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VisibleSpectre's Figments

@visiblespectre / visiblespectre.tumblr.com

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Why hello! Make yourself comfortable. Welcome to VS's tumblr! I like to post my drawings, discuss life, share stupid things from the internet, and try to do a little better each day!
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just learned that magnolias are so old that they’re pollinated by beetles because they existed before bees

They existed *before beetles*

Why is this sad? Why am I sad?

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This is how I feel about Joshua Trees. They and avocado trees produce fruit meant to be eaten and dispersed by giant ground sloths. Without them, the Joshua Trees' range has shrunk by 90%.

(my own photos)

Not only they, but the entire Mojave ecosystem is still struggling to adapt since the loss of ground sloth dung. their chief fertilizer.

Many, many trees and plants in the Americas have widely-spaced, extremely long thorns that do nothing to discourage deer eating their leaves, but would've penetrated the fur of ground sloths and mammoths. Likewise, if you've observed a tree that drops baseball or softball-sized fruit which lies on the ground and rots, like Osage Oranges, which were great for playing catch at my school, chances are they were ground sloth or mammoth chow.

You can read about various orphaned plants and trees missing their megafauna in this poignant post:

omg so we have 1 seeing dog and 1 blind dog and whenever there's a toy they both want, the seeing dog takes it and just...stands very still. immobile. she KNOWS he will try to wrestle it from her but she has figured out that if she does not squeak it, then he will not find it. leading to this.

"god....grant me the strength to not squeak the squeaky toy"