Spider and strange crustacean enthusiast...

Cinnamon Dog-faced Bat Cynomops abrasus

A bat from northern and central South America. The bat roosts in decayed logs and hollow trees, and tends to pick relatively warm area to roost. They are insectivorous and usually feed on hard-shelled insects.

Nipponites

Artwork by Franz Anthony / @franzanth

As suggested by its name, Nipponites are most commonly found in Upper Cretaceous rocks in Japan. It had a bizarrely coiled shell, but how it lived is yet to be known.

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Strange Symmetries #16: Go Home Heteromorphs You're Drunk

Most ammonites had spiral-coiling shells, but during the Cretaceous a group known as the heteromorphs evolved a much weirder range of forms. Some were straightened, some were hooked, some had helical snail-like shapes, and some even ended up bearing a strange resemblance to paperclips. 

But one of the most bizarre of all was the genus Nipponites, whose ribbed shell looked like a bundle of tangled asymmetrical coils.

Nipponites bacchus lived in what is now Hokkaido, Japan, during the late Cretaceous about 90 million years ago. Around 10cm long (~4"), its shell was less tightly coiled up than its better-known relative Nipponites mirabilis, but these looser whorls were formed in the same way via a series of U-bends in different directions during its growth.

Despite their irregular and ungainly appearance, the unique shape of these ammonites seems to have actually been very hydrodynamically stable. They weren't fast-moving, but they didn't need to be, probably spending most of their time floating suspended in the water column catching small planktonic prey from around themselves.

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Urodacus sp. Kalbarri WA.

Carter’s Rock Gecko aka Scorpion-tailed Gecko (Pristurus carteri), family Sphaerodactylidae, found on the southern Arabian Peninsula

Eastern Quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus), family Dasyuridae, order Dasyuromorphia, Canberra, Australia

i will write things maliciously incorrectly and use a sinister fountain pen. i would watch nefarious plots develop in the formal chamber all night while drinking a beverage I tested for poison with my other court advisors/bureaucrats. i'll wear ominous robes with an embroidered skeleton every day that's worth 5 gold pieces. i would go to mysterious meetings with another ominous figure outside while wearing a dark cloak every night. i am also more likely to meet mercenaries, competing treacherous advisors, undercover assassins and a monarch I can lie to.