Part 3/3: Which of these animals featured in An Immense World* would you rather be for a day?
Big Brown Bat
Loggerhead Turtle
Manatee
Black Ghost Knifefish
Voting ended onJun 16
*An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us is a 2022 book by Ed Yong. For context, I’ve summarised some sensory information about each of these animals below the cut. (Part 1, Part 2)
Big brown bats hunt in total darkness using echolocation; they unleash a stream of short, ultrasonic pulses, and listen to the returning echoes. The sonar call of the big brown bat leaves its mouth at around 138 decibels, roughly as loud as a jet engine. To make sure the bat is not deafened by its own scream, muscles in the inner ear contract in time with their calls, temporarily desensitizing their hearing before restoring it in time for the echo. In the final moments of a hunt, the pulses grow shorter and closer together, creating a so-called ‘terminal buzz’ as it gathers information as fast as possible. In this final stage, their vocal muscles can contract up to 200 times per second.
Since the bat needs to match each outgoing call to its returning echo, there is no overlap between calls and echoes, even during the terminal buzz. It produces a wide range of frequencies in its sonar which bounce off a moth’s body in different ways, telling the bat the exact size, shape, texture and position of its prey down to distances of half a millimeter or less. It’s worth noting that using echolocation, the bat hears in snapshots much like the framerate of a film, rather than a continuous moving image.
Loggerhead turtles have two magnetic senses that help them navigate: one that senses inclination (the angle at which geomagnetic field lines meet the Earth’s surface) and one that senses the intensity of that magnetic field. These two properties vary across the globe, acting like coordinates on a map, and turtles can read that map innately.
Even hatchlings, when moved to points in the Atlantic along their future migration route, would swim in the direction that would keep them within that migration route. If they survive long enough to ‘settle down’ as an adult, they learn the geomagnetic topography of their home waters best; when older turtles were exposed to magnetic fields from different parts of the Florida coastline, they would always swim in directions that would lead them home.
Manatees are the only known mammals that have no hair except for vibrissae, a type of specialised whiskers. 3,000 of them are scattered over their large bodies, but another 2,000 are concentrated on their oral disk, the part of their face between the upper lip and nostrils. This disk is muscular and prehensile, and by flexing it a manatee can investigate objects with the same dexterity and sensitivity as a hand. This is called oripulation. They explore everything in their path face first, and whenever they meet, they’ll oripulate each other’s faces, flippers and torsos. Their eyesight is ‘notoriously bad’, but their vibrissae allow them to perceive their surroundings through a distant version of touch.
a moment of appreciation for one of my favourite lines in the book:
The black ghost knifefish produces an electric field from an organ in its tail that wraps around its whole body; it senses distortions in this field using over 14,000 electroreceptors scattered across its skin. Like echolocation, this electrosense works a little like 'touch at a distance; it investigates objects by swimming back and forth against them, just like we run our fingers over things to feel their texture. The sense is omnidirectional, and so reliable that the knifefish can swim backwards and upside-down just as well as forwards.
They also use their electric field to court and communicate, increasing the frequency of electric pulses to produce 'chirps’. When some species of electric fish lose a fight, they produce a 'submission signal' by temporarily switching off their electric field, meaning they stop being able to sense the world around them, blurring the line between sensing and communication.
Part 2/3: Which of these animals featured in An Immense World* would you rather be for a day?
Treehopper
Hammerhead Shark
Two-spot Octopus
Royal Southern Albatross
Voting ended onJun 16
*An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us is a 2022 book by Ed Yong. I’ve summarised some sensory information about each of these animals below the cut, but the book goes into much more depth. (Part 1, Part 3)
Treehoppers are a group of sap-drinking insects which communicate by sending vibrations through the plants on which they stand, and recieve these messages through their legs. The vibrations are not audible, but can be converted into sound using a vibrometer.
Yong compares some of these sounds to cows mooing, the beep of a truck reversing, the calls of birds, apes, mechanical clicks and ticks, a 'startlingly deep' cat's purr, a scratchy didgeridoo, drumming and more. They use these vibrations to find each other in a jungle of plants; some baby treehoppers synchronise their vibrations to summon their mother when they sense a predator, and adults have call-and-response courting rituals.
Hammerhead sharks do not have colour vision (their eyes have one cone, in contrast to most humans' three and most birds' four, but rely on other senses at different points during hunting. Over distances of miles, the shark can sniff out its food. As it draws near, vision takes over, followed by the lateral line, a rich and ancient sense which fish use to detect currents, flow and objects around them.
Once the shark gets within an arm's length, its passive electric sense - concentrated around the snout - allows it to pinpoint the exact position of its prey. The underside of hammerheads snouts are packed with ampullae, the sensors that give them their electric sense, and they sweep their snouts across the seafloor like metal detectorists, in search of buried (edible) riches.
Octopuses, like cuttlefish and other cephalopods, have photoreceptors dotted throughout their skin which might help to control their color-changing abilities. But since they are monochromats, they are unable to see their own shifting colors. Around two thirds of the octopus’ neurons are in the arms, and each arm has a relatively complete nervous system which barely seems to communicate with the other arms. A single octopus arm contains roughly as many neurons as a lobster. Even the 300 suckers on each arm are somewhat independent, each with its own mini-brain (a cluster of neurons called the sucker ganglion) which can decide whether to stick onto something or let it go. The central brain can control the arms if it needs to, but it mostly lets them sort themselves out.
It also tastes with these suckers; whereas our tongues perceive flavor and shape as different, an octopus’ sense of touch and taste are probably inexplicably fused, which Yong describes speculatively as a single unified sense of taste-touch.
Albatrosses**, like other seabirds known as tubenoses, navigate the open ocean partly by smell. When swarms of krill eat blooms of plankton, the plankton release a chemical called DMS, which seeps into the air and, if it rises high enough, seeds clouds. In the varying levels of this chemical, the seemingly featureless ocean has a secret topography invisible to the eye but evident to the nose. Albatrosses can soar for thousands of miles, searching for diffuse plumes of scent that betray the presence of krill beneath the surface, which in turn means an ocean teeming with prey.
(**Although it is not stated explicitly about this species, most birds have tetrachromatic vision, meaning they have cones that detect red, green, blue and ultraviolet wavelengths of light. UV can combine with the others to create colours which are hard for us to conceptualise, like UV-yellow (yurple) or UV-green (grurple))
Part 1/3: Which of these animals featured in An Immense World* would you rather be for a day?
Golden Mole
Asian Elephant
Red Knot
Dog (Canis familiaris)
Voting ended onJun 16
*An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us is a 2022 book by Ed Yong. For context, I’ve summarised some sensory info about each of these animals below the cut. (Part 2, Part 3)
The golden mole, native to the Namib Desert in Southwestern Africa, forages at night by trundling over the dunes or “swimming” through loose sand with paddle-like feet. It is mostly insensitive to airborne sounds, but highly sensitive to vibrations thanks to its malleus, the hammer bone of its middle ear. This bone is relatively enormous; Even though the golden mole weighs just an ounce and would fit in your palm, its malleus is bigger than yours.
It searches for sparse mounds of dune grass, where delicious termites might nest. Peter Narins has suggested that wind blowing over these mounds produces gentle low-frequency vibrations, which the golden mole can detect by dipping its head and shoulders into the sand. This seismic sense is so acute that, though blind, it can walk between distant mounds in virtually straight lines.
Elephants can call to each other over distances of several miles using infrasound - low pitched sounds inaudible to humans. This explains how elephant families seperated by great distances sometimes travel in the same direction for weeks, or converge on waterholes at the same time. They respond to seismic cues from other far-away groups, vibrations which travel through the ground and up their legs, much the same as treehoppers.
Their lives are also dominated by smell. After only brief training, they have been known to outperform highly trained detection dogs, and few sources of odor are as interesting to them as each other. They regularly inspect each other with their trunks, smelling glands, mouths and genitals. Urine, dung and other bodily fluids are full of pheromones and thus full of meaning.
Red knots** and other shorebirds use ‘remote touch’ to sense the exact position of worms, shellfish and crustaceans buried in wet sand, even ones out of reach of their long beaks. The tips of their bills have microscopic pits, which contain mechanoreceptors similar to those in our hands. As the bill repeatedly probes the sand, it pushes on thin rivulets of water between the grains, creating a pressure wave that radiates outward, and if there is a hard object in the way, the water must flow around it, distorting the pattern of pressure. The knot stabs its beak up and down several times a second to stir up the sand grains and make these distortions more obvious, as if it were using a kind of sonar based on touch instead of hearing.
Many distantly related birds use this sense to forage; Ibises use remote touch to probe through muddy wetlands, and Kiwis do the same with leaf litter.
(**Although it’s not stated explicitly about this species, most birds have tetrachromatic vision, meaning their eyes can detect red, green, blue and ultraviolet wavelengths. UV can combine with the others to create colours which are hard for us to conceptualise, like UV-red (rurple) or UV-green (grurple))
Dogs are not totally colourblind but see mostly in shades of blue, yellow and grey, and they can't distinguish between red and green. Unlike light, smells can diffuse and seep out of small spaces, around corners, lingering in a way light cannot. Dogs can sniff up to six times per second, and the side-facing slits of their nostrils mean their exhalations waft more odors into their nose. A dedicated tributary in the nose allows odorants to linger and send signals to the brain even after the dog has exhaled and moved on to sniffing something else. When a dog sniffs, it is not merely assessing the present but reading the past and divining the future. ‘Nosework' classes can help reactive dogs become more tolerant and easygoing as they hone their natural olfactory sense.
BLM has published a plan to maximize logging in Oregon forests, including old growth forests, without due regard to wildlife (including endangered species) and waterways. They're claiming it will help prevent forest fires, though that seems to be contrary to current science, including that published by the forest service (you can find a list of sources here). This is in response to Trump's executive orders 14223, Addressing the Threat to National Security From Imports of Timber, Lumber, and Their Derivative Products and 14225, Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production.
We have 30 days to submit comments if we want to prevent this. This article has suggestions for what you can say, and how:
One billion board feet per year... 30 days to make your voice heard.
You can read more about it here:
Conservationists say proposal to “maximize” logging across nearly 2 million acres of Western Oregon BLM lands would devastate fish, wildlife
If you live in Oregon and you love our forests, please submit a comment before March 23rd.
If you don't live here, it would be super helpful if you could reblog to spread the word.
Did you know that the genocide in Palestine continues, even in the ceasefire?
Yes
No
Voting ended onMar 3
My name is Ale Peña Gorbe, and I am raising funds for my Palestinian friend Raneen. This is her story, in her words:
Donations to Palestinian fundraisers have dropped catastrophically since the ceasefire was announced, even though the Zionist entity continues to murder, torture and starve Palestinians in cold blood.
@raneen21 and @aooh3 are my friends. They are in Gaza, Palestine, with their family. They lost everything in the bombings and are now in poverty and homelessness. Their 1-year-old baby is in a respirator; he has very dangerous lung cancer and they need to pay $4,000 for continued treatment. My friends don't have that money. They can't help him alone. Please, I beg of you, don't just reblog. Donate, whatever you can.
Their account is vetted by @90-ghost here, by @gazavetters (#576) , and by @bilal-salah0. This Chuffed fundraiser goes directly to them; for transparency, you can dm @raneen21 or @a00h3 if you want to confirm it.
PLEASE, HELP MY FRIENDS' BABY SURVIVE THIS INJUSTICE!!
🌙Ramadan unites our hearts in Gaza. Your donation makes a difference
Gaza needs your support. Ramadan is approaching, bringing us together despite the destruction and the targeting of homes. Ramadan softens hearts and renews souls, allowing us to live in an atmosphere of faith and worship with Allah — even while living in tents.
We, the White Hands Team, are launching a relief campaign for the blessed month of Ramadan to support a large number of families in Gaza whose homes were destroyed by the war of genocide that has devastated the region for two full years. Today, these families are living in tents under extremely difficult conditions.
In Gaza, Ramadan brings us together in faith and compassion. Your donation can ease their suffering and light their path with hope.
Our campaign aims to raise $25,000. Every amount we collect will be used to launch relief initiatives to support our families who are struggling the most and are unable to afford basic Ramadan necessities. The more you contribute and donate, the more campaigns we can carry out, and the more families we can help.
With your donations, our campaigns will be divided into several humanitarian projects, including:
• Food parcels
• Hot meals
• Water distribution
• Community Iftar gatherings
• Roadside Iftar for fasting people
• Zakat al-Fitr
The more donations we receive, the faster we can carry out these initiatives — and we may even be able to launch a Ramadan campaign every single day.
We want to help displaced families in Gaza, but so far we haven't received a single donation to help your people in Gaza.
Please be generous and donate so we can launch our first Ramadan campaign. We will document our work with every donation we receive, showing how the donations were spent and how many families we helped with your donation.
I write to you with deep pain and sadness for my mother.
She urgently needs to travel abroad to complete her treatment.
Until this moment, we have not been able to secure the amount needed for her travel.
All we need now is $1,500 so she can travel and continue her treatment.
I beg you to write something for her on your pages, hoping that someone among your friends might be able to help.
Please share this with your audience and donate whatever you can.
vetted by @gazavetters (line #658) vetted by @nabulsi (here) and vetted by 90-ghost
I write to you with deep pain and sadness for my mother.
She urgently needs to travel abroad to complete her treatment.
Until this moment, we have not been able to secure the amount needed for her travel.
All we need now is $1,500 so she can travel and continue her treatment.
I beg you to write something for her on your pages, hoping that someone among your friends might be able to help.
Please share this with your audience and donate whatever you can.
vetted by @gazavetters (line #658) vetted by @nabulsi (here) and vetted by 90-ghost
Bisan says that among all the aid organisations working in North Gaza right now, Ele Elna Elak is one of the most effective, geared towards resolving the water scarcity and making clean water and vegetables available to Gazans.
Another fundraiser video to help the Mater Family in Gaza!
This is a verified campaign and the video includes a vlog from Ahmed documenting a day in his life under occupation, living with what little they have, cooking, and playing with his children. Many members of Ahmed’s family have been martyred, and Ahmed and his family have been forcibly displaced *seven* times in the past two years. If you can’t donate, you can watch this video to support the fundraiser - share or leave a comment for the youtube algorithm, and remember not to skip the ads!
My name is Ahmeed Mateer, and I am 27 years old. Because of the ongoing war in Gaza, I feel the need to share my story and that of my family
[ID: a drawing of a blue bird flying over a barbed wire fence, with the words "love thy neighbor, not thy border". it is signed "featherbone - fuck ice". end.]
We are here to revive the dream that the students thought was impossible, with your support it was not impossible, just postponed, together we will rebuild the dreams of university students in Gaza
What is a ihyaa?
• Youth volunteer initiative 🌿
• Providing a free study environment for university students 🏫
• We revive determination, awaken the thought, and create hope ✨
Students in Gaza are facing multifaceted conflicts, including: cutting off electricity and the Internet. In this initiative, we did as follows, consider the needs of students (need) a place where there is Internet and electricity, but the places that provide these services are expensive and students do not have any source of income in the current situation, so the idea of providing a safe place that provides free electricity for students to try to lighten them and provide some of their basic needs, then revived and can continue thanks to your support 🍉🍉🍉
The place has been provided and the initiative has been started and we have prepared everything and we have also made an Instagram page to see all our work and also to support us to continue. You can click here to view the Instagram page of the initiative.
If you are a person who encourages science and encourages students to live in Gaza, their most basic rights. Support the campaign and share it with your friends and family to think about people suffering from this damn war and think about supporting them with a generous donation from you. This will be the best thing you do for Gaza students. Let's support the students. We can now reach about £4800 to set a new goal for our safety, which is £10,000 to ensure the continuation of the initiative for at least four months 🙏🏻
“In Gaza, even dreams need a place to take shelter.”
making (tho jester's mostly eating) tamriyeh and basbousa :- )
these foods + embroidery style are from/inspired by palestinian people's culture and crafts, so im going to encourage you here to consider donating to these fundraising campaigns for organisations and people working currently within gaza and palestine to provide food, clothing and medical aid: Palestinian children's relief fund, Gaza soup kitchen, Helping people of Gaza (mutual aid fund), and Medical aid for palestinians. palestine will be free 🇵🇸🕊️
From an outstanding student in all subjects, winner of many awards in competitions at the state level, and a vice president in the school parliament, aspiring to raise the status of his country and looking forward to studying in the most prestigious and best European universities, I saw the future prosperous with success and achievements, until the war came.
Now I go out in the morning to search for clean drinking water, charge phones, find food and search for humanitarian aid
How much I miss my quiet life, how much I miss my home that was blown up by the *I$raeli army, I had a big and beautiful house equipped with the latest technological techniques, but after the war all of this became a thing of the past
But you can influence my life directly, by donating to my donation fund or by sharing my campaign with your friends, thanks to your donation I can bring a smile and life back to my family and contribute to rebuilding my home that was destroyed by the *I$raeli* army
Hi, I am Mohammed Al-Batish, a Palestinian young man from Gaza.
I ha… Mohammed Al-Batish needs your support for Help my Family Evacuate Gaz
Ibrahim is one of the Palestinians that I've known since the beginning of the genocide along with Nader. His father is currently in a grave situation as his cancer keeps spreading. With the murderous Zionists still keeping the borders close, it makes it all the more difficult for this young boy to help his father evacuate. But with the US regime now making significant changes in its political attitude towards the genocide, even putting the Settler state in a state of anxiety, there is still hope that Ibrahim can prepare to evacuate his father as soon as the border crossing opens.
Please donate to Ibrahim if you get the chance.
Hello
I am Ibrahim, 15 years old, I seek your help and assistance to save… Ibrahim Yasser needs your support for Help Ibrahim's family e
€2,404/€50.000 raised
Ibrahim's fundraiser is #25 on @/gazavetters' list!
Thank you very much brother but please guys let me collect as much money as possible this week please my father needs immediate evacuation this week his condition is His condition is very critical. I hope everyone will share the post and donate.
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amandla
stormborns
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