[jackthevulture]

Im gonna go on a mini rant here about the presentation of animal behavior and attaching morality to predator/prey scenarios here so feel free to ignore, I know I’m overreacting.

I keep seeing posts about humpback whales interrupting orca hunts and apparently saving the prey animals. And while thats FUCKING INTERESTING behavior the language theyre using is buggin the shit out of me.

Calling them “heros” and doing “good”.

Can we not attach that kind of morality to this, because that makes orcas “villains” and “bad” in the situation. Humpbacks ARE predators too. They aren’t herbivores. But no one thinks their prey is cute so. And theres already been enough media demonizing natural orca behavior. They gotta eat, man. When people get attacked by captive orcas, some people brush off the behavior, not fathoming how deeply disturbing, telling, and rare it is bc “Theyre killer whales, what did you expect!” and I’ve met so many people who have this deeply violent mental image of them. I’ve told people I love orcas and gotten the response “Orcas are jerks.” So much media only focuses on the more inventive hunting techniques used by a few individuals, and instead of presenting it as fascinating evidence of how amazingly smart they are, its presented as terrifying and monstrous.

The problem here is its hard to get people to give a shit about animals they think are monsters.

Can we please for the love of fuck stop applying human morality to natural animal behavior.

[scienceshenanigans]

#StopAnthropomorphizingAnimalBehavior2k17

[petermorwood]

Harrumph, etc.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JscAwVu2QI)

[cluckyeschickens]

Okay so we have this rusty old thing in our one flower bed that would make an awful noise when you turned it and Buck Buck absolutely hated the sound of it, freaking out every time, wanting to somehow fight it??? Anyway, I haven’t turned the Sphere of Rage for several years now and figured I’d see if it can still work its great and terrible magic.

[reptarleparrot]

Oh My God

[aquanite]

I love how he runs past the other chicken like OUT MY WAY BITCH I’M ‘BOUT TO FIGHT

[ayellowbirds]

i assumed Buck Buck was the one in the foreground but NOPE.

[eatthekidsfirst]

Your chicken’s name is Buck Buck

[nayr1230]

What’s the other chickens name I must know

[cluckyeschickens]

Skyler

[failturd]

“AFTER YEARS OF SILENCE, THE SCREECHING ORB AWAKENS AGAIN. I MUST DEFEND MY LAND, AND MY PEOPLE”

[sushinfood]

“OUT THE WAY, SKYLAR!!!”

[diaemyung]

My way to be wild af

[amnhnyc]

How do butterflies communicate? 

Adult butterflies communicate with one another mostly through chemical cues—the males produce chemicals called pheromones to seduce the females. Additionally, a few species communicate with sound. The male Cracker butterfly (Hamadryas) can make loud noises with his wings. Learn more about butterflies at the Butterfly Conservatory. 

[popkas]

I hold Drackies as being just as iconic and Dragon Quest-y as Slimes.  They’re all around fun and cute and to this day seem really unique amongst dragonish, battish things.  The long cat tail and the floopy antenna work really well.  I’m surprised there aren’t more variants in the Dracky family.

Explanation?

[palaeofail-explained]

I have heard arguments for why adult dinosaurs would have been featherless along the lines of, the babies had them and lost them as they aged. However, I have always wondered about this. Modern birds are born without considerable, if any, feathers and gain more as they age, so wouldn’t that be theoretically the same or similar with non-avian theropods? If so, that would suggest if the species had feathers they gained more as they aged, or didn’t have them at all. Maybe you can give me some more insight into this, thanks.

One important thing to remember is that not all birds are born featherless. Many, including chickens, ducks, and ratites (the earliest groups to branch off) are precocial - they’re born feathered and capable of walking around. Altricality is the derived condition, not the ancestral one. Most mesozoic dinosaurs were probably precocial.

As for the whole “losing feathers as they aged” - there’s not really any direct evidence for it that I’m aware of; it’s just speculation. I would agree that certainly many dinosaurs would have gained more feathers as they grew.

The idea of losing feathers as they age comes from the fact that smaller organisms have more difficulty regulating their temperature than do large ones (think about how long it takes for a puddle to cool down as compared to a lake). 

[outofcontextfailbettergames]

“There is a tense, prolonged moment while you eye each others’ hats”