#(except Antarctica)

[chrissy-kaos]

Today was soooo amazing! This little town is gorgeous! Amazing food, books stores and antique shopping! I might be in heaven!

[alfredosauce50]

You and Mathias going on an expedition to the Antarctic to study the penguin population 🙏

BUT YOU TWO ALSO SHARE A CABIN, AND WHEN THE TEMPERATURE PLUNGES AT NIGHT, MAT OFFERS TO WARM YOU UP WITH HIS BODY HEAT 😭🙏🙏🙏 NO SHIRT AND ALL 😏 *gets shot*

[distressednoise]

"This is about surviving a landscape beyond human survivability, it strips away all pretensions!"

"This is about surviving a landscape beyond human survivability, it strips away all pretensions!"

The team shared a long, quiet look. On the contract they'd all signed before heading south it stated, it decisive block capitals, "MOVING TO ANTARCTICA IS NOT THE ANSWER TO YOUR PROBLEMS," and it was becoming increasingly clear to everyone that Skeen had skipped this, and possibly his mandatory evaluation.

Last week a passing South African fishing ship had tossed Brasso half a frozen springbok, and they were eating it now with a sauce Cassian had willed into existence from powered soup and cordial. The microbiology team's band, briefly torn apart by a vicious argument about sponges, had reformed and was gamely mixing up the verses to wonderwall. Vel's petrochemical report had become a sort of collaborative creative writing project, with everyone taking turns to come up with a plausibly scientific way to tell her corporate sponsors to fuck off. There were lots of way to get yourself killed overwintering at Yavin Station, but a lack of human companionship wasn't an obvious one, except possibly to Skeen, who was developing the feverish look of a man who thinks if he walks long enough he might actually reach the horizon.

[wooly-nooly]

European Wolf Spider!

Was on the wall of my house!

It's not the biggest I've seen but it's big enough to scare someone with arachnophobia! 😈

OMG WOLF SPIDERS ARE SO COOL

they are also terrifying, that leg to body ratio is unsettling, BUT SO COOL

I was curious as to whether or not there was a difference between wolf spider and European wolf spider and it turns out theres not, wolf spiders are just super common in alot of Europe

also, why do you sound like you’re about to put this in the pillow of someone with arachnophobia 🤨

[ponkothepenguin]

I just found out that someone I know irl has been to the South Pole?! crazy fr

[cupids-fiction]

what’s the word for when you theoretically could get up and do stuff like you’re not *tired* but then again if you get up and do stuff you might actually explode

[muntzerism-diggerism]

Crazy to think about how there's brown trout in basically every body of cool alpine water on the planet because the Brits took them everywhere they went Johnny Appleseed style.

[hislittleraincloud]

I see you.

(And not the way Jairo see each other.)

It's a(n incomplete) map of my visitors since April 25th (a month ago), some who're using VPNs. One of whom has visited me almost every day for a month. 💀 🫴🏽💕✨

[sbnkalny]

The sides of the bodies of males become almost black except for Antarctica, and have become strawberry jam

[ardenrosegarden]

the way paleontologists' function in movies is just to explain and deal with other people awakening the horrors

[thasmin-vibes]

Decided on spending my othet 5 nights in Indonesia but avoiding Bali cause that's where everyone goes. I am spending one night in Bali cause with the flight from Cambodia it arrives too late to get to the island im staying at. But I'll be spending 4 nights then on a small island with no traffic where you can walk the whole thing and I can go snorkelling with turtles everyday.

[milfbrainrot]

so funny there were 7 of them who survived weird world and evidently others in the organization who didn't go, but they split the stone in to three pieces. it would've been so much harder to put it all back together if it was split into more than that but instead they went the popularity trust contest route

[bethanythebogwitch]

I heard it's Superb Owl Sunday so I have prepared some superb owls for you.

The barn owl is the most widespread species of owl, living on every continent except Antarctica. Their faces are shaped like a disk to help their hearing, giving them some of the best hearing of any owl. They mostly hunt by sound.

Snowy owls are the largest arctic predatory birds, They are born with black feathers and get whiter as they age. Females usually have more dark feathers than males.

Eastern screech owls have a few feather variants that make them look like completely different species.

The southern white-faced owl can increase its metabolic rate during winter to compensate for the cold and lack of food. They lay their eggs in nests built and abandoned by other birds.

The great grey owl is the largest owl by length, but a lot of that is feathers and they're actually very light for their size. Their hearing is good enough to hear rodents burrowing through snow and they can break through hard-packed snow to catch prey.

Blakiston's fish owl is the largest owl by mass and eats mostly fish. Despite the name, they may be more closely related to eagle owls than fish owls.

The elf owl is the smallest owl species, barely larger than a sparrow. They hunt bugs and play dead when caught. They like to live in holes in saguaro cacti.

Burrowing owls live in underground burrows. While they can dig, they mostly take over burrows from other animals. Farmers killing prairie dogs has severely reduced burrowing owl populations. They decorate their burrows with feces to attract bugs to eat.

The barking owl is called that because

Its nice to have a day to appreciate superb owls. Feel free to spread the love by reblogging with some more owl facts.

[a-queer-little-wombat]

Great images here. I also urge folks to go do their own searches too. Hell, open up Google Maps, find the capital city of any country on the African continent, pick a downtown street, and turn on Street View.

Sidebar: y'all have GOT to fucking stop talking about the whole damn continent of Africa as if it were a single country. Just because North America is nearly synonymous with America, as in the United States of America; that does not make Africa or Europe or South America or Asia basically a single country with a single culture. I know you fucks can sort of understand that about Europe, but it is really just as true for every damn continent (except maybe Australia and, well, Antarctica).

Here, have a Strret View near downtown Kampala, Uganda:

It's probably even more built up now.

I'd like to add more screencaps like this but, uh, Google Maps is a massive rabbit hole that eats my time as I check out cool areas of countries and cities all over the damn world, so I need to stop before I forget to eat dinner. Just fucking go play with Google Maps for a while.

Want more direction than just random pan and zoom and pan? Start playing Worldle!

Every day, it randomly picks a country or territory and shows just its outline and you've got six guesses to figure out which one it is (there's a pull-down menu of the possible options, so it's okay if you can't spell them all). For every guess that isn't right, it tells you how far away and in which direction the actual country/territory is.

My *personal* rule is that, if I haven't gotten it with the first five guesses, I go to Google Maps and figure out the answer (which sometimes means turning on the satellite layer so I can find tiny island territories¹). I mean, this is an open book game. Yes, the short-term goal is to recognize them without looking it up ... and also yes, the long-term goal is to build the knowledge to recognize them without looking them up.

It's fucking working! I still get lost in which of the -istans it might be, and the Pacific island nations all look like little blobs or blob clusters, and Eastern Europe has WAY more countries than you think it does, but now I get it right in 5 or less about 50% of the time! And when I don't, I get to spend a while fooling around in Google Maps, checking out countries and stuff.

---

¹ I'm fucking looking at YOU, Bouvet Island.

Someone said "Are you really so stupid to think that Africa has the same technological advances as us? If they did they would probably have clean water and not live in houses made of sticks and mud. Get over yourself and stop being so ignorant."..... Below is a tiny collection of images of the Africa they refuse to show you..

ches

I’m sorry you’ve been made to believe that the whole of Africa is poor, I really am..

[todaysbird]

the peregrine falcon, known historically in north america as the duck hawk, is one of the world’s most widely distributed birds, and indisputably the most widespread raptor; they are found on every continent with the exception of antarctica. they are skilled hunters, in part due to their status as the world’s fastest animals (often misattributed to the cheetah); they are capable of diving at over 200 mph, with the highest recorded speed being 242 mph. they are known to feed on a diverse array of reptiles, mammals, or whatever prey they can carry, but they often show a preference for feeding on passerine birds. this has led to this species thriving in urban environments due to their willingness to feed on invasive species like the rock dove. they are also common in falconry, and are known as a highly trainable and reliable bird. like most birds of prey, peregrines exhibit sexual dimorphism, with females being significantly larger than males.

[thedaddycomplex]

He said to trust him, he said America would win this trade war. But, once his MAGA base and his GOP allies started revolting because he lost them pretty much everything, he backed down without gaining a fucking thing.

Not one country conceded to his demands (unsurprisingly, not even those uninhabited islands off the coast of Antarctica). So, all he and his beloved tariffs achieved is a wrecked U.S. economy.

No one could have seen this coming except literally all of the finance, trade, and economy experts who said this would happen.

Well, I guess Trump now knows you don't mess with Antarctica.