ok this sounds insane but in 2018 i went to a few carnivorous plant talks at the botany conference in minnesota. i got caught up in conversation with one of the guys there who was a huge nepenthes guy who told me a story about another collector in the pacific northwest who'd been buying poached plants, like a huge amount, and eventually got staked out by the fish and wildlife service and arrested and had all his plants seized and went to prison for it. idk if i ever talked about this on this blog before-- i know i liveblogged a lot from that conference but cant remember what all i posted-- but ive avoided talking about it since then because i was never able to find like, news articles or anything covering it, but behold.... we now have proof it was real, and im like 80% sure this was this guy he was talking about. the raid happened in 2016 and they'd been staking them out since 2013. he had nearly 400 plants and had been sourcing many of them from poachers in indonesia and borneo.

remember folks: poaching happens with plants too! it's a huge problem not only in carnvirous plants (nepenthes especially, which this piece is dedicated to talking about) but also in native plant populations in the US, including native carnivorous plant populations (north and south carolina's venus fly traps, california's darlingtonia, and sarracenia from the east coast), native orchids (historically one of the most poached categories), desert plants/cacti/succulents, and slow-growing woody ornamentals (cycads, for example). never buy bare-root plants off ebay or facebook! your best bet is local nurseries (which usually purchase farm-raised plants that do well in a wide range of conditions, and as a result have a healthy population in the wild) or specialty greenhouses (more expensive, but at least in the case of carnivorous plants offer young plants bred from established adult plants in-house, raised in captivity).

I think it's so adorable that early humans took wild gourds - a tiny fruit that hollows out as it dries, making it float - and decided to make something out of it

they thought the tiny fruit was so good that they bred it for thousands of years, making it larger to form into bowls and cups, and different shapes to become bottles and spoons

and musical instruments

And then, people took the hollow gourds they farmed, and they turned them into houses for birds. We adapted them into the perfect houses for birds, and now there are specific breeds of birdhouse gourd just for making into birdhouses

And humans dedicated gardening space and time and thousands of years of breeding to make the gourds so absolutely perfect for birds, that there is a species of bird that lives almost exclusively in them

The Curse Of Hope

_

Danny is in another universe. He had a reason, but he doesn’t remember anymore. He can only stare, horrified and disgusted, at the sickest city spirit he’s ever seen. Shivering and swaying with every step, core exposed, and ectoplasm leaking from wounds that are decades old. A ratty blanket was thrown over their shoulders, barely hiding the spirit’s pale grey skin and protruding black bones.

The spirit didn’t even sense him until he reached out to touch its wispy shoulders. The spirit flinched, clutching at the dozens of trinkets hanging from their neck and tucking in on themselves like they were expecting a blow.

“Oh, shit,” He swore, floating back a few feet, hands in the air, to show he meant no harm. “I’m sorry. I promise, I’m not here to steal from you.” The spirit shivered again and rolled a pearl necklace in between their fingers. A nervous habit. “Uh, I like that pocket watch? It’s very nice.”

That got their attention. They peeked at Danny, and he saw that more tattered cloth was covering their eyes, blending in with the stringy hair that reached the ground. Their blanket fluttered weakly, revealing hundreds of thousands of tiny marks etched into their skin. Scars, really. Scars that wrote out curse after curse onto the spirit’s very being. They burned with evil intent, and even reached inside the spirit’s body and wrapped around their core.

Occasionally, blinding specks of color raced across their body, temporarily erasing the writing, but it always returned quickly. He watched, a little detached, as one particular line rewrote itself across their rough forearm, drawing fresh ectoplasm like someone was writing it with a thin knife.

“Are you…alright?” Danny stuttered. A stupid question.

The spirit cocked its head. He couldn’t see their eyes, but he felt their burning gaze as they pondered the question.

“The pain of others becomes mine own.” They rasped. “The lights of the city dim as rotten wealth clogs mine veins. Magicks long forgotten have eaten mine skins, pulled mine cloak, and darkened mine skies. Helios has refused to grace mine doorstep, and the seasons of the Earth have revoked their kindness.”

Danny held his breath. It felt like he was the one with the exposed core, not the spirit.

The spirit shivered once more. “Tell mine soul, little lamb. How could this Forsaken City know peace, when it was long since ripped from mine hands?”

Shit, he needed Frostbite. And maybe Clockwork. Now.

-Or-

Danny meets the spirit of Gotham City. The villains and rogues that have plagued the city for decades are literal curses that are taking quite the toll on Gotham, and honestly, Danny isn’t sure how much longer they can hold out. The heroes seem to be doing some help, and are probably the reason Gotham made it this far, but the poor city needs help from the Realms if they want to get better.

Luckily, Danny can provide that help.

But only if he could get Gotham to leave their city behind. Because recovery is going to take a very long time.

Recently extinct species make me sad for all the usual and normal reasons (loss of life, biodiversity and unique life forms that experienced the world wholly uniquely and acted in it like no other, to name three), but a big thing that also makes me so sad is the forgetting that comes right after. Many endangered species are greatly ignored to begin with whilst alive of course, which is awful, but the way that extinction also causes us to forget. A species could’ve been so abundant a hundred years ago, people would’ve used a fish species or a tasty plant for food, or parents would’ve warned their children to not put a poisonous toadstool or insect in their mouth, a diver would exclaim, “Aha!” after emerging from the shallows holding an especially big bivalve, or someone making a species diary would sketch out a local bird or fasten a single flower to the page. But.. then the species goes extinct. It doesn’t exist anymore. None of these events, these actions happen anymore. Not with these species. The people who had these experiences dwindle out and they may not even realise that their experiences were among the last of their kind. And we forget.

Do you think Kes' ability to pick up on things so quickly is linked to her being an Ocampa? Like, since she's 2~ years old in canon (and has distinct memories of her father) I imagine her species doesn't spend much time as children and I wouldn't imagine they'd have formal schools (like entire buildings for schooling) and would instead learn from like, primarily parents or other elders. In that case learning things very quickly would be extremely beneficial for their survival. Kes: Oh yes, childhood...what a lovely few days~ Kes was a baby like for a day and then the next day she was up and ready to learn. Kes meets Naomi and every day that passes she becomes more and more amazed that she's still a baby. Wow! It's been like two months and she still can't do anything?? The doctor told her it was normal but wow. What I'm saying is they should have had Kes as a jack-of-all-trades character who could slide into pretty much any of the teams on Voyager. The Doc misses her when she's not in sickbay though!

idk how people in my life keep being surprised by the fact i am an environmentalist first and an animal lover second. we should cull the feral cats, dogs, mustangs, declare open season on deer, and reintroduce natural predators to the environment. sorry that y'all love ecological devastation but i'm built different

My new years resolution is to convert everyone to asexuality and END capitalism. C'mon, boy, join my sexless commune

hrhrrggghhh. thoracic pelvic fins. elasmobranch heterocercal fins. ctenoid scales. The Caudal Peduncle.

Thinking about Ducktales again. More theoratical analyzing. More ranting. More precisely about Ducktales humanity. (Less a biological take, more societal and historical)

I don't remember if there were any monkey or ape characters, but nevertheless evolution in the Ducktales world decided that, nope I don't like apes, it's gonna be primarily birds, ducks specifically who turn human

But it's not only birds, there also mammals, both carnivores (I think more of those?) and herbivores, yet again, birds are still the majority.

So whatever it was that caused the evolution, my take is that it's more birds simply cause "birds" were just already far more wide-spread around the globe due to their natural flying abilities pre evolution. And Ducks, cause, Idk, ducks are everywhere.

Anyways, the "animals" were probably evenly hit by evolution in general, but a lot of other species (lions, tigers, subspecies like pandas) in the wild were bound by territory. Ergo, due to more birds existing all over the globe, more humans in the modern age ended up being part of bird species cause they were more wide-spread in the beginning due to pre-evolution times. Also certain areas having more dangers (stone age, bronce age, I'm not sure how the early ages are called) for humans then others being a reason why some species exist more than others. (Again, human lions or tigers might have not been able to build bigger civilizations in early history due to having animal lions or tigers as dangers) (I know lions and tigers do not live in the same are btw, even if it might sound like that)

Now... Birds are basically the top of society in the Ducktales universe. They are more. They are everywhere. They are much more dominant. And I have thoughts about discrimination and the irony of birds that are "prey" being the majority of Ducktales humanity, but I should not only make a separate post for this, but also really sort my words so this doesn't end up sounding to weird.

Going back to the society: It somehow happened that human animals and animal animals live together. And in a way mostly similar to us. Pets exist. Feeding ducks with bred crumbs is a thing (that scene is why I'm writing this post). And people eat cheese, milk, eggs and meat.

Now, I don't know which is weirder. A human dog having another animal dog as a pet (hello Goofy) or a chicken eating chicken soup? (Huey wanted to give Scrooge chicken soup while Gyro was sitting on his computer and he didn't react. I guess cocked/baked duck/geese/turkey is also being eaten) Does it not count as cannibalism if it's not a conscious human, or do chickens just not eat chicken, pigs no ham and so on?

I am very much aware that this is just a disney show, targeted to kids mostly, and that those characters are all animals because they've always been animals. But I'm going between things like Zoomania and Beastars where the whole humanised animals topic is actually being discussed and also used to cover racsim as a topic, to things like Sing and Kung Fu panda where everyone just simply is an animal cause it's animation marketed to kids. Then we have Ducktales. And well, Bigotry, discrimination and racism isn't the topic of this show, obviously. It's about adventures and familiar relationships and drama. WHICH IS GREAT. No question. But then you have Penumbra being weirded out at conscious ducks feeding non-conscious ducks, and the whole 4th wall break episode in season 3 showing us that at least some people were very much aware of the undiscussed implications a show with only animal people has. Even if it's supposed to be a silly kids show.

Feel free to comment under this and reblog, cause I would really wanna know what others people thoughts about this are and maybe discuss it a little bit.

If you must know one thing about me its that I will not stand for any disrespect against Gonta's intelligence

unfortunately spiders are a pretty popular part of traditional gnomish cuisine

Eldritch Clone Troopers but Not All of Them

Like the Kaminoans didn't start whatever weird thing they did that resulted in Eldritch troopers (what were they trying to do? I don't know. The troopers don't know. That Kaminoans know and this was NOT it) until after they've got a few batches underway and it never really affects the oldest troopers.

So you've got the CT's who are all eldritch horrors masking as Jango Fett, the CC's may be normal or may also be eldritch, and the Alpha class troopers who are normal. (I have not read the comics, this is my understanding of the trooper age order from fics and those sound like the canon timeline may be odd so. Basically the older troopers are not eldritch and the many many younger ones are.)

This does absolutely nothing to change the fact that the Alpha class troopers and possibly the CC's have all decided that these scary feral CTs are their baby brothers. Absolutely nothing. It also does nothing to change the fact that all the eldritch troopers see them as their gruff older brothers who make them do extra laps when they mouth off to them and sneak them candy when they mouth off to the trainers, who make sure they're meeting all the requirements and teach them their own tricks for hiding inefficiencies, who'll scold them ten ways from sunday for messy armor but also help them through panic attacks.

Picture if you will Alpha-Seventeen lecturing Rex for something insane that somehow worked and then sending him off to do 10 laps around the hanger or something and Obi-Wan's staring because he just saw this short scowly guy who looks like Jango Fett lecture this 6-ft blond with three rows of teeth and a shadow as blue as his armor and then Seventeen turns to him and is like "What? He's a little shit."

I find this very funny.

you are the shakespeare of our time, im counting down the days until sub eris, your writing is unmatched < 3

This is genuinely so kind and a little funny (if only Willy Shakes wrote about little fairies getting dominated by a woman, his impact would be even greater).

I love the love, but I can really only hope that any work I put out (fanfic, original fiction, essay, whatever) will still be read and discussed in hundreds of years. Even if it’s not, even if my writing stops being read in six months, I am genuinely so happy that so many random strangers on the internet have read and enjoyed what I’ve written.

I am glad we can pass the time together, my friend. 🫶

I adore the Jurassic Park movie and all it's themes I do, but I also think the constant gag of "dinosaurs being back means paleontology won't matter anymore" and "computer mapping means we no longer have to dig them up anymore" is so funny. Incredibly not how paleontology and the study of evolution would pan out, especially considering the sheer number of dinosaurs vs what they've managed to extract DNA for

did you know that china has HALF of the worlds bumblebee species

Hey I know this is the worst picture on earth but I am so curious- any American residents who know birds have a clue what the fuck this is?

It's from a camera-trap photo taken in South Texas, I thought it was a fucking hoopoe at first glance but as I thought those things absolutely are not found in America. Is this just a northern flicker that has the illusion of having a crest somehow in this picture or what