Welcome Stranger. The paths are treacherous today.

Apparently there's an evolutionary theory that the reason why Africa has so much wild big-ass megafauna while the big-ass megafauna on all the other continents went extinct is because they evolved right beside humans, and knew us well enough to not get hunted into extinction.

So while everything from giant koalas to giant sloths barely had the time to think "what the fuck is that" before getting pierced by a spear and getting their bone marrow gently fed to babies and the toothless elderly, Africa had elephants who had all the time in the world to learn to tell apart human languages and teach the next generations of their herd which human sounds mean that this tribe won't hurt you, but humans who make this kind of sounds are a danger. And hippos learned to conclude "I think I'll fuck up this two-legged weird shit on sight."

That’s true about African Elephants being able to distinguish between human languages, BTW.

The original study they did on this is really cool, and it showed that not only can elephants distinguish languages, they respond differently depending on the general age and gender of the person spekaing. The researchers played recordings of different people speaking either Maasai or Kamba. All the speakers were saying the same thing, "Look, look over there, a group of elephants is coming."

What they found is that when presented with voices speaking Kamba, the elephants were supremely unbothered. The Kamba are mostly farmers, many work for the park services, and they rarely present a danger to elephants.

When presented with the voices of adult men speaking Maasai, the elephants drew close to each other and started investigating. The Maasai are largely cattle herders, and they sometimes come into conflict with elephants over water and grazing lands.

However, the elephants did not seem nervous when presented with the voices of women or young boys speaking Maasai. They were aware that only humans with deep voices were a threat to them.

They also seem to recognize that if humans are talking, they aren't necessarily a threat. Humans pursuing large game like elephants are stealth hunters. If you can hear them coming, they're probably not trying to hurt you.

Anyway, elephants are amazing and one of the creatures high up on my list of "non-humans who are probably people."

Reblogging for those fabulous details.

Early May in an Appalachian forest.

From top: sweet white violet (Viola blanda); long-spurred violet (Viola rostrata); broadleaf toothwort (Cardamine diphylla); wake robin (Trillium erectum), also known as red or purple trillium; heartleaf foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia); smooth Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum); and wood anemone (Anemone quinquefolia), also known as nightcaps.

Trillium is one of the best designs of plants, no I will not elaborate

girls who said “girls can lift chairs too” when the teacher asked for strong boys to lift chairs are gay now - i don’t make the rules

Honestly I'm actually just a dude now, but yeah I'm gay too lol

Starlight Notebook on Etsy

“Great Tits!”, inspired by the Great Tit, a small insectivorous bird with a black and white head, blue wings and tail, olive green upper body and yellow underparts.

Display Shelves // The Hickory Rose on Etsy

I'd never seen a lady's slipper in the wild before, but yesterday, camped off a national forest fire road, I saw this

and a little further into the woods

Prayers please that the whole-ass paragraphs I am composing in my head at 3am make it into text some day

Bruh

I can’t believe I read this post with my own fucking eyes

I love it unironically, I burst out laughing. It hits the same note as “the opposite of malice is bonfire”.

adulthood is just telling yourself “and after i’ve done THAT i can finally relax” with increasing desperation

Get hot water, not boiling hot but almost hotter than you can stand, and put a metal spoon in it for a few seconds. Take the spoon and put it against the mosquito bite for about 30 seconds. Do it a few times if you like. The proteins that cause the itching are susceptible to heat and break down.

WHY DON’T THEY TEACH THIS SHIT I have four decades of suffering from skeeter bites behind me

One study on 146 individuals treated with a Bite-Away heat pen found similarly effective results from heat treatment; thankfully, spoons dunked in water cost way less than the Bite-Away’s 30 bucks.

You can also blast the bite with a hair dryer - learned this from my mom and it works great

Thanks to this post, I have four swiftly-healing, non-itchy mosquito bites and one second-degree burn

#huh#the likelihood of burning myself is probably why this isnt more common knowledge#but I'll still probably try it next time i get bit

Bumblebees/humlor. Värmland, Sweden (June 9, 2018).

Marcin Ryczek: Man Feeding Swans (2013)