the can of worms is infinite

bugs, biology, museums

[the-actual-ocean]

i have a proposition for you

should all tumblr users now be classed as marine life?

yes

no

Voting ended onJul 31

[the-actual-ocean]

there is only about 10 hours left, please remember to give input. this is important.

[the-actual-ocean]

EVERY TUMBLR USER IS NOW OFFICIALLY MARINE LIFE

[courtesycalling]

Happy mušḫuššu monday everybody

(Photo credit: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

[thestuffedalligator]

There’s a certain folkloric idea that if you die at sea, your soul is sort of. Inextricably stuck in the sea. Because your body is irretrievable, your soul is also irretrievable, down out of the reach of the gods who look at the surface of the world. In Norse mythology, they said that the souls of sailors who died at sea are caught in the sea-goddess Rán’s net and dragged into her domain, a distinct and separate afterlife alongside Hel and Valhalla. Davy Jones Locker. The funayūrei. A lot of cultures agree that once sea has a hold on you, even when your body has rotted and dwindled and been made food for crabs, it still won’t let you go.

Do you think we’re going to wind up saying the same thing about astronauts.

[beardedmrbean]

[partywithponies]

Fascinating how what's considered feminine and what's considered masculine can change over time. The rebranding of being a horse girl into being a stereotypical feminine girly trait needs to be studied.

[partywithponies]

Look at classic children's novels. As recently as the 50s and early 60s, being obsessed with horses as a girl was depicted as strange and tomboyish, and the very concept of being obsessed with horses from early childhood and loving toy horses and desperately wanting your own horse being a "little girl thing" and not a "little boy thing" would send someone from the 1800s and earlier into a coma.

[partywithponies]

There's maybe a point to be made here somewhere about how when keeping and riding horses stopped being necessary to the functioning of society and became a more "frivolous" thing, it was rapidly rebranded as silly and girly and for women, but what do I know.

[dizzyghoast]

i wrote a paper in my masculinity studies class in college about this exact phenomenon, specifically about how high heeled shoes started as a practical way for Persian cavalry to keep their feet on their stirrups, then likely due to that association, became a popular fashion item and status symbol among the upper classes of Europe, before the Great Male Renunciation of the 18th-19th centuries, when men started shunning opulence in favor of utility, leaving them as a fashion item for women instead.

I've joked that the two genders are Aesthetic and Utility before but thats just kinda the case

[o-craven-canto]

Alternate timeline in which all Greek and Latin roots are swapped:

catastrophe -> contraverse cephalopod -> capitoped chlorophyll -> viridofolia democracy -> populimpery homicide -> anthropoctony homosexual -> equigamic kilometer -> millimensure interregnum -> mesarchy magnanimous -> megapsychic manuscript -> chirography motorcycle -> ergatorote microscope -> parvovisor oxygen -> acidofex polyamory -> multierasty television -> remotoscope universe -> monostrophe

[bedupolker]

Saw a gorgeous horned lizard though... always wild how many color/pattern variations i see i the same species.

[escuerzoresucitado]

[guccifloralsuits]

If THE modern translator of the OG Odyssey text wrote this about my film adaptation I’d kill myself

Emily Wilson you’re goated

[the-bar-sinister]

I've seen this reblogged multiple times, and I did indeed read the entire review.

Here's the final paragraph.

Despite all this, the release of The Odyssey is still an event to celebrate. In what we are told is the streaming era, this epic is bringing audiences back to cinemas. In what we are told is a time of declining literacy and the ‘death of the humanities’, translations of The Odyssey, including mine, are flying off the shelves. Some of those who buy the book or show up in cinemas to watch Tom Holland may go on to study ancient Greek. Perhaps the film will persuade a few college administrators not to cut their literature, language and history departments. Nolan, who studied English at University College London – where students still study The Odyssey as a first year ‘foundational text’ – is doing his best to get the general public reading again, and I am grateful.

[justintaco]

[thefanaticalmusingsofrobin]

This show is an accurate portrayal of how artists are hopeless dumbasses and we need a producer type to bring us back to earth to get anything meaningful done and I’m here for it

[discardingimages]

Requiem with a marginal dragonfly  book of hours, Bruges or Ghent 15th century.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 287, fol. 161v

[beausbugbiome]

“When Insects Rule the World” series by Bill Mayer

[deliriatremens]

[musiclovingmoth]

fascinated by the empty-pfp blog of an entomologist i just clicked on that's wildlife photos interspersed with gay pinups

[herpsandbirds]

This is easily one of the CRAZIEST videos I've ever gotten. I was rafting down a river when a Yellow Jacket came, landed on my bright pink waterproof phone pouch, and started drinking from the water droplets that had gathered there.

The most amazing part is how the water droplet magnifies the Hornet's mouth parts, so you get to see them up-close!!!! It was FASCINATING to witness!

Here's some of my favorite still shots from that video:

What do you think? 🥰

[thagomizersshow]

Some woodpeckers make dainty little holes that barely damage the tree.

On the other hand, pileated woodpeckers

[learnmesomeshit-blog]

Your tree has been visited by the Flying Tree Doctor and diagnosed with Infested. He has removed the Unauthorized Fucking Thing. Praise be to Flying Tree Doctor.

[otter11]

オオサンショウウオ 大山椒魚 サイズ:63cm