]

I will add on for (at least some) birds.

This bird is not looking at you.

This bird is intensely looking at you

Many animals move their pupils. In both photos you can see her pupils, but they're only facing forward in the second.

Here she is intensely examining a chip in front of her face.

She is not looking at me- actually she's not really looking at anything she's listening to something she heard outside.

Peas most often look at things sideways when they need a wide field of view, too- like when they are scanning the sky for hawks, they will walk puffed up with their head tilted to the side to look up.

But when they want to actually look at something or someone, they will look head on as well. It's just that unlike animals with forward facing eyes, they don't HAVE to look at you head on.

[horrorcitos]

C.C. Lockwood

[goth-queen]

[spiny-ant]

Who dropped these here

[jommeez]

[ihaveapproximately4bones]

🎶 Bulbasaur, cat, Diglett, Voltorb, Snorlax, bird, Charmander, snake, buff frog, Lapras, "a weird tree", fish, bat, Kangaskhan, Pikachu, Poliwag, goo, Unown, Staryu, Oddish, Squirtle, Mr. Mime, clam, Lugia, Slowpoke, bee, Weedle, Clefairy, Tentacool, Gengar, Ho-Oh, Gyarados, moth, Jigglypuff, Geodude, cow, egg!!

Catch em catch em gotta catch em all. Gotta catch em all!! Pokémon!! 🎶