animals and such

Yellow-streaked Lory (Chalcopsitta scintillata), family Psittaculidae, order Psittaciformes, found in the Aru Islands and southern New Guinea

Yellow Mongoose (Cynictis penicillata), family Herpestidae, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, Northern Cape, South Africa

A Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus forficatus), family Tyrannidae, order Passeriformes, attempts to drive away a Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus cheriway), family Falconidae, order Falconiformes, South TX, USA

Florida Wildlife; vol. 26, no. 7. December 1972. Illustration by Wallace Hughes.

Long tailed pangolin (Phataginus tetradactyla)

this mud dauber wasp (Sceliphron caementarium) seemed distressed about something in her clay nest. Turns out it had been commandeered by a keyhole wasp (Pachodynerus nasidens), who was now aggressively asserting ownership

keyhole wasps, which hunt weevils and other small beetles, will opportunistically nest in any sort of small cavity (such as a keyhole). The existing literature on this species doesn’t say anything about taking over other wasp‘s nests, only that they sometimes refurbish abandoned nests, but I guess this one didn’t get the memo.

This isn't the worst of their mischief though- they also have a habit of building nests that clog up the airspeed measuring instruments in planes and have caused several fatal crashes.

The face is because she is a shar-pei mix

Though I admit she does look like she ate a spicy sky raisin, but she's been like this for a week. It's just her face.

The legs however...

I palpated one limb and felt a very thickened, broken femur, and on the other the femur as a whole had gone walkabout so I thought dislocated.

Vet agreed with me so we took rads.

I mean, that left leg is *technically* not dislocated. Technically. The break on the right is so old there's nothing we can do.

Puppy is going to foster for a month to build muscle in the right leg to, and I quote my vet, "to give her a leg to stand on" since we will be amputating the left.

Original rad on the left, most recent on the right.

Our vet sent the rads to her orthopedic surgery mentor and he responded with " I believe in God now"