#Metazoa

[hasellia]

I want to be a geo witch. A paleo-necromancer.

I want to listen to the rocks on the side of the road and hear about drama from 3.2 Billion years ago. I want to wear a hat with a ridiculously wide brim. I want to show the ghost of Jurassic ginkgos and Permian Cycads how tall and proud their ancestors are. I want to raise the old ones and have a consensual battle with my Kollikodon against someone else's up little critcher. I want to give a velociraptor a pat on my lap and tell them how wonderful they are with little kisses. It's bullshit and unfair.

[enthusispastic]

Metazooa Stats

🐸 Animal #73 🦬

I figured it out in 5 guesses!

🟧🟧🟨🟨🟩

🔥 37 | Avg. Guesses: 5.6

[hasellia]

Ahh, the Camarasaurid Bananasaurus of Jurrasic Papua 240 MYA. Initially mistaken to be a member of the Camarasaurus lentus, Bananasaurus was moved to be a member of the Camarasauridae in 2004. Indeed, it retains the box skull shape of basal Macronarians and later Camarasaurids. The discovery was made due to the detection of excessive radiation emitted by the potassium within the matrix of the holotype material.

[animaarchive]

Some old drawings of my Ocs! (2020)

[beau-rebloga-coisas]

Metazooa Stats

🕊️ Animal #192 🐀

I figured it out in 3 guesses!

🟨🟩🟩

🔥 9 | Avg. Guesses: 9.2

#metazooa

[hasellia]

Edit by Hasselia. Original image by alphynix on Tumblr.

Actually all fossil reconstructions are wrong because flesh only evolved recently. Before that it was bone world

[thesparhawke]

"You can see yourself from the outside in an episodic memory. The new thinking about episodic memory [...] included ideas about what purpose this kind of memory serves. [...] They suggested that the important and useful thing we do with mental time travel is simulate possible situations in order to aid planning. These situations need never have happened -- they are mere possibilities, things that might come about tomorrow. Episodic memory, which looks backward, is a byproduct of this forward thinking ability. Why should we believe this? One reason is that episodic memory is so unreliable. If its role was to be a mere record, we might expect something more accurate. The combo of unreliability and vividness seen in episodic memory is apart of what suggests that it is a byproduct of a skill in exploring possible futures. A forward-looking faculty brings with it an ability to cook up pasts as well."

-Peter Godfrey-Smith from Metazoa

[hasellia]

[enthusispastic]

Took me to seven guesses remaining to get today's metazooa

I don't want to give it away, but it's a tough taxon! I usually start with a representative from that class just in case, since they don't follow the leading cladistics for most stuff under the class level I'm that group. That said, I got it in 7. 😝

[hasellia]

I present to you the runner up for Australia's 2017 national Bird of the year competition. Everyone give them a chippie.

nothing has fucked me up more than knowing the australian white ibis has a near-identical sister species called the african sacred ibis. the african sacred ibis is associated with thoth, ancient god of wisdom and reason. the australian white ibis is most commonly referred to as a “bin chicken”.

[lace-monitor]

WHY THE FUCK DOES EVERYTHING HAS TO BE A FUCKING FLY, ENGLISH SUCKS SO BAD. SOMEONE END WITH THIS LANGUAGE

[hasellia]

With the current discourse on plagiarism, (thanks hbomberguy for getting peeps into citing), I wasn't satisfied with attributing the image to just an "Aaron", so I did some digging. The finds were shocking...

It really is him!

This Blogspot page confirms the image comes from Deepwrecks, but the domain for sale. The Wayback Machine was being unresponsive, but I found this on a separate Blogspot page.

Looking up an Aaron Baldwin, I found a marine biologist who mainly works in taxonomy in Alaska and British Columbia.

This third (and final) Blogspot page provides a references and Aaron Baldwin who works mainly in Taxonomy and provides a picture:

(Honestly, I'm a bit face blind, but it looks like the same guy but older to me).

The Blogspot also provides a page for a website that Aaron has contributed to, based on the wildlife of British Columbia. The website has a gallery listing by photographer (wow! What a convenient way to find a source! More of that, please!) and sure enough, Aaron has a tonne of marine Biology photos on there.

This is good enough evidence for me. I probably could've just asked OP for receipts, but it was a good research exercise. Here's Aaron's ResearchGate, give him some love and Doritos.

Aaron, if you're reading this, thanks for the joy and inspiration in our lives from your moment of photographer's instinct. Thank you for teaching us about marine biology. I hope you have a wonderful day. (Also my sister is an undergrad, studying marine biology on an overseas scholarship, who just loves some networking opportunities, winkwinknudgenudge).

And now, I can rest.

THE ORIGIN OF THIS IMAGE:

So in my etsy I sell a pin of some isopods having at a bag of doritos based on this photo. Today I was contacted by the person who took it.

I asked to share this info and he gave permission!

Here’s the picture of him working with isopods and here’s a link to their published research!

[thesparhawke]

"Wild dolphins sometimes have a strikingly close engagement with people. A few years ago I saw a dolphin who regularly visits Cabbage Tree Bay, the marine reserve near Sydney [...]. This dolphin, well-known along those shores, is a female [...]. She lived on her own, after losing her pod some time ago, and does not seem too concerned about her unusual life. That day in the water, a lot of swimmers hung around, many just to see the dolphin. We kept a distance, but she would zoom in. She took a particular liking to a young man with red hair. When he dived down, she would come rocketing in and bring her face very close to his, repeatedly, so close that it looked like she was going to kiss him. I don't know why she singled him out for this attention. Some people seem to have a way of moving through the water -- perhaps a calmness, but it seems more distinctive than this -- that appeals to particular animals. I've seen this with Matt Laurence [...]. Something about him makes octopuses want to play, and they often end up crawling all over him. It was similar with the red-haired man and the lone dolphin."

-Peter Godfrey-Smith from Metazoa

[hasellia]

Heya I'm bored so like, what's yoir current favorite animal? Mines the olm

Ahhhh I love them all it's hard to choose... Sooo I'll say my top 2

The spotted tiger Quoll

(Pictured: A spotted tiger quoll, Dasyurus maculatus, curled up sleeping in a glass exhibit.)

Bunjeen is the original Indigenous name (from the Bandjalung language group) for them in my area. Was called the marsupial cat by colonizers until naturalist told folk or was missleading. "Quoll" comes from anglicisation of "dhigul" (Note: Aboriginal spelling is different from English spelling) from the Guugu Yimithirr mob who contacted Captain Cook (our Christopher Columbus booooo).

Since it occupies the same ecological niche as them. A good native defence against feral rabbits, but is vulnrable due to competition with feral cats and poisoning from cane toads. These Polka dotted murder balls are the second largest extant carnivorus marsupial. Live only for 2-4 years. The size of a grain of rice when born. Live solitarily, but will use a communal latrine to see who's in the area. Reaches it's teens in year one, stops growing year two, doesn't live very long past year 3 (；ＴДＴ). I don't like exotics, and the reality is definetly different to my fantasy, but I kinda want one as a pet. Maybe I can volunteer at a sanctuary or something.

(Pictured; A Spotted-tailed Tiger Quoll on a mossy log at night, by JJ Henson.

Below that picture is an Eastern Quoll, Dasyurus viverrinus. Eating a very bloody piece of meat with their hands full. I had to include it for the absolute gremlin energy).

Hoatzin

Stem-bird/Dinosaur vibes. Babies have claws on their wings to climb trees if they fall out of the nest. It is also the only bird to be a folivore; a dedicated leaf eater (foli, like foliage, and vore, which I encourage everyone to look up themselves). It's very rotund for digestion and stinky, like a cow! A dinosaur cow bird is also apt, because we no idea what kind of bird it is! Is it a pheasant? Ratite? Songbird? To my understanding, the current idea is that it's a survivor of a unique lineage of birds that survived the Chicxulub mass extinction. Our oldest fossils of potential relatives only go to about 30 MYA. Not even genetics have gotten us too far, but give it time. Was my profile picture for a time on an obscure internet forum when I was a teen. It is also the same colours as my favourite and oldest Velociraptor plush toy. (Razor the wild republic UK Velociraptor plush)

(Pictured; Top Picture of a Hoatzin chick with visable wing claws. Below it Razor, my Willd Republic UK Velocirptor)

[goblinguistics]

I get the response based on the headline, but this quote came from a prompted question and desperately needs context:

He's saying that if you're pessimistic about humanity and its future, it makes sense as an argument, not that he himself agrees.

Also, misanthropic environmentalism is in no way what his philosophy is about (and neither is this interview). His books are mostly about (the evolution of) perception, cognition and subjectivity and are compassionate rather than cynical.

I love how you can just be a white man, old as balls, queening out, saying the shit 15 year olds say on Tumblr regularly, and people WILL call you a philosopher cause you happen to exemplify the right combo of traits that makes plebs think you're really cooking with gas here

[enthusispastic]

Metazooa Stats

🪼 Animal #58 🦊

I figured it out in 3 guesses!

🟧🟨🟩

🔥 22 | Avg. Guesses: 5.6

#metazooa