tbh if I was Bella Swan and some guy wanted to go to the beach w me up until he found out it was the one on the reservation and then I asked the kids from the tribe why he was weird about it and they said the Cullens don't come here :/ I would just assume I was trying to hit on the town's most notorious racist.
who up in a kafka-esque rut sleep deprived, casually malnourished, socially awkward, painfully self-conscious, struggling financially, lacking community, altogether anhedonic
theres a real answer to this. if i understand correctly because of the way proportions work a smaller thing’s ratio of surface area to interior is greater, so a mini mnm will have proportionally more candy shell and less chocolate interior than a normal size mnm. so even if you increased in size this much the ratio of chocolate to shell in a normal mnm would remain the same so they would not taste like the more-candy-per-total-mass mini mnms. if mnms increased in size proportionally with you, they would taste more chocolatey than normal mnms
this is a similar concept to the reason why creatures in the deep sea can evolve to be gigantic despite the rarity of food sources: its actually metabolically more efficient to be fuckhuge because your surface area/body mass ratio will be less and thus youll lose less heat through your skin (relative to your mass) to the surrounding cold environment of the sea than a smaller organism would lose
Photograph taken in November, 1909 shows three members of the Payro family being “photographed” by their cat: Edmund, age 12, Ernest, age 8, and Cecilia, age 5 (via Retronaut)
The thing is. Supernatural is sending me coded messages. Through funko pops. They did that. They portrayed their ending in funko pop form half a dozen eps before the actual end. In an episode of supernatural. Where the writer goes to a fans house. The ending (bad) is set up in funko pops. and all the complaints the fan makes about the episode being bad. Where she is positioned as the level headed one in comparison to a self indulgent author. Are reflected in the real finale episode ?. So like. What level of chess are we on. I know supernatural hates me but they really really really make me. It’s like. Supernatural. Says. I have just spent the last month making a football for you to play with. Look. Here are my in progress pics. Of the football I handmade out of leather I tanned. From a cow I killed. To make this for you. And I go oh wow. Really? And supernatural goes mhm. And now it’s time. For you to kick the football. And I go. Well you see supernatural this has gone very badly for me in the past I’m not sure. And supernatural goes. Come on. It would be crazy if I went to all this effort to juke you. And I say. Yeah you’re right. That would be crazy. Okay. Okay yeah I’ll kick it. And then they pull it away from me
So, first thing you need to know is that is a very visibly healthy adult green iguana. Every part of the iguana is sharp. The claws evolved to haul a ten pound lizard up a tree. The spines are like tiny icepicks. The tail is a bullwhip. The teeth evolved to shred leaves, but they'll just as easily shred your flesh. Good luck making a healthy adult iguana do anything they don't wanna. That puts us on our first thing to look at- is the animal capable of defense and getting away, physically? Yes, definitely.
Next thing to know is what does a threatened or scared iguana look like? When an iguana is threatened, it doesn't stand on its hind legs like that; it stands on all fours and puffs itself up to look bigger, aggressively bobs its head (note: head bobbing is a behavior used for a LOT of things, it does need context- for example, they also head bob as part of mating displays), there is hissing, there is tail whipping- iguanas are not subtle creatures. None of this is the behavior of an iguana that feels threatened or is being a threat!
So what does standing like that mean? That's just simple reaching. The iguana sees something they want and is attempting to reach it, and what they want appears to be uppies, because they settle into the human's grip immediately.
Then, we see some GREAT handling from the human. There's really great communication happening between the two of them! The person picks up the iguana very securely- pelvis and pectoral girdles are well supported, and he doesn't grab. (Iguanas typically do NOT like being grabbed around the sides; many of their predators are birds and coming at them from above or gripping the sides is scary!)
As he goes in for the pet, he lets the iguana support their back half on his knee. The hold is secure but not tight; at any point, if the iggy was distressed, they could leave. But they don't- instead, you see them leaning into the pets, actively participating in the behavior. They're not even closing their eyes to block stimulus. They want this to happen.
This is the kind of bond that's possible when you can prove to a big lizard that you're trustworthy, and easily the best iguana video I've seen in a long time. Thank you for tagging me in!
Some green iguana body language resources under the jump!
Barten 2003. Green Iguana Management and Husbandry. Iguana: Journal of the International Iguana Society. I refer to this guy a lot when thinking about iguana behavior because even though the Green Iguana Husbandry issue of Iguana came out 22 years ago, Steve is a member of my herp society and has forgotten more about iguanas than any of us will ever know.
Burghardt 1977. Social behavior in hatchling green iguanas: life at a reptile rookery. Science.
Yes, Burghardt's iguana stuff is older. Yes, it's still highly relevant in the world of reptile ethology. If you can get your hands on a copy of Iguanas of the World, it's amazing how well it holds up.
Kaplan- everything on anapsid.org is at least 10 years old, but that doesn't change how valuable some of it is. Melissa knows her stuff, she just can't have iguanas anymore and unfortunately her health interferes a lot with what she wants to do.
Behavior article collection
Change-Related Stress in Green Iguanas and Other Reptiles
Interpreting Non-Breeding Behaviors in Green Iguanas
Testosterone, Aggression, and Green Iguanas
Köhler 2003. Green Iguana Communication. Iguana: Journal of the International Iguana Society.
Rice et al. 2022. Heads Nods and Boat Bobs: Behavior of Iguana Iguana Is Affected by Environment and Boat Traffic in Riparian Tropical Forest. Biotropica.
Darren Naish wrote a cool blog post for Tetrapod Zoology that's got a lot of social behavior observations! His blogs are always backed up with great sources and evidence.
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