cellolimon

[cellolimon]

Classic literature

[cellolimon]

Women: “Hey, can we hire fewer blatant misogynists to direct and create media? We’d support that.”

Nerdy Male Director: “Well-spoken. Have you considered hiring me, a man who is afraid of women?”

[cellolimon]

In the club

[cellolimon]

the truest ADHD ally of our time was my professor who during a field exam handed me a newt and told me to hold it and I was like “what do you want me to do with this” thinking it was for the test and he shrugged and said “it’s just to keep ya busy”

[cellolimon]

In my ecology class our professor said that a lot of carnivorous plants are harvested in bulk from fragile & endangered wetlands ecosystems so it's not great to buy things like venus flycatchers from hardware stores. I was curious if you knew more about this since I've seen you post about carnivorous plants a lot

This is true, which is why you should always buy from a reputed breeder! usually what happens is that people think they’re widespread in their natural environments, so like, people wandering through the swamps in north and south carolina (yes, north and south carolina, USA. thats the native habitat of venus fly traps. not some remote jungle like you would expect. just…north and south carolina) are like ‘oh, a venus fly trap! i see them everywhere in stores, they must not be endangered in their natural habitat’ and take them/sell them without meaning any harm. there’s also, like you said, a certain population of criminals who raid these habitats for money, where the motivator is much more malicious. this is called poaching- an illegal process that is most widely associated with the trafficking of exotic animals, but happens similarly frequently in plants! 

reputable breeders have gotten their stock from government expeditions, or, in the case of carnivorous plants not in the united states, have gone to the home country as a group of botanists and enthusiasts to take limited samples from the wild for breeding, and have gone through a LENGTHY process to get clearance for this. these expeditions are usually accompanied by scientists that study the condition of the habitats and take population counts and preform other tests to see the risk of the area for damage, and report the results to the government/to a public journal. many carnivorous plant habitats are already government protected areas. 

this process- of a small amount of plants taken from the habitat by carnviorous plant scientists and experts working under their own passion and expertise, as well as local culture and laws, and taken these samples back to be bred for sale- has proven to be very affective against poaching. by selling the captive-grown plants legally, breeders tend to lower the market price of those plants dramatically, and because poachers are mostly looking for money from a one-off plant sale, plants with a smaller price tag just aren’t worth breaking the law for. this means that the poachers are more likely to leave the native habitats alone. 

(its also important to note that poachers often don’t breed the plants; they just take and sell straight from the environment)

also, another thing to note: this goes for a lot of plants like orchids, who have a similar, if not greater, consumer base surrounding them demanding rarer and rarer species. this is why you hear about ‘rare orchids’ a lot, and orchids are…well, there’s 20,000 families of them, so it’s….a bit more dire. 

the most reputable sellers are dedicated carnivorous plant greenhouses. the carnivorous plant reddit has a very solid and well-organized list of these here that you can buy from, although my favorite of these is probably California Carnivores. CC has been in business for a long time, and host one of the largest solely-carnivorous retail greenhouses in the united states. they’ve also funded SEVERAL research expeditions and maintains a formidable breeding operation (the owner, Peter D’amato, literally wrote the book on growing carnivorous plants in the 90s). Another big one is Native Exotics (you should see the community when NE updates their catalogue everyone looses their mcfucking minds for like 48 hours).

(sidenote here: generally, greenhouses and breeders keep a small private collection alongside their invintory to be sold. these are usually unlisted and used for breeding and keeping the gene pools of these species fresh, but are also seedlings being grown to maturity- sometimes over several years- to be sold as adults, used for more breeding, or used for education or for exhibits and shows. i just think thats facinating)

(side note AGAIN, yes these babs get taken to competitions and shows, for instance please behold the Borneo Exotics nepenthes greenhouse showcase at the 2011 chelsea flower show)

they’ve…..won the grand prize several times.

TRIPLE SIDE NOTE: Borneo Exotics- the same professional asian pitcher plant greenhouse shown in that pic- does a lot of wholesale. for the purpose of wholesale, they’ve developed a unique kind of packaging for their plants called a ‘Bio-dome’ that looks like this: 

so if you see these at a local greenhouse, know that it’s from a reputable breeding operation and all that neat stuff.

ANYWAY. 

another interesting thing in this industry talk to mention is how these research expeditions operate to get the plants legally accounted for and out of the country. one of my favorite plant lectures ever is one on the topic of conservation, sale, education, and poaching given at an International Carnivorous Plant Society conference in 2010 called ‘Nepenthes conservation through cultivation’. at the end of this talk, the presenter- Robert Cantley, the main director of Borneo Exotics- gets up and shows all the paperwork, taped end to end, that has to be filled out to get a single shipment of a single species through CITES, the international commission that polices the movement of endangered speices-both animal and plant- throughout the world. to move plants in and out of many countries, CITES officials must be contacted and an EXTENSIVE review process conducted, which is optimized for animals, not for plants. this poses some unique problems that he goes into depth with; basically, endangered plants tend to be neglected while in government custody, and can remain in that custody for an extended period of time while the paperwork is brushed aside as ‘not as important’ as the paperwork for endangered animals.

i would HIGHLY recommend watching the talk here, it’s like 40 minutes long and SUPER interesting. 

[cellolimon]

[cellolimon]

[cellolimon]

How to help Sudan: 7 things you can do right now for a country in crisis

Call your member of Congress. Call 202-224-3121. State your zip code. When connected, tell them you support helping the people of Sudan or send them George Clooney’s essay.

Use ResistBot to text your members of Congress. Text RESIST to 50409 and it will help you contact your elected officials and tell them to help the people of Sudan.

Give to UNICEF, which is working to help the children displaced by the conflict. Donate here

Donate to Save the Children, which has been working in Sudan since 1984. Donate here. If you prefer the International Rescue Committee, it has been in Sudan since 1989 fighting malnutrition and helping displaced families. Donate here

This Facebook campaign aims to raise funds for food and medicine for those in Sudan. Donate here  

Sign this Change.org petition demanding that “The UN must investigate the 3rd of June human rights violations in Sudan by the Military.” Sign here

This GoFundMe campaign out of the U.K. claims to be working with a Sudanese group to bring emergency medical aid to Sudan. Donate here. This GoFundMe campaign is dedicated to providing medical support for the group of non-violent protesters waging a sit-in. Donate here

Spreading information is a big part of activism too! These are our brother and sisters who are worth being seen and heard

[cellolimon]

The bearded vulture is the only known animal whose diet consists almost entirely (70-90%) of bone. It is capable of swallowing a sheep’s vertebrae whole. The bird’s stomach acid has been estimated to have a pH of 1, so even large bones are digested within 24 hours.

[cellolimon]

million dollar idea: instead of spending thousands of dollars on steady-cam equipment, filmmakers should just attach a camera to the head of a chicken and carry the chicken around as you film.

[cellolimon]

It’s World Bee Day today (May 20)! I made a little infographic as practice.

Plant native flowers! Lawns are lame! Wasps are just as important!

[cellolimon]

Help my friends get their daughter back

Hello! My name is Jacqueline. In February 2019, I was hospitalized. On the first night in the hospital, I emailed my friend Lexie to tell her where I was. She and her girlfriend, Kat, dropped everything they were doing and drove two hours one way in order to visit me the next day.

Lexie and Kat are some of the most caring people I have ever met. They’re always striving to help others and ensure that those around them feel loved and included. They have a daughter named Alisa, and they both love her very much and want to be the best mothers they can be. However, there is an issue. When Kat moved to Michigan in order to start preparing a life for her daughter, she temporarily left Alisa in Alabama with her grandparents. In the time that Kat was gone, her grandparents filed for custody behind her back. Kat blew through her savings to return to Alabama and try to sort things out. She has a court date on June 19, but no money for a lawyer or for the trip to and from Alabama.

They’ve set up a GoFundMe to try to cover the expenses of the trip and legal help.

Lexie and Kat are heartbroken. They’ve spent MONTHS preparing to bring their daughter home - they got a dog, filled their television with children’s channels, moved into an apartment on the first floor so that Alisa could play outside, and have Alisa’s room ready for move-in - only to find out that they may not be able to make it happen. Please, please help my friends bring their daughter home to Michigan.

If you cannot donate, I would deeply appreciate it if you could share this. Thank you so, so much. ♡

[cellolimon]

They're so talented

I didnt get any pictures or video of this one but the mice also wrote a poem in my notes last night

[cellolimon]

If there's anything I'm gonna plow through my studies for, it's gonna be the blue-naped chlorophonia

for all of you that are feeling a bit down today: here is a tiny bird called the blue-naped chlorophonia that really likes to eat bananas

x

[cellolimon]

There’s a thunderstorm going on outside and every Romantic bone in my frantic little body wants to go outside and get soaked to the skin, there’s something so enormous and vital about being wet through with rain, or swimming in the sea, or leaning against a high wind. I was definitely put on this earth to die of consumption before the age of 25

[cellolimon]

Tran’s website:

Source: UNILAD, VnExpress