Monterey Bay Aquarium
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trying on a metaphor
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art blog(derogatory)
Misplaced Lens Cap
JBB: An Artblog!
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almost home
Today's Document
Not today Justin
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I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
dirt enthusiast
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@waterlilytea
New pinned
Alterhuman blog: @deer-boy-fae
Photography Blog: @crows-photos
Main Blog: @inky-goddess
Hi!! I'm Sam, I'm a deerkin therian and a nature fae (autumn court) otherkin.
My names include: Sammiee/Sam, Crow, Raine, Mike/Michael, and Kinger
My pronouns are it/they/he
6 zoo myths that arent true
Most behaviors that you see keepers demonstrate at the zoo or aquarium are natural behaviors that the animals do in the wild. When the animals do them, the keepers give them a treat and pair it with a gesture or a word, so that they associate them, and eventually the word or gesture is enough to elicit the behavior because the animal knows that there’s a reward. But here’s the thing: most of those behaviors are encouraged because they help veterinarians and keepers do health checks.
Yeah, its cute when they nose boop the stick, but also keepers need to check their vision and depth perception and mobility. Sea lions are so cute when they wave! But vets and keepers need to check under those flippers to make sure that they’re healthy and that they don’t have any restrictions on their motion or cuts on their skin. Why do they ask animals to jump? Again, to make sure that they’re healthy, and also because its fun and animals LOVE to move around and jump and have fun, its mentally stimulating.
This is the most important thing I will ever reblog and anyone who is still ignorant enough to think zoos are awful can fuck off my blog. Zoos are necessary. If you think otherwise please unfollow me because I don’t want you here.
This is super important for people to see. I have worked at a zoo and I can not tell you how many times I’ve had to defend the zoo for the good they do. People need to learn that zoos are actually helping save endangered species.
And like, to be clear: there was a time when this was not true.
A lot of the momentum against zoos comes from decades past when, not to put too fine a point in it, they sucked.
Even now, you do want to take a quick look to make sure a zoo or wildlife park or whatever is part of a GOOD accreditation body, like AZA, or in the case of smaller ones that may not have the finances for accreditation, details like who works there, what their goals are, and so on. And if you’re in a country or region with few regulatory structures, you’ll want to look into any given zoo yourself.
But that image of zoos as terrible places when animals are tormented for amusement comes out of the past, and no longer represents at all what zoos do.
In North America for example “zookeeper” is a degree-career, usually with post-graduation courses that amount to another degree. Etc.
The animals in zoos long term aren’t and almost certainly never were releasable; and zookeepers get SO FUCKING EXCITED when animals they’ve been involved with are part of a release program.
Are zoos also largely the result of an imperfect world? yeah, to be honest. IN that perfect world, there would need no need for the conservation efforts of zoos or there to be a permanent home for unreleasable non-pet animals surrendered or seized from people who should know better, and so on. But we’re not in that one; we’re in this one.
So many places house animals that cannot be in the wild. There’s a raptor center near me and all the birds have some injury that would kill them normally (broken wing, blindness, lost limb, etc.). If they get a new bird, they try to heal them and then release them. If they can’t, then they’re added to displays. But it’s much better for a blind falcon to live in an enclosure safe from other birds where it’s fed regularly than in the open wild where it might starve or get killed by a rival bird.
me explaining to my grandma that the turkey tail and golden oyster mushrooms and birds nest fungi growing on her huge backyard tree stump are simply eating the dead wood to return it to the soil and they're cute and colorful and add to the whimsy of her landscaping and are not causing the weeds in other places of the yard or harming her little white dog
but why no photo of lovely decomposers?????
they put stumps like this in storybooks man
Mutualistic pairs for an “Odd Couples” Valentine’s program at my work. (Why do so many of my big work projects revolve around Valentine’s programs?)
Also, by “sea bugs,” I obviously meant “gnathiid isopod larvae.”
The himan one is not as good as the rest
If you mean the mutualism between humans and honeyguides, I respectfully disagree. Human/honeyguide mutualism is one of the most sophisticated interspecies relationships in the animal kingdom.
While humans have domesticated many other animals for their labor, the honeyguide remains entirely wild while electing to partner up with humans. Both humans and honeyguides have each developed specific calls to signal to one another that they are on the hunt, and these calls greatly increase the likelihood of success. According to this paper:
The production of this sound increased the probability of being guided by a honeyguide from about 33 to 66% and the overall probability of thus finding a bees’ nest from 17 to 54%, as compared with other animal or human sounds of similar amplitude.
That’s fucking bonkers, you guys!!! There are people out there who over the course of human history have created a sound to communicate with birds, and the birds themselves have a Human Call they use to communicate with us. There is no other wild animal you can just make noises at and immediately communicate that you want it to come help you!!!
What’s more, many scientists consider this relationship more exploitative on the honeyguide’s end than on our end! That’s unprecedented!! These birds have essentially negotiated a trade deal with humanity!!!! This is the stuff of fantasy movies, except it’s real.
Here’s an article from The Guardian about the broader implications of this kind of relationship with wild animals. It’s a good read:
Apart from with our gut bacteria, we humans don’t really have any mutualistic relationships with other creatures. There is no special tune that we can sing to magically attract nearby hedgehogs into our gardens to feast on slugs. There will never be a special wink that fishermen can offer otters, encouraging them to catch fish that we might then de-bone for them, in return for some of the catch. The world is poorer for this.
OKAY BUT the noise we make at honeyguides is one of my favorite noises there is, and if y’all haven’t heard the “BRRR-HM?” call that hunters use to summon honeyguides you are SERIOUSLY missing out.
There’s an audio clip on the Audobon Society’s article about them [link]
Today I learned that a species of bird has domesticated humans.
Look, I don't know how prevalent the idea that farmers are dumb and uneducated still is, but to be clear, farming is fucking difficult as shit. You can get advanced degrees in specific areas of farming, and you might be surprised how many farmers DO have degrees. Trying to learn farming without a family background or direct experience does often feel like trying to do graduate level coursework if you skipped high school. Being a first generation farmer is just continually fucking embarrassing, because you're basically always gonna look like an ignorant idiot to a generational farmer. Even if--especially if--you think you've read all the research and you know better than him.
I am being driven to madness by the fact that bees and butterflies aren't better studied than other pollinators because they are more important to the ecosystem, they are just better studied because...people like them more?
Seriously
My plants are attracting HUGE amounts of flies, ants, wasps, and moths, and when I identify them and look them up there is no information! Especially flies, wow. They're so diverse, there's SO many different kinds. I'm getting a ton of bee-mimic flies and hover flies.
Wikipedia says hover fly larvae eat aphids while the adults are pollinators. That means they are beneficial in two ways at once! But most of the Wikipedia pages for species are only one sentence, if they exist at all. Likewise here's the wiki page for the most common bee mimic fly where I am. It's one sentence!
If you only pay attention to butterflies and bees, and plant the plants that are the best for butterflies and bees, you would maybe neglect keystone plants that support the largest amount of other insects. And these insects are like, a massive proportion of the bugs in a healthy ecosystem. And birds and mammals need bugs for food! A lot of birds are mostly insectivorous, and anyways, an unbalanced diet of all bird seed can't be healthy even for the omnivorous birds. They need to eat a variety of foods!
Not to mention that larvae are necessary for feeding baby birds!
The back yard is overflowing with birds. There are red-bellied woodpeckers, a gray catbird, a barn swallow, tree swallows, wrens, sparrows, house finches, goldfinches, bluebirds, bluejays, grackles, orioles, cardinals, doves, and a bunch of others I'm forgetting about, and they are constantly singing and making a commotion, and it's louder now than the ugly man-made sounds that are always barging in through the quiet.
Trying to qualitatively evaluate which plants are most used by insects, I've been paying attention to which species have the most holes in the leaves.
Some of the best loved pollinator plants, such as the mountain mints, which bees are obsessed with...well, that one doesn't have holes in the leaves at all. I understand why, I tried to eat it myself and the overwhelming, burning dose of menthol made me spit it out.
These are some of the plants that get eaten the most:
Verbena urticifolia, White Vervain. This plant is not very popular, I haven't found any nurseries that sell it, it just isn't as pretty as the other Verbena species, its flowers being tiny and white. And it looks a lot like stinging nettle before it blooms, an unfortunate resemblance. This plant often has the holiest leaves, I've never seen its leaves uneaten.
Phyla lanceolata, Frogfruit. This plant is sold by at least one native plant nursery, but still not very popular. It grows in wet areas ranging from "moist" to "a couple inches of water" and would be great for a drainage ditch. It is very tough, spreads along the ground by its stems and grows SUPER fast. It is also eaten upon heavily by bugs.
Eupatorium serotinum, Late Boneset. This plant is actually more attractive for its leaves and bright red stems than for its flowers, I think, but a couple nurseries do sell it. It prefers wet areas.
Xanthium strumarium, Cocklebur. Nobody wants to plant this thing on purpose...except me. A lot of sources claim it's not even native! That's bullshit though because there are species of bugs ONLY found in North America that ONLY eat cocklebur.
I hate that I’m always trying to find cool biology themed stuff to wear but all the “nature inspired” clothing companies just have like two crossed arrows or a minimalistic mountain on a sweatshirt. Fucking lame, that’s barely even nature-adjacent. Put the life cycle of a salamander on a jacket, put hyena skeleton patterns on leggings, put a damn field guide of birds of prey on a peacoat and THEN you can have my money. Do NOT give me a shirt with a leaf on it that says “stay wild” or some bullshit I would much prefer clothing that broadcasts to everyone around me how many teeth an adult Jaguar has or how some pitcher plants can catch and digest rats.
recommendations from the notes :)
studio 252MYA (paleontology)
ray troll's webstore (surrealist fish designs)
liberty graphics t-shirts (biology/dinosaurs)
present indicative (science-themed clothing + home items)
donbea tees - something fishy collection (silly fish puns about substance use)
camp mustelid (nature themes)
crime pays but botany doesn't (botany/biology)
umvvelt (marine biology patterns)
morningwitch (nature patterns)
svaha USA (science patterns)
cognitive surplus (some clothing, but mostly home items)
CM MENTION!!!!!! thanks so much :-)
here's a few more great nature themed small biz shops for you to check out!
MOTEL777 nature goodies with a cryptic twist
Curlworks cute critters with a hint of silly
Fossilforager especially good if you're a bug or amphibian fan
Quailtea Goods wide range of animal art including mythical ones!
Loonpflug specialty on plants and insects!
Come support some cool small businesses for your nature inspired shopping! 🌟🍁
Here is a list I’ve accumulated over time!
Solstice Handmade fungi, arthropods, and various other animals
The Vet Med Artist mostly stickers/prints but they have a hoodie. Ink art exploring veterinary medicine
Laura Wolf Lots of silly bird art (prints through RB)
The Lincoln Forest national park apparel
Fernecreative more prints than apparel but Ferne illustrates (mostly British) wildlife
Coywolf Collections neat zoology art with some furries mixed in
Kelly Ballantyne not sure how much she makes in terms of clothing because her shop is on vacation at the moment, but this artist makes lots of bird illustrations
Moodymoon.co birds, fungi, plants, and other outdoor inspired art!
Mustardbeetle BUGS N BIRDS
Sipseywilder nature apparel of all kinds, bugs, cryptids, birds, plants, etc
Alex Tomlinson cute bird art, lots of art to do with birds and the postal service
Freehand Goods Florian wildlife
Avairia Art cute sea critters
Glitter and Toadstools all sorts of critters
Mothsprout lots of different kinds of critters, some furry stuff mixed in
Pikaloe cute cartoon nature critters, public shop is through rb but if you are a patron you get access to a secret shop
Chentomology bug art
Acorvi art mostly sea critters, cartoony style
Saxony Charlot Hawaiian wildlife I don’t see any apparel yet (though there are some buttons) but I figured I’d share anyway because a portion of profits goes to conservation in Hawaii
Lochnessie the “Birbie” dove design creator, they make lots of cartoony bird art. There aren’t any clothes listed at the moment but they do produce shirts occasionally
One day I would like to make clothing that fits this genre, but I am a full time student and I have a job (among other commitments) so that’s probably not gonna happen soon aha. Also I’m not sure how much I really want to deal with being “marketable.” But I may or may not make my own nature apparel one day :)
@plaguedocboi
Right, considering the current state of corporate politics on this site, and that it seems that only those affected seem to be actively speaking on the matter, it is up to I, the only fucking cishet on tumblr, to drag this out to a wider audience.
REBLOG IF YOUR ACCOUNT IS A TRANSFEM SAFE SPACE.
We need to show these higher ups how much we truly value them.
Just so everyone is aware:
An international group of qualified mushroom identifiers who do worldwide identification in emergency cases have identified the Shroomers App as a potentially very dangerous system that could kill you if you try to use it to identify edible mushrooms. They use AI to generate almost all of their content, including their identification profiles on their app as well as their books and other materials. Not only is this unethical from a content creation standpoint, it is also extremely dangerous.
DO NOT USE APPS FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES BEYOND SIMPLE CURIOSITY. A MISTAKE WHEN IDENTIFYING AN EDIBLE COULD COST YOU YOUR LIFE. DO NOT EAT ANY FORAGED MUSHROOM YOU CANNOT IDENTIFY YOURSELF BY SIGHT OR HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED IN PERSON BY SOMEONE WHO CAN.
ONLY BUY BOOKS FROM REPUTABLE SOURCES AND AT THIS POINT THAT MEANS ASKING EXPERIENCED PEOPLE WHAT BOOKS THEY USE.
Mushrooms are fun, amazing organisms. Enjoy safely.
2024 things:
go on more walks at sunset
buy more plants
read as many books as you want
buy as many books as you want
tell the people you love that you love them more often
eat your favorite foods
look at the stars as much as you can
drink more water
pet more kitties
go to a museum or art gallery or planetarium
play in the rain
smile at strangers
get coffee and go thrifting
do kind things for yourself
learn something new
love with reckless abandon
This is possibly the most perfect tomato I have ever grown and given that I live in the land of humidity, erratic rainfall, leaf spot and blight, I feel as if I have gotten away with something.
Cultivar is “Kewalo,” developed at the University of Hawaii, tolerates heat and humidity, and is incredibly disease-resistant for an open-pollinated variety. They don’t quite have the flavor of, say, a Cherokee Purple, but they’re still tasty.
Remember, a solarpunk future without support for the disabled population is just green-washed ableism.
A solarpunk future that doesn't include (or purposely excludes) Indigenous/PoC populations is just green-washed white supremacy/colonialism.
A solarpunk future that doesn't feed the hungry or house the poor is just green-washed capitalism.
Solarpunk is more than just an aesthetic. It's a hope for a better future for everyone.
Gently tamping down the soft earth 🌽
