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We Asked an Expert...in Herpetology!

People on Tumblr come from all walks of life and all areas of expertise to grace our dashboards with paragraphs and photographs of the things they want to share with the world. Whether it's an artist uploading their speed art, a fanfic writer posting their WIPs, a language expert expounding on the origin of a specific word, or a historian ready to lay down the secrets of Ea-nasir, the hallways of Tumblr are filled with specialists sharing their knowledge with the world. We Asked an Expert is a deep dive into those expert brains on tumblr dot com. Today, we’re talking to Dr. Mark D. Scherz (@markscherz), an expert in Herpetology. Read on for some ribbeting frog facts, including what kind of frog the viral frog bread may be based on.

Reptiles v Amphibians. You have to choose one.

In a battle for my heart, I think amphibians beat out the reptiles. There is just something incredibly good about beholding a nice plump frog.

In a battle to the death, I have to give it to the reptiles—the number of reptiles that eat amphibians far, far outstrips the number of amphibians that eat reptiles.

In terms of ecological importance, I would give it to the amphibians again, though. Okay, reptiles may keep some insects and rodents in check, but many amphibians live a dual life, starting as herbivores and graduating to carnivory after metamorphosis, and as adults they are critical for keeping mosquitos and other pest insects in check.

What is the most recent exciting fact you discovered about herps?

This doesn’t really answer your question, but did you know that tadpole arms usually develop inside the body and later burst through the body wall fully formed? I learned about this as a Master’s student many years ago, but it still blows my mind. What’s curious is that this apparently does not happen in some of the species of frogs that don’t have tadpoles—oh yeah, like a third of all frogs or something don’t have free-living tadpoles; crazy, right? They just develop forelimbs on the outside of the body like all other four-legged beasties. But this has only really been examined in a couple species, so there is just so much we don’t know about development, especially in direct-developing frogs. Like, how the hell does it just… swap from chest-burster to ‘normal’ limb development? Is that the recovery of the ancestral programming, or is it newly generated? When in frog evolution did the chest-burster mode even evolve?

How can people contribute to conservation efforts for their local herps?

You can get involved with your local herpetological societies if they exist—and they probably do, as herpetologists are everywhere. You can upload observations of animals to iNaturalist, where you can get them identified while also contributing to datasets on species distribution and annual activity used by research scientists.

You can see if there are local conservation organizations that are doing any work locally, and if you find they are not, then you can get involved to try to get them started. For example, if you notice areas of particularly frequent roadkill, talking to your local council or national or local conservation organizations can get things like rescue programs or road protectors set up. You should also make sure you travel carefully and responsibly. Carefully wash and disinfect your hiking boots, especially between locations, as you do not want to be carrying chytrid or other nasty infectious diseases across the world, where they can cause population collapses and extinctions.

Here are some recent headlines. Quick question, what the frog is going on in the frog world? 

Click through for Mark’s response to these absolutely wild headlines, more about his day-to-day job, his opinion on frog bread, and his favorite Tumblr.

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Tumblr Tuesday: Your Pride Art on Tumblr

Hello, Tumblr. June is here, and you're all arting hard. This Tuesday would like to cordially wish you all a very good and community-fuelled Pride month. Please enjoy this roundup of delightful fanart and OC art, celebrating the beginning of this month of more gay art than usual on tumblr dot com.

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Communities open beta is here

Hello yet again! Last month we began our closed beta test of our new Communities feature, and yesterday we opened up community creation to everyone on Tumblr! You can now request to create a community and it'll be put on a waitlist (pending our approval).

So far we've gotten over 5,800 communities on the waitlist. We'll be working through that list as quickly as we can so y'all can start inviting people and testing this out with us.

If you're curious to learn more about communities, you can check out the Communities Feedback community for a sneak peek and the latest news on how things are going.

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We're excited that you're so excited about Communities!

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Tumblr Tuesday: Mermay

Well, chaps, Mermay is in full swing, and we thought we'd share a little selection of its masterpieces. Who knows, maybe you, too, will feel moved to immortalize the noble merperson. Call it inspo. Call it appreciation. Whatever you do, please do feast thine eyes and enjoy.

(As is often the way with the beasties, some of these have fins, eyes, bones, and other potentially upsetting sticky-out bits. Please proceed with caution if any of this squicks you out). 

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Tumblr Tuesday: Farcille Fanart

Hello, Dungeon Meshi fans, but perhaps a particularly special hello to Farcille fans and artists. These two have really captured your imagination in a way that has us a little bit breathless. Here's a Farcille fanart collection for you. 

(We had to be selective, but there is so much more. Please visit the #farcille fanart tag for the rest of the outpourings of genius.)

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Boop Breakdown

Well, you did it. You booped. You booped all over your dashboard with reckless abandon, your finger gnashing away at the boop button, much like a lovely raccoon discovering a glorious half-eaten baked potato. A treasure was presented, and you knew you deserved it. You deserved to boop. Collectively, you booped 142,566,897 times. To repeat: one hundred forty-two million five hundred sixty-six thousand eight hundred ninety-seven boops were had on tumblr dot com the website and the app.

Specifically: 

  • Normal boops: 119,204,929
  • Self boops: 12,645,652
  • Cat boops: 7,925,241
  • Super boops: 2,095,231
  • Mischievous, aka evil boops: 695,844

One particularly boopable Tumblr was booped a total of 874,212 times. To be so rich in boops is a blessing. The Tumblr that gave the most boops found it in their heart to bestow 127,073 boops upon those they found worthy. 

Over 500,000 Tumblrs were booped and booped back in return. And for what? What would drive so many to boop? Does Tumblr yearn for the boop mines? Well, yes. And also the guts, the glory, the prestige, and, of course, the badges. Oh, how you worked for those badges:

  • Booper participants: 229,881
  • Booper enthusiasts:  85,548
  • Booper supers:  67,571

Hold your heads high, Tumblr. You booped until you couldn’t boop anymore. You created incredible fanart, invented a whole new genre of -sonas, and even created your own premium, high-end awards. It was noble, it was boop. We hope you boop yourself, and boop for boop. Boop, boop boop? Boop, boop. Boop boop boop, boop boop; Boop! Boop! 

Boop,

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Tumblr Tuesday: Stardew Valley update, your beloved

Look at you, farming, wooing your loves, and being so, so normal about the little patch you have, the simple life, the love you found in that small settlement by the sea. Sure, it has mines, and in those mines, some monsters, it's true. But look into that sunset with the one you love and tell Yoba you wouldn't trade every blue chicken in the world for a few monsters and another night in Stardew Valley. This is your Stardew Valley 1.6 fanart roundup.

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Hi, Tumblr. It’s Tumblr. We’re working on some things that we want to share with you. 

AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.

Here are the important details:

  • We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner. 
  • We want to represent all of you on Tumblr and ensure that protections are in place for how your content is used. We are committed to making sure our partners respect those decisions.
  • To opt out of sharing your public blogs’ content with third parties, visit each of your public blogs’ blog settings via the web interface and toggle on the “Prevent third-party sharing” option. 
  • For instructions on how to opt out using the latest version of the app, please visit this Help Center doc. 
  • Please note: If you’ve already chosen to discourage search crawling of your blog in your settings, we’ve automatically enabled the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.

If you have concerns, please read through the Help Center doc linked above and contact us via Support if you still have questions.