#alligators all around
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
the marine biologist that has been possessing me for the past week is finally satisfied lmao
#art#digital art#sombertide art#paleoart#natural history#fish#alligator gar#sturgeon#arapaima#coelacanth#nautilus#nautiloid#cephalopod#these are all creatures that have been around for millions of years#including binglesacks lol
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
Nah, man, it's Pierre who doesn't care.
whoopee once whoopee twice whoopee chicken soup with rice. btw.
#maurice sendak#recently picked up the set of four books i had as a kid#chicken soup with rice#pierre#alligators all around#one was johnny#had 'really rosie' on vinyl
158 notes
·
View notes
Text
#sincerely one of the most fun parts of Kinnikuman is the sheer volume of fucked up dudes#'yeah this dude is half sneaker half alligator'#'oh him? his deal is he's a cassette player'#'this guy who is literally just a spring with arms and legs is one of the hardest motherfuckers around'#'oh all three of them sold their souls to Satan btw just a heads up on that'#Kinnikuman#anime
31 notes
·
View notes
Text
Florida!!! by Florence + the Machine and Taylor Swift, Daytona Sand by Orville Peck, Spanish Moss by Against Me!, White Crosses by Against Me! //Pictures: map, surfers, post card, fountain of youth; plus my own photography // The Truman Show (1998) // Sunny Side Up by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm // Wikipedia
#don’t actually know what to tag this post but um. please reblog it <3#actually I made this mostly for myself anyways but I did spend a bit of time on it#web weaving#parallels#idk I was thinking about heartbreak and aging and youth and ghosts and haunting and nature and beauty. florida!!#I think it’s ironic in a really intriguing way how the state now has a reputation for being where old folks come to retire#whereas the Spanish colonizers arrived in florida looking for the Fountain of Youth#in your quest to cheat death you brought violence and destruction but in the end you can’t conquer your way out of the inevitable#you can’t conquer age and you can’t conquer time and you can’t conquer death and you can’t conquer the ghosts that haunt the peninsula#aging is nature death is nature and that will always overpower you in florida#from hurricanes to alligators to Spanish moss to the brilliant shades of green all around#accept nature + accept death + accept aging + accept heartbreak. in florida.#I only have this many thoughts/feelings about it bc I grew up here#& when you grow up in florida your whole life it’s very easy to fall in love with the Spanish moss and alligators and oranges#and the way everything is in shades of Green much prettier than you’ve seen anywhere else#photography can’t do it Justice the landscape here can really take your breath away#Bandit.txt
33 notes
·
View notes
Text
"Florida is hell on earth" sounds like a you problem
#does florida have some really bad traits? yeah obviously#the tourists the traffic the politics#but i can't fuck with people painting with a broad brush because there's so many wonderful things about florida#the everglades the beaches the wildlife#like you can't possibly tell me there's nothing good in flroida when the everglades exist#she provides 8 million people with drinking water. she has eight separate habitats.#she protects and houses many critically endangered species like the florida panther the american alligator egrets#even the ghost orchid#if you really think florida is nothing but a hellhole you lack the ability to see beauty all around you#and lack of understanding in how important a part nature plays#it's not perfect but it's home#like how can you look at a manatee and say that florida's nothing but a hellhole?#maybe if you visited blue springs park to watch the manatees you'd calm down#or take a glass bottom boat ride at wakulla springs or go tubing down the ichetucknee#go look at some birds and alligators and frogs#go collect sharks teeth off the beaches in the gulf#florida has a truly beautiful and unique ecosystem and i feel bad for people who can't appreciate it#oscar talks to himself
14 notes
·
View notes
Text
in the Appalachia area of rdr2 (or what i assume its based on considering everything) and i love it bc irl i grew up there but not so much liking getting jumped by the men in overalls everytime i go to cook a fish!!
#i actually dont find the mountains as creepy as everyone tries to say nor the swamp. only reason i dont#hang around the swamp is i dont want alligators near me#but i slept outside all the time in the mountains LOL!#the shitty rundown cabins make me so nostalgic <3
10 notes
·
View notes
Text
it's becoming really hard to draw again and I'm scared to go outside alone :))) perfectionist manifestation of the lack of control i feel in my life combined with my usual coping method of avoiding everything forever
#happens in cycles all the time but damn#this one sure was triggered out of me#like. last week and the week before i was in europe thriving drawing so much#and then the change (coming home + around diff people)#with the Other change (sudden breakup with no warning or real explanation that made sense)#i am. losing it#i am floating but I'm in a big big big pond and it is deep#im ill#alligates says things#man i really thought i was fine but i guess it hasn't been that long and#the psychological effects... the psychic harm dealt to me...
26 notes
·
View notes
Text
oh yeah we were also wondering why we flock to media with dead kids that haunt the narrative both figuratively and literally and uh :) yeah we know why
#child death tw#rowan seemed so much older when we were kids#but realistically she was barely like 14#maybe even 12 or 13#Jason Todd chara and asriel. them mfs from fnaf and maria#they’re dead kids but at the end of the day they’re all apart of someone else’s story#and a lot of them come back. in one way shape or form#with the exception of maria they all come back wrong and hurt and twisted by their deaths#but still deserving of love. still craving it more than anything#being a vessel for someone else’s opinions. barely even themselves#rowan died. and a part of us died with her#that was probably uh.. yknow. That guys last real time being here#cheri took all the stuff as kid. all of it happened to them but buddy boy was still kinda around#and then rowan died and then. She did too#and then Jay had to take over for years and then cheri came back but didn’t know they were cheri until#like they were 17 because they just repressed repressed repressed#and obviously those are very shallow views of those characters#but to a hurting kid who resonated so much with them they were everything#I have no clue why I’m so introspective tonight#but my friends do call me the emotion guy so#I guess it means something. but yeah something died in us when rowan died#but something was also born. rowan was a person. a little girl who should’ve grown up and that’ll never change#but I think this year is the year that we learn to let her go#im happy i got the chance to know her when we did#I hope she’s a fucking butterfly or something really cool like an alligator if her next life#also we already knew why we flocked to this media because duh. but like it helps to know which part of us needs more healing#who needs a therapist when you have me ;)
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Tbh ppl here are so weird about tiktok users
#like yes tiktok bad and its kind of funny when ppl say things to get around an algorithm that doesn’t exist on here#but ppl being like ‘if youve ever said unalive I never want to talk to you’ need to get some perspective#like… they were on a platform where they had to say that shit sometimes to talk about things#they were the ppl being censored and thats how they got around it#(it wasnt just used for ‘im gonna unalive myself’ jokes ya know? its also used to talk about police killing ppl which tiktok often censors)#(like it was used to talk about important issues to spead information in a way that would get around censorship)#why are you acting like its their fault?? that does absolutely nothing to hurt tiktok?? and you are just kicking someone while they are down#just inform them that they dont have to do that#stop assuming you’re smarter than everyone I promise you are not <3#also anyone saying tiktok doesn’t actually censor things and its just users being dramatic is lying#or is spreading misinfo#cmon ppl use your brains#YouTube has ‘protections’ for users speech that it breaks all the time we know this#it is inconsistent with who it does and does not censor#why would you think tiktok is any different?#of course the Washington post doing a ‘study’ isnt going to get censored because its a well known company#and censoring THEM would be massively reported and make tiktok look bad#not to mention the possibility that it was a mutually beneficial ‘test’#tiktok would get a massive news company ‘disproving’ all the alligations of censorship#which is good for bezos who ownes the WP because people post videos of Amazon’s work place violations that get taken down#and now they’ll look less reliable if they talk about censorship which will then make everything they say seem less reliable
12 notes
·
View notes
Text
@woot100 IM REALLY HAPPY TO HEAR THAT. their music defos isnt for everyone i know it can sometimes come off as ''screetchy alt rock'' but i love matt's lyricism and the groups general sound. and knowing ive influenced someone cool mutual to cool mutual to listen to the national is a win for me. i would love to hear what your favorite songs are from them or if you cant narrow it down which album of theirs you like best im always going back to give their lesser ones a chance
#i didnt give Boxers much back in the day but im back to listening to it and gospel easily shot up as one of my favorite songs from them#i used to only listen to it for start a war but mistaken for strangers gospel green gloves and fake empire are SO GOOD#also didnt care much for Alligator but its coming around as well. but i dont think anything beats I Am Easy To Find for albums for me#even trouble will find me has a hard time keeping up with it in my mind and i LOVE that album to death#all the classics. dont swallow the cap hard to find i need my girl etc
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Giving my right arm a rest to make the pain go away seems to be working
Hopefully I'll be back to drawing soon, and able to start on my temperature blanket....
For tonight though, I think I might play some red dead online. I feel like playing it lately
#its nice#when i dont run into other people#i just ride around doing my things making up some kind of story in my head#if i see someone that noticed me ill say howdy and let them know im not a thrrat#threat#sometimes they just shoot me#but sometimes they say hi or even help me 🥺🥺🥺#i remember i was walking with my horse#it was carrying as much as it could so it couldnt carry the... alligator or soemthing that id shot and it was good quality so i didnt want#to leave it#so i had to walk all the way from lemoyne to my camp in east new hanover#i was passing through emerald ranch and i saw a bunch of people and i was like. oh god.#they asked why i was walking and i told them#i think they escorted me back to my camp 🥹🥹#another time i met someone in rhodes and we just complained about what jerks people could be
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
One of the things I really appreciate about Dungeon Meshi is how the text is so clearly full of love for animals. Like the true kind of love Laios feels for the monster where he wants to know everything about them, but most of all he respects them and loves them as animals.
One of the chapters I can't stop thinking about is the one about Anne the Kelpie. It's kind of impressive how well it illustrates the different kind of love people have for animals. And how someone that loves an animal isn't necessarily an animal lover. If that makes sense.
When Senshi calls out Anne what he says is "Don't worry Anne's Harmless" but she isn't, she's a wild animal.
Marcille immediately reacts positively about it thinking it's cute she accepts the treat Senshi has for her. And hers and Chilchuck's reaction to Senshi wanting to cross the river on her back is more surprise while Laios immediately realizes how bad of an idea it is.
But Laios is the animal monster lover so how come when he finally is faced with a "docile" monster he doesn't react positively like the others? Marcille even calls him a monster. That's because Laios loves monsters, and Senshi loves Anne.
I've seen this attitude around me several times, where people love a specific animal but what they love is their idea of that animal, they don't really know them because they don't love the animal part of them.
It becomes a "this one is special because I love them" that can quickly become an issue for the animal as much as it is for the person. It's something unfortunate I see time and time again irl.
Anne wasn't wicked, Anne wasn't mean, Anne didn't trick him. Anne was a wild animal and Senshi loved her as Anne but not as a kelpie.
She acted on instinct, maybe she did love Senshi in the way kelpies can love, but animals are still animals and must be respected and treated as such. Climbing on top of Anne's back was the equivalent of putting your arm inside a alligator's mouth, the mouth is gonna close because that's what they're designed to do.
The real life equivalent I see the most of "I love this animal but I don't love the animal part of them" is with dogs. If you insist on loving an animal without acknowledging they ARE an animal they might hurt you, you might hurt them, it will only end in grief.
The best way you can love an animal is by understanding they're an animal.
That is all to say I don't mean that the love Senshi felt for Anne wasn't real or that it's all his fault. He couldn't have known with the information he had and unfortunately it came down to the worst outcome.
I just love dungeon meshi dearly.
#I think about this chapter so often#dungeon meshi#anne#anne the kelpie#anne dungeon meshi#Laios Touden#Senshi#Senshi of izganda#dunmeshi thoughts#Laios acknowledging he doesn't know how monsters think is also so chef's kiss#so good!!#tw animal death
17K notes
·
View notes
Text
Phew. This one took, uh… a bit longer than expected due to other projects both irl and art-wise, but it’s finally here. The long-awaited domestic animal infographic! Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough space to cover every single domestic animal (I’m so sorry, reindeer and koi, my beloveds) but I tried to include as many of the “major ones” as possible.
I made this chart in response to a lot of the misunderstandings I hear concerning domestic animals, so I hope it’s helpful!
Further information I didn’t have any room to add or expand on:
🐈 “Breed” and “species” are not synonyms! Breeds are specific to domesticated animals. A Bengal Tiger is a species of tiger. A Siamese is a breed of domestic cat.
🐀 Different colors are also not what makes a breed. A breed is determined by having genetics that are unique to that breed. So a “bluenose pitbull” is not a different breed from a “rednose pitbull”, but an American Pitbull Terrier is a different breed from an American Bully! Animals that have been domesticated for longer tend to have more seperate breeds as these differing genetics have had time to develop.
🐕 It takes hundreds of generations for an animal to become domesticated. While the “domesticated fox experiment” had interesting results, there were not enough generations involved for the foxes to become truly domesticated and their differences from wild foxes were more due to epigenetics (heritable traits that do not change the DNA sequence but rather activate or deactivate parts of it; owed to the specific circumstances of its parents’ behavior and environment.)
🐎 Wild animals that are raised in human care are not domesticated, but they can be considered “tamed.” This means that they still have all their wild instincts, but are less inclined to attack or be frightened of humans. A wild animal that lives in the wild but near human settlements and is less afraid of humans is considered “habituated.” Tamed and habituated animals are not any less dangerous than wild animals, and should still be treated with the same respect. Foxes, otters, raccoons, servals, caracals, bush babies, opossums, owls, monkeys, alligators, and other wild animals can be tamed or habituated, but they have not undergone hundreds of generations of domestication, so they are not domesticated animals.
🐄 Also, as seen above, these animals have all been domesticated for a reason, be it food, transport, pest control, or otherwise, at a time when less practical options existed. There is no benefit to domesticating other species in the modern day, so if you’ve got a hankering for keeping a wild animal as a pet, instead try to find the domestic equivalent of that wild animal! There are several dog breeds that look and behave like wolves or foxes, pigeons and chickens can make great pet birds and have hundreds of colorful fancy breeds, rats can be just as intelligent and social as a small monkey (and less expensive and dangerous to boot,) and ferrets are pretty darn close to minks and otters! There’s no need to keep a wolf in a house when our ancestors have already spent 20,000+ years to make them house-compatible.
🐖 This was stated in the infographic, but I feel like I must again reiterate that domestic animals do not belong in the wild, and often become invasive when feral. Their genetics have been specifically altered in such a way that they depend on humans for optimal health. We are their habitat. This is why you only really see feral pigeons in cities, and feral cats around settlements. They are specifically adapted to live with humans, so they stay even when unwanted. However, this does not mean they should live in a way that doesn’t put their health and comfort as a top priority! If we are their world, it is our duty to make it as good as possible. Please research any pet you get before bringing them home!
#SaritaZoo#my art#domestic animals#domestication#pets#dogs#cats#ferrets#cows#sheep#goats#bovids#horses#donkeys#camels#llamas#alpacas#rabbits#guinea pigs#rats#pet rats#pet mice#pigs#pigeons#turkeys#chickens#ducks#geese#quail#i ran out of tags rip
33K notes
·
View notes
Text
Alligator Body Language and You, or: How To Know When An Alligator On Social Media is Being Stressed for Views
Alligators are wild animals. Despite the idiotic claims of animal abusers like Jay Brewer, they cannot be domesticated, which means they are always going to react on the same natural instincts they've had for millions of years. Habituated, yes. Tamed, yes. Trained, definitely. Crocodilians can form bonds with people- they're social and quite intelligent. They can solve problems, use tools, and they're actually quite playful. Alligators are also really good at communicating how they're feeling, but to somebody who doesn't spend much time around them, their body language can be a bit mystifying. And it doesn't help when social media influencers are saying shit like this:
That is not what a happy gator looks like.
That's a terrified, furious gator who isn't attacking because the ogre handling her has her in a chokehold. She's doing everything she can to express her displeasure, and he's lying about it because he knows his audience doesn't even know how to think critically about what he's doing. He knows that because his audience doesn't know anything about these animals, he can get away with it. This I think is why I hate him so much- he deliberately miseducates his audience. He knows what he's doing is factually inaccurate, he just doesn't care because attention means more to him than anything else in the world.
Let's change that! Here are two really important lessons for understanding alligator body language on social media.
Lesson 1: Alligators Don't Smile (in fact, most animals don't)
So what's going on in this video? Jay Brewer is aggressively choking his white alligator Coconut while scrubbing algae off of her with a toothbrush. And make no mistake, he is digging into the creature's throat while she is visibly distressed. He claims she's happy- but she's not. He is willfully misrepresenting what this animal is feeling. That's a problem, because people... well, we actually kind of suck at reading other species' body language. The reason for this is that we tend to overlay our own responses on their physical cues, and that's a problem. For example, let's look at an animal with a really similar face to ours, the chimpanzee. Check out Ama's toothy grin!
Wait, no. That's not a happy smile. That's a threat display. When a chimpanzee "smiles," it's either terrified and doing a fear grimace, or it's showing you its teeth because it intends on using them in your face.
How about a dog? Look at my smiling, happy puppy!
Oh wait no, this is a picture of Ryder when he was super overwhelmed by noise and people during a holiday party. He'd hopped up in my sister's lap to get away from stuff that was happening on the floor and was panting quite heavily. See the tension in the corners of his mouth and his eyes? A lot of the time when a dog "smiles," the smile isn't happy. It's stress! Why Animals Do The Thing has a nice writeup about that, but the point is, our body language is not the same as other species. And for reptiles, body language is wildly different.
For instance, look at these two alligators. Pretty cute, right? Look at 'em, they're posing for a Christmas card or something! How do you think they're feeling?
Well, I'll tell you how the normal one is feeling. He's annoyed! Why is he annoyed? Because the albino just rolled up, pushed another gator off the platform, and is trying to push this guy, too. I know this because I actually saw it happen. It was pretty funny, not gonna lie. He's not gaping all the way, but he was hissing- you can actually see him getting annoyed in the sequence I took right before this shot. Look at him in this first shot here- he's just relaxing, and you can see he isn't gaping even a little bit.
By the end, he's expressing displeasure, but not enough to actually do anything about it. He's annoyed, but he's comfy and that's where one of the best basking areas is, so he'll put up with it.
Reptiles open their mouths wide for a lot of reasons, but never because they are actively enjoying a sensation. Unless they're eating. No reptile smiles- they can't. They don't even have moveable lips. If a reptile is gaping, it's doing so because:
It is doing a threat display.
It is making certain vocalizations, all of which are threats. Alligators are one of the rare reptiles that do regularly vocalize, but most of their calls aren't made with a wide open mouth.
It is about to bite something delicious or somebody stupid. Check out this video- virtually all of the gaping here is anticipatory because these trained gators know darn well that the bowl is full of delicious snacks. (I have some issues with Florida's Wildest, but the man knows how to train a gator AND he is honest about explaining what they're doing and why, and all of his animals are healthy and well-cared for, and he doesn't put the public or his staff at risk- just himself.)
youtube
It's too hot and it has opened its mouth to vent some of that heat and thermoregulate. This is the main reason why alligators will often have their mouths part of the way open, but sometimes they'll open all the way for thermoregulation. This is what a thermoregulatory gape looks like- usually it's not all the way open, kinda more like < rather than V, but you can't say that 100% of the time. Additionally, a thermoregulatory gape... typically happens when it's hot out. If they're inside, maybe they've been under their basking light for too long. Heat's the dominant factor, is what I'm getting at.
There is another reason that a captive crocodilian might be gaping, and that's because it's doing so on command. Some places have their gators trained to gape on cue, like St. Augustine Alligator Farm and other good zoos. They have the animals do this in presentations that are genuinely educational. They ask the animals to open their mouths so that they can show off their teeth and demonstrate how their tongues seal off the back of their mouth. They'll also do it as part of routine healthcare, because looking at their teeth is important.
In this case, the animals aren't gaping because they're stressed, they're gaping because they know they're gonna get a piece of chicken or fish if they do it. And what's more, they're doing it on cue. They have a specific command or signal that tells them to open wide. It's not an instinctive response to a situation. It's trained. If the animal provides the behavior after a cue, the situation is much less likely to be negatively impactful.
It's also important to remember that there's a difference between a partially open mouth and a gape! As discussed above, alligators will often have their mouths a little bit open just to maintain temperature homeostasis. It helps them stay comfy, temperature-wise. These guys are all doing thermoregulatory open-mouthed behavior- that slight open and relaxed body posture is a dead giveaway. (That and it's the hottest spot in the enclosure.)
Lesson 2: A Happy Gator Is A Chill Gator
So if alligators don't smile or have facial expressions other than the :V that typically signifies distress, how else can you tell how they're feeling? One way is stillness. See, alligators subscribe to the philosophy of if it sucks... hit da bricks.
Basically, if they hate it, they'll leave. Unless, y'know, somebody has their meaty claws digging into their throat or is otherwise restraining them. (Restraint isn't always bad, btw. Sometimes the animal is going through a medical thing or needs to be restrained for their safety- which a responsible educator will explain.)
Let's look at a very similar scenario, in which a captive alligator is getting his back scrubbed.
As you can see, it's quite different. First, he's not being restrained at all. Second, look at how relaxed he is! He's just chilling there vibing! He could simply get up and leave if he wanted to, because he's not being held. Towards the end of the video, as he lifts his head, you can see that his respiratory rate is very even as his throat flutters a bit. I'm not sure what this facility is, so I can't comment on care/general ethics, but like. In this specific case, this is an alligator enjoying being scrubbed! And you can tell because he's not doing anything. A happy gator is content to be doing what they're doing.
Why Should I Listen To You?
Now, you should ask yourself, why should you listen to me? Why should you trust me, who does not own an alligator, versus Jay Brewer, who owns several?
Well, first off, there's no profit for me in telling you that what you're seeing on social media is in fact not what you're being told you're seeing. I'm not getting paid to do this. That's the thing with people who make social media content. The big names aren't doing it just for fun. They're doing it for money. Whether that's profit through partnerships or sponsorships, or getting more people to visit their facilities, or ad revenue, you can't ignore the factor of money. And this is NOT a bad thing, because it allows educators to do what they're passionate about! People deserve to be paid for the work that they do!
But the problem starts when you chase the algorithm instead of actually educating. A "smiling" alligator gets the views, and if people don't know enough to know better, it keeps getting the views. People love unconventional animal stories and they want those animals to be happy- but the inability to even know where to start with critically evaluating these posts really hinders the ability to spread real information. Like, this post will probably get a couple hundred notes, but that video of Coconut being scrubbed had almost 400,000 likes when I took that screenshot. Think about how many eyeballs that's reached by now. What I'm saying here is that it's just... really important to think critically about who you're getting your information from. What do dissenters say in the comments? What do other professionals say? You won't find a single herpetologist that has anything good to say about Prehistoric Pets, I can tell you that right now.
Another reason you can trust me is that my sources are not "just trust me bro," or "years of experience pretending my pet shop where animals come to die is a real zoo." Instead, here are my primary sources for my information on alligator behavior:
Dragon Songs: Love and Adventure among Crocodiles, Alligators, and Other Dinosaur Relations- Vladimir Dinets
The Secret Social Lives of Reptiles- J. Sean Doody, Vladimir Dinets, Gordon M. Burghardt
Social Behavior Deficiencies in Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Z Walsh, H Olson, M Clendening, A Rycyk
Social Displays of the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)- Kent Vliet
Social Signals and Behaviors of Adult Alligators and Crocodiles- Leslie Garrick, Jeffery Lang
Never smile at a crocodile: Gaping behaviour in the Nile crocodile at Ndumo Game Reserve, South Africa- Cormac Price, Mohamed Ezat, Céline Hanzen, Colleen Downs (this one's Nile crocs, not American alligators, but it's really useful for modeling an understanding of gape behaviors and proximity)
Thermoregulatory Behavior of Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Cheryl S. Asa, Gary D. London, Ronald R. Goellner, Norman Haskell, Glenn Roberts, Crispen Wilson
Unprovoked Mouth Gaping Behavior in Extant Crocodylia- Noah J. Carl, Heather A. Stewart, Jenny S. Paul
Thank you for reading! Here's a very happy wild alligator from Sanibel for your trouble.
34K notes
·
View notes
Text
Me when I go out.
#animals#pets#important#life blogging#love#me#feel the love#love is all around#love is#peace#baby alligator#crocodile#i dunno
8K notes
·
View notes