werkin on that ster trak

what is it about capybaras that attracts groups of small animals to them? Its not just mammals either its like birds and turtles and frogs too

look at this shit

They radiate peace

capybaras are friend shaped

I love this post

This is actually a cool thing I know about!

In the wild capybaras live in large groups so naturally a female capybara will take care of not only her own offspring, but all of the other offspring in the group. So capybaras are super great mothers who will adopt pretty much anything and take care of it.

Lots of places that rescue different animals will give a group of baby animals to a capybara to raise if they have one.

Like puppies

Ducks

Deer

Emus

They are just super calm animals so they’re naturally great at mothering or just existing in a group!

They’re friend shaped

Ever needed to hear about mad dad birds with enormous feet? Try THESE on for size:

What’s that you say? These are clearly the feet of a dinosaur, not a bird? WHY NOT BOTH?

This is Australia’s very own dinosaur, the second-largest bird in the world, the emu. Say hi!

They roam around Australia making ‘wonk-wonk’ noises under their breath and glaring at everything. And the dads take care of the babies! They sit on the eggs…

They look after the tiny stripey adorable things….

They look after the less tiny less adorable things…

And they even look after the great big menacing things that are almost as big as they are.

But here’s the catch. All emus look pretty much alike. Especially when you are a tiny stripey adorable thing. All you can see of your dad is is great big dinosaur feet (see picture #1). So there is one very unrealistic thing about all the adorable terrifying dinosaur family photos above:

I have never seen an emu family in the wild where all the babies are the same size.

Here is the reason!

Emu dad and his emu babies are roaming about wonking and glaring at everyone. Suddenly emu dad sees another emu dad! A threat!

Emu dads do some display threats with dancing and bouncing and fluffing and… look, it’s very serious business, okay?

If this does not work to see off one emu they might progress to actual fighting.

Oops, sorry, you wanted the dignified version. Here, have some ART:

MAGNIFICENT.

Either way, this encounter will end up with one or both adult emus zooming away as fast as he can run. This is very fast.

This is the other thing they do besides wonking and glaring, by the way. They run. Fear the running emu.

Anyway, this leaves all the tiny and medium-sized and semi-large stripey things milling around making confused tiny “cheep? wonk?” noises and basically just following whichever pair of large feet they can find.

HI DAD

And so mostly when you see a male emu with a gaggle of youngsters at heel, they are all different sizes. Who knows whose they are? Not him! But he’s going to look after them anyway.

Fear him.

@croatoan-the-line @usshawkass @the-mongoose-cannon @sabre070 @jaysonblaze

*evo-psych voice* and this, you see, is why men are particularly suited to nursing and childcare work. As we see in the wild, for instance with emus, paternal instincts run deep and often over-ride blood ties and competitive instinct!