as above, so below @postcoronialtheory - Tumblr Blog

@coai week Day 6 - Photo

They spend so much of the series trying to avoid their picture getting in the news, it will be nice when they can relax afterwards. Maybe Shiho can enjoy being on the front page too! (Shinichi has missed that high I'm sure.)

medusaceratops-deactivated20210

Hey while you're loving elephants: Denver Zoo has two teenage boy elephants and one Old Man Elephant named Groucho, and lately they've had the lads housed with him so he can teach them Proper Elephant Manners like how bulls raise teenage boy elephants in the wild. Bull elephants are apparently very into being parents but due to the matriarichal nature of most herds, they really only get to raise calves after they've hit puberty. My point is, one of the boys was being annoying and chasing rabbits so Groucho came up and jabbed him in the ass with a tusk, the lad ran around the enclosure crying then came back and did a lot of "I'm sorry I'll be good now dad" fawning and it was adorable.

OH MAN SEE SEE SEE i wish we knew so much more about how bull elephants interact with herds and families - we've documented bull elephants traveling to matriarchal herds and fake wrestling with male calves, and we've documented bulls protecting orphaned calves, but in god's name i want every in and out about it. everything we know about elephant social interaction is not enough. it's a Thing that introducing old bulls to a population lowers the amount of younger bulls in musth, also known as the state in which bull elephants desire nothing but murder and possibly sex, but - i want to know the precise mechanisms. old bull elephants teaching younger bulls manners renders me VERKLEMPT. i just wanna know every secret elephants have.

this is incredible though. peak teenage boy. groucho has his hands full and i fucking love him for that. get their asses, groucho.

gallusrostromegalus

So from what I understand, as remembered from nature programs and the zookeeper lecture, is that Old Bulls reduce the violence i young bulls by putting them through Elephant Finishing School.

This is better documented in African Elephants than asian ones because they're easier for elephant biologists to observe by the means of 'sitting on top of a jeep and taking notes' but the general scope goes like this:

Elephant herds are largely matriarichal as both a means of protection- elephants have a long childhood and it's easier to protect calves in a group, AND as a socio-political means of sexual choice.

An African elephant is pregnant for nearly two years, then she spends at least 3-5 years with that calf completely dependent on her, so she only gets a few opportunities to have babies before she hits menopause, and it's a lot of damn work so she is naturally EXTREMELY picky about who she mates with. And if she's younger, her mom, sisters and grandmothers will also be real picky about who she mates with and WHEN too- can't go around risking a teenage pregnancy, especially not with asubstandard male. Elephants also have a pretty clear idea of what they want out of a Male too: they have a marked preference for Large, Old, Socially Adept Males. Large males are HEALTHY males with all thier bones in place and functioning digestive tracts. OLD males are healthy, have good intelligence to stay alive, and have good teeth. Socally Adept Males can make friends, get along with her whole family, won't engage in dangerous behaviors like trying to kill her calves or grandmothers. It's a good system that produces robust, intelligent and helpful calves.

This means however, that most female elephants are into Dilfs, or even Gilfs. Which is extremely frustrating when you are a horny teenage boy elephant, so they go a bit nuts with hormones and social isolation and get involved in teenage elephant gangs and do things like murder rhinos out of sexual and social frustration.

BUT! If there are Large, Old, Socially Adept males about, they like being parents too, but are largely pushed out of the role by the matriarichal herds and their strict group politics that exist to prevent unsuitable mating. So They turn thier attention to these violent orphans and like your beloved Batman go "I'm gonna parent the shit outta that."

They mostly do this by herding the Lads around, pointedly demonstrating Behaviors like "How to dig for roots so you don't starve" or "How to knock over a tree" or "Greeting a Matriach Properly so she doesn't sic her descendants on you", and disciplinary behaviors like "Jabbing naughty Lads in the ass with a tusk" and "Hitting you in the face with a branch until you STOP THAT" . This is WILDLY beneficial for the young males under thier tutelage, who are less likely to die of accidents, and start mating earlier because they've had a Suitable Gentleman make introductions for them, like they are fancy men at a regency-era ball being intoduced to the debutantes.

Imagine some Fine and Respectable DILF wandering around adopting teenage delinquents and spraying them in the face with a windex bottle full of vinegar until they learn how to be proper upstanding gentlemen and you're getting close.

the-awkward-turt

@gallusrostromegalus I actually attended a talk from the former director of animal welfare and research at Denver Zoo about the composition of their bull elephant herd (there are actually five bulls housed together now!) and the research they are doing on bull social behavior and its impacts on welfare in human care.

I just now went looking for my notes from that talk and it looks like they recently published a study on some of their research findings: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10888705.2021.1908141?scroll=top&needAccess=true

the-awkward-turt

Another very small note, female elephants don’t actually go through menopause. There are very few mammals that do (other primates don’t even do it), humans and some species of whale are pretty much the only menopause-havers in the animal kingdom.

Which is a whole other interesting animal-behavior-and-sociality thing: https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/do-other-mammals-go-through-the-menopause/

Note, fertility may decrease in older animals, but that’s different from the complete loss of ability to produce offspring that happens with menopause.

gallusrostromegalus

Cool! Thanks for the links and update one elephant non-menopause. I think I had them mixed up with orca and/or my aunt sue.

filthburger

the only language tumblr understands is backlash and escalation which is why the jokes rule and the discourse sucks

catpaku

Another reality

pointnclick

also everyone who actually studies philosophy thinks aristotle and all those hellenistic philosophers are ultimately cringe. like they are great as a starter in 101 to get you used to socratic dialogue and rhetoric in arguments. and its really interesting from a historical perspective to see how the field was structured. but it is so funny to see chuds online who don’t read anything else in the field, just jerk it to incredibly archaic bullshit that first year students have to trudge through. ooooh its classic so its good return to tradition men used to be men. gum me through my jorts you toothless reprobates.

pointnclick

i always thinks of this. the guy on the bus was right :/

maarple

keep popularising the body neutrality movement gang i wanna see how the makeup and weight loss industries try to capitalise on 'i literally do not give two shits about how i look'

porchenjoyer

does anyone else remember when 19-year-old musician Lil Nas X released a single about riding horses and having fun. Became a wildly popular song. And then he was forcibly outted to the public and now every fucking day he’s fighting for his life against white supremacists and the Christian church. He’s only 22. Can you even imagine the immense pressure? The hurt you’d be experiencing in his shoes? At twenty fucking two? His music is amazing and his replies on Twitter are spot-on, but how are so many of you not enraged at what he’s being forced to endure?

kabaks

you know what i’ve never seen. one of those really big trees. like the massive ones in california. i feel like if i saw one i’d start crying immediately

kabaks

trust me when i say i would be going absolutely apeshit if i was this kid

kabaks

tell me this doesn’t fill you with some latent animal urge to scuttle your way to the canopy and check for predators

fandomsandfeminism

We went there last summer.

The scale of these trees just…breaks your brain. Cameras cannot convey what it is like to stand at the base of one of these things. Each tree is the biggest fucking tree you’ve ever seen and theres just….an entire forest of the fucking things. Hundreds of years old, hundreds of feet high.

flowerytale

Gillian Flynn ― Gone Girl

eclogues

fuck therapy i’m becoming a knight

garnetrena

Pearl ghostwrote this

mr krab daughter??

no the rock

dwayne????

“When it’s over, leave. Don’t continue watering a dead flower.”

— Unknown

secifosseluce

as much as the concept of Jesus being a fairly normal lad has its charms, im personally very intrigued by the idea of him being just… extremely weird. not even in a mystical sense, just…….staggeringly BIZZARRE.

you go to the well to get some water, and here’s Miriam’s boy, staring at the sky, completely still. his expression is unreadable. you hazard a hello and ask how he’s doing, and he slowly, unblinkingly, lowers his gaze on you (he’s 8 and is missing his frontal teeth, not that this is making you any less uncomfortable) and says “I cannot speak of the state of my being, Nathan son of Saul, my brother, but rejoice for the water you shall take today will be as pure as the soul of the children of Heaven”

…you start sweating

secifosseluce

normal person in 1st century Nazareth: making my way downtown, walking fast

*sees J boy, 8 yo, staring at you from across the street*

normal person: walking faster

secifosseluce

even funnier, the only person 100% on board with his Prophetic Kid Talk is his mother Miriam, an otherwise placid, absolutely normal woman around 25 or so

kid JC, coming home at twilight, a single white dove following him and chirping with weirdly human-like precision:

moth̫́er,̦͌ ̮̉i h͙̉av͔̽e ͓͗b̘̃r̞̓o̮͘u̲̒gh̟͒t̺́ you a do̗͐ṽ͙e̢͘ ͈̾m͒͢a͈̽dē̝ ỏ̘f ͈̓c̆͜l͔̂aỷ͇ aṋ̑d̳̿ g͢͞i̹̾fted̖͡ ̻͐it ͓͂w̖̿it̎͜h t̥̃h͙͒e ̨̒m̧̂i̡̍ŗ͒â̫cḷ̔è̤ ̛̻of̞̅ l̘̈i̛̦fè̳

Miriam: ! that’s my little boy :) now let’s go get ready for dinner :)

her husband Yosef, a carpenter who only marginally got signed up for this:

bargains-by-duckface

This post is so Christian, but it’s the spicy kind of Christian that gets you murdered by other Christians for heresy, so I’m torn.

secifosseluce

literally biggest form of compliment i’ve ever gotten

moonsterm

that means the angels are babysitters then

moonsterm

here have more

patricia-von-arundel

You guys really need to read Christopher Moore’s Lamb, if you haven’t.

frikinnerd

Always reblog Cryptid Jesus

moonsterm

I made more. cause it’s fun

crap-copper

I love that you guys used their actual names

roane72

I did not consider Eldritch Baby Jesus.

lilaccatholic

God I know you have a sense of humor because otherwise there’s no explanation for the platypus and I hope it extends to comics about baby cryptid Jesus