The perfect way to dry up any conversation or social event is to start talking about some weird bug you found last week.
You have to start hanging out with the right kind of people.
I may have to remember that the next time some rando starts macking on me when I’m out and about. “Dude, you don’t have nearly enough legs or abdominal segments to warrant my attention.”
Regarding kookaburras and barbecues meat, yes. One time when I was little we were having a picnic at a park with friends. My mum had a morsel of barbecued sausage on the end of her fork and had just raised it literally to her lips to eat it when a kookaburra zoomed through and stole it. It split her lip a little on the way through.
I also have photographic evidence somewhere of a kookaburra eating what appears to be a pigeon’s head.
I mean, morphologically you can tell they are a strange kind of kingfisher.
We naturalists can tell, but apparently a lot of people don’t know :)
With that said, most people don’t know how unpleasant kingfishers can be either so there’s that.
I took my friends hiking to relax, but instead, I went full nature tour guide, pointing out every invasive plant. By the end, they were plotting an anti-invasive plant coup instead of enjoying the view. I really turned a chill hike into a “Save the Meadow!” meeting! Oops!
But the invasives wreck the view, so congrats!
Haha!
Uh oh…
I’ve always thought of kingfishers as cute lil guys flying around making a ruckus with their adorable calls. Is this the part where I find out they impale fish on thorns like shrikes or something?
I watched a giant kingfisher spend a good 5 minutes beating a far-too-big fish to death against a piece of wood.
It is what it is, but it aint pretty.
I told my friends about dolphins. I’m now friendless…
@isopodguy You should be scared of the sheep…
https://youtu.be/CwAsPkFoXlo?si=aau0Mq9QcbHfvnRd
Probably unpatriotic of me but I am going to dish the dirt on my country’s best loved animal icon the koala. True, most of the time koalas sit in trees with a dopey benign look on their face while surrounded by their low nutrient but abundant food source- Eucalytus leaves.
Once a year in the southern winter however, the male koala turns his mind to procreation. This begins with a series of vocalisations, presumably to stake out their territory or discourage rivals. I remember many years ago as a junior trainee forest ranger alone in a hut in the bush listening to calling koalas. I didn’t know what they were. I can best describe the call of a male koala as the sound of a pig being inhumanely slaughtered inside an steel oil barrel. Female koalas do not reveal their presence to males, probably for sound reasons. When a male finds a female he will subdue her aggressively. The females will generally try and escape by climbing on to smaller limbs. Often this results in both the male and female falling out of the tree, sometimes resulting in death or injury. In most cases the female will have last year’s baby on her back. If the terrified infant is lucky it will escape to a nearby branch while mating takes place. Other times it might fall to the ground below with same consequences described above.
Spoilsport behavioural scientists have also provided an explanation while koalas around the world are regarded around the world as being super cute. Apparently it is because the body plan of a koala closely resembles a human baby.
Definitely otters. Everyone thinks that they are so cute (they aren’t wrong!) and are commonly peoples’ favorite animals but… yeah
oh no what do i not know about otters?
cause i love them-
Okay I’ll start by saying they are still amazing animals!! As all are - I like them a lot too. And I will acknowledge everything I’m about to say is phrased from the human bias!
They are known for their somewhat violent tactics during mating. The male often will severely injure the female in certain species. I think a lot of the attention that this gets (at least on the internet) is deliberately “scandalized” - but I do think there’s some ironic humor in suggesting that behind those cute fluffy faces lie the eyes of a killer! They are also very efficient predators, as mustelids tend to be, which I think is an extra funny break away from the cliché picture of sea otters holding hands and their favorite rock :P (not that one can’t be both haha)
Otters are weasels and weasels on average are a bit … twitchy? Hyper? Unhinged? But I’m a big fan.
I’m sure you meant venomous.
I totally agree, I love their chaos. I love looking at pictures of ermines on Google images