Awkward Sod

1. There are several ways to classify the large cats, one of the more useful ones is into the roaring cats (tigers, lions) and the purring cats (bobcats, lynxes). The puma (also known as the mountain lion) is the largest cat that purrs. I’ve heard it up close, it’s amazing. A cheetah’s purr sounds like an idling motorcycle engine.

2. Kangaroos cannot move their legs independently of each other, they have to move them in sync - when they’re on land. When they’re swimming, they can move them separately. Hopping is their most efficient way to move - a walking kangaroo is awkward as hell. They swing both legs forward using their tail as a third leg to prop up while their legs swing.

3. People often think that flamingoes’ knees bend the wrong way. They don’t - the joint you’re seeing in the middle of their leg isn’t their knee, it’s their ankle. Their knee is up by their body, and it bends the same way ours does.

4. Giraffes only sleep 1-2 hours a day.

5. Bald eagles’ vocalizations are not what you expect. When you see a flying bald eagle in the movies and hear that majestic caw sound? That isn’t an eagle, it’s been dubbed over with another bird, usually a red-tailed hawk. Bald eagles actually sound…not majestic. Kind of like if a kitten could be a bird.

6. Elephants are one of only a handful of animals that can pass the mirror test - in other words, they can recognize their own reflection (and not think it’s another animal, as dogs and cats usually do). They tested this by placing a chalk mark on an elephant’s forehead and then showing it a mirror. The elephant investigated the mark on its own forehead, indicating it knew that it was looking at itself.  The only animals that pass this test are the higher primates, the higher cetaceans (orcas, dolphines), elephants, and weirdly, magpies.

7. One-fifth of all the known mammal species are bats.

8. A kangaroo mother can have three joeys simultaneously at different stages of development: an embryo in her womb (kangaroos can do what’s called embryonic diapause which means sort of putting the development on pause until she’s ready for it to develop further), a joey in her pouch attached to one nipple, and a joey out of the pouch on the ground who nurses from the other one. The amazing thing? Each of her nipples make different formulations of milk for each joey’s different nutritional needs.

9. Bonobos, our closest genetic relative (they are more closely related to us than they are to either chimps or gorillas) are almost entirely non-aggressive, matriarchal, and use sex to solve all their problems. They engage in both same and opposite sex interactions, non-penetrative sex (oral, rubbing, manual) and with any age. That’s an interesting area to work in, lemme tell you.

10. Tortoises have super loud sex. Like, really loud.

11. All grizzlies are brown bears, but not all brown bears are grizzlies (grizzlies are a sub-categorization of the brown bear).

12. Reindeer are the only deer species where both males and females grow antlers. The males shed theirs the beginning of December, the females shed theirs in the spring. So all of Santa’s reindeer are girls, heh. I love telling little kids that.

13. If a rhinoceros knocks off its horn, it grows back faster than you’d expect. One of ours, Rosie, has knocked hers off twice.

14. Gorillas get crushes on each other. And on the humans that take care of them. Male gorillas also masturbate. I don’t know if the females do, I’ve never seen it. Sometimes it’s like a soap opera up in there.

15. Langur monkeys are silvery-gray in color - their babies are bright orange. Like Cheeto orange, I do not exaggerate.

You are so kind, but it’s not mine. I’m pretty sure that’s @perclexed. Or maybe @mrsjohnsfarmhouse

It’s perfect though:

plato: constantly monitors the philosophy tag and starts shit with everyone by asking questions until they contradict themselves. people get really pissed at him until he posts a selfie and he’s absolutely shredded

aristotle: writes long explanatory posts about a variety of subjects. he and plato also get into big discussions over reblogs, which they never cut down, pissing all of their followers off

sappho: reblogs lots of pictures of flowers and pastel aesthetic posts, with the occasional wlw post thrown in (though not often, because she always gets weird messages afterwards). her poetry posts are always incredibly popular even when she only posts a few phrases from something she’s working on

homer: popular freestyle rapper who adapts old folk stories and records himself composing. people constantly send him messages asking if achilles and patroclus are together, but he always keeps his answers vague, which leads to a ton of arguing from his fans

herodotus: runs one of those “did you know” fact blogs, but it’s hit-or-miss as to whether he’s actually posting something true

lucian: quality shitposter when he’s not posting neat sci-fi and weird satire. reblogs every single “the moon is gay” post he sees 

aristophanes: runs a pun blog. people are torn between finding him hilarious and finding him immature. either way, he responds to all of his asks with fart jokes

cicero: constantly goes on ridiculously long rants about politics. he’s that guy who adds unnecessary comments on every single post he reblogs. he occasionally posts poetry but it only ever gets reblogged by atticus and catullus, who does so to make fun of him

catullus: reblogs literally everything that sappho posts. everything else is mostly dramatic personal posts, complaining, and the occasional poem. his blog confuses everyone because it is a strange mix of nonsensical all-caps screaming and eloquent, heart-wrenching verse

vergil: reblogs a lot of nature posts, especially ‘save the bees’ stuff. every once in a while, he posts poetry, but he always deletes it a few minutes later. he and horace are constantly tagging each other in things.

horace: posts a lot of pictures of food and wine. occasionally goes on weird tangents about bizarre topics but is generally likable. sometimes reblogs posts of trees from vergil and tags them with ‘:(((’

martial: gossip extraordinaire. vagues about everyone he knows but is so witty and good at it that nobody can tell who exactly it is and nobody really cares. occasionally posts a bunch of stuff sucking up to his boss and writes particularly salty posts about people who complain about it

pliny the younger: mostly posts #relatable content and occasionally goes on long tangents about his ships. adds smilies to the end of all of his posts and is completely sincere about every one of them