hey, you wanna learn about the largest amphibian in the western hemisphere? you do?
GREAT.
(no takebacks)
then without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to
found in the eastern half of the United States, the Hellbender is a giant fucking salamander. they are the largest amphibian in the western hemisphere by a wide margin, with adults clocking in at around two… feet? (that definitely says feet. jesus) long.
large enough to use as a blunt instrument
no one is really sure how these giant salamanders earned the name “Hellbender”, but it is thought that white settlers thought it was “a creature from hell who was bent on returning”, or that its wrinkly skin reminded white settlers of “the horrible tortures of the infernal regions.” (white settlers should not have been allowed to name things.)
…all right, yeah, it does sort of look like it crawled out of a Bosch painting.
these days, locals just tend to give them endearing vernacular names like: Snot Otter! Lasagna Lizard! Devil Dog! Grampus! Allegheny Alligator! aaaand for some fucking reason, Leverian Water Newt!
these poor guys just can’t catch a break.
you’re hurting his feelings
the Hellbender is found in fast water streams and rivers from New York to Missouri. they breath completely through their skin (weird, but mammals can be judgey about this so I’ll let it slide) and hide under large rocks on the streambed, where they feast on crayfish and also regular fish.
maybe also feet
they are active at night and remain in dark areas during the day. to stay hidden, they have evolved light-sensitive cells all over their bodies. that’s right, they literally turned themselves into a single giant weird eyeball. what the fuck, evolution.
this seems like a good survival strategy (sort of), but it also means that to catch one you just have to go flip a bunch of muddy rocks over.
aaaaa! my plan, foiled!
unfortunately, human activity has been decreasing their number for years, and they are now regarded as Threatened. that said, there are many programs now in place for their recovery, including extensive captive breeding and environmental repair.
hopefully in the future these amazing giant snot otters will make a recovery. we wish only good things for the lasagna lizard.
look at those eager faces! the future is yours, children
Hellbenders are literally my favourite thing you can find in a river
Tbh, I think it should be fine? You don’t need to handle a pet tarantula – I haven’t touched Petunia once since I got her. She’s slow and docile and is happy to just sit in one spot for most of the day. So long as you are able to reach into the terrarium to remove an uneaten cricket or refill a water dish, you don’t have to worry about physically interacting with it much at all. I’d definitely try to meet someone else’s tarantula before you get your own – females can live to be over ten years old.
The recommended beginner tarantulas are all pretty chill. Go to a pet store and watch one for awhile, just to be sure, but they shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Might also be good exposure therapy.
If you get one and realize that you can’t handle putting your hand in, just get some tongs! Kitchen tongs should work.
those posts criticizing common writing patterns in fanfiction are so fucking harmful and they ruined me
so like yknow what??? People tell you to avoid “smirk” and “chuckle” as descriptors because no one does those things (???) but then when I need to use those words I have a ten minute crisis about how I’m a shitty writer. So heres my unwarranted writing advice: If you want your characters to smirk and chuckle fucking let them and don’t let anyone tell you that no one smirks or chuckles because I do both on a daily basis whenever I tell a shitty pun, bye
First time I grocery shopped alone, I found “salt pork” and thought it would taste good. Tossed it in a pan like a regular pork chop, fried it up, and took a bite.
Turns out “salt pork” is supposed to be used, essentially, as a seasoning. You put a small piece of it in your chili, your beans, or whatever, and it adds salty, porky flavor. You are not supposed to eat it straight.
Drank 3 glasses of water that all tasted like brine, then gave the remainder of the pork to my dad to use in chili.
This is a Jack Handey quote, actually. People talk about certain writers shitposting before shitposting was a thing, but Jack Handey practically invented shitposting. He wrote these short nonsense one liners and they published them in the National Lampoon and played them on SNL in the 90s. There’s a shit ton of them and they all sound like shitposts. Here’s just a few:
“I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they chose a king, they don’t just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with some good ideas.”
“Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the world is not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant. It’s a shark riding on an elephant’s back, just trampling and eating everything they see.”
“To me, it’s always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, “Hey, can you give me a hand?,” you can say, “Sorry, got these sacks.“”
“If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I’d say Flippy, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong, though. It’s Hambone.”
“I think a good novel would be where a bunch of men on a ship are looking for a whale. They look and look, but you know what? They never find him. And you know why they never find him? It doesn’t say. The book leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide. Then, at the very end, there’s a page you can lick and it tastes like Kool-Aid.”
“If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”
“If you’re an ant, and you’re walking along across the top of a cup of pudding, you probably have no idea that the only thing between you and disaster is the strength of that pudding skin”
“I wish I lived on a planet that had two suns—regular sun and “rogue” sun. That way, when somebody asked me what time it was, I’d say, “Regular time?” And they’d say, “Yeah.” And I’d say, “Sorry, all I have is rogue time.” It’d be fun to be a stuck-up rogue-time guy.”
“If you’re a cowboy, and you’re dragging a guy behind your horse, I bet it would really make you mad if you looked back and the guy was reading a magazine.”
“I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its eggs in my brain, because later you might think you’re having a good idea but it’s just eggs hatching.”
“If your friend is already dead, and being eaten by vultures, I think it’s okay to feed some bits of your friend to one of the vultures, to teach him to do some tricks. But ONLY if you’re serious about adopting the vulture.”
“If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you’ll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.”
“We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can’t scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.”
There were so many of these, and they were all hilarious. Still are.
“It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.”
“The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.”
“I bet one legend that keeps recurring throughout history, in every
culture, is the story of Popeye.”
“Anytime I see something screech across a room and latch onto someones
neck, and the guy screams and tries to get it off, I have to laugh,
because what is that thing.”
“The memories of my family outings are still a source of strength to me.
I remember we’d all pile into the car – I forget what kind it was – and
drive and drive. I’m not sure where we’d go, but I think there were some
trees there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played
whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy we called
“Dad.” We’d eat some stuff, or not, and then I think we went home. I
guess some things never leave you.”
It didn’t occur to me until earlier this week that eating disorders are mental illnesses. They are talked about as if they’re simply bad habits.
Bad habits are things that you do just because you’ve gotten used to doing them, despite them not really being things you should do. Mental illnesses are things that your brain forces you to do.
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