dark eyed junco + black capped chickadee ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ two of my favourite backyard visitors

chik-a-deedeedeedee

Zoozve, my beloved

"...we don't live in a big clockwork, we live in a dance club..."

This is my favorite line.

I have learned so many things from this.

Splendid. Thanks Latif for the info and Neil for the repost!

Located in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument protects astounding biodiversity. 

The coral reefs within the monument are home to over 7,000 species, one quarter of which are found only in the Hawaiian Archipelago! Here, pyramid butterflyfish swim on a deep reef at French Frigate Shoals.

 (Greg McFall/NOAA) 

If we don't speak up for our natural resources, we could lose them.

Okay, I was just going to reblog this without commentary, but I can't keep this to myself. I'm a PhD student in environmental science and this is my fucking highway.

The first published study about climate change (that I am aware of-- feel free to point out if there's an older one) is an 1896 paper by Svante Arrhenius. He pointed out the link between the greenhouse effect and changes in atmospheric CO2.

Plate tectonics, which the geoscience community now recognizes as near indisputable, was a fringe theory until about the 1960s.

Just in case anyone thought that climate change was a "recent fad" in research.

Crawling through the day with a seaside of swagger 😎

Isopods: 👉👈🥺 Us: 😍 Isopods: 🥰

good news!  nobody expects anything at all from an ANCIENT SKELETON.  nobody in the year 235,831 expects anything from your REDISTRIBUTED ATOMS

hope is a skill

hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

favourite additions

You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.

#ohhellsyeah

This is one of the new, limited edition prints I've made. Get them now at www.tomgauld.com/shop

I love when reading a book makes you gain awareness of some aspect of life you weren't really aware of before. Not in a "I didn't know about this fact/experience/person" but in a more, fundamental way. How we see suffering, how we see happiness, how we see the world. That shift, whether in every day, in writing, in reading, in creating. It's all so wonderful. Something has opened for me. I have tools, I have experiences I didn't have before. It's beautiful

Rare fossil reveals ancient battle between mammal and dinosaur

A remarkable fossil discovery in northeastern China has shed light on an extraordinary event that occurred around 125 million years ago, showcasing a mammal attacking a much larger plant-eating dinosaur.

The fossil, found in the Liaoning Province, challenging the conventional belief that dinosaurs had little to fear from their smaller contemporaries.

The fossil shows a ferocious badger-like mammal, identified as Repenomamus robustus, engaging in a fierce confrontation with the two-legged dinosaur, Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis. The mammal, about the size of a domestic cat, is shown grappling with the medium-sized dog-sized dinosaur, providing evidence of predatory behavior by a mammal towards a dinosaur—a phenomenon that had not been previously recorded.

Continue Reading: https://archaeologymag.com/2023/07/ancient-battle-between-mammal-and-dinosaur-in-china/

Very cool.

Be nice to everyone.

THIS TRUMPETFISH IS USING ANOTHER FISH TO HIDE ITSELF WHEN HUNTING

And is working

Many animals use camouflage to avoid detection by others, yet even the most inconspicuous objects become detectable against the background when moving. One way to reduce detection while moving would be to ‘hide’ behind the movements of objects or other animals. Now, researchers have demonstrate experimentally, following field observations, that a trumpetfish (Aulostomus maculatus), a common marine predator, can conceal its approach from its prey by performing a behaviour known as ‘shadowing’, hiding behind, swimming closely next to another, larger and non-predatory fish.

Bicolor damselfish (Stegastes partitus), form highly localised colonies within structures on the reef substrate and exhibit characteristic anti-predatory responses, and are common meal for trumpetfish. Marine researchers working in the coral reefs off Curaçao, set up an underwater system to pull 3D-printed models of trumpetfish and the stoplight parrotfish (Sparisoma viride) being hand-reeled along a clear nylon line from one tripod to another, passing over the colony in the process, which was positioned halfway between the two. When these two 3D printed fishes were together, damselfish were quiet and show low antipredator responses.

-After field observation, marine researchers modeled the ‘shadowing’ behavior.

This is the only known example of a non-human animal using another as a form of concealment. According to researchers, this evidence reveal how predators can actively use another animal as a form of concealment to reduce detection by prey.

Exciting insights into the sexual development of an extinct marine reptile

An international team of researchers reports on the puberty of Keichousaurus, a small marine viviparous reptile that lived about 240 million years ago in what is now China, in the journal Current Biology.

https://phys.org/news/2023-06-insights-sexual-extinct-marine-reptile.html

I have a fossil of one!

The bit where Scott chats to a baby is beautiful and heartwarming every single time. “Someone’s gonna break your heart one day” is a very funny thing to say to a baby.

Living fossils: inside the world of jellyfish

The jellyfish, considered living fossils for having outlived 99 percent of the species that have ever existed without significant change, now has its mysterious biology and ecology in the spotlight.

sulc.us/jellylivingf

And some are 96% water!

Boop.

Found today while gathering acorns (swamp white oak). How adorable is this? I love her little feet, and the way she pivots around her proboscis, fascinated by how far her head rotates… Curculio sp. (if anyone can ID to species, please add!)

Don’t you see what it means? Power! Power to rule! To make the world grovel at my feet!

THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933) dir. James Whale

I love this movie. I love it when he goes, “I’M STRONG. I’LL STRANGLE YOU!”