I do feel bad for plants in general. Like, I know they are often as vicious as animals in many ways, just slower. But, I mean, they just show up and they’re like, “I Think I Will Evolve To Eat The Sun And Also Make Oxygen And How Now Is All This.” And, like, everything fucking dies at first (totally not plants fault, btw. okay maybe it was but they didn’t mean to) but then new things evolve. And they’re like, “Fuck it, eating each other suuuucks. Let’s eat the plants which give us life.” And so we start doing that. And plants are all, “Oh Dear No, I Do Not Care At All For Being Eaten. I Will Make Myself Into Poison Sometimes.” But, y’know, stuff kept eating plants anyway so plants, ever the bro, came up with a new idea. “I Have Made A Decision About Being Eaten And You May Eat Me Friends And Here Is An Especially Tasty Bit Packed All Full of Delicious Sugars Which I Have Produced At Great Cost (What They Do Not Know Is That My Seeds Are Within And Shall Be Propagated Near And Far By Their Dung)“ But that’s not good enough for animals, no, not at all. We love the fuck out of some pomegranates but also alliums which are like, “I Have Not Decided To Go In For This Being Eaten Business. I Shall Be Very Foul Tasting And Also A Poison.” But no, sorry, onions, you fucked up. You accidentally wound up with a species that just doesn’t give up or fully comprehend the idea of things tasting “”‘bad’“’ or other concepts like not eating poison. (Sorry, plants, later we turn some of you who are not poison into a poison we consume recreationally. We really enjoy eating poison.) Legit, alliums are deadly to, like, every other species. And we call them aromatics and throw them in everything. Peppers are the best, though. They completely got on the being eaten train. BUT ONLY BIRDS Peppers are like, “You May Eat Me, Fair Avian, For You Are Sure To Spread Me A Great Distance. But, Mammal, Take HEED. Should You Eat Me Then I Will Burn You Most Terribly.” And we were all about that. “The FUCK, burning? I love pain,” said humans, presumably. “You know, peppers, you and evolution have done a good job at burning us but I am pretty sure we could make your chemical agony even more potent. Come hang with us,” humans added to a very confused pepper just before creating the ghost chili.
No idea what kind of bug these nymphs turn into but I do know that they made a beautiful display that I was not about to mess with. #arthropods #hemiptera #nymphs #insects #insectsofinstagram #arthropodsanonymous #CostaRica #CentralAmerica #rainforest #jungle #biodiversity #forest #ecology #evolution #bugs #truebugs #insectagram #gang #nature #travel #critters
good morning everyone have an absolutely furious mongoose
It’s cuter when you recognize that the lion with visible spots is a juvenile. There’s a very high chance the other lion that runs over to investigate is the MOTHER.
The first lion is asking for comfort because she was given a big spook!!! and she needs mommy to tell her it’s safe and ok!!!! (What’s cuter is that mommy clearly reassures her, and goes on to take the parent role of ‘deal with the scream rat in order to protect my large and easily frightened daughter’)
this is all in all an adorable video 10/10
Who Would Win?
Three apex predators
OR
One Screaming Long Boi
I think the spooked child is a male, see the mohawk-mane starting to grow? The mongoose is probably protecting a nest.
The candy crab is a very colourful crab that grows from 1.5 to 2 cm. It lives on various species of soft coral in the Dendronephthya genus. It camouflages itself by mimicing the colours of the polyps among which it hides. It adds further camouflage by attaching polyps to its carapace. Colours vary depending on the colour of the coral, and may be white, pink, yellow or red. This crab is widespread in the Indo-Pacific and it feeds on plankton. photo credits: digimuse, Brian Maye, divemecressi
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
This is a great video showing some of my favorite things about legless lizards: their tongues look like a cross of a snake and gecko tongue, they have cute blinky eyes, their jaws are much more solid than snakes and they can chew, and many have tougher scales than snakes which is why they have that seam on the sides, it gives them flexibility to eat and breath.
Always love that ‘be a legless tube’ is successful enough a niche in nature that it keeps happening repeatedly.
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 