gender noncompliant gender enjoyer

A “ping pong” sponge (Chondrocladia sp.) is documented on a seafloor bank west of South Georgia Island

Say hello to the “ping-pong” sponge (Chondrocladia sp.). Known for its spherical, spiny appendages, this carnivorous sponge uses hook-like structures to trap prey.

A “ping pong” sponge (Chondrocladia sp.) is documented on a seafloor bank west of South Georgia Island

Say hello to the “ping-pong” sponge (Chondrocladia sp.). Known for its spherical, spiny appendages, this carnivorous sponge uses hook-like structures to trap prey.

okay so I fucking love event planning and decorating and hosting and baking, aka all the elements of a banger birthday party. I am so freaking happy to throw people parties because it means I get to throw a party, then go to a party! yippee!

so my friend's birthday rolled around and I knew she wanted a party because I'd done them for her before, but I wanted to make it extra special because she was turning the big 25. so I did all the regular stuff I am So Excited About: had her roommates let me into her apartment while she was out, put up balloons and homemade garlands and streamers and table decor, made her favorite cake and snack plates and cocktails, ordered catering from a restaurant she loves, got a bunch of our friends to come over to surprise her, wrote her a disgustingly heartfelt card, etc. and then because it was the big quarter century, I was like I gotta do something extra.

now. I do not like clowns. my friend loves clowns. we've gone to the circus together and she's seen me literally close my eyes and hide when the clowns are out in the audience, meanwhile she's screaming and waving at them. so obviously I hired a clown for her birthday. (btw seeing him out of clown costume made me less freaked out because now I knew that the guy under there looks like someone's uncle.)

so she showed up after work totally expecting a party because I'm too paranoid to throw a real surprise party, and obviously loved it. and then I was like btw. there's a clown.

she lost her mind. she was sooo excited. she loved the party and she loved the clown. I was like haha yes I'm getting a good grade in birthday parties and didn't think much of it because frankly I do this a lot, and it's so much fun for me that I don't consider it work. like, I love doing all that for my friends. it's not any kind of sacrifice.

two days later, she texted me that she broke up with her boyfriend.

naturally I was like omg tell me everything I hated that guy let's get coffee. so we did and she told me that for her birthday, her boyfriend of nine months 1) forgot about it and didn't get her anything, 2) got mad at her for not texting him while she was at her party, 3) got mad at her for telling him about the party because it was "passive aggressive", and 4) called her immature and stupid for being excited about a clown at her birthday.

Vitruvian Ditto.

this man Gilberto (Chito) Shedden nursed this crocodile back to health after it was shot in the eye, and they were best friends for the rest of the crocodile’s life.

this python came in out of the wild as a baby snake and curled up next to the family’s infant, Oun Sam­bat (or Oeun Sambat?) and they were inseparable for 12 years

Cristina Zenato removes hooks from sharks and they let her stick her hand down their throat to do it and they even bring other sharks who need help to see her.

It’s a relationship that goes beyond a single helpful interaction. For example one of the sharks that would show up when she first started swimming with them was a shark she called Foggy Eye who really didn’t like to be touched. One day, Foggy Eye showed up with a hook in her mouth that Cristina Zenato removed, and ever after, Foggy Eye cuddles when she visits, putting her head in Cristina’s lap and enjoying some petting

 We don’t know SO much. Some wolf spiders will adopt unrelated orphaned spiderlings and raise them. We recently discovered that the ant-mimicking jumping spider (below) produces “milk” and suckles its young until they are nearly fully grown.

That’s the story.

They live alone. They die alone.

Except for Octopus City where they live in a social collective.

Except that I watched with my own fucking eyes a giant Northwest Pacific Octopus who my friend social for an aquariums interact. He hadn’t seen her in a year. He reacted to meeting us and to getting treats? But all he wanted to do was see her, touch her, show her his enrichment items. After a year he recognized her and the response was “YOUR BACK AUNTIE YOURE BACK I MISSED YOU LOOK WHAT I WAS DOING WHAT DO YOU THINK BUT YOURE BACK hi nice to meet your friends YOURE BACK.”

Blue velvet worm, Euperipatoides rowelli, Peripatopsidae

Euperipatoides rowelli occurs in humid, temperate forests of southeastern Australia. Its main habitat is decaying logs on the forest floor, where it lives in crevices and feeds on small invertebrates.

Specimens are rarely found alone, usually forming groups of a few individuals containing females, males, and juveniles. Laboratory observations on behavior concluded that these groups present some sort of hierarchy with dominant females.

🚨HOMER ALERT 🚨 a copy of a section from The Iliad has been identified as the text in a papyrus placed on the abdomen of a mummified person, excavated last year, as part of the embalming ritual. Pride of place, not stuffed inside a cavity like previously found texts, and the first piece of Literature found on a mummy and in a funerary context.

And guess which bit it is?

THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPS 😂😂😂😂

(Well, we all knew those pages had to be *someone’s* favourite bit 😉)

BRB, off to shoehorn this into a lesson…

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look at her!! she is so cute!!! i want to cry!!!!