see a picture of a jerboa that's called the "five toed jerboa"
immediately wonder how many toes the other jerboas have
look up five toed jerboas
come across this sentence: "Five-toed pygmy jerboas have no known positive economic importance for humans aside from their role as members of healthy, desert ecosystems."
rude. they are important in the economy of my HEART
you and me baby ain't nothing but mammals 🦇 so let's discuss how important female pleasure and stimulation are in the reproduction of many different animals 🐇
Endangered Ethiopian wolves feed on the nectar of red hot poker plants, and may transport pollen from flower to flower as they do so
Ethiopian wolves feed on the sweet nectar of a local flower, picking up pollen on their snouts as they do so – which may make them the first carnivores discovered to act as pollinators.
The Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) is the rarest wild canid species in the world and Africa’s most threatened carnivore. Endemic to the Ethiopian Highlands, fewer than 500 individuals survive.
Sandra Lai at the University of Oxford and her colleagues observed wild Ethiopian wolves lapping up the nectar of Ethiopian red hot poker (Kniphofia foliosa) flowers. Local people in the mountains have traditionally used the nectar as a sweetener for coffee and on flat bread.
The wolves are thought to be the first large carnivore species ever to be recorded regularly feeding on nectar.
“For large carnivores, such as wolves, nectar-feeding is very unusual, due to the lack of physical adaptations, such as a long tongue or specialised snout, and because most flowers are too fragile or produce too little nectar to be interesting for large animals,” says Lai.
The sturdy, nectar-rich flower heads of the poker plant make this behaviour possible, she says. “To my knowledge, no other large carnivorous predator exhibits nectar-feeding, though some omnivorous bears may opportunistically forage for nectar, albeit rarely and poorly documented.”
Some of the wolves were seen visiting as many as 30 blooms in a single trip. As they lick the nectar, the wolves’ muzzles get covered in pollen, which they could potentially be transferring from flower to flower as they feed.
“The behaviour is interesting because it shows nectar-feeding and pollination by non-flying mammals might be more widespread than currently recognised, and that the ecological significance of these lesser-known pollinators might be more important than we think,” says Lai. “It’s very exciting.”
Lai and her colleagues at the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme now hope to dig deeper into the behaviour and its ramifications. “Trying to confirm actual pollination by the wolves would be ideal, but that would be quite challenging,” she says. “I’m also very interested in the social learning aspect of the behaviour. We’ve seen this year adults bringing their juveniles to the flower fields, which could indicate cultural transmission.”
can’t forget the Lyre-tailed Nightjar! there’s actually a number of these ridiculous guys, and they’re partly why caprimulgiforms are some of my favorite birds
also the Sickle-winged Nightjar, which is. come on, that’s just a weird moth
and if we’re going to make this onto a full-on nightjar weirdness appreciation post, I feel like I’ve got to mention their pectinate claws:
photo from here:
I'm running again, have been since late June, doinky arthritic toe and all. It's fine. It hurts sometimes when there's a big weather front
comb-shaped claws on the middle toe have evolved multiple times among a diverse variety of birds, found in nightjars, barn owls, herons, frigatebirds, and a few other groups. and despite looking exactly like they’re used for preening out feather parasites, they might have other uses for keeping birds clean that we haven’t yet identified:
Astute birdwatchers might have noticed that some bird species have comb-like serrations running along one edge of a toe claw. This feature,
This bird looks lime exactly the kind of bird to be embroidered on a tapestry or painted on a kimono or something. I would have seen it and assumed it was Random Pretty Art Bird, not an actual IRL birb.
I’ve decided that all bats fall somewhere on this horrid little graph I’ve devised. Here are some prime examples of the various Creature Varieties found in nature.
If I saw one of these in a sci-fi or fantasy movie I would just accept them as a made up part of the fantasy without question. The possibility of them being a real thing would never even enter my head
Melanistic Grey Wolf (Canis lupus) in it’s summer coat in Yukon, Canada. Black coat colour in wolves is thought to have been introduced through cross-breeding with domestic dogs. Wolves with black coats have been found to have a much higher immunity to canine distemper than the more typical grey-coloured wolves.
