#weird animal facts

[shadowpuppetteer]

Here are some more weird animal facts. Peacocks show off their feathers, walruses do battle, and turtles do jazz hands. I love how silly evolution is.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[dumb-zombie-girl]

THIS POST IS KINDA NSFW ( talking about animal anatomy and dicks)

An interesting fact about male cats is that they have spines on their penises so since cat King is a male and is part cat does that mean he also has spines on his penis

This one is a little weird but I suddenly remember that fact about male cats and that got me thinking about if cat King also has them

[midnight-darkfrost]

Today I just discovered that there is a spider with the scientific name Hotwheels sisyphus. I am not making this up.

[digitalsatyr23]

Two things you should never ask me about if you value your free time.

[geooo0o]

Did you know that if a deer comes across a dead body it will lay on it because it likes the warmth?

[pansy-placebo]

Have any of you ever heard of the hummingbird moths we get in Britain?

So, I thought I saw a hummingbird last year. It was much bigger than a bug could be, I thought, and it hovered around flowers and looked like it had feathers.

I got pretty close but it was never still enough to see clearly. Then, when I told my parents they said "oh! it was probably a moth!" and I was baffled for a long time. Like, how could a moth look like and act so much like a hummingbird?

Until I googled "hummingbirds in the UK" and this fucker comes up:

Everyone, meet the hummingbird hawk-moth; one of the weirdest and coolest cases of convergent evolution on this planet.

This is the kinda thing I'd see in fiction and go "oooh cool, bug hummingbird! Wish we had those on earth!" But we do. We really do have them on earth!! Isn't that nuts?!?!?

[c00kietin]

OH YEAH I'VE HEARD OF THESE!! Originally knew em thanks to animal crossing then learned even more about em thanks to a project with my friend!! :D Thank you!!

can you do one about vampire squids ? 🦑

Vampyroteuthis infernalis or Vampire Squid

It's (very dramatic) scientific name means "vampire squid from hell". However, the vampire squid is not actually a squid! It's actually the only animal in the Vampyroteuthidae family! It's separated into its own family because it can't change color or produce ink. Instead, it turns itself "inside out" (as shown above) to deter predators.

Proportionally, vampire squids also have the largest eyes compared to their body size! They eat mostly zooplankton, marine snow, and other organisms waste. They grow to be about the size of a football and live to be around 8 years old.

There's even evidence that vampire squids have been around since the Jurassic period- almost 200 million years ago!

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Giant Antlions (Palpares immensus): these enormous antlions have been known to attack geckos and other small reptiles

The images above depict the larval stage of Palpares immensus, which is one of the largest antlion species in the world.

This article provides more information about the unusual behavior of this species:

The larvae live freely in sand and are ambush hunters. They are voracious predators and feed mainly on other arthropods, but have been known to attack geckos and, in one case a small adder. They are unable to feed on these reptiles and usually die as a result of not being able to extract their jaws from the vertebrate prey.

These antlions can be found in sandy, arid environments throughout southern Africa.

The adult form of Palpares immensus is also depicted in the images below:

Sources & More Info:

Biodiversity and Development Institute: Palpares immensus

Global Biodiversity Information Facility: P. immensus

Animal Life: Giant Antlion Larva

What's That Bug?: Uncovering Antlion Habitats

[amnhnyc]

Sunshine State residents, do you recognize this little neighbor? It’s the Florida softshell turtle (Apalone ferox)! Unlike many turtles, you might find this critter darting about on land or swimming rapidly in water. Its hydrodynamic, flattened shell, and four strongly-webbed feet help it to move swiftly. Softshells stick mostly to water and have long necks and snouts that they poke above the surface, like a snorkel, to breathe. Juveniles have more contrasting color patterns than adults: their carapace, or shell, can be olive, tan, or light brown with spots and a yellow rim.

Photo: kimberry, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

[mizzyislost]

youre interrupting them

[rupeenotruby]

That was long. Keeping this short. Not sure about this one. Thank you to @/runecatwrites for this [Click] analysis post as it was pretty helpful for the Wild and Wars dialogue (though I think the analysis is better).

[adobe-outdesign]

Shoutout to the early seasons of the Pokemon anime for having Santa Claus show up but there was no reindeer Pokemon at the time so instead they just had his sleigh be pulled by one (1) horse on fire

[sarahmackattack]

In my 4-week class, Mating Rituals of the Animal Kingdom, we'll cover things you never even THOUGHT to ask about animal mating.

INCLUDING:

-Spitballs, given as romantic gifts

-Spider Sex Percussionists™

-Bee perfumers

-Lemur Stink Fights

-Springtail females bench pressing males, who then Raccacoonie them to the pile of sperm the males prepared, so she then sits on it (God bless springtails)

-& MORE

Sign up here

I need 6 more people to sign up or Atlas Obscura won't run the course and this course is SO SILLY and SO FUN and you'll learn so much weird shit I can't even tell you. And JUST in time for VALENTINES day.

This class has no homework, and you can watch it live or later!

[markscherz]

My mother and I have two masters degrees between us and yet somehow we could not figure out if frogs have lungs or not.

Can you help settle the debate?

All frogs have lungs except one! The bizarre Barbourula kalimantanensis is the only known frog to lack lungs. It makes up for this by being heckin' flat, basically imitating the bizarre pipids.

[front-facing-pokemon]