/b/ — Off Topic

MOTHS!!

people don't like or care much about moths, yet there are fluffy moths, cute moths, moths whose caterpillars can kill you, moths that can produce cyanide, moths with literal skull on their back, moths that has echolocations, moths that can scream, moths that eat sloth's fur

by the way butterflies are fake, a psyop by the big butterfly industry
the truth is they are just a slightly specialized version of moth that flies during the day and have little quirks like cubbed antennae
more than 90% of all lepidoptera are moths, butterfly is just a snobby elitist group

my favourite moth, monkey moth
they are really fluffy and have thick fur on their wing

I have a tattoo of a hummingbird hawkmoth :3 I like them they're fuzzy butterflies

Foxes!

Ochotona princeps - The American Pika

I love these guys. They're lagomorphs, so they're related to rabbits. They have evolved to live in talus fields high in the mountains. They don't hibernate so when the snow melts they immediately start collecting plants to make a hay pile in their den. They often steal from each others hay piles and will even collect toxic plants as over time, they will ferment and the toxins break down. Theyre small and incredibly quick moving through the talus, making them difficult to predate. You'll likely hear them before seeing them when hiking. Theyre very territorial and will scream to alert of any intruders in their territory. This would be scary if they didn't sound like someone stepping on a dog toy. (seriously, look it up)

>>3mtsjyadh7c2r
i love them too!!! i saw my first pikas IRL during a birding trip in the rockies and they're sooo cute.

I've been liking manul cats a lot lately,, i like the way they look and their eyes. I also enjoy watching videos of binturongs and servals.

>>3mu3gntpd2k2h
yesss i love them

anteaters <3 i love how they use their snouts to sniff around and eat, and the pose they do when threatened is very kyute

I've always been fascinated by deep-sea life, especially ever since I first saw that one video of my favorite, the bigfin squid (https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=L8xXnVkOGsA)—after which I went down a whole rabbit hole, e.g. reading about mysterious deep-sea sounds that had been recorded and were unexplained at the time, etc. I still daydream about going saturation diving someday, or being part of some deep-sea expedition to investigate deep-sea creatures~

>>3mtlnhafk7s2f
Moths are cool! I'm partial to the red-tailed specter (pic related), heheheh

kittys

big ass slug. the black sea hare.

gotta love a good old fashioned seal

tiny bugs (such as this millipede) look so fascinating in macro photography

>>3muiut3t5zc2h
i thought this was a human skull when i saw the thumbnail of it on the feed

huge fan of ferrets, look at these guys they're made of liquid!!!

comb jellies
of all extant groups of life, these critters are my favorite... besides being just real pretty animals, anyone else with an interest in invert zoology/marine bio/invert paleo/taxonomy will know just how fascinating they are; recent genomic studies suggest that these (ctenophora) are the earliest diverging animal group/phylum with tangible evidence, older than sponges (porifera), or at least their last common ancestor diverged from the rest of the animals before the last common ancestor of sponges did... crazy to think just a few decades ago these were haphazardly grouped up with cnidarians in biology textbooks! regardless, there's always valuable academic insight coming from these humble little jellies

first of all, papa smurf didn't make smurfette, gargamel did

I am a certified "Opossum Ambassador" after joining the Opossum Society of the United States.

They are my favorite and I love them.
They are capable of looking fierce.
They are capable of looking sweet.
I know many cute facts about them because I have loved them for many years.

>>3muvk7ymugc2p
I think Opossum are really cute. I have a memory of one climbing through an apple tree onto the roof by my bedroom window and staring at me in the night eating an apple. Is it true they eat that many ticks, or was that a misrepresentation due to a flawed science test? I like that they play dead. I don't know many facts about them.

My favorite animal is the hare, but everyone knows what a hare is.

My favourite bird is the bearded vulture, or lammergeier.

They eat primarily bones, and drop them on rocks to shatter them and pick out the marrow. They dye themselves red with mud by dustbathing on the cliffs they live on, and have bright red eyes. They remind me of skeksis from the dark crystal, I think they are cool and funny in a muppety way.

Here's a nice webpage with lots more pictures: https://4vultures.org/vultures/bearded-vulture/

Wikipedia:
"The bearded vulture is the only known vertebrate whose diet consists of 70–90% bone."
"The Greek playwright Aeschylus was said to have been killed in 456 or 455 BC by a tortoise dropped by an eagle who mistook his bald head for a stone. If this incident did occur, the bearded vulture is a likely candidate for the "eagle" in this story."
"In Tibet, corpses are fed to this vulture. The rite is called a "sky burial" and is accompanied by prayers and mantras for the deceased person. There is a specialist assigned to this task which occurs high in the mountains where the vultures swoop down to eat the bones. The birds are blessed too. They are called "jagod" in the Tibetan language."

>>3muwfffronk24
So, it is generally agreed that the "Opossums Eat Many Ticks" study is skewed data. They have the capacity to eat many ticks, but if I remember correctly, they determined that this was laboratory bias through the unavailability of other food options, and to contest the narrative the previous study established, they did a scat study on opossums and found that most did not contain tick matter.

I didn't not know the natural coloration of the lammergeier was not that rusty red color, and that this is basically make-up they apply.

That's so metal.

Rhineura floridana

Fiddler crab