3dayoldcoffee

[3dayoldcoffee]

A rednote user ( http://xhslink.com/a/hGMGjJtnHQB ) keeps these big tree crickets as pets, they make silk with their mouths to join leaves together, they will try to do it anywhere and they are so cute I'm mad we don't have them here

[3dayoldcoffee]

back by popular demand: more of my Reddit feed

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Results from the #paleostream! Archaeodromus, Montanoceratops, Synauchenia and Venyukovia.

[3dayoldcoffee]

There we go, the first formation piece of the year 2025. The upper Bugti member of the Chitarwata formation has a lot of megafauna (and not much else), but it contains one of the few instances where Paraceratherium and proboscideans overlapped.

The formation actually features the holotype species of Paraceratherium, which is among the smallest species :P Considering the heavily forested environment this might be a forest elephant situation (?)

Besides Paracers the formation also features lots of other rhinos, goant anthracothers, crocs and entelodonts.

Discord members Dynamoterror and JW collaborated in these size charts.

The Chitarwata formation has deposits that feature a diverse fauna of small critters, however this formation ranges over a very long time and the megafauna beds and the microfauna beds don't overlap which is why we decided to leave all the small primate and rodents out.

[3dayoldcoffee]

It's weird how geological time works. Eras start and end bit by bit over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. That sounds like a big uncertainty but that sort of timescale, on which the climate can overhaul itself completely and entire species rise and fall, is instantaneous compared to the age of the earth. Any hypothetical sentient creature would have no idea it was living through a major turning point. The Silurian slid into the Devonian as land plants became A Thing and insects started to wonder if 'pilot' might be a good career path, but there was no one moment when one thing ended and another began. That's not how that works...

... except for the Cretaceous. The Cretaceous had a Last Day and it was probably in April, and then the next day it was the Paleogene.

[3dayoldcoffee]

Hot take, I really don’t think we should assign human morals onto animals and call them bad or evil. Fishblr has internalised this idea really well with sharks, and I think that’s good! Sharks don’t deserve all the fearmongering they suffer from in media. But… can we please remember to extend this to other animals too? Even to intelligent animals like dolphins (most commonly bottlenose dolphins) and orcas. It seems to be a counter to pop culture’s tendency to show dolphins as complete angels when they partake in some messed up things, but like…. Dolphins are still animals? They may be able to recognize themselves in mirrors and they may have language and culture and know how to use tools but their intelligence is still on the level of a human child (and how empathetic are those!!??). I see people talk about how evil dolphins are but I never see people talking about other animals the same way, like, why aren’t sea otters and their “evilness” the topic of discussion? :/

[3dayoldcoffee]

“OUGHHHH SMILODON AND MEGANTEREON GENUS CATS MUST HAVE HAD GIGANTIC JOWLS AND DROOLED ALL OVER BECAUSE THEIR TEETH ARE SO LOOOONG” shut up and look at him. nature is beautiful

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I love animals that are, like, the opposite of cryptids: we know for a fact they exist and have a clear idea of what they look like because we have photographs and individual specimens, but we haven’t the faintest idea where they’re coming from - they just keep showing up out of nowhere, and the locations of their actual population centres are a complete mystery.

[3dayoldcoffee]

BIG SILLY?

[3dayoldcoffee]

Wait are we called mammals after mammary glands? Are mammals named after tits???

ARE WE THE BOOBS CLASS?

[3dayoldcoffee]

its of utmost importance you have sound on while watching this

[3dayoldcoffee]

Yesterday, I was off to the zoo to get some lion photos for an upcoming post. I checked my phone when I stopped to get gas and saw a new baby announcement: Woodland Park has a new baby pudu! He's as-of-yet-unnamed and about a month old.

Pudu, if you're not familiar with the species, are the smallest species of deer in the world. They're found in a very limited range in South America.

Needless to say, I took a very cursory turn past the lions, and then spent a couple hours camped out at the pudu habitat waiting for the fawn to venture out of his hiding spot.

It was worth it.

I knew pudu were small, but still. The adult in the habitat (not sure if mom or dad) was comparable in height and length to an average medium-sized dog. This guy, at a month old? He's the size of a large chihuahua.

[3dayoldcoffee]

But then around 30 million years ago — halfway through the Age of Mammals, give or take — something happened. The nautiloids started disappearing. Fewer species, less diversity. Bit by bit they shrank back into their current small range. What happened halfway through the Age of Mammals? Well, here’s one clue: the nautiloids’ long retreat showed a pattern. It wasn’t everywhere and all at once. They disappeared first in the northern arctic regions; then in the Antarctic; then in temperate zones; finally across most of the tropics except that one small patch. This pattern suggested a culprit: a warm-blooded predator that evolved in the Arctic and then spread around the world. But… the armored cephalopod design had been around forever. They’d been living with predators for half a billion years. Sharks. Primitive armored fish. Not-so-primitive modern fish. In the age of dinosaurs, they had to deal with ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs. Back in the Paleozoic, they were hunted by eight-foot-long giant sea scorpions. Way back in the Cambrian, they had to live with the anomalocariids. In the early Age of Mammals, there were primitive whales and sea-going crocodiles. The armored cephalopod design took them all in stride and kept going. So what happened?

[3dayoldcoffee]

Zelenogorsk is sand bathing