One Nice Bug Per Day
Claire Keane
macklin celebrini has autism
Monterey Bay Aquarium
gracie abrams
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ellievsbear
official daine visual archive
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
occasionally subtle
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Misplaced Lens Cap
sheepfilms
Origami Around
Sweet Seals For You, Always
Today's Document
noise dept.
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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Game Changer & Make Some Noise
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@isthisabiology
Seems legit
we all hear about kudzu being introduced as "erosion control" in the South but I don't think contemporary people understand on a gut level what that means
these are images from a 1930s pamphlet that endorsed kudzu, entitled "stop gullies: save your farm"
It was Bad.
Invasive plants need to be understood as part of a much larger cycle of incredible violence against the land.
I've reached the point where cynicism is a major turn-off for me. You're not smarter than idealists, and you're not helping.
Funny that the stereotypical cynic is an idealist who aged out of it. In my experience, the reverse is true. I was an extreme cynic as a teenager and then I noticed how profoundly limiting it was, and also that "cynics are cool and smart" was a message that was being constantly reinforced by corporate media for some reason.
#yes! cynicism reads as very juvenile to me#and yes prev often stemming from teen pain
Yeah, like I see black-pilled people on here and my default reaction isn't "oh, these must be world-weary old warriors who've lost their faith in humanity", it's "these people are in their 20s and need a hobby"
I also think that the present era has proven that authoritarian leaders don't actually want a population of wide-eyed idealists, they want a population of jaded assholes who are convinced that everyone is lying, any resistance is either a scam or doomed to failure, and nothing can ever get better.
In the years after the US Environmental Protection Agency was founded, the agency dispatched photographers to document pollution and contami
Formaldehyde, brick dust, lead, and borax once made grocery shopping a minefield.
Shit used to be wild, and this is just what I could find that had decent sources, I've heard a lot more horror stories.
I'm not excited to live in a word without regulation. 🙃
"Regulations don't exist because governments enjoy them" is an important statement here. The government has to spend money and labor to enforce regulations. The government has to be begged for years and sometimes threatened by the American people into even creating the regulations. The people with the money want you to believe regulations are "BIG GOVERNMENT INFRINGING ON OUR FREEDOMS" so you'll help them undo the regulations your grandparents had to force that same government to install in the first fucking place. They count on you being ignorant of the past so they can make another round of dirty money by poisoning you all over again.
Whenever I hear "cutting red tape" I think of food inspections and water runoff rules. Whenever I hear someone complain that it's not fair, how they can't compete as a business with all these "unnecessary" regulations, I think of the safety guards on various industrial machines I've worked. "It's not fair that I could be making so much more money if I was allowed to lie cheat steal and harm the public" is not actually a winning take, and yet
i hate that concerns about urban gardening/foraging safety is often met with "What are you, a cop?" scorn. I believe it's a suspicion of anything that hinders the punk/anti-system urgency to jump in immediately and do whatever feels right.
Safety, ethics, and sustainability are all a part of urban gardening and foraging. I'm sorry that means you need to do homework before you can do anything, I know that sounds lame. But life is complicated.
I know anti-intellectualism is viewed as activist these days, but like, surely you don't want to literally eat lead, right?
Let’s check in and see how those rascally solarpunk kids are doing, surely they’ve learned by now that…..
Daily reminder: Leafy greens like kales uptake all those delicious heavy metals in urban soils like lead and cadmium.
Don’t eat sidewalk-crack kale.
Here's some cool references from the EPA on safe urban gardening:
REUSING POTENTIALLY CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPES: Growing Gardens in Urban Soils
Steps to Creating a Community Garden or Expand Urban Agriculture at a Brownfields Site
When it was discovered that Zalim (ironically meaning, cruel) was in the company of two very young cubs, those at Ranthambore feared the worst: that, as an adult male, he would kill them. Instead, he surprised naturalists with his “motherly” behavior when he took in his twin daughters following the death of their mother.
At this time, science stated that tigers were only as social as mothers and cubs could go and that tiger fathers rarely interacted with their offspring. Zalim changed that when he was witnessed, month after month, caring for his daughters and teaching them how to hunt. Their relationship eventually ceased when the two girls were shifted to Sariska Tiger Reserve and Zalim went on to father another litter with the then-dominant tigress Sundari, the so-called Lady of the Lakes. When she too mysteriously disappeared, Zalim unsurprisingly took care of their cubs as well.
Ranthambore National Park, India Photograph taken via camera trap
let’s subvert gender norms with papa!
why bother caring about the environment when 1. It’s so obviously a lost cause and 2. There’s definitely going to be a nuclear war?
And what are you doing about it Anon? Learn about ecological restoration or get out of my way.
If you read ecology books printed in the 70s and 80s, they were absolutely convinced that whales and tigers would not survive the century. There's a whole plot in Star Trek about how whales are extinct actually. Here in Argentina, we were sure that yaguaretés would have gone extinct. It was thought that rainforests would be forever lost, because there was no way that such complex ecosystems would be restored.
Now, you can go to Península Valdés and find that the whale population there is growing year after year, people can see them from their windows. In Iberá, where yaguaretés were extinct for over 70 years, there's now a population of 35 and growing, after being reintroduced just five years ago. As for rainforests?
We've becoming very, very good on restoring them. Natural environments, when given space and time to heal, can return to that they were. And after all, all natural enviroments are managed by human societies. It is up to us to implement a good management, un buen gobierno.
I firmly believe our children and grandchildren will see a restoration of Earth like never before.
Millions of people are working on this. You can learn about it, perhaps even become one of them. Or be a pointless doomer in my ask box. Your choice.
if there are people who care, it's never a lost cause. at one point, kākāpō, a nocturnal flightless parrot species from aotearoa, were thought to be entirely extinct for decades. until 1977, where booming calls from males were heard on the small island of whenua hou. now, thanks to people who care so much they dedicated their lives to caring, kākāpō numbers are close to 300. despite the setbacks. despite the small gene pool causing infertility and health problems. people cared so fucking much that they survived. this is one of COUNTLESS, countless similar stories. I'm studying ecology so that I can go into conservation and all around me, every day, I see people who care enough to put years of their lives into learning about and solving environmental problems. I don't know man. hope isn't just some nebulous thing. it's tangible if you do something with it.
Tim Wong saw the decline of the pipeline swallowtail butterfly, and dedicated himself to providing habitat and raising babies, and it worked.
Spix's Macaws were extinct in the wild for 70 years, and now captive breeding and conservation groups have reintroduced a small population (with more on the way) and there are babies being successfully raised in the wild again.
And what else is there, but hope? We exist for the grace of hope. Those who have lost all hope don't stay here. If you are here to send an ask like this, it is not because you have given up, it's that you are hoping someone will show you that that hope is worth having.
It is!! It always is!!
There will be good things and if you cannot find them, make them! The time will pass anyway, you can choose what to do with it, and so many, many people are choosing to try to help.
The Lord Howe Island rodent eradication project never fails to make me cry, it’s so beautiful.
The population of an entire island working together to eradicate every last rat and mouse to save the native bird populations. They had to trap a bunch of the birds and keep them in captivity so they wouldn’t be hurt by the rodenticides, and released them after the rodents were gone. Normal residents helped by phoning in tips whenever they saw rodents. And they did it. Lord Howe Island, last I read, remains rodent free, and the native bird populations are rebounding!
Acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer, both of which were terrifying specters of my childhood, have been largely dealt with. Ecosystems devastated by acid rain are also recovering.
We are making a difference!
In 1979, an audacious, expensive conservation project was begun to try and breed california condors in captivity toward being released into the wild again. This was considered useless and hopeless by many people, but many more people said we had to at least TRY.
In 1991, the first captive-raised condors were re-introduced to Big Sur, Pinnacles, and Bitter Creek.
In 2006, three months before I turned eighteen, the first wild pair of condors was seen nesting in Big Sur in over a hundred years. A hundred years.
We did that. We fixed it.
How about another example.
When my mom was small, in the 1960s, there were many, many days of the year she was not allowed outside. Days and days they had recess indoors, because the air was so poisonous to breathe. Here's an article about it, with some good pictures.
My mom was 13 in the picture on the left. She was 50 in the picture on the right.
In 1987, there were 27 California Condors in the world, all captive.
In 2024, there were 566.
369 of them fly free.
That happened within my lifetime, and I'm not even 40 yet.
When you lose hope, think of our stories we're telling you. Recount them to yourself like a prayer. That's what I do.
There are 369 California Condors flying free in the sky right now.
There is no more acid rain.
There is an ozone.
There are wild tigers.
There are still birds on Lord Howe Island.
There are 369 California Condors flying free.
Black footed ferrets were considered completely extinct in 1979. Then we found a single den in Wyoming in 1981. In 1996 it was classified as extinct in the wild.
By 2013, there were approximately 1,200 living wild, across 18 dens. Their numbers increase regularly, and while the face challenges due to habitat loss, climate change, and their limited genetic diversity, they're in a much better place than they were.
Because people cared, and they worked, and they fought to make things better.
i need everyone to know that they recorded a tender shark threesome
link to news article:
A University of the Sunshine Coast researcher has caught on camera and documented for the first time a rare – and rather risqué – shark mati
Digital video images related to the article are also available <- this one is an 11 mins long video and shows the entire mating ritual and copulation with each male !!
Just as a little heads up, PetSmart is (and presumably other pet stores are) starting to carry Regal Jumping Spiders as pet stock.
The ones being sold are WILD CAUGHT. They're being found MISLABELED for sex (females labeled as males etc), and no consideration is being given to the fact that wild caught jumping spider females are pretty much ALWAYS GRAVID. They mate once and will lay around 5 clutches of 25+ eggs each clutch. Since they're only native to a few states, releasing spiderlings means potentially introducing invasive animals, meaning the choice comes down to raising a hundred or more babies or euthanizing a hundred or more babies.
If you've been thinking about getting a jumping spider pet, please do not shop from a major pet store. There are plenty of breeders now, selection for cool traits and more friendly dispositions is being done. You can get a young spider you know is young AND know won't make more of itself despite you never putting another spider in with her. Or get an actually confirmed male if you prefer. And it'll cost you about the same amount as a pet store disaster.
For a little more info, your average, normal, nothing-special-about-it regal from a regular breeder should run you around $50, give or take depending on the breeder and the sex (the ones near me average around that much, with males usually being slightly cheaper than females). For more expensive mutations, like the white colored females people are gaga over lately, it could be twice that. Shipping is expensive, and could add $40-60 depending on where it's starting and where it's from and which service they use. All of this is worth it. A young spider (below full maturity, above an i5 or i6) should live for around 2, even 3 years.
The spiders have been spotted at petsmarts going for $40-90, depending on the location of the shop, and they are mature adults, meaning you have no idea how old they are. You have no idea if they have parasites. You have no idea of their temperaments; and yes, they DO have temperaments. You have no idea if they're gravid. You know nothing about them! You'd be paying basically the same price for a spider that could turn out to be complete disaster for you. And you're paying it with zero support from the store you got it from, whereas most breeders are willing to answer questions and give advice to new owners, in order to assure their babies get good care in their new homes.
What good keepers are also finding is that MANY wild caught jumpers are not comfortable with captivity, and die off quickly through no fault of the care if they continue to be kept in conditions that stress them. They don't built hammocks, they don't eat, they don't drink, they just stress and look for a way out until they eventually starve to death. While many folks DO keep wild-caught spiders (temporarily or permanently), the general rule is to invite them to stay, and let them leave if they decline. If they don't build a hammock within the first 24-48 hours, you let them go again. If they set up camp, they're comfy. You don't have this luxury with wild caught spiders that have been uprooted from their home states. Captive bred spoods, especially ones being sold by responsible breeders, are used to captivity, and generally only being sold if they'll make suitable pets.
You're also not depleting the native populations, to support captive breeding. There's no info on where Petsmart is sourcing their spiders, where the adults are being captured, how far they've traveled already to be there. They are being found in some places in sealed shipping containers, which eliminates the staff's ability to give them proper care (they need misting, they need to be fed). There is literally not a single good thing about this situation for the spiders. Or for new owners.
Utah transportation: “ Good news we could all use: the Parley's Wildlife Overpass is working.”
Thanks Blake Ledbetter (@blakethy) and @usuaggielife for leading the study.
I just think "data center water usage should be federally regulated," while less catchy and less emotionally charged, is a stronger political stance than "fuck AI." Targets the systemic flaw rather than a product, you know?
AGREE But let's take it farther:
Data centres shouldn't be allowed in areas that experience drought or are Koppen classification B category (arid and semi-arid).
They should have federally regulated water usage and be required to have heat and exhaust treatment ON SITE
They should have daily penalties for failing to meet zero emissions targets scaled to their profit margin (i.e. a percentage rather than a set amount) THAT ARE ACTUALLY ENFORCED.
NO DEFERRED PROSECUTION AGREEMENTS. EVER.
They must show provenance for EVERY piece of art and writing in their data sets, and show that they have made contracts to use EVERY SINGLE ONE before they are allowed to use them. Hold them to the same standards as every other form of media.
They must inform the end-user about data privacy and that chatbots are not a substitute for therapy, research, programming, work, school, and are not to be used for anything but novelty.
All of this would severely hobble them and expose how much of a turkey GenAI actually is. I doubt they can make money off it without theft and lies. It's a very expensive toy.
I’ve been waiting a year to post this
it’s that time of year again
I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.
Be honest do you think that actually learning things in high school is important
yeah dude or else youre gonna be that coworker people post about
this is by far the most insane example
The World's Deepest Lake
What's the world's deepest lake? Well, the correct answer is Lake Baikal, but if you wanted to be both wrong and pedantic, you could say it's Lake Vostok! I mean, it'd really depend on your definition of "deepest" and "lake"; at least "world" can stay put. Lake Baikal in Russia is a rift lake, formed by a split in the continental crust; it has a maximum depth of over one mile.
Lake Vostok is.. a little different. The bottom point of Lake Vostok is at least two or three miles below solid land! So how can Baikal be the winner? Vostok is not a conventional lake; it's in Antarctica and buried beneath 13,000 feet of ice. Nobody has ever even seen Lake Vostok with anything more than ground-penetrating radar. So sorry, no pretty photos for this post.
(Instead, you can have this chart showing Lake Baikal's relative depth and width, with vertical elevation uselessly exaggerated)
The actual depth of Lake Vostok is only about 1/4 mile. But it is massive: It covers 4,830 square miles and is the world's 16th largest lake by surface area. The weirdest part: It's fresh water that stays below the freezing point of water! The extreme pressure from the ice above decreases the melting point, keeping the water liquid, called the pressure melting point.
This property is why lakes like Vostok were theorized about in the 1800s, although they weren't fully discovered (i.e. viewed with radar) until 1991. Over 140 subglacial lakes have been discovered, and many of them are absolutely massive. Vostok even has an island!
Vostok (and all of Antarctica) used to be a tropical climate, connected to Africa (Gondwana, part of Pangaea), with extensive rain forests. This stopped some 66 million years ago with Antarctica's relocation, but Vostok and other subglacial lakes may have preserved signs of the life that used to be there.
Exploration of Vostok has been limited for obvious reasons. In 1998 a core sample was taken from the lake, and it was the longest ice core ever produced at 11,886 feet. Analysis of the cores showed that the lake isn't sterile, but actually has a flourishing ecosystem of bacteria. Evidence of fish DNA from a species known to resist freezing was found, but no fish yet.
So yeah, mark one more point down for how Antarctica is the closest thing we have on Earth to a truly alien world. There are all kinds of things we haven't found yet.
Who's excited about my big fall book tour? I'm heading out I-70 on my fall trip to the Missouri Ozarks, and I'll be holding book signing events at bookstores, libraries, and other venues along the way (and one in Anacortes, WA, once I'm back home in the PNW.) I'd love the chance to meet more folks while I'm on the road, and chat with you about why being an everyday naturalist is so great! It'll be a great opportunity to pick up a signed copy of The Everyday Naturalist, and support local bookstores, too.
You can find more information at http://theeverydaynaturalist.com/2025-book-tour/ - I've also put the dates and locations under this convenient cut:
glad google ai is on top of this
Renfield.
This assumes a single fly weighs 8g, which is the weight of a 1-2 week old mouse (!). If you are unfamiliar with metrics: 100g is a bit less a quarter of a pound.
Btw, Wikipedia says a single house fly weighs in the range of 0.2 grams, so Google has discovered a world where flies are about 40x bigger
I was going to tell you that horseflies still absolutely do not weigh 8 grams
but I found a funnier answer
