can you imagine how freaky shark mermaids would be like unlike sharks, shark mermaids would have actual arms/hands and could rely on touching things with their hands to see if they’re prey rather than having to bite like sharks do. like youre just swimming in the ocean and suddenly you feel a strong grip on your leg, you freak the FUCK out because uh what????? the fuck??? youre swimming alone in the ocean??
a head pops out of the water, dorsal fin pointed from its back and it just points at you and says in a low whisper: “i thought you were a seal. please dont swim alone like this, im sorry i scared you i just wanted to see what you are” and then disappears back into the depth. what the fuck.
shark mermaids who grab humans a little too hard, appear above water and just go “sorry” before diving back under, shark mermaids that fall in love with humans and ask for their nose to be pet and then just sit there spaced the hell out when their human pets their nose
shark mermaids that are ready to FiGHT and RACE other mermaids when a whale/orca mermaid swims over, noses them onto their backs, and then watches as the shark mermaid just floats there buzzed out for a few moments before flipping them back over
I have no such experience, perhaps a BotD reader can offer advice???
They’re very simple to care for.
The main issue is that they’re good at escaping, especially the babies. If you have a male and a female, you will have babies. To prevent escape, smear a band of Vaseline all around the inside rim of the enclosure, at least three inches tall. They’ll slip on that and won’t be able to climb.
For a few, an enclosure of only a cubic foot is sufficient. I recommend a 10 gallon aquarium so they have plenty of room to grow and breed.
They don’t specifically need a substrate, but it’s good to give them one. Coco fiber, coco chips, or some mix of those are best. They also need things to hide under, like cork bark chunks, and like to have some branches to climb.
Feed them cat or dog kibble, either one. Make sure they always have some available, and give them fruit or veggies once a week. Don’t give them citrus or onions, but most other fruits are good. They also need to have a source of moisture- cricket gel or a damp sponge in a dish are fine. Keep the rest of the enclosure lightly humid if you can.
They need to be kept at a bare minimum of 70 degrees. If kept at 78 or above, they breed, and give live birth rather than laying eggs. Females who are gravid (pregnant) may lose the young if the temperature drops too fast.
Males have small horns on their shell, females don’t. They’re fairly easy to sex once past an inch long. If you don’t want babies, split them by sex, but be aware that all adult females kept in groups should be assumed to be pregnant.
The more you handle them, the calmer they get, and the less they hiss.
If kept in dim lighting and not disturbed, they’ll come out sometimes and you’ll see them going around doing things.
They’re roaches, they’re very easy to keep. Just don’t drop them.
There’s something so inherently mystical about swimming to the bottom of a pool to retrieve something. Just gracefully swooping down with a purpose and puttering to the quiet bottom. I mean, yeah, I’m probably retreaving a lost toe ring or one of those soggy water ball things, but damn if I don’t feel like a mermaid princess searching for hidden treasure.
We were driving to a restaurant and wanted to see how long the wait was. My dad handed me the phone book and asked me to look up the number. I, for whatever reason, thought he said “get rid of this”. So I opened the window and chucked the phone book while we were going 70 MPH down the highway.
great
I stuck my hand in a bowl of soup simply because I hadn’t before.
same
When I was maybe 10-12, I threw one of my dad’s golf clubs that had no head on it like a spear down the hallway after telling my brother it would be cool.
absolutely
One time I was eating a lemon poppyseed muffin. The phone rang, so I reacted by shoving the entire muffin my mouth and eating it as fast as I could, nearly choking to death, and I didn’t even make it to the phone before it stopped ringing.
huge mood
Gave my sister a piggyback when she was giving my other sister a piggyback at the same time
aviculture is the reason the sexual maturity of most macaws is bumped back as severely as it is. aviculture is the reason a 36″ x 48″ x 60″ cage is considered the “minimum” rather than “outright inhumane.” aviculture is the reason “get a baby for your first bird!” is such a popular statement, and it’s the reason adoption is considered “risky” or otherwise not worth it. aviculture is the reason that the opportunity to exercise through flight is seen as “optional” rather than a basic need every capable parrot should have. aviculture encourages and profits off of neglect if not gross abuse on a mass scale and it doesn’t matter if the breeder in question is industrial for pet store supply or a just a full time private breeder. they all support the same bad practises because those bad practises make an impossible to keep bird seem “easier” and that means they get more customers.
it is not possible to ethically, morally, etc. make a full-time living by breeding animals who when left to their own devices are very slow breeders even at their most “”successful.”” that’s why the only domesticated parrot, the english budgerigar, has a markedly shorter lifespan than its wild counterpart. similarly it does not matter how happy or well cared for that baby parrot is when behind her is the common and industry-accepted practises of splitting mated pairs, depriving pairs of enrichment so they have nothing better to do but mate (or get extremely aggressive with each other and/or kill one another, as is common with cacatuids for example), and creating tasty new hybrids regardless of the health risks those hybrids run (e.g. military crosses and their markedly smaller livers).
even the best breeder will cut many corners to make a profit and even the hypothetical not-interested-in-profit breeder is still actively and shamelessly flooding the already-inundated market with more parrots than there are homes to care for them. that’s why bird shelters are always overstocked and understaffed.
parrots, objectively, do poorly as common pets. you have to build your life around them to manage them well and that is in no way shape or form an exaggeration. ones that are properly cared for are in the extreme minority because people will buy these birds for the novelty of it and they’re goaded on by misinformation that’s leagues more popular than the actual standards by which they should be cared for. i don’t see it as fair to the birds themselves to point at a well kept cockatoo and say “don’t generalise! this is the face of parrotkeeping!” when the real face of it is a ratty, shaky, half-plucked bird who is no more than nine and yet doomed to live the rest of her 50+ years in the shelter she was dropped off to.
Jebediah, being on the edge of what humans are willing to accept as normal, has spent his life using everything he can to fit in. It’s not a strain at this point, just habit, and he’s always been good at it. Mimic body language, watch how many gestures make their way into an average conversation, even slip into the accent of an area.
As a result, he picks up local accents very quickly, within days or less depending on how many people he’s talked to. You can practically hear his voice and phrasing changing during the first conversation. He also picks up on languages extremely quickly.
The most hilarious demonstration of this is when he picks up a heavy Southern accent, while still in an impeccably tailored suit, before his body language swings from “refined” to “country farmer person”. It’s like if someone’s butler started using words like “y’all” all of a sudden.
Unsurprisingly, he can do excellent impressions, down to voice and tone. His voice doesn’t go very high, so there’s an upper limit on pitch, but he can get a surprising amount of bass out of such a narrow chest.
When left to his own devices, in an area with no strong accents or a mix of them, he tends to go back to his own accent- just a touch of something vaguely African, few to no contractions, minimal body language with mostly hand gestures that don’t go past the elbow.
When he’s tired, though, all bets are off on what accent he’ll settle on. You better hope it isn’t Italian, that is way too many gestures for a tired person with that much arm to be using.
And if he’s just been woken up, it’s a tossup as to what language he’ll be speaking. It’s going to be heavily accented, may or may not be a mix of words from multiple languages, and is still going to sound more eloquent than most people. He has the ability to look exactly like he knows what he’s talking about at all times, and it serves him well.
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