i need more of these kinds of images

when your art program’s closing message hits you straight in the heart and makes you stop and contemplate the state of it all

because of the huge response to this post, I decided to make a version of the art that includes the text

I’ve also uploaded this design to INPRNT, and all sales proceeds will be donated to environmental and humanitarian charities!

this is still going around with the old dead links - please help me share this version

The sizzling sound of coke in my hand is hypnotic to Escobar

small artists

I’m quite fond of scarlet and turquoise together, and Edessa rufomarginata displays them both in the form of a gorgeous stinkbug!

seen in Costa Rica, alongside an equally beautiful juvenile of the same species. they are quite common in this habitat but no less pretty for it!

He’s being cleaned, not just pet, but judging by that big contented rumble you can hear, he’s quite enjoying it!

When you’re a prehistoric dinosaur and it’s scritches time

brushie brushie brushie 

It really is fascinating that basically every animal on earth that has some sort of skin integument enjoys a lil scratch. I mean it makes sense but like. Humans evolved from social grooming animals and we have perfect little grooming hands and basically everything on earth with scales, fur or feathers can basically be convinced to let us give them free back scratches. Humans don’t even get anything out of it other than the satisfaction of helping out. We’re just really good at it. What a useful creature to be put on a planet full of animals who can’t reach their backs.

That beastie is straight-up PURRING 💟💟💟

This is a REALLY GOOD example of an alligator who’s happy with his situation. As I’ve talked about distressed alligator behavior before, it’s worth it to point out how you can tell that this fella is absolutely pleased as punch to be having his back scratched.

How waterfalls look underneath

via johnderting

Pyunggang Botanical Garden (평강식물원) // Hello Korea ♡

Little spiders will hang out and be like "I had a bug but I eated it"

i'm so sick of being the only person who can make simple connections of how doing a thing to the ecosystem has effects. so so so so sick NO ONE knows the ways of the plants

sorry just venting over how i am so so so small and the task is so so so big

This year, I had a balcony garden.

I wanted to last year but I 'never got round to it'. I kill a lot of plants (not on purpose. ADHD and constant watering is hard, and sometimes it's just me confused as fuck about why I suddenly have x thing happening to my leaves) and kind of felt it was hopeless anyway.

Then I was reading your posts, and how you were seeing biodiversity in even small little hopeful changes. And I was like. Hey. Even if I do kill the plants. They will feed insects for a little, while they survive, and after, I can put them in my compost pile and they will feed more insects, and the flowers (if I get any) will feed bees (which are my special children) and so, even if it doesn't give me food, and even if they die, it might be worth it to try.

I never ate the cilantro. Turns out my flatmate has the soap gene. But it flowered like CRAZY and there were SO many happy pollinators.

I ate so many green onion shoots. The bulbs I still haven't pulled because they just keep giving me shoots to eat.

The mint is going HAM and also the insects loved the flowers.

The cucumber plants went absolutely APESHIT and produced flowers ALL SUMMER, and they were BEAUTIFUL, and I couldn't walk outside without a bee or, occasionally, a butterfly dropping by. It's STILL FLOWERING in NOVEMBER in PHILLY and now I have ladybugs and fireflies. FIREFLIES! I didn't see a single one last year and now they love my balcony and I love them so much. I only got two cucumbers but I don't even care.

I had a bunch of nonedibles in a little greenhouse thing, and they flowered too, and I'd find random bugs (a grasshopper. Huge. Massive) in there hanging out. They died when the greenhouse got blown over but they lasted longer than I ever expected to keep a plant alive.

The birds came by my balcony despite the cat avidly watching them by the window. More types of birds, too. And my little compost box is constantly happy with fruit flies and regular flies and things I don't recognize. I never did get around to buying worms, but I haven't had to because the insects are having a blast in there and every time I think "oh, it'll be full" it is, once again, not full because it has been broken down further.

There is a tiny ecosystem on my 6th floor apartment balcony because you get excited about plants, and it was inspiring enough to get me off my ass. Because even if I didn't eat my plants, you reminded me SOMETHING ELSE WOULD.

The task is so so big. But if my fruit flies can eat an entire watermelon (yes. There was an entire watermelon in my compost bin at one point), I think you and I can tackle this watermelon together.

...Oh...Sheds a single tear that contains so much happiness

okay

here’s the silliest caterpillar I think I’ve ever seen in the mangroves of Singapore. it wasn’t just hairy, but coated with a thick cottony (wax?) coating that worked quite well to confuse the passing predatory weaver ants.

I did give it a curious poke and the fluff stuck to my finger, with no ill effects. bizarre little beastie, I wonder what it’ll mature into

i'm obsessed with how caterpillar survival strategies are mostly "be too confusing to eat"

All grown up moth friend. (Source:)

oh yep that’s definitely it! wasn’t expecting it to be in the Nolidae which means both the silliest and second silliest cats I saw in Singapore were nolids… observe the peabrain

chloephorines (subfamily) are thought to use their swollen necks to mimic unripe berries, which are much less tasty to birds than caterpillars or ripe berries.

new aquarium inhabitants