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Gerenuk (Litocranius walleri). There’s nothing weird about them! They just happen to be antelopes with extra long, thin necks. This unique adaptation has earned them the nickname of “giraffe gazelle” and they use them in order to graze on- Alright. I suppose their coat colors are similar enough to certain human skin tones to trick online moderation bots into thinking they’re… really long-necked naked people? I guess the fact that they like to stand up on their hind legs to reach vegetation in particularly tall places doesn’t help them much either.

Fuuuuckkkkk he's porn

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Alright, I put the less suggestive free clip arts I was able to find together. This is what they’re packing, color-wise:

I cannot overstate how much I haven’t oversaturated the colors here. That’s how boy vervet monkeys show off how handsome and healthy they are so the girls vervet monkeys will want to date them. The brighter the reds and blues of a male vervet monkey’s genitalia, the more fertile he’s thought to be.

Real as fuck

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Vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus). I’m not why this one was photoshopped into the oats guy, but you could say that, much like real life Quakers, they keep it simple, style-wise:

Their coats are light gray, that becomes lighter on the underside of their bodies with their faces, hands and feet being darker. Nothing anyone who preaches plain dress would have an issue with. Except for males, that is, whose private bits are…

Uh. I’m not sure if I can show this kind of thing here. They’re primates, so it might look a bit too human-like for Tumblr’s tastes and I really don’t want my blogs to get marked as explicit. But at the same time, you can’t talk about vervet monkeys without drawing attention to… hold on. I’m gonna make a SFW alternative to show you what I mean real quick.

Real as fuck

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Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus). Despite their size, this individual is very likely an adult! Arctic foxes just happen to be kind of small compared to other members of the Vulpes genus and other similar canids we refer to as foxes as well. For example, while both red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and Pampas foxes (Lycalopex gymnocercus) will average around 70 cm (27,5 in) in length, tail excluded, arctic foxes don’t usually get much bigger than 55 cm (22 in), also not counting the tail!

There’s a good reason for that: while arctic foxes have thick winter coats like other animals who live in very cold regions also tend to have, unlike many of them, they don’t have a thick layer of insulating fat to help keep them warm as well. So, to beat the cold, they came up with a different strategy: going for a small, compact body, including when it comes to their ears and snouts, in order to preserve as much body heat as possible! This gives them a distinct, rather teddy bear-ish look during the winter:

When summer comes around and they lose most of their thick fur, they look a bit more like your average fox. But you can still make out their unique round ears and short snout!

Baby fox steals fish from fisherman (🔊)

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Armadillos being consumed as food might sound a bit off-putting to modern sensibilities, yes. But we have to keep in mind that which animals are “OK to eat” and which animals aren’t is largely a social construct and said social constructs will change from culture to culture and time period to time period.

For example, I lived in France for a few years when I was in my early teens and the school I went to was attended by children of various differing religious backgrounds. So they made an effort to make different versions of meat-based dishes to accommodate all kinds of food restrictions. And it took me a little while to figure out that, every time they served us a burger patty with fries once a week (my favorite meal because I’m a very picky eater), they were making a beef version and a non-beef version, for those who didn’t eat beef cue to religious reasons. And the meat they picked as replacement for beef was horse! Which isn’t AS commonly eaten in France as it used to be in the past but still has its fans. I guess they deemed it similar enough when it comes to taste and nutritional value?

Anyway, being Brazilian and all, it had never even crossed my mind that horses might be edible. So, even though it was clearly labeled CHEVAL in big bold letters, I thought they were both different cuts of beef and just picked the line with less people on it. I only learned that when they said horse, they meant horse-HORSE after I had already been eating it for months. In my defense, over here we have cuts of beef named patinho (duckling) and lagarto (lizard). I thought everyone got a little silly with it when naming beef.

Well, I’m not sure about how North American indigenous people view armadillos. But South American indigenous people 100% ate them and European settlers picked up the same custom very often after living here.

Armadillos were very commonly hunted for their meat back in pre colonial and colonial times in South America and their consumption as food is mostly how the infection spread from armadillo to humans. The reverse would happen due to the fact that, well, given that indoor plumbing wasn’t a thing back then, both indigenous South Americans and European settlers would dig pits to use as bathrooms. And armadillos are fossorial animals who’ll dig their dens anywhere so… sometimes they would get a bit too close to human waste.

To this day, people from more rural areas of Brazil occasionally still hunt armadillos as bushmeat! But government health agencies heavily discourage this practice due to the heavy risk of leprosy infection. In fact, the common name of the nine-banded armadillo in Brazilian Portuguese is tatu-galinha. Which translates to “chicken armadillo”, and was given to them due to the fact they reportedly taste a lot like chicken! I personally know people who ate them back when they were kids in rural towns in the 60s, 70s and the such.

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Well, I’m not sure about how North American indigenous people view armadillos. But South American indigenous people 100% ate them and European settlers picked up the same custom very often after living here.

Armadillos were very commonly hunted for their meat back in pre colonial and colonial times in South America and their consumption as food is mostly how the infection spread from armadillo to humans. The reverse would happen due to the fact that, well, given that indoor plumbing wasn’t a thing back then, both indigenous South Americans and European settlers would dig pits to use as bathrooms. And armadillos are fossorial animals who’ll dig their dens anywhere so… sometimes they would get a bit too close to human waste.

To this day, people from more rural areas of Brazil occasionally still hunt armadillos as bushmeat! But government health agencies heavily discourage this practice due to the heavy risk of leprosy infection. In fact, the common name of the nine-banded armadillo in Brazilian Portuguese is tatu-galinha. Which translates to “chicken armadillo”, and was given to them due to the fact they reportedly taste a lot like chicken! I personally know people who ate them back when they were kids in rural towns in the 60s, 70s and the such.

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Oh wow!!! Thank you so much for the transcript!

Oh, I just found a really funny picture from one of those old-timey movies in which they used actual animals to portray prehistoric ones:

I mean, using a modern armadillo species to portray some sort of glyptodont (I guess that’s where they were going with this?) is much more accurate than using an iguana to portray a Tyrannosaurus but I cannot overstate just how much this guy here is one of the furthest living things to a glyptodont you can still call an armadillo.

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That is true! Armadillos are one of the very few mammals besides humans to be able to contract leprosy. That’s because they have an unusually low body temperature for mammals, around 34°C (93°F), which is similar to ours and allows the leprosy bacteria to thrive on them just like it thrives on humans. Not all of them carry it, of course, but it’s best to be safe than sorry. When it comes to wild animals, “not touching them, period” is usually the best approach, anyway.

Here’s the thing, though: leprosy was inexistent in the Americas before the late 15th century! This means that the ones to bring the bacteria over here, where it started to infect humans and armadillos alike, were none other than these jokesters:

That’s right. The seafarers from the Age of Exploration. It’s like, way to go. Now the funny turtle rabbits are contagious. Not the worst thing they’ve pulled over here by a LONG shot but still a jerk move nonetheless.

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Personally, I’m only OK with wild animals “acting” in movies if rehabilitation and release in the wild isn’t an option for them for one reason or another and if they’re never made to do anything that distresses them in any way. That being said, IF I had to cast a living armadillo to play the role of a glyptodont in a movie, I’d pick an individual from the genus Cabassous:

Source: @lydialoveswildlife on Instagram

Unlike most other armadillos, whose bands are very visibly different from the less moveable parts of their shells, armadillos from the genus Cabassous have a very uniform look about themselves, which is similar to what glyptodonts had going on:

Oh, I just found a really funny picture from one of those old-timey movies in which they used actual animals to portray prehistoric ones:

I mean, using a modern armadillo species to portray some sort of glyptodont (I guess that’s where they were going with this?) is much more accurate than using an iguana to portray a Tyrannosaurus but I cannot overstate just how much this guy here is one of the furthest living things to a glyptodont you can still call an armadillo.

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This is my own post from my main blog but nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus), cast as one of its distant extinct cousins from the Glyptodontinae subfamily in the prestigious Hollywood production King Dinosaur (1955), directed by Bert I. Gordon. I think. They reused footage a lot back then.

Anyway, I haven’t watched it but I’m sure it gave an amazing performance, even though a chlamyphorid armadillo might have been a better fit for the role. Here’s what they look like in technicolor:

Oh, I just found a really funny picture from one of those old-timey movies in which they used actual animals to portray prehistoric ones:

I mean, using a modern armadillo species to portray some sort of glyptodont (I guess that’s where they were going with this?) is much more accurate than using an iguana to portray a Tyrannosaurus but I cannot overstate just how much this guy here is one of the furthest living things to a glyptodont you can still call an armadillo.

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This picture has also been turned into some sort of cryptocurrency or something along these lines. I didn’t look into it too hard because I’m not a big fan of crypto. I think that, instead of using so much water and electricity and negatively impacting the environment just to make 100000 different kinds of The Sims money that are more often than not just pump-and-dump schemes we could, like. Be doing literally anything else. But I digress.

Here’s something much nicer for you: at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Japanese musician Gen Hoshino released a song called Uchide Odorou (“Dancing on the Inside” in English) to encourage people to stay at home, and the Miyajima Public Aquarium’s Instagram account published a video of one of their porpoises dancing to it:

Source: Miyajima Public Aquarium (@miyajima_aqua on Instagram), April 30, 2020.

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East Asian finless porpoise (Neophocaena sunameri). This individual, whose picture has been popular online for a while, is sometimes referred to as a Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis), but that’s likely a misidentification, as Yangtze finless porpoises are only found in the Yangtze River in China and this picture was found to have been taken at the Miyajima Public Aquarium in Japan, a facility with a focus on species found in the Seto Inland Sea.

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Well, you’re entitled to your own opinion, of course. But could I perhaps bribe you into upgrading it to “ugly cute” by offering you a giant otter cuddle pile?

Well, that’s length-wise rather than height-wise, but yes! That would be the giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), fellow countrymen of mine!

In fact, saying they’re 170 cm (5’7”) from head to tail is lowballing it a little. Some individuals as long as 180 cm (5’11”) have been recorded! Which is longer than I am tall 😔

You might have noticed that giant otters have a bit of a big cat-like look about themselves. That’s the origin of their name in Brazilian Portuguese, ariranha, which is a term from the Tupi-Guarani language and means “river jaguar”. And, just like ground jaguars, giant otters are apex predators as well: they mainly eat fish, but will hunt anything from snakes, turtles and even small caimans if given the opportunity!

Besides their size, giant otters have other traits that set them apart from their smaller cousins. For one, unlike most mustelids, they’re social animals who live in familial groups of up to twenty individuals, which whom they communicate constantly through a variety of different noises. Also, unlike other species of otter, whose tails are thick at the base and pointy at the end, giant otters’ tails also start out with a thick base, but they end up flat, which helps propel them through the water. The interesting thing about it, however, it’s that it’s not flat in an horizontal way, like the tails of other semiaquatic mammals such as beavers and platypuses. It’s flat vertically, not unlike the tail of a newt!

Source of the 2nd image: @resgateariranha on Instagram

[mammalidentifier]

Well, that’s length-wise rather than height-wise, but yes! That would be the giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), fellow countrymen of mine!

In fact, saying they’re 170 cm (5’7”) from head to tail is lowballing it a little. Some individuals as long as 180 cm (5’11”) have been recorded! Which is longer than I am tall 😔

You might have noticed that giant otters have a bit of a big cat-like look about themselves. That’s the origin of their name in Brazilian Portuguese, ariranha, which is a term from the Tupi-Guarani language and means “river jaguar”. And, just like ground jaguars, giant otters are apex predators as well: they mainly eat fish, but will hunt anything from snakes, turtles and even small caimans if given the opportunity!

Besides their size, giant otters have other traits that set them apart from their smaller cousins. For one, unlike most mustelids, they’re social animals who live in familial groups of up to twenty individuals, which whom they communicate constantly through a variety of different noises. Also, unlike other species of otter, whose tails are thick at the base and pointy at the end, giant otters’ tails also start out with a thick base, but they end up flat, which helps propel them through the water. The interesting thing about it, however, it’s that it’s not flat in an horizontal way, like the tails of other semiaquatic mammals such as beavers and platypuses. It’s flat vertically, not unlike the tail of a newt!

Source of the 2nd image: @resgateariranha on Instagram

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Oh, I hadn’t seen those! Well, ultimately, that’s not surprising. Mustelids tend to be VERY skilled hunters, a trait you’re as likely to observe in 20 cm (7.8 in) least weasels as much as in 170 cm (5’7”) giant otters! Sure, prey animals do manage to evade predators at times, but that’s obviously not always the case.

But, in case anyone needs a little pick me up after learning about the fate of the porcupine, its sacrifice wasn’t in vain: all animals need to eat in order to survive long enough to reproduce and raise their young. And you can rest assured that, whenever this honey badger sires or births any babies of their own, they will be VERY well-taken care of. Female honey badgers usually have only one or two cubs per litter and they protect them fiercely, attacking animals multiple times their size to keep them away from their offspring. We can see this in action in this footage, filmed at the Kruger National Park in South Africa:

Source: National Geographic TV, “Caught In The Act”

As you can see, due to their loose skin, honey badger moms’ go-to method of moving their babies to different locations is, indeed, carrying them by their neck scruff.

They’ll keep doing it even after the cub is big and old enough to walk on their own if they’re being a bit too stubborn about going the way they’re supposed to.

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If the honey badger didn’t get to bite it properly before it got poked by its quills, the porcupine is probably just fine as well! Porcupine quills are just modified hair and it doesn’t hurt them to lose a few of them. Not only they’ll grow back, they’re specifically designed to break off and get stuck to whatever tried to attack the porcupine. It makes for a pretty unpleasant, memorable experience that leaves many predators wary of approaching other porcupines in the future