Did a bunch of dogs breakup a fight between two cats? Am I seeing this right??
Having none of that shit today.
“Ay man, y’all chill the fuck out. Y’all fucking up the party.”
I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I’M SEEING
Pack animals like dogs don’t tolerate dissent in their group because it weakens the pack’s social structure… There are similar clips on youtube of them breaking up rabbit and rooster fights… They don’t care what species you are, they just want you to CUT THAT SHIT OUT.
They don’t differentiate species because dogs think everything else is just a weird dog.
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR IS FUN MAN OMG
“EVERYONE ELSE IS JUST A WEIRD DOG” This is painfully accurate
actually!! dogs realize that everyone else is not a dog, but theyre cool with that!! cats are the ones who think everyone is a weird cat!! i would find the research papers for this, but im too lazy, so, either take my word for it or spend forever looking for a source
In the Neotropics, there is a whole group of
so-called glassfrogs that amaze with their transparent skin covering
their bellies and showing their organs underneath. A recently discovered
new species from Amazonian Ecuador, however, goes a step further to
fully expose its heart thanks to the transparent skin stretching all
over its chest as well as tummy.
The new amphibian is described by a team of scientists led by Dr.
Juan M. Guayasamin, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador, in the
open access journal ZooKeys.
It can also be distinguished by the relatively large dark green spots
at the back of its head and the foremost part of the body.
Additionally, the species has a characteristic long call.
The new frog is named Hyalinobatrachium yaku, where the species name (yaku)
translates to ‘water’ in the local language Kichwa. Water and, more
specifically, slow-flowing streams are crucial for the reproduction of
all known glassfrogs.
Juan M. Guayasamin, Diego F. Cisneros-Heredia, Ross J. Maynard, Ryan L. Lynch, Jaime Culebras, Paul S. Hamilton. A marvelous new glassfrog (Centrolenidae, Hyalinobatrachium) from Amazonian Ecuador. ZooKeys, 2017; 673: 1 DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.673.12108
The new glassfrog species (Hyalinobatrachium yaku) in life. Credit: Jaime Culebras and Ross Maynard
Polymita picta, common name the Cuban land snail or the painted snail, is a species of large, air-breathing land snail. Shells of Polymita picta can reach a length of about 20 millimeters (0.79 in). These large shells are shiny and very brightly colored. Normally they show a bright yellow color with a white stripe, but the species is well known for its colorful shell polymorphism, with numerous color varieties. These shells are sought after by poachers and used to make jewelry and trinkets. As a result, the species has become endangered.
Can you imagine being that bird? You see a big falling dot off in the distance, so you go to investigate. And it’s a human. Just, like, hanging out, in the middle of the sky. Plumbing toward earth at terminal velocity.
“Huh, that’s weird” you think to yourself.
You land on them. They seem nonplussed by their predicament.
But you’re a busy bird, you’ve got places to be. So you just fly off. Good luck, crazy human. Hope you make it.
For my followers who don’t follow bird things- that is not a wild bird, they’re not free falling, and if you haven’t heard of parahawking before ITS YOUR LUCKY DAY because you now have some beautiful videos in your immediate future.
The bird is a vulture (hooded vulture?) trained to fly with paragliders and occasionally fly to the glove for a food reward. Note the anklets on its legs and how it pokes at her hand looking for a reward. She doesn’t look like she’s wearing a falconry glove tho, so it could be someone else’s bird approached her, and that would be a bit of a surprise.
Numerous groups have trained up falconry birds to fly with them, and if you’re looking for good videos The Parahawking Project has a lot of them and does good work for conservation in general and vulture pr. in specific.
If you’re interested in a bird actually flying to a free falling human, falconers have tried that, too, because they’re out to do us all proud. A search on ‘peregrine skydiving’ should get you the BBC clip. I don’t think she ever actually makes it to his hand, but it definitely takes a full stoop to keep up with a skydiver.
The peregrine is called Frightful and she isn’t trained to glove (fly to her handler’s hand) in mid-air, she’s trained to catch a lure, which she does multiple times – she’s an awesome bird! Here’s the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3mTPEuFcWk
A rac.coon got run over in the road early this morning, and I went and got it out of the road so the vultures wouldn’t get run over trying to eat it. Here they are as photographed from the window facing the street.
Image descriptions and general narration below, bird IDs in the captions.
[image: two large, glossy black birds with naked grey heads+necks standing next to a heap of guts and striped fur]
These are the first arrivals, they turned up right after each other. Two adult black vultures, I think potentially a mated pair.
[image: the same birds, both with their heads raised, one standing up tall, looking in the same direction]
I opened the window and made a generic bird “wheep! wheep!” alarm call to get their attention, and their heads went up. I left them alone after that, just took pics from the window.
[image: a similar bird, but slightly smaller and with less glossy feathers, standing on a sidewalk. It shows that the birds have long legs and white feet. ]
This is the next arrival. Another black vulture, I think younger than them. The older two wouldn’t let him eat until they were finished.
[image: the same three birds as before, plus a new arrival. The new bird is slightly larger and dark brown, its feathers marked with small pale flecks along its wings. Its head is pink and the feathers come up along its neck to the back of its head. The two glossy birds are eating from the carcass, the younger black bird is watching, and the brown bird is inspecting the dry grass nearby.]
That’s a turkey vulture. Ended up with two more turning up later, but didn’t get good pics of them. The black vultures wouldn’t let him eat either, he had to wait.
[image: the four birds, but spread out, showing that a road is about 6-8 feet behind the carcass. The brown bird is far away, to the left, and on the other side of the road. The younger black bird is in the center of the image, standing in the road, and the two older black birds are still eating.]
There were still some gut bits in the road, so the turkey and the younger black vulture went out there when there weren’t any cars coming and picked up some guts. They got honked at a lot.
[image: the brown bird in flight, near the road. The underside of one wing is visible and is pale grey. The front steps of a church are visible in the background, as is the church sign, though the letters have been covered over in a program like Paint to prevent identification.]
Covered the sign and didn’t show the entire church to prevent my location being identified, it’s a pretty distinctive building. This is the turkey vulture mid-flight after a car got too close. Not pictured: the turkey vulture perching on the church sign itself to watch the others.
All six birds got to eat some amount or another, but they had to wait for the first two to eat. I turned the carcass over after these pics to let the vultures get easier access to the guts, and they’re perched in nearby trees waiting for it to stop raining. Once they’re done eating, I’m going to go and see if I can get any salvageable bones from the rac.coon. The lower jaws might be in good enough shape to use for crafts, and the paws, I think, are intact. May be able to get the bones from the paws.
The day after I visited the Duke Lemur Center, the wonderful keeper who showed me around posted this great video of the Aye-ayes.
Aye-ayes are nocturnal animals, so they’re kept on a flipped light cycle at the Center (it lets staff clean while the lights are on early in the morning, but then observe / work with the animals during the day when it’s dark in their enclosures). The girls happened to be awake before the lights went off when this video was taken.
I wanted to share this video because it’s a great view of some of the adaptations that make Aye-ayes so special: their specialized “tapping finger” and super-sensitive ears. Here’s the great commentary from the DLC’s youtube channel:
“Because a significant percentage of an aye-aye’s diet consists of insect larvae that dwell inside dead or living trees, the animals have evolved a specialized method for locating the larvae. As they walk along a branch, the animals continuously and rapidly tap it with their middle finger. Cupping their huge ears forward, the aye-aye listens intently to the echoing sounds coming from the tapped tree. When the sound indicates they are above an insect tunnel, the animals begin to tear off enormous chunks of the outer bark with their impressive teeth, until the insect tunnel is revealed. Then the aye-aye inserts its slender and highly flexible third finger into the hole, and when the prey is located, it is hooked with the tip of the finger and removed.
Here, Ardrey and her daughter Elphaba use the same process to eat eggs from their technician, Mel: they tap, chew, then use their long flexible middle fingers to dip into and remove the yolks of the eggs 🙂 When they finish, the delicate eggshells remain fully intact, except for the small hole created by the aye-ayes’ strong front teeth!
I asked what the Aye-ayes were echo-locating to find in the egg, assuming it would be the air-sac, but it turns out an intern at the DLC studied them to find out, and they’re not looking for anything specific – they’re just tapping it because that’s what they instinctively do with food before they eat it.
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