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Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin)
"baby claws" "they're the living chain link between dinosaurs and birds, to the point where their hatchlings have claws on their wings still, you can't get much cooler than that honestly"
Alright we're just gonna go through this like a list because these birds are full of weirdness.
Babies have wing claws! Two claws on each wing, which can be used immediately after hatching in conjuction with their large feet to scramble around tree branches. If a predator is attacking a colony, the adults will fly around to make noise and distractions, while the young move from their nests and into the bushes. If they can't escape that way, the chicks will drop into water and swim to safety before using their claws to climb back into the nest. These claws disappear by the time the bird reaches adulthood. (It should be noted that the current theory is that these claws have "re-evolved" [see atavism] rather than the bird being a true "missing link" that has kept its claws throughout the millennia.)
Hoatzin are folivores, which means they eat leaves. One study found that 82% of their diet is leaves, with 10% being flowers and 8% being fruit. Their digestive tract is described as such: "Hoatzins host special bacteria in the front part of the gut that break down and ferment the vegetable material they consume, much as cattle and other ruminants do. Unlike ruminants, however, which possess the rumen (a specialized stomach for bacterial fermentation), the hoatzin has an unusually large crop, folded in two chambers, and a large, multichambered lower esophagus. Its stomach chamber and gizzard are much smaller than in other birds. Its crop is so large as to displace the flight muscles and keel of the sternum, much to the detriment of its flight capacity."
Because of their diet and the way it is broken down, Hoatzin smell similar to manure and are often called "stinkbirds". Apparently this also means they're only hunted for food in times of need.
Sources:
Image Source: eBird (Suzanne Labbé)
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I have never related to Shallan so hard.
(Chapter 84 - For the Broken)
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Adolin Kholon: ultimate horsegirl, not an ounce of quit in him.
(Chapter 84 - For the Broken)
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I love that these visions have a lil buddy game mode for Gavinor
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the curse is lifted! you are no a beast no more! congratulations! but you'll never forget the way they looked at you, will you.
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You call *that* a haunting bird call?
youtube
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We don't NEED AI art. We NEED to have a full apartment complex full of 1960's-1980's sci-fi & fantasy cover artists on permanent retainer
It just doesn't get any better than this
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Tl;dr how you can personally make Neil Gaiman lose money (and not be a jerk to others.)
I see a lot of folks upset that NG will financially benefit from residual and other compensation surrounding his involvement in the adaptation of Sandman and Good Omens (and he will.) But the answer isn’t “rage at the fans who are so emotionally attached to his blorbos because they grieve differently, and then somehow NG will be financially punished.” That’s lower-class/middle-class thinking. NG is too rich and financially diversified to really be hurt by little boycott or a couple of show cancellations (though said cancellations can cause life-changing poverty to the little guys who signed contracts and turned down other opportunities before all of this came out. And boy does NG love women in poverty 🤮)
So if you want to substantially reduce the wealth of someone at NGs financial level—you need to do it with professional services fees.
Details below the cut:
The firm that NG has apparently engaged for online reputation management (ORM), called edendale, was once paid for their professional testimony in an unrelated slander lawsuit, which was delivered in the form of report outlining the strategy ORM firms use and just how ludicrously expensive those professional services cost. (credit to horrornobody77 for digging up the report.) We’re talking hundred of thousands of dollars for a small potatoes case, where NG’s could easily get into the millions for ORM and associated legal fees.
It’s not that long of a read, but to summarize the key action items you can take:
-ORMs wait for the discourse to die down because active discourse is much more expensive to counter. Wanna cost NG money? Talk about the accusations over time. Set a quarterly calendar event in your phone to remind yourself to post (and otherwise engage on other people’s posts) about the Vulture article. This needs to happens for years, so that NG has to pay for more comprehensive ORM and for longer.
-Make discourse that is Google-friendly. Use the words edendale will find concerning (they’re already running fluff pieces with the terms Neil Gaiman Uncovered to try and bury the similarly named subreddit.) If you just post a link without much comment, it’s not gonna be prioritized by search engines. Similarly, if you make a low effort post and then no one else engages with it, it’s not going to make it to the top ten search results. Engage with each other, for heaven’s sake!
-Don’t let the fluff sit unaddressed. If you see random bot posts sharing NG quotes captioning random fantasy art (probably stolen) with the comments turned on? Respond! Make it hard for the bots to understand your comment but easy for humans. “Nice quote! Mega bummer about what NG did, I used to really like him.” is hard for a bot to auto-delete. “Fuck NG” is practically doing the bot’s autodelete command for it.
-If/when you post fan works for properties strongly related to Neil Gaiman, leave a lil callout in the authors notes. Nothing that will get you sued, just a few words like: “I would definitely personally choose to not ever meet Neil Gaiman at a comic con.” Maybe throw in a link to your fav tumblr summary.
Anyway, to the person being paid hundred or thousands of dollars per hour by Neil Gaiman for professional services—you’re welcome for the extra billable hours 😘
Also Edendale sounds like a law firm in a Good Omens legal AU fic, and I can’t believe it’s real.
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oh... oh this Szeth and Elid dynamic reads like Tien and Kaladin from Tien's point of view
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reminding everyone that Farscape are uploading the entire show on YouTube to watch for free, without ads, and theyre almost done with season 2 atp
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If you're Australian, consider coming along to a Rally to Protect Trans Youth near you!
The rallies are to protest the Qld decision to pause puberty blockers as we draw a line in the sand about being used in a political culture war and importing overseas ideology. The Trans Justice Network is gathering across the country for a day of action, it's as accessible and covid-safe and family friendly as possible, with a focus on community and inclusive trans joy. There are also follow up actions planned.
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So on the 27th DeepSeek R1 dropped (a chinese version of ChatGPT that is open source, free and beats GPT's 200 dollar subscription, using less resources and less money) and the tech market just had a loss of $1,2 Trillion.
Source
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no such thing as too much love. or too much garlic
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trump is 78, putin is 72, netanyahu 75, biden 82, lukashenko 70. if you kill yourself now, you'll never see them die. keep going
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