There Were A Lot Of Freshwater Mussels On The 2021 US Extinction List. They Didn’t Leave Us With Haunting

GETTING THE POINT

when you think of unicorns, what do you picture? a sunny forest glade full of snow-white pointy horses prancing around and farting glitter everywhere? well, that’s very Lisa Frank of you and all but YOU’RE WRONG. because (unlike dragons) unicorns actually do exist! but they don’t prance about in the forest harassing virgins. 

no, they inhabit the icy waters of the far nothern seas, gorging on deep-sea squid and occasionally getting eaten by Polar Bears!

they may not be magical, but they’re rad as hell! it’s-

they PROBABLY don’t harass virgins, anyway. it’s not like there’s studies on that.

the Narwhal is a toothed whale that lives in the frozen wasteland of the arctic circle. their name is really really fun to say, especially if you draw it out. narwhaaal. try it! narwhaaaaal. fun! their name comes from the Old Norse “Whal”, meaning “Whale”, and “Nar”, meaning “Corpse”.

yup, the name literally means “corpse whale”. this is probably because early viking explorers thought that the Narwhal’s mottled grey back looked like a drowned sailor who’d been in the water for a while. gross! vikings were not even in the general vicinity of messing around.

unless we’re talking about the football team! har! SPORTS.

Narwhals max out at about 18 feet long and 3,500 lbs, putting them firmly in the category “smedium”. (we’re talking about whales here, remember.) they are closely related to the Beluga whale, which will get its own article at some point. but the most remarkable thing about Narwhals is their magnificent and dubiously magical tusk.

the tusk’s gentle spiral and soulful luster make it look exactly like the unicorn horns of legend (more on this later), but it’s actually… a really fucked-up tooth! (surprise!) that’s right, Narwhals have exactly two teeth in their weird beaky mouths, kind of where your canine teeth are in your own mouth. and in males and about 15% of females, one of these two teeth just goes completely fucking nuts and grows straight out of the Narwhal’s face. 

and you thought hangnails were bad.

this tooth-turned-tusk is not exactly a compact accessory, either. this dental nightmare can be ten feet long, or over half again the length of the entire Narwhal! (imagine their toothpaste budget. yikes!) this tusk is light, flexible, and fairly sharp, though it’s too fragile for the Narwhal to use as a weapon. (humans sometimes make swords out of them, but these are really just for decoration. “hey, look at me! I have sword made out of whale face! fancy!”)

so what are these tusks actually used for, if they ain’t for stabbin’? well….

we don’t actually know for sure.

take note kids, there are still mysteries at large in the world.

scientists used to think that male Narwhals used these tusks to duel for females, but a) no one’s ever seen two Narwhals stabbing each other, b) the tusks are way too fragile for fighting anyway, and c) why would some female Narwhals have tusks, then? (unless WHALE LESBIANS). but recent studies have revealed that the tusk is just PACKED with nerve tissue, revealing a very surprising possible use for this overgrown tooth.

basically, scientists are now thinking that the Narwhal’s tusk may be an enormous antennae that can sense everything from pressure to water temperature and salinity. imagine if you knew every time the pack ice was about to freeze over because your tooth told you! it’s a pretty weird function, but it works just fine for the Narwhal.

if you ask real nice, they’ll give you the time and temperature.

this ability to sense when seawater is about to freeze would actually be very useful for the Narwhal, because they’re a bunch of ice-spiting daredevils even by arctic standards. Narwhals rely on pack ice to protect them from Killer Whales and Polar Bears, their main predators. And while scooting around under gigantic ice sheets is an effective way to keep predators off your defenseless fleshy tail, it can all go south pretty fast if your breathing holes freeze over unexpectedly. 

but Narwhals are well-equipped for this icy lifestyle! aside from their wondrous tusks, they have a thick layer of blubber under their skin to keep them warm. a LOT of blubber. like, up to 40% of their entire body mass! they need the insulation, because they regularly dive nearly 5,000 feet into the frozen depths in search of the squid and deep-sea fish that they eat.

talk about a chilly lifestyle.

but let’s talk about unicorns for a bit! Europe has been obsessed with pointy magical horses since the Middle Ages, and they feature heavily in stories and art even today. of course, unicorns are a fake made-up animal and not real, but Middle-Ages Europeans didn’t know that. and it’s a factor that Norse traders, who damn well knew what a Narwhal was, took heavy advantage of.

Narwhal tusks sold as ‘unicorn horns’ were worth more than their weight in gold to European Royalty. seriously. in the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I was given a carved and bejeweled Narwhal tusk ‘unicorn horn’ that was worth as much as an entire fucking castle at the time. Norse traders made out like bandits for CENTURIES, thanks to the Narwhal. I bet they laughed all the way to the bank.

not that Middle-Ages European Royalty didn’t deserve it.

but Narwhals aren’t doing so well these days, and it’s because they’re incredibly vulnerable to climate change. the sea ice is freezing over later and later every year, leaving Narwhal populations who depend on this ice cover vulnerable to predators and starvation.

there are still over 100,000 Narwhals in the northern seas, but these real-life sea unicorns need protection from climate change to continue to thrive. hopefully, humans can act soon enough to keep the arctic frozen and the Narwhal swimming free. because a world without Narwhals is not a world that I want to live in.

they’re better than unicorns because they’re real. 

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thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series on my tumblr here, or check out the official archive at weirdbiology.com!

if you enjoy my work, maybe buy me a coffee and support Weird Biology!

and if you’d like to see exclusive Weird Biology content, check out my Patreon today!

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IMAGE SOURCES

img1- National Geographic img2- imgdealix img3- National Geographic Kids img4- Yandex.com img5- World Wildlife Fund img6- travelandliesure.com img7- Warped Speed img8- eclecticeccentricity

A panda sitting in a pool twiddling its legs 

(Source)

NAUTICAL NONSENSE

WHOOOOOOOO

LIVES IN A SPIRAL SHELL UNDER THE SEA?

BACKWARDS AND STRIPEY AND BUOYANT IS HE!

okay, I’d better stop before Nick L. O’deon tells me to cut it out. so here we go! 

the Chambered Nautilus is an ancient deep-sea-dwelling mollusk, distant kin to both octopuses and those clams you had for lunch. they’re one of the oldest kinds of cephalopod on the planet, going all the way back to the Triassic. which, you know, 251 million years ago. (plus or minus a few million years.) they survived the extinction event that ended the reign of the dinosaurs, which also terminated their close cousin the Ammonites. these little shell dudes are true survivors.

since then, the Chambered Nautilus has bobbed its way into our collective consciousness. it inspired the very first fictional submarine, as well as an even more badass and actually-real-this-time submarine. its gorgeous shell can be found in nautical-themed restaurants worldwide. the Chambered Nautilus is a pretty big deal.

for a shellfish, anyway.

Chambered Nautilus grow to be about ten inches across the shell, which may not sound impressive but is actually an incredible feat of engineering. you’ve probably seen it before, but the Chambered Nautilus has a really trippy segmented spiral thing going on in their shell that a: makes for a great album cover, and b: creates a neutrally buoyant home that can stand the pressure of the deep sea! which is lucky, because that’s where the Chambered Nautilus lives.

these shelled little weirdos are found in the waters of the Indo-Pacific, where they live on the deep edges of coral reefs and sea canyon walls. but not below 2,600 feet, as their shells dramatically implode at that point! ha ha!

see, the nice thing about human houses? they don’t usually implode.

the Chambered Nautilus is sort of like a snail, except more complex and more backwards. (yes, I’m serious.) the soft gooey body of the Chambered Nautilus only fits in the first compartment of their shell, including their hearts, eyeballs, probable souls, various gross buoyancy organs and their roughly 90 tentacles and jet propulsion system.

yes, those last two things are totally real, I swear. let’s get into it!

I hope you like tentacles!

I’ll address the jet thing first. the Chambered Nautilus is similar to squid, in that they experience the world mostly backwards. they have a water intake valve called a hyponome which is basically a fancy tube that they keep somewhere in their tentacle zone. they use this weird pipe to draw water into an inner chamber inside their shell, and then violently squirt it right back out. this causes the Chambered Nautilus to lurch backwards at high speed like a startled raccoon.

but I didn’t even get to the best part! see, the Chambered Nautilus has very simple eyes and terrible vision. and they can’t even really see around that honkydonk badonkadonk shell anyway, so they lurch violently backwards and then bump comically into things. ALL THE TIME.

like, often enough for it to be a documented species trait. ADORABLE.

but you’ve been waiting patiently, and it’s time to get into the best part: those tentacles! and boy I sure hope you’re a fan, because the Chambered Nautilus has around 90 simple retractable tentacles called cirri. (make sure you write these down, as there will be a short quiz following this program.)

these cirri are covered in tiny ridges, like gross wet velcro spaghetti. this gives them a really absurd amount of grip, like REALLY absurd. apparently it’s easier to accidentally rip them right off the Nautilus than it is to get them off a scientist’s glove. 

I’m sure that researcher felt REALLY bad afterwards.

this insane grip comes in handy (pun!) though, when the Chambered Nautilus is on the hunt. these voracious shellboys mostly eat fish, crabs and shrimp, but they aren’t above scavenging and will eat whatever is available. 

once the Chambered Nautilus has spotted a likely meal, it splats itself onto it face-first like a goddam Looney Tunes character and grabs on. once they prey is snagged, it’s curtains for that particular shrimp. because like all cephalopods, the Chambered Nautilus has a razor-sharp nightmare beak hidden somewhere in all those tentacles. yum!

I mean, I’m not going to poke around in there and look so you’ll just have to trust me on this.

but the Chambered Nautilus isn’t doing so hot these days, and it’s all because of that lovely steampunk shell. its pearly luster and geometric intricacy make them prized by humans, who slaughter the Chambered Nautilus by the thousands to get them. fuck!

this shell-focused hunting has greatly decreased the Chambered Nautilus’s numbers in the past decade, and they’re almost certainly endangered now. efforts are underway to protect them, but in the meantime: DON’T BUY ANY NAUTILUS SHELLS. just get an Ammonite fossil, it’s basically the same thing but without the moral baggage or angry cephalopod ghosts.

the Chambered Nautilus survived the extinction that killed off the Ammonites and Dinosaurs, hopefully it will survive this one too.

ANGRY. CEPHALOPOD. GHOSTS.

–

thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series on my tumblr here, or check out the official archive at weirdbiology.com!

if you enjoy my work, maybe buy me a coffee and support Weird Biology!

and if you’d like to see exclusive Weird Biology content, check out my Patreon today!

–

IMAGE SOURCES

img1- Monterey Bay Aquarium img2- Monterey Bay Aquarium img3- National Aquarium img4- Monterey Bay Aquarium img5- NOAA Fisheries img6- Monterey Bay Aquarium img7- Among the Reef img8- California Academy of Sciences

vibe

In honor of vulture awareness day, let me ask you a question.

Do you love vultures?

You should.

Here’s why:

1, They are simultaneously the most majestic, and the most f*cking derpy of birbs. Observe -

2. THEY’RE SO FUCKING BADASS. We all know that they eat dead things. Eww, right? Wrong. They’re capable of digesting fucking rabies, cholera, hundreds of strains of bacteria that would straight up kill your ass given the chance. They deserve ALL of the respect, but they don’t get any, because ‘eww they eat dead things’. 

3. THEY ARE FUCKING AMAZING AT WHAT THEY DO - Some of the highest flying birds ever recorded, with amazing eyesight and smell. Vultures are highly specialised - yes, that means they sometimes have bald heads. So what? People are all over sphinx cats and those semi-hairless dogs.

4. If you think they’re ugly, well, look at these precious babs and tell me you still don’t feel anything:

I have more reasons, but, look, I’ll just get straight to the point: 

THEY’RE GOING EXTINCT, AND MORE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW.

Populations of some vultures have fallen more than 90% in the last 20 years, and that’s scary as fuck. Reasons for this range from livestock carcasses being contaminated with certain drugs, to poachers killing them off because vultures give them away. But whatever the reasons, they’re dying off fast, and we need to act before it’s too late. We need to help protect them and conserve them as much if not more than some of the ‘cuter’ endangered creatures. 

So what can you do? Here are some useful links if you want to learn more:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/joinandhelp/donations/campaigns/vultures/

http://www.hawk-conservancy.org/Documents/HCT_IVP_leaflet_2013_E_ver.pdf

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/africanvultures

http://www.tusk.org/vulture-conservation-project

http://www.save-vultures.org/

http://www.birdlife.org/europe-and-central-asia/news/international-vulture-awareness-day-%E2%80%93-no-cause-celebration

http://www.vulpro.com/

https://tristatebird.org/adoptavulture/

https://webcamvultures.wordpress.com/adopt-a-vulture/

http://www.wwfpak.org/species/Vulture.php

Please consider helping our seldom appreciated vulture buddies, either by donating, or even just by helping to change their bad reputation!! 

They really are amazing birds ~ thank you for sticking with my long-ass post 

:P 

No kissy hooman 😼 

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well.

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Baby armadillo plays with his toy

Had enough of bath time thanks