Curiosity Killed the Cat

animals-animals-animals:

Blue-gray Tanager (by rbglasson)

sonottrue:

untitled by Hanne//Beatle on Flickr.

compendium-of-beasts:

Wing of a Blue Roller, 1512, Albrecht Durer

bullshit-bullsharks:

Sharks are often known for the fight they put up, whether in the waters or on land. They certainly don’t find being near humans extremely enjoyable when caught by fishermen, which is why elasmobranchologists and shark enthusiasts alike have found a helpful way of soothing these sharks. It’s called tonic immobility, a trance-like state caused by the release of a certain chemical stimuli to the brain which triggers a calming sensation over an animal. Some believe this is for mating, but nobody is positively sure why this occurs. Although requiem sharks are often put in this state by turning them upside down, there’s other ways of triggering it. Tiger sharks, for instance, are induced to this state by placing light hands around their snout, around where the eyes would typically line up. A bigger, badder great white goes through tonic immobility like a requiem shark, but they often fall into a deeper trance and appear less responsive. There’s a documentary called “The Whale That Ate Jaws.” It shows how tonic immobility was a weakness for these apex predators and how an orca known as CA2 took advantage of it. Witnessed in the Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco, it’s one of my personal favorite locations for great whites. CA2 had struck the great white from depths below, striking it and flipping it over, and then proceeded to hold the shark by the neck. She stayed in this position for 15 minutes, long enough to drown the elasmobranch. Scientists noticed a sudden drop to 0 in the population of great whites, leading them to study more into tonic immobility. They released chemicals and scents from dead sharks while the animals were in tonic immobility, and it was terrifying enough to snap them out of it, causing an automatic instinctive defense of bolting.

Photo credit: marshhen

scientificillustration:

ushishir:

Model of a May Bug (Melolontha melolontha) by Julia Stoess

kidsofthepalmtree:

naive-kids:

thehawaiikids:

Sloths are my life, as you guys know.<3

(via imgTumble)

kdjssoufksakkd omfg soooooooooooooooooo cute!

the-moth-princess:

Smerinthus cerisyi of Sphingidae.

When alarmed, resting adults exhibit a very striking defense mechanism: the body is hunched and the wings are flicked upwards to display a pair of glaring ‘eyes’, one on each side of the abdomen (which seems to resemble a beak at the presented angle). Following more disturbance a more dramatic scare tactic is used; this startling ‘face’ is further enhanced by repeated lowering and raising of the forewings, causing a blinking effect to the ‘eyes’.

fairy-wren:

african paradise flycatcher

(photo by matthew mathiessen)

the-blue-revolution:

a-nem-a-men-anemone:

Puffer? Or boxfish. by Coppertane on Flickr.

the-blue-revolution: 

I’m going to go with box fish…?

I think this is the Small Nosed Box fish Rhynchostracion nasus