Roll For Adventure!

Anis are bizarre, coal-black cuckoos with long floppy tails and unique, curiously tall, flattened bills. Groove-billed occurs in a variety of open and semi-open habitats in tropical lowlands and foothills, typically staying low in shrubs and grasses. Gregarious and not particularly graceful; usually seen crashing around awkwardly in small groups.

a. She’s 5′ 11″ and can never find pants long enough for her legs or shirts long enough for her arms.

b. She hates synthetic fibers as much as I do and it’s difficult to find natural fiber clothes that aren’t made of cotton

c. She’s a biologist and would physically fistfight microplastics if given half a chance

So her gift from mom and dad for her birthday was a sewing machine. Not a super expensive one but a good solid serviceable one.

And recently she asked “So where do I GET wool or linen and thread that isn’t polyester” and mom was like ‘go ask your sister’

“Bets, u know I’m a 15th degree blackbelt of buying shit on the internet”

cotton and Silk thread; https://redrockthreads.com/

Linen thread and wool fabric; https://burnleyandtrowbridge.com/ (they’ve got wool stuffs and worsted wool fabric for $15 a yard! I just got three yards of navy worsted wool I’m making a constellation winter skirt from)

More linen thread and wool; https://wmboothdraper.com/ (just ordered wool broadcloth to make a coat)

Silk fabric (THE best place to get silk lining fabrics and raw silk fabric):https://www.dharmatrading.com/

A varying assortment of wool and silk and cotton and even some leather, use coupon code  spring2020 for 50% off your full order, worked yesterday when I bought some stuff there; https://metrotextilesnyc.com/

The Linen Lab has a variety of weaves, weights, and colors available

A Natural Wonder: The First Albino Puma Born in Nicaragua

On July 20, 2023, a remarkable event took place at the Thomas Belt Zoo in Juigalpa, Nicaragua: the birth of the first albino puma at the zoo, named Itzae, which in Mayan means "Gift of God." Itzae is not only the first albino puma in Nicaragua but also the fourth recorded case of this rare genetic mutation in the world.

Let's huddle in the sand with Papa (Western Snowy Plover males tend to the chicks before they fledge)

Let's go for a ride with Papa (Emperor Tamarin males also do most of the childcare, passing them over to mama when it's time to nurse)

Let's strut with Papa (Male Cassowaries incubate and care for the chicks while mama goes off to find a new mate)

Let's be born from Papa (Male seahorses and other pipefish are the ones that give birth)

Let's hop around with Papa (Male midwife toads carry the fertilized eggs around for up to 6 weeks)

Fasciation - a type of deformity in flowers🌼

From previous fossils, they already knew the dinosaur had asymmetric feathers, which are vital to creating thrust in modern, flying birds. But the hard slab of limestone around this specimen had also preserved a key layer of feathers called tertials that had never been documented before in Archaeopteryx.

“It’s important that this is the first time these feathers have been seen,” John Nudds, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in England who didn’t participate in the study, tells the Guardian’s Hannah Devlin. “These new feathers seen in this beautifully preserved specimen—as well as the asymmetric feathers—confirms it could fly.”

She could fly!

Article link!

There's literally no other megafauna on earth that spends the entire day lounging around in water, mostly just socializing, only to come onto land to feed at night.

I remember when I used to do education programs on hippos, most people assumed they ate aquatic plants, and that that's the whole reason they were in water. Meanwhile, hippos are basically just giant nocturnal cows that eat only grass.

"i must grow my bones lighter and less dense so that i don't get trapped on the bottom and may float easier in this new environment"

hippos: "denser. heavier bones. MOAR dense. Make sink the most."

mother nature: but how will you get off the bottom when you sink?

hippos: Make muscles more too, give all muscle.

mother nature: and to stay warm in the water? a big layer of fat?

hippos: no! no fat only muscle.

mother nature: o....kay. And, you eat aquatic plants, that's why you spend so much time in the water?

hippos: lol no. eat land grass, like cow.

mother nature: i see. right. You eat mostly grass, so, flat grinding teeth?

hippos: hell no. big spike teeth. sharp big teeth. Biggest

mother nature: what, like lions? 3 inch fangs?

hippos: course not. giant fuck-off teeth, 18 inches. Also, not just one pair, three pairs of giant sharp teeth. give

mother nature: but you eat... grass?

hippos: yeah. lol. Sometimes eat a zebra tho. Or a antelope. Maybe eat a crocodile, you don't know. Give all teeth, giant fuck-off teeth. Most bone! most muscle! most teeth! Me.

mother nature: y'know what? fuck it, sure, here you go

hippo: ...

these are hyraxes! they're not rodents or canines or anything like that. they belong to their very own order known as hyracoidea. their closest relatives are elephants and manatees, and these mamas and babies have FREAKY teeth

also important to note that the

and:

These pups might get more robust as they age, but right now I'm not seeing anything to get excited about. I just can't help but suspect that this species was chosen specifically bc the public already has the idea of "dire wolf = gray wolf + big", and that this company is using relatively minor CRISPR editing to give the false impression that they're recreating anything that might have conceivably lived 10,000 years ago.