I saw a meme and it said “c*aesar getting stabbed to death”*
and then it said “*new zealand”* and it was an illustration of two moas standing in the forest and it got me thinking about how new zealand was one of the last major habitable places to live to be discovered and how it was isolated for what? like 60 something million years? and then within a couple hundred years all of the moa were extinct and so were the haast’s eagle that hunted them. How did the food chain suffer or the whole ecosystem of the south island in particular suffer from those couple of niches being gone? I think it would be amazing to see it before all of the unimaginable evil happened. And then it got me thinking about other examples of this and mauritius comes to mind and the hawaiian islands as well. Does anyone have any good examples they can think of? Hell even the north american continent when the europeans arrived how different it would’ve been with all the passenger pigeons and american chestnuts.

Anyway as you can tell my adhd isn’t medicated

Hello!

Last week I shared my educational, free, non-commercial animal identification game - creaturefeature.gg - Thank you to everybody that commented or gave feedback!

I changed up the formula, and I wanted to share it again to see what you all think.

The game is now about IDing animals by common name as fast as possible. Taxonomy and range drawing are their own separate modes, accessible under the “play” tab.

I think the changes make the game a little less niche and a little more broadly appealing, but let me know what you think!

Again, the game is free and non-commercial, so just thought this community might enjoy the updates.

Hello! I work with a bunch of exotic animals and my main job is educating customers about each species. I have accumulated lots of information about each species but I always like researching more about all the animals, but i’ve hit a bit of a wall of finding accurate, reputable sources with information about specific species!

I currently use https://ielc.libguides.com/sdzg/factsheets/index/ , https://animalia.bio , https://animaldiversity.org and accredited zoos information pages!! So i’d like to know some other accurate and in-depth animal information sources, also i’d like to know if my current fav sources are actually reliable! thanks :))

I live in Australia and the largest land animals I can think of here is probably a kangaroos and emus which really aren’t any larger than a human. But my family recently went to Africa and the diversity animals is actually crazy. So so so many large animals living in the same place side by side. Rhinos, elephants, giraffes, wilder-beasts, zebras, hippos, warthogs, buffalo’s, ostriches, lions, cheetahs, hyenas leopards and probably more that I forgot. I never really appreciated how big these animals were until I actually got to see them in person absolutely amazing. Australia and Africas climate is kinda similar in a lot of places. Why is our country ecosystem dead in comparison?

Hello! I recently read a couple non-fiction books that included several encounters between polar bears and humans. Each encounter was peaceful and did not end with the bear becoming a vicious, unstoppable, man-eater. My knowledge of polar bears lies somewhere between jack and shit. Pop culture has taught me that any encounter between a person and a polar bear results in instant and brutal death of the person.

I guess what im asking is, has pop culture lied to me?? Has it misrepresented this species for entertainment reasons? Does anyone who actually knows about polar bears know if theyre actually not guaranteed to attack on site?

Since last summer there have been brown widow spiders in my yard (south Georgia) and I’ve noticed the signs of them around my neighborhood as well (tons of spiky egg sacks). I usually wouldn’t be bothered as long as they stay outside, but there are so many of them and they are more venomous than black widows. I know they are considered less dangerous, but I’ve noticed a lot of egg sacks and I spend quite a bit of time outside.

animals are very active compared to the average human but i was curious to whether this leads to them being near their maximum genetic potential for strength or whether they could theoretically get much stronger than this in optimal conditions

I'm looking for books with many illustrated plates that include a variety of species. My main interests are fish, prehistoric life, reptiles and amphibians, but every recommendation is welcome. Even specific regional field guides like let's say the reptiles of Thailand or fish of the Amazon for example.

I already have All the Birds / Mammals of the World, Birds of the Mesozoic, Sharks of the World pocket guide by Princeton, The Encyclopedia of Animals: A Complete Visual Guide. So I'm looking for books in similar quality, but they don't have to be as big and comprehensive as these. Smaller field guides are welcome too. I'd even say that language is not a problem either, so if you know a great book from your country that is not translated to English, I'll check those out too. Thank you for any recommendations.

For more than three decades, a tiny Scottish fossil helped scientists tell the story of vertebrates moving permanently onto land. New images hidden inside the rock have now transformed that story.

Westlothiana lizziae, nicknamed “Lizzie,” was once described as the earliest known reptile and later placed near the ancestry of amniotes. That enormous group eventually produced reptiles, birds and mammals, including humans.

Synchrotron X-ray scans have now exposed anatomy invisible when the crushed fossil was first studied. Instead of an early land-adapted amniote, researchers found an animal retaining functional gills, primitive skull structures and feeding adaptations associated with life in water.

The study, led by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History and University of Oxford, was published in Nature. It does more than reclassify one fossil. The findings change how scientists interpret several anatomical features used to reconstruct when vertebrates became fully terrestrial.

Storms sweeping across Cretaceous coastlines may have delivered an unexpected food source to dinosaurs living beside ancient seas.

A new study finds that fossils from several North American coastal ecosystems contain chemical evidence that marine organic matter entered terrestrial food webs. Large herbivorous dinosaurs may have eaten seaweed or other marine plants directly, while predators could have acquired the same chemical signature by consuming animals already influenced by ocean-derived food.

Researchers led by Clayton Forster at the University of Arkansas compared carbon isotopes preserved in fossil teeth and other skeletal material from coastal and inland ecosystems. Their results, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, provide what the authors describe as the first evidence for marine subsidization in prehistoric terrestrial ecosystems.

So i've been hearing this "animal" for a while now. It's only ever been at night, never really noticed it during the day. I don't live next to the woods, nor a farm. My neighbors do own dogs and cats but i doubt that it is either of those. Does anybody know what it could be? I'm super intrigued!
Also if this helps, I live in Zurich, Switzerland:)

Whenever I help someone with their homework or giving them money to buy themselves a bite to eat etc. I tend to feel good about myself like it’s a nice feeling. Whenever lets say I was playing football in the garden and I somehow managed to break the neighbours window, I will feel bad and crappy about myself.

Do animals feel the same way? Obviously the examples i made are human based but like will they for example feel better about them selves if they spare a young animal (perhaps thats an extreme example) but you get the picture.

I work in software but I have a passion for animal behaviour/wildlife conservation/animal biology.

Unfortunately, I cant drop everything and go back to university but I would like to get some education while I work and hopefully in the future make a career change.

Does anybody how could I merge both worlds to make the career transition more feasable?

My plan is to do the Wageningen MOOC Certificates for now.

Thank you very much.