#whorls

[chasingrainbowsforever]

~ Black and Blue ~

[wouldwind]

Branch office | Agence

[great-and-small]

Horse people are such a specific type of crazy (I know as I am one myself) because they’ve been staring at their horses for millennia with such meticulous fervor that they’ve developed a kind of weird equine phrenology where owners feel like they can predict a horse’s temperament and behavior just from the pattern of hair swirls (called whorls) on their face. Which results in absolutely unhinged diagrams like this

The craziest thing about this? It may be based in truth. There has been a decent amount of study into the connection between hair whorls and horse behavior. Many scientists theorize that because these hair patterns develop in the fetal horse at the same time as the nervous system, certain information about a horse’s behavior can be predicted by the whorls.

A 2021 article in Livestock Science explored the genetic heritability of these swirl patterns and found that a whorl on the forehead is highly influenced by genetic factors and could potentially be used to select more docile animals. Temple Grandin researched the phenomenon as well with several studies at Colorado state and made the same connection between the growth of hair whorls and the development of the horse’s brain, leading to certain manifestations of anxiety or docility. Obviously temperament in any animal is more complicated than just genetics or histology, and it would be silly to try and extrapolate a horse’s entire personality from its hair, but the connection is interesting and worth investigating all the same.

There is an ancient history to these whorls. An Indian veterinarian mentioned them in a treatise on equine medicine from the third century, and the Bedouin people (who had an extremely developed lore around whorls) used the marks to determine the price of horses prior to sale. It’s pretty cool that our modern understanding of embryology and veterinary medicine is illuminating a phenomenon that ancient people first noted and passed down through folklore.

[ezekiellsplayground]

I am so excited! My long awaited orders of more hershey spindle sticks and some new whorls. I am particularly chuffed at the solid amber whorl which I specifically selected for its clarity. I can’t wait to use these with some of my handwashed fleeces (once I’ve finished processing it).

[travelnew]

SaptaParni - Trees of Mumbai

Saptaparni/ Satvin/ Devil's tree/ Shaitan (Alstonia scholaris).

[entelodante]

tell us more about the pentapods' pleural linings. the bones are inside?! yet it is strong enough to be yanked on by tendons... would that I could fillet that and put it under a microscope

also, in what structure does gas exchange take place?

I'm thinking the breathing bones are kind of encased in the lining of the lung. Which would be kind of a chewy, stretchy feel to it, like a rubbery kind of structure. Something you couldn't outright rip but could still slice/pierce it and any cut would tear WAY open during the process of breathing. I'm thinkin the actual BREATHIN meat is thin sheets that run throughout the lungs. I did a lil sketch to kinda show what I'm thinking.

Like they have big sections of vascular swiss cheese for their gas exchange. They are a little more delicate than a human lung, like any serious trauma is liable to tear these membranes and serious inflammation can make em stick up to each other. Not the most efficient but pretty fun!

[entelodante]

In your pentapod lung post you mentioned that Whorls don't make noises using their lungs, so how DO they make noises? Or do they not communicate verbally at all?

Whorls and their close relatives have a fleshy voice box closer to their nostrils?breathing orafices? orafi? They can still make noise the classic pentapod way, but it would be more analogous to a human scream than true meaningful communication.

For exchange of information they use verbal talking like us, and they're pretty chatty! They tend to make more whistle adjacent sounds, think songbird when they're talking! Typically they'll have one voice box tense to whistle through and the other is more lax for pure breathing function. They can be left or right voiced like we are left or right handed.

[ttrraasshh]