Latest Posts by reeddiereed - Page 4
The Australian state of Tasmania is being held hostage and terrorized by a single elephant seal and this has been going on for more than a month now.
Finally did some fanarts for @thestrangepoet amazing fic The Ninth Life !! It lives rent free in my head
I'm gonna haunt you in your head
The things we did, the last words I said
The Admiral dose not like this fucked up cat that smells like human
Meanwhile cat!Jon is devastated he can’t have his cat buddy
Smack smak
Cat!Jon made by @ultramarinaa
its time to post fresh artworks with new artstyle i guess. <з
Что ты больше не один
Где-то прозвучат слова
«До свиданья, до свиданья», —
Шепчет время городам своим
Shoutout to the maned wolf, which is technically neither wolf nor fox but has its own genus called Chrysocyon! Why -
why are your legs so long?
I mean, intellectually, I understand that it’s because you live in grasslands and have evolved to be able to see over the grass, but emotionally… why? Are they?? Like that??? Surely there was a way to make your body more cohesive and proportional-looking?
I had a tattoo client ask if I ever used AI to design tattoos for me. Man I spent the better part of a decade doing shitty bit work as a graphic designer and now that I have the space to do whatever I want, I'm gonna let the computer generate random garbage for me? What next should I have a computer that eats my dinner and fucks my wife?
Day ??? In which the bachelor and haruspex are eepin
I hope you’re having a nice day.
only god is capable of knowing the vastness of my love for this scrawny dog. god i love him
Purified by Fire
shitpost tma version almost all of them were drawn in june when i was stressed about college and needed a way to relax, so I started drawing these silly things
Cat Martin is now stuck in my head
My brain has truly rotted away and what’s left is a singular little thing named Martin
Folk were really into the post I made about Tandie, the zoo lion with a (then) undergrown mane due a period of time on testosterone blockers. He's having quite the glow up this summer.
But!
Did you know that manes are hormone dependent in both sexes of lion?
Let's talk about maned lionesses!
To recap the previous post quickly: the existence of a mane, and it's color, appear to be pretty heavily androgen-dependent. Neutered males or males put on testosterone blockers, like Tandie was, will drop their manes - but like Tandie, if taken off the meds, it will generally grow it back. Darker manes are indicative of higher testosterone levels, and long/lush manes are generally a good signal of a male's fitness and mate quality. Females seem to show a preference for males with longer, darker manes and other males will preferentially avoid scuffles with them. (Yes, as many comments have pointed out, that means Scar was actually a hunk. Do with that as you will.)
The fascinating thing about androgens being linked to manes in lions is that it goes both ways - females with higher levels will also grow manes!
Mane growth in females lions is most commonly seen with elderly animals who have stopped cycling and are basically in lion menopause. And they have to get pretty old for it to happen - captive lions generally only live into their late teens and early second decade, and most of the maned ladies I know about started growing manes around like, seventeen.
Not all old female lions grow manes, but some of the career cat people I've talked to said it happened to about a quarter of the females they've worked with over the years. Which... is an interesting contrast to the news articles about Zuri, who we'll meet in a bit, that breathlessly reported in 2022 that her mane growth "left scientists baffled."
Old lady lion manes are just... precious. They grow in first at the chest and then around the sides or on the back of the head, but they don’t normally get the length, density, and connectivity seen in the mane of an adult male. It leaves the lionesses manes kind of awkward, in the way I associate with very young males, and they're absolutely adorable. Prepare yourself for the photo spam.
I have to start with Daisy, because she's the only maned lioness I've had the privilege to meet in person.
I don't know exactly when she started growing her mane, but she was over 20 years old when she passed in 2019 with these luscious locks.
Here's another female at the same facility, named Adeena. On the left is a photo of her from 2021, on the right is from this spring (I think she's mid-sneeze in the photo). She turns 20 in October.
If you've heard about maned lionesses before, it’s probably because of Zuri, at Topeka. She’s the most recent one to get media coverage and she went a little viral.
(Just a side note here, but I have some strong feelings about knowledge loss in the exotic animal management world due to political/philosophical schisms. This is one of those topics where it's clear: Topeka told a reporter that the zoo had “never" heard of this happening before, but it's common enough to be well known as a thing in other sectors of the exotic cat world. There's so much expertise and knowledge being lost due to infighting between accrediting groups, and it drives me up a wall).
Anyway. Zuri had one of the best manes I've seen on an elderly lioness. It grew long and lush and she totally could have done shampoo commercials. I mean, look at this.
Zuri lived with her sister, who didn't grow a mane in her old age. Here's the two of them together, Zuri on the left, Asante on the right.
We don't completely know what's going on with these golden girls to cause them to grow manes. It's theorized to be related to the end of estrus and higher levels of androgenic hormones, although it's not clear if that's just due to lower levels of other hormones during "meownopause" or if there's something else also going on.
There was some speculation with Zuri's mane growth that it was caused by the death of the male she lived with, in some biological need to "take over the role." The zoo dismissed that idea pretty quickly, and it makes sense, although there is one other instance where I've heard of that happening before.
The cat people I've talked to say that older lionesses who grow manes don't tend to act differently - they're not taking over new social roles in their prides or anything. Sometimes they can be less active, or be a little more nervous around males, and want to be left alone more, but it was emphasized to me that those behaviors could also just be associated with the fact that manes tends to develop in elderly lionesses.
The mane growth can happen pretty quickly, as we saw in the photos I've posted of Tandie over the last year. Here's Bridget, from the Oklahoma Zoo. The left photo was taken in March of 2017 and the right in November - look how much hair she gained over six months!
The zoo did some research into what might have cause Bridget's mane growth, and found that she had elevated levels of androstenedione, which is a hormone that can be converted by the body into either testosterone or estrogen, depending. In AFAB people, it's known to have a masculinizing effect. The zoo theorized that this was the cause of her mane growth, and that the elevated levels might have been caused by a benign tumor. Fascinatingly, though, blood draws revealed that her testosterone levels were the same as her mane-less sister, Tia.
Tia is on the left in the photo below, Bridget and the beginnings of her mane are on the right. Bridget was 17 when her mane started growing in.
I don't think there's any formal hypothesis that there might be a genetic component to lionesses growing manes in old age, but it's interesting to note that one of Tia's daughters, Zari, also grew a mane. (And she grew it young! It started around age 13, interestingly, also right after their male died). She's on the left in the photo below.
And to circle back around to where we began: Tandie is related to a number of maned ladies! His father, Xerxes, was Bridget's son; Zari was Xerxes' half-sister.
Here's a few more beautiful maned ladies to leave you with. In order, Ngala, Pepper, Skye, and Dandy Lion.
Next up, and last in this lion mane series, is the story of five younger lionesses in Botswana who not only have manes but also express a range of masculine behaviors.
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A huge thanks to all the folk who shared photos of and stories about their golden girls for this post: M. Townsen, S.W. Simpson, E. Day, S. Cook, M. Stinner, M. Paul, K. Vanaman, D. O'Halloran, R. Simpson, D. Souffrant.
Based on a conversation some of my friends had about Dipper and Mabel becoming warriors kids- I can't take credit for the idea or dialogue, but it WAS fun bringing it to life.
Very small snippet of a VERY unfinished animation. Freaks!
known booboo moveset:
booboo wheel
booboo missile
booboo shield
I bet octopuses think bones are horrific. I bet all their cosmic horror stories involve rigid-limbs and hinged joints.
chilshi week day 5: cuddling + kiss
stills under the cut!
Moths in Disguise: these are all just harmless moths that have developed the ability to mimic wasps, bees, and/or hornets
Top Row (left to right): Eusphecia pimplaeformis and Myrmecopsis polistes; Bottom Row: Pennisetia marginatum
Moths are exceptionally skilled when it comes to mimicry, and there are hundreds of moth species that rely on that tactic as a way to protect themselves from predators. Their disguises are numerous and varied, but hymenopteran mimicry is particularly common, especially among the moths that belong to subfamily Sesiidae and family Arctiinae.
Yellowjacket-Mimicking Moths: Pseudosphex sp. (top and bottom left) and Myrmecopsis polistes (bottom right)
Some of their disguises involve more than just a physical resemblance -- there are some moths that also engage in behavioral and/or acoustic mimicry, meaning that they can imitate the specific sounds and behaviors of their hymenopteran models. In some cases, these moths are so convincing that they can even fool the actual wasps/bees that they are mimicking.
Such a detailed and intricate disguise is unusual even among mimics, and researchers believe that it developed partly as a way to trick the wasps into treating the mimic like one of their own. Wasps tend to prey upon moths (and many other insects), but they are innately non-aggressive toward their own nest-mates, which are identified by sight -- so if the moth can convincingly impersonate its model, then it can avoid being eaten by predatory wasps.
Wasp-Mimicking Moths: Pseudosphex ichneumonea (top), Myrmecopsis sp. (bottom left), and Pseudosphex sp. (bottom right)
There are many moths that can also mimic hornets, bumblebees, and carpenter bees.
Hornet-Mimicking Moths: Eusphecia pimplaeformis (top left), Sesia apiformis (bottom left), Paranthrene simulans (top right), Pennisetia marginatum (middle right), and Sphecodoptera scribai (bottom left)
Bumblebee-Mimicking Moths: Hemaris tityus (top and bottom left) and Hemaris affinis (bottom right)
Moths are some of the most talented mimics in the natural world, as illustrated by their mastery of hymenopteran mimicry. But it's not just bees, hornets, and wasps -- there are many other forms of mimicry that can be found among moths, and the resemblance is often staggering.
Moths deserve far more credit than they receive, to be honest, because they are so incredibly interesting/diverse.
Sources & More Info:
Journal of Ecology and Evolution: A Hypothesis to Explain the Accuracy of Wasp Resemblances
Frontiers in Zoology: Southeast Asian clearwing moths buzz like their model bees
Royal Society Publishing: Moving like a model: mimicry of hymenopteran flight trajectories by clearwing moths of Southeast Asian rainforests