#like fuck off that's a multiple metric tons worth of wild animal that's evolved to survive the theropods they live with | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

papermonkeyism · 7 months ago

Text

Thisssssss!

Like, it's a pet peeve of mine when people go and be like, oh, it's a herbivore, so it's kind and gentle and harmless and dull, because "herbivore=vegetarian" so it won't want to eat you (ha!), and only carnivores are allowed to be awesome. And like, in domesticated species like cattle or sheep we spent tens of thousands of years selectively breeding them specifically to be nice to humans just so keeping them would be even possible, and they're still capable of maiming us if they so choose (cattle can murder you just by accident, and some of them will even do so willingly).

You really think wild animals like deer and stuff are out there selectively breeding themselves to be as easy for predators to eat as possible? You do know that's kinda the exact opposite of how natural selection works, right?

Anyway, seriously, if youre writing a book and including actual real animals in it, even if it is a fantasy setting, researching the animal you're writing about is warmly recommended.

Reading the last book in the Icewind Dale trilogy, about halfway through the book. Okay, I can shrug off random dragon cameos that have no relevance to anything in the story, the flat characterization and the flimsy worldbuilding, but my suspension of disbelief just got overloaded and snapped by a camel.

The protagonist party are in the stereotypical fantasy south (tm) and have bought camels to proceed on their journey, and one of them gets bitten by his dromedary to show what a nuisance the animal is, and the book describes it as having "blunt teeth", and boy my brain ain't taking it.

Like, excuse the entire fuck out of me, have you SEEN dromedary teeth??? Those things have FANGS! And they are VICIOUS!

I'm just flashbacking to the news many years ago when a dromedary killed a wild ass stallion in the Helsinki zoo, that's not a harmless little nuisance, that's a huge arse beast fully capable of maiming you.

Seriously, google dromedary skull and marvel at their weaponry, that's such a great design.

"Blunt teeht" my arse...

#shut up paper #apologies for the extra rant but come on #I bump into this thing all the time.with dinosaurs #'oh it's a herbivore so it's completely nice and harmless'#like fuck off that's a multiple metric tons worth of wild animal that's evolved to survive the theropods they live with #and possibly have armor/weaponry/sheer anger to help them do so #I remember this one post here on tumblr describing sauropods as 'tidal wave of flesh and hatred' and it's still one of my fave sentences #also herbivores are NOT strict vegetarians #they have no human morals and nutrients are nutrients #bones are very common and available source of calcium #and sometimes those bones can be wrapped in a living meat package #and sometimes deer and horses and all kinds of animals are still perfectly willing to eat things like baby birds because of it #and some -like pigs or chickens- are omnivores instead of herbivores and are perfectly willing to eat anything available

238 notes · View notes