so the best thing about this is that bobcats, like just about every feline besides lions and domestic cats, are pretty solitary. they don’t really have friends. they aren’t really equipped to make friends.
domestic cats, on the other hand, do know how to make friends. they are friendly to the point that lots of feral cats live in colonies— the females hang out together, even raise kids together, and the males like to spend nonsexual time with their baby mommas. they groom each other, play around, and have a particular tail position to signal to one another— straight up with the tip curled— that they’re friendly and happy to see each other. cats learned how to be chill with each other in order to take full advantage of human food sources: an ancient granary supplies enough rats for a lot of cats, as does a modern lady with a big bag of frisky bits, so it would be a waste of time and energy for any one cat to try and stake the entire foodsource out for exclusive use. less fighting means more eating and resting which means a longer, nicer life and a lot more kittens.
so this stray cat, she obviously has no colony if she’s wandering around and sneaking into zoo enclosures, so she’s like ‘hey! there’s food here! what up, other cat, let’s be friends, let’s be friends and share that food’. and the bobcat is like ‘??????’ because actually wild cats are pretty cautious about initiating hostilities and anything new and aggressive makes them very worried. and the domestic cat is like ‘haha cool, ok, we’re friends now, big guy. no problems.’ and the bobcat is like ‘????? well…?? ok?’ and then they are friends.
the super interesting thing about most wild cat species is they don’t really have the capacity to make friends on their own, especially outside of sibling bonds, but, if someone comes along and does all the friend-making themselves, they’ll totally roll with it. zoo cats can get really attached to their caregivers— or, in this case, a very confident little calico demonstrating exactly why her species has been so darn successful over the last nine thousand years .
so anyway that is the best thing: bobcats are not equipped to make friends, but luckily for this bobcat this homeless lady did not give any shits and made friends anyway. and now they are both happy.
The giant bees have two languages. One is a sign language very similar to human sign languages, but with more hands, fewer fingers, and a hard-coded method of communicating distance (it’s basically exactly like the bee dance language, just done with the hands)
The other is a tactile language. This one is communicated using light touches with the antennae, similar to morse code with a few more components than dots and dashes. They use this tactile language to communicate with grubs, giving them their first taste of language by associating certain words with the experiences they can perceive, like being held or fed. This also becomes the grub’s first opportunity to understand its own body as nurse bees inform it what it may be feeling.
When adult bees emerge from the comb after pupating, they have near-complete adult faculties but cannot speak the full sign language, since obviously, they have never seen it and didn’t have hands before to speak it with. So for a couple years after emergence they rely on the tactile language, allowing them to function in a rudimentary way while they get a crash course in a full and complex language.
Being a grub, and being a new adult worker are both vulnerable times where they rely a lot on trust and care from their sisters, so the bees associate the tactile language with this vulnerability. Even in older bees it is the language of trust, care and closeness, they never stop using it.
When the angels fell from Heaven, some had struck water, becoming the first mermaids; ruined wings bandaging broken bodies, and dimming halos glistening into lustrous hair.
hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Weird Biology! today, I’m going to give you a fresh look at a really weird bird you may have heard of before. so get ready to learn some badass new facts about this scrappy little football!
so say hello to:
*HEAVY METAL SCREAMING*
all right, so there isn’t much badass about a hairy, nocturnal, flightless, island-dwelling bird a little bigger than a chicken. or so they’d like you to think.
Kiwis live in New Zealand, which is fitting because they’re the Hobbits of birds. (bear with me a minute and put down the torches, please)
I swear I’m going somewhere with this
like Hobbits, Kiwis live in burrows. also like Hobbits, Kiwis are short, stocky creatures; they grow to be about eighteen inches tall and 7 pounds. (this is just slightly larger than the average chicken and probably larger than you thought they were) like Hobbits, Kiwis are voracious omnivores and eat basically anything they can fit in that ridiculous beak. and finally as I’m sure you’ve noticed, Kiwis are prodigiously hairy. like Hobbits.
and finally, the Kiwi would absolutely carry a cursed item to the ends of the earth and throw down with a Ring Wraith. (but they’d do it out of spite)
spite is the only emotion the Kiwi can feel
see, Kiwis are aggressive, territorial, and extremely tenacious. they defend their territories and burrows against anything and everything, including humans and probably also marauding armies of orcs. which, since Kiwis have squat muscular legs and extremely sharp claws, is no joke.
it’s a lot less funny when you realize that they’re at least as fast as you are.
adding to their sheer tenacious badassery is the fact that Kiwis are even still around. I don’t know if you guys are super familiar with what usually happens to flightless island-dwelling birds when humans and non-native predators show up, but it’s not good. (HINT: starts with an E and rhymes with “distinction”)
hundreds of years ago, humans first arrived on New Zealand. and they brought dogs and rats with them. these predators have been taking huge tolls on the Kiwi population for a very long time, but Kiwis are fighty tenacious bastards and against all odds they’re still here. for comparison: the Kakapo (New Zealand’s other largish flightless bird) has faced the same problem with introduced predators and is now damn near extinct.
Kiwi resilience is in large part thanks to New Zealand’s conservation programs, but also Kiwis are just tough little bastards who don’t know when to quit.
but I’ve saved the most thrashtacularly metal feat of the Kiwi for last. Kiwis form bonded pairs for life (awww), and lay one to two eggs together per year. which, okay, does not sound like a lot. however, there is an important fact that needs to be brought into consideration:
yes, that’s a REAL FUCKING XRAY. HOOOOOLY SHIT.
the egg is fucking huge. like, up to 25% of the mom’s body weight huge. that’s completely fucking ridiculous and it’s upsetting to even think about.
but that big egg makes a big, well-developed chick who comes out of the shell ready to stab you in the shin and sprint into the bushes. they’re literally born ready to throw down and are basically mini-adults. but still adorable.
continuing the family tradition!
unfortunately despite their badass ways, Kiwis are currently still under threat from introduced predators. the good news is that Kiwis are loved, celebrated, and protected by New Zealanders. (who are justly and rightly invested in their national bird, shin-kicking quirks and all)
there are many conservation programs in place for the embattled Kiwi, and its weirdness is a light that won’t be going out anytime soon.
shine on, you little weirdos, shine on.
thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series here.
if you enjoy my work, maybe buy me a coffee so I can caffeinate myself into the 5th dimension.
This was a joy to read
😘
The ranger at the national park that my parents visited last year described the Kiwi as “We had the ecological need for bagders, but no mammals, so the birds evolutionarily squished themselves into a badger-shaped hole out of sheer rage.”
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