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Post by Pastafarian on Oct 12, 2019 13:07:48 GMT -5
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Post by haysoos on Oct 15, 2019 10:27:20 GMT -5
That particular vulture has some sanguinary diet augmentation to his plumage hue. They aren't usually quite so... Elton John. Their dramatic appearance has made them very popular as a model for dinosaur reconstructions in recent years. Here's a couple of restorations of Deinonychus antirrhopus (the actual critter that the Velociraptors of Jurassic Park are most similar to) based on bearded vulture plumage. And one of UtahraptorAnd here's a guy actually holding a Velociraptor with bearded vulture feathering. Oh wait. That's actually a real bearded vulture. Holy fuck, those birds are metal.
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Post by Pastafarian on Oct 17, 2019 7:40:45 GMT -5
That particular vulture has some sanguinary diet augmentation to his plumage hue. They aren't usually quite so... Elton John. Their dramatic appearance has made them very popular as a model for dinosaur reconstructions in recent years. Here's a couple of restorations of Deinonychus antirrhopus (the actual critter that the Velociraptors of Jurassic Park are most similar to) based on bearded vulture plumage. And one of UtahraptorAnd here's a guy actually holding a Velociraptor with bearded vulture feathering. Oh wait. That's actually a real bearded vulture. Holy fuck, those birds are metal. Two things: 1) thanks for the info, that's fascinating. 2) CHRIST that's a big bird!
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Post by King Charles’s Butterfly on Oct 21, 2019 23:08:33 GMT -5
haysoos I was aware of dragonfly nymphs but now I’m really impressed by them. Seriously my favorite insects. Also, beyond the amazing footage, the Brandenburg concertos in the background really helps make the video.
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Post by King Charles’s Butterfly on Oct 21, 2019 23:12:34 GMT -5
[…] Oh wait. That's actually a real bearded vulture. Holy fuck, those birds are metal. I can’t look pictures feathered dromaeosaurs anymore without thinking of the Avisapien:
Wait, I easily can now that I looked it up again (thought I remembered it being more colorful).
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Post by haysoos on Oct 22, 2019 9:48:05 GMT -5
[…] Oh wait. That's actually a real bearded vulture. Holy fuck, those birds are metal. I can’t look pictures feathered dromaeosaurs anymore without thinking of the Avisapien:
Wait, I easily can now that I looked it up again (thought I remembered it being more colorful).
I'm more curious about what the fuck is up with the human in that scale silhouette? It took me way too long to parse the anatomy, and even then I don't comprehend what they're supposed to be doing. The same artist made a series of other speculative intelligent dinosaur species. I can't seem to find much in the way of colour images of any of them. I'm not really a big fan of any of them. Kosemen's work always looks more like Hieronymus Bosch than plausible biology to me, even when he's depicting existing species. And his speculative stuff can be downright... nope. This is Barosapiens titanis a fictional intelligent race descended from sauropod dinosaurs. Below are some descendants of prolacertiform reptiles (more related to modern lizards), and flightless pterosaurs: Not really my cup of tea. I do agree that the upright hominid stance is wildly incorrect for any theoretical intelligent dinosaur though. cmkosemen.com/main.html
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Post by songstarliner on Nov 9, 2019 13:09:36 GMT -5
All of the True Facts videos are worth watching; here's a new one that features some truly remarkable-looking leafhoppers.
I mean ... just look at this one, holy heck.
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Post by nowimnothing on Nov 15, 2019 14:46:40 GMT -5
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Post by songstarliner on Nov 15, 2019 18:22:51 GMT -5
WHAT THE FUCK
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Post by Ben Grimm on Jan 8, 2020 10:52:49 GMT -5
Great Potoo:
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Post by nowimnothing on Jan 9, 2020 13:23:54 GMT -5
The male Asian sheepshead wrasse everybody:
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Post by haysoos on Jan 15, 2020 17:18:01 GMT -5
Great Potoo: Obviously I've been neglecting this wing of the TI. Just saw this now. Actually, only the middle one is a great potoo. The two on the ends are the lesser or common potoo (or possibly the northern potoo). There are a few other species as well, such as the white-winged potoo and the Andean potoo. They're found today in Central and South America in humid forests, but their fossils have been found in North America, France and Germany going back to the Eocene about 50 million years ago. Besides their generally ridiculous appearance, which is difficult to distinguish from "Jim Henson was only given twenty minutes and a feather duster and told to come up with a new Muppet", they are also ridiculously good at camouflage. Here's a great potoo pretending to be a broken branch: Here's a common potoo doing the same trick: When you get close to them, they freeze up and stay rigid. It's possible to get within centimeters of them without them twitching a muscle (and probably without you even being aware if you're not alert). This video has some great footage of a camouflaged common potoo brazenly staying hidden in plain sight. There's another video of the great potoo, with David Attenborough, but all the Youtube versions I can find are about 240K resolution. But there is a video (really just audio) of the ridiculous call of the great potoo. The common potoo just makes a horrible normal kind of bird squawk, but the great potoo sounds like the creepy ghost of a lost child calling for his Mom.
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Post by nowimnothing on Jan 21, 2020 21:43:49 GMT -5
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Post by haysoos on Jan 22, 2020 11:45:05 GMT -5
here are actually four species of dik-dik. I'm not sure how many of them are unsolicited. But there is Gunther's dik-dik, Kirk's dik-dik, Salt's dik-dik, and of course the Silver dik-dik.
Kirk's dik-dik is the biggest, at up to 18" (at the shoulder), and should be mandatory knowledge for anyone named Kirk.
The silver dik-dik is the smallest, only about 13", although almost indistinguishable from the Salt's dik-dik.
As you can imagine, a cute little dik-dik is potential prey for a vast array of lethal predators in Africa, including not just leopards, lions, hyenas, and humans, but also servals, caracals, eagles, hawks, pythons, monitor lizards, and cheetahs. About their only defense is speed. Their little legs can carry them up to 42 kph (26 mph).
As they run from their many enemies, they basically swear constantly, and rightly so. They tear through the grass in a zig-zag pattern going "Dik dik dik dik dik dik dik dik!" And that's how they get their name. No, seriously, that's where the name comes from.
Here's a video of a dik-dik giving alarm calls
Okay, admittedly I don't hear "dik dik" either, but look at how ridiculously cute that little mobile snoot is!
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Post by Mrs David Tennant on Jan 22, 2020 14:42:07 GMT -5
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moimoi
AV Clubber
Posts: 5,006
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Post by moimoi on May 1, 2020 10:31:14 GMT -5
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Post by Ben Grimm on May 1, 2020 14:39:14 GMT -5
Pallas Cat:
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Post by songstarliner on Jul 20, 2022 22:09:34 GMT -5
Here's the Grunt Sculpin: it's tiny! The largest recorded length for the Grunt Sculpin is only 8.9 cm.
It lives along the rocky shores of the Pacific Northwest, and is often found hiding inside barnacle shells.
It can sort of swim, but mostly it hops along the ocean floor on its fins like some kind of fishy rodent.
I mean, that's just my opinion about the rodent, but it does have a snout like a shrew.
Look at this thing! Emerald eyes, spiny orange fins, tiny walky-walky fish thing.
It's said they make a grunting noise when you pick them up, like little fishy piglets, but I can't find any audio of that which makes me sad. Still, look at this ridiculous creature, Grunt Sculpin everyone *cheers and claps*
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Post by haysoos on Jul 22, 2022 12:56:53 GMT -5
If I saw that thing scurrying around the ocean floor, I would assume it was some kind of shrimp or something. Not sure I'd ever consider it might be a vertebrate.
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Post by songstarliner on Sept 20, 2022 18:53:48 GMT -5
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Post by songstarliner on Sept 20, 2022 23:04:18 GMT -5
And here we have several kinds of quoll, a cute and spotty marsupial from Australia:
They have a silly name, but not nearly as silly as some of their relatives - like numbats, wambengers, and dunnarts. Oh, Australia.
They're also related to the extinct (?) thylacine, and display a similar gaping behavior meant to intimidate other beasties. Fierce!
So cute. Look at that pink nose.
Eh, not especially ridiculous unless, you count ridiculously cute and spotty.
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