kaijutegu

we should bring back video montages of your OTP set to Every time we touch by Cascada

Baby pelican👎

a) everything the microbiologist is saying is totally accurate

b) I'm somehow enraged the original tiktok didn't cast any aspersions on crabs, which actually do tell us some interesting things about human evolution because crabs—aka pubic lice—are, like all lice, tightly bound to hosts without a lot of species swapping. Lice can't survive for long off the host body—they get cold and die, unlike other ectoparasites like fleas and ticks—and they're highly specialized to grip the exact diameter of hair or feathers present on the host species, so most louse phylogenetic trees closely mirror the phylogenetic trees of their host species. Human head lice and clothing/body lice—an offshoot of head lice—follow this pattern neatly: they are most closely related to chimpanzee and bonobo lice, then gorilla lice, then orangutan lice, just as we are most closely related to chimpanzees and bonobos etc.

But apes don't have pubic lice. It's not a thing. Because apes don't have pubic hair with a distinctly different texture and diameter from head hair! So what the fuck is going on with pubic lice?

Pubic lice are most closely related to gorilla lice. What this means is that a) humans became mostly hairless before pubic hair evolved, or a lineage of human lice probably would have evolved to specialize on that niche just as it later did for clothing, and b) there was some kind of close contact between human pubes and an ancestral lousy gorilla precursor that resulted in pubic lice transferring hosts, which happened while everything was nice and warm. That's.... probably the best evidence for bestiality that Tiktok girlie was going to get. (Although in fact it's equally plausible that this happened because hominids were napping in recently vacated gorilla nests while they were still fairly warm, just fyi; there really isn't a smoking gun for bestiality anywhere here and as the nice microbiologist noted, it's not great to inflict that kind of shade onto other human beings.)

anyway, I spent that video waiting impatiently for crabs to come up and nope. Missed em entirely. Best evidence she could have come up with and she didn't even know. Amazing.

I love telling my students about the gorilla lice thing. It evokes so many incredible reactions. Ancient parasitology in general is always fun to talk about.

wake up besties new poster just dropped

Brother Gregor never spoke and often spooked the neophytes with his appearance, but he was a gentle soul and a phenomenal cook and knew more ways to prepare a fish than the abbot knew hymns

Some lil chompers ⭐️

what if we were two gators chilling underneath an orange tree? 🐊🍊

Posting due to an emergency- please share widely if you're local to Chicagoland.

If anyone in the Chicagoland area sees this, a friend's service dog prospect is in need of immediate boarding from tomorrow until May 6. Winnie is about 40 pounds and is not dog-reactive at all, but the person caring for her was hospitalized and so my buddy is looking for a short term emergency foster!

I'm available to help with any transportation (you wouldn't need to drive her anywhere!) and compensation+coverage for food/medical/etc. would be involved. You wouldn't need to pay for her stuff, just make sure she has a place to stay and walk her and call me if she needs to go to the vet.

If this is something you or someone you know could help with, please let me know. It's an emergency situation, so for the first time in... well over a year, I am opening my inbox in case this is something you can help with. Please DM me if you or anyone you know can help.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for the offers to help and the info and resources! We've got something lined up, and this would not have worked without your help.

Vicky whenever I walk by her terrarium

Atlas being a pancake 🥞

Did you know many lizards will inflate and flatten themselves to absorb more heat and UV while basking? They will also do it after feeding in order to help with digestion and is commonly referred to as "pancaking"! 🏜

☆---------------☆

Name: Atlas

Age: 5 months

Sex: Male

Species: Ackie Monitor (Varanus acanthurus)

☆---------------☆

New Caledonian Geckos 🍌🥭🦎