DORKTHROPOLOGY

For your enjoyment: Very Bad™ scientific illustrations from Getreue Abbildungen Naturhistorischer Gegenstände (Faithful Illustrations of Natural History Objects) 1795-1807 by Johann Matthäus Bechstein

His career brought him millions upon millions of dollars and lasted almost 40 years. He finally admitted to painting fraudulent art after the white paint he used came under scrutiny. 

“ Bob Simon: What do you think this Max Ernst would be worth? Wolfgang Beltracchi: This one? Simon: Yeah. Beltracchi: $5 million, I think. Simon: $5 million.  And you can do it in three days? Beltracchi: Yeah, oh yes, yes, sure, or quicker” -From a 60 minutes interview with Bob Simon

In The interview with Beltracchi, he said that none of his forgeries are copies, they’re all original works that the famous artists could have painted.

“Beltracchi estimates he has done 25 Max Ernsts. He is not copying an existing work. He’s painting something he thinks Ernst might have done if he’d had the time or felt like it.”  -  The Con Artist: A multi-million dollar art scam

His wife was also in on the scam, she would dress up in old clothing and take pictures holding the paintings with old cameras to fake proof of the paintings’ ages.

use tools

Can be taught to speak (like parrots)

Have huge brains for birds

like seriously their brain-to-body size ratio is equal to that of a chimpanzee

They vocalize anger, sadness, or happiness in response to things

they are scary smart at solving puzzles

some crows stay with their mates until one of them dies

they can remember faces

SIDENOTE HERE BECAUSE HOLY SHIT.  They did an experiment where these guys wore masks and some of them fucked with crows.  Pretty soon the crows recognized the masks = douchebag.  But the nice guys with masks they left alone.  THEN, OH WE’RE NOT DONE, NO SIR crows that WEREN’T EVEN IN THE EXPERIMENT AND NEVER SAW THE MASK BEFORE knew about mask-dudes and attacked them on sight.  THEY PASSED ON THE FUCKING INFORMATION TO THEIR CROW BUDDIES.

They remember places where crows were killed by farmers and change their migration patterns.

Every day, I would watch Buck from my window until one day I opened it and started talking to him. He was small and gangly and he couldn’t caw right. His feathers were all over the place and I felt a kinship. So I made a deal with him. I told him that if he could do it, if he could fly, then I could find the strength to get up. Well… near the end of the season, after talking with him every day, I finally saw him get out of the nest. He went to the edge of his branch, braced himself, and jumped… and just before he hit the ground, he soared back up into the sky. I cheered harder than I ever had before.

That winter, Buck left the area. I was crestfallen. I felt like I’d lost a friend. But I was so damn proud of him. 

Cut to the next spring? I’m walking up the driveway one day when suddenly I hear a sound… a broken caw. I look up, and Buck is sitting in a tree above my head. He stared at me and puffed his feathers, then hopped down in front of me and cawed again. I was so damn thrilled, and I told him how proud I was of him. He ruffled his feathers and then soared off into his old tree. 

That summer? I heard two broken caws. One from Buck… and one from his chick.

i tried to get close and take a better look and one of them dived super low and tried to attack me. so i went back in the house and chopped some sliced raw meat and tossed it at him from a distance.

a few more times later, very soon after, they could tell i was trying to help, and did not attack me. i was “allowed” to walk up close and pick him up, he couldn’t drink water properly so i had to dip my finger in a bowl and stick it in his mouth.

i did this few times a day and it went on for about a week before he disappeared, i thought he recovered and left, but he came back the next day and lands on me, and i see him around the block quite often, and he would come sit on my shoulder for a few minutes and then fly away again. i feel like i’ve adopted a son.

“reminder that blood sucker is a slur”

“vamp-born-vamps are valid if u got bitten later in life you’re not part of the vamp community” 

“What about satyrs?’

“You can wear shoes”

“Just a reminder that if you appropriate mermaid culture you’re a piece of shit”

“Actually we don’t mind because a lot of our culture comes from humans”

stop fetishizing incubi

stop fetishizing incubi

stop fetishizing incubi

stop fetishizing incubi

Support veelas who seduce random townspeople

Support veelas who take shepherds as lovers

some zombies can’t eat brains due to physical conditions that make them too weak to gnaw through the skull

some zombies can’t digest them

some zombies just don’t like the taste

hydras with nine heads are just as valid as hydras with twenty

hydras with nine heads are just as valid as hydras with twenty

hydras with nine heads are just as valid as hydras with twenty

hydras with nine heads are just as valid as hydras with twenty

Because sometimes what you need most is a real-life muppet in the form of a fluffy Tawny Frogmouth chick. This little cotton ball with a beak and two legs hatched on August 31st at Vogelpark Olching, a bird park located outside of Munich, Germany. The chick is the very first Tawny Frogmouth to hatch at the park and has been aptly named… wait for it… Fluffy.

“Tawny Frogmouths are native to Australia and are named for their wide, frog-like mouths. They feed at night on moths, spiders, worms, beetles, scorpions, frogs, and reptiles. Their coloration and ability to sit motionless provide excellent camouflage, making the birds nearly impossible to detect as they perch in trees. To increase the effect, they often sit with the head tilted upward to mimic a broken tree branch. These birds are often mistaken for owls, but they are not closely related.”

Head over to ZooBorns to learn more these awesome birbs.

Landscape photographer Stephane Vetter captured the complete Total Solar Eclipse in Tiny Planet form from a beautiful spot at Magone Lake in Eastern Oregon. Vetter explained all the careful planning that went into creating this shot over at Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This featured little-planet, all-sky, double time-lapse, digitally-fused composite captured celestial action during both night and day from a single location. In this 360×180 panorama, north and south are at the image bottom and top, while east and west are at the left and right edges, respectively. During four hours the night before the eclipse, star trails were captured circling the north celestial pole (bottom) as the Earth spun. During the day of the total eclipse, the Sun was captured every fifteen minutes from sunrise to sunset (top), sometimes in partial eclipse. All of these images were then digitally merged onto a single image taken exactly during the total solar eclipse. Then, the Sun’s bright corona could be seen flaring around the dark new Moon (upper left), while Venus simultaneously became easily visible (top). The tree in the middle, below the camera, is a Douglas fir.

Visit Stephane Vetter’s website to check out more of his photographer.

European raven

Turkish raven

North African raven

Himalayan raven

Western (American) raven

AUSTRALIAN RAVEN

other ravens: caw caw

Hooooly shit. According to this writer, Xfinity is falsely impersonating its customers in order to post anti-net neutrality comments on the FCC website.

Peter S. Beagle (via fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment)

“If the muse is late for work, start without her.”