Latest Posts by leafyfern - Page 4

birds are so majestic. so beautiful. so dignified. so

21 and Pinch, natural history enthusiasts 🐤

sleeby

I’m not a songbird. I’m a screm bird!

Yawning babies

A Tiel Tune

I am loved.

Those Legs!

new trick!! he’s starting to say “wings out” too

Floral Snake Art Prints by starrypaige

I was on the bus home and Glass Animals released a new song. It was 12 minutes long and called “Dave Bayley From Glass Animals Is Gay” and as soon as I tried to play it, I woke up.

I made a bad meme

why don’t you stare back into my huge eye

why don’t you set my wings on fire

The golden hour

Black cats are beautiful

The beauty of the Yellow

loxocemus bicolor / mexican burrowing snake

House Finch variety. The one with the orange-golden tones has been around for a bit, and I love all the colors on him. The other one I would have thought was a lady, but the blush is confusing.

Illustration from Alienist and neurologist - 1919 - via Internet Archive

A rare case in which an octopus’s tentacles mutated and branched off beyond the normalcy… 

RIP Aug. 26, 1918 - Feb. 24, 2020.

I’ve never seen a wild red fox in my home state but I spotted this poor beauty on the side of the highway today. I really wish that I could have seen her out in the woods where she belongs and this sight broke my heart. Please please watch for wildlife when you’re out on the roads; animals don’t understand why their world is changing and their forests are shrinking. We have to do better by them. 

Cecropia moths, Hyalophora cecropia, + details Photos by Alexander Wild // Twitter

Tumblr for some reason is not letting me publish asks but anyway…

The fuzzy fur-like stuff that covers a lot of moths is actually modified scales, like the scales on their wings, made of a substance called chitin, rather than keratin as in mammal hair. Chitin also makes up their exoskeleton. Wing scales are used to absorb heat, possibly to assist with flight, and to display colors/patterns as defense/camouflage or to attract a mate. The fuzz on their body is thought to muffle the sonar of predatory bats as well as keep them warmer in the chilly night air. Unlike mammal hair, though, these scales are not continually growing and cannot be replaced if lost or damaged.

Here’s a fun extreme macro photo of a sunset moth’s wing scales and longer modified hair-like scales:

Photo via Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel

Hormones are funny sometimes and when “love is in the air” even a big male common toad (Bufo bufo) is a good candidate for a male Mediterranean treefrog (Hyla meridionalis) to get in amplexus. #amphibian #sex #amplexus #breeding #toad #treefrog #hyla #bufo #herp #herping #italy #photography @ilcp_photographers

A proboscis monkey being released into the wild after being fitted with a satellite collar.

Beautiful old whitetail buck skull I picked up at the yard sale. Such a cool antler anomaly! Likely caused by an injury while the antler was still in velvet. Definitely a keeper! <3 I’ll post more photos once I get it cleaned up.

Here’s an interesting comparative anatomy photo! Adult male and fetal human skulls.