Little lady, Penny 🤍
Found this little creature inside my parents house 💚
My sweet Phlogius Kuranda made an appearance after a few weeks 💚
Her setup, I want her to web up the skull so badly
Found this gorgeous little guy 💚
He was a bit cursed zoomed in 👀
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Not Mine. Thought to Share.
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Venator immansuetus
I found this gorgeous Western Variable Wolf Spider in a public toilet on the second floor of a building. I don't know how she got there but she's absolutely beautiful.
She was all curled up in the corner when I found her. I thought she was was dead at first so a gently poked her. There was a bit of a delayed reaction, but about 5 seconds later she spun to face me. That's when I started recording her.
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Silver Orb Spider 💚 wish I got a better photo of it, preferably not upside down 🥲
Hanging out with my son in the sun
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mf-dooom
that is the face of a man worried he will be next
Sorry, he WHAT? Imagine being this man's boss and having to sit him down like. Listen. Brian. We need you to fuck the bird. You have to act like you're excited about it.
crane husband.....
this is the diametric opposite of all those awful swan wife stories and i love it.
(WalWaPo makes you jump through like three separate hoops before you can read the article, so I will share some of the highlights:
- Walnut was born in a species-recovery breeding program in the 1980′s. The program had crane chicks hand-raised by human volunteers, and at that time they did not fully understand the measures necessary make sure that the chicks do not imprint on humans and retain their identity as cranes.
- As a result, her keepers believe, Walnut does not recognize other cranes as members of her own species.
- It has not been proven that Walnut killed her previous suitors; however, there is a persistent rumor in the white-naped-crane-conservation community that she did.
- Because this species is highly endangered, and the gene pool of the captive population is small, it’s pretty important for the survival of her species that Walnut A) mate, and B) not kill a bunch of other cranes.
- The actual name of the keeper is Chris Crowe.
- They both arrived at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2004.
- Walnut immediately began paying special attention to Chris--and ignoring the eligible male crane in a nearby enclosure.
- Walnut initiated their courtship, performing the opening moves of a mating dance.
- Chris realized that if he reciprocated the mating dance, it might be possible to artificially inseminate Walnut with her participation and consent. (The process normally involves restraining the bird.)
- It worked!
- Chris and Walnut have had five children, who were raised by other crane couples at the facility--sometimes the biological dad and his mate--both because it’s unclear whether Walnut would accept the chicks as her own, and because Chris is not equipped to be a Crane Dad.
- However, the Institute provides her with artificial eggs to sit on, and Chris takes his turn looking after them. (This would not work with real eggs because he can’t sit on them properly, but Walnut seems to feel that he is on the job if he just stands over them.)
- Chris accepts that he is pretty much married to this bird. White-naped cranes live to be about 60, and they mate for life, so he knows he can’t retire while Walnut is alive. (At the time of the article, Walnut was 36, and Chris 42.)
Legit cannot pick the funniest part of this
she has not been PROVEN to have killed her exes, but there is a PERSISTENT RUMOR (really officers she's simply DEVASTATED, she sobs, wearing a new feather boa unfortunately resembling her most recent deceased husband)
His name is Chris CROWE. (Mrs. Walnut Crane-Crowe?)
the mental images of a whole human man learning and performing the crane mating dance, and "sitting" on artificial eggs so she thinks he's performing his duties as a husband and father (and apparently OBJECTS if he does not?)
"chris, buddy, you gotta marry the possibly-murderous crane lady for the GOOD OF THE SPECIES." (alternately: "chris, my man! good news! we found you a very interested lady! She's 36, she's very spirited and independent, she holds a very important and rare status in her society! ...Is there a downside? WELL...")
chris sits any potential human partners down, like "my love, you must understand before we wed,,, i am already... Attached" (camera drifts wistfully to the above photo) "Lady Walnut and I have an,, Understanding... the relationship is open, but very committed"
just had to explain this post to my father bc he thought my stifled laughter was a signal of illness.
well done, everyone, good game. hit the showers.
Not only is he 'married' to walnut, this has apparently happened SEVERAL times, so he has MULTIPLE crane wives, none of which know about any of his other crane wives. This man is, for some unknown reason, irresistible to cranes
the “this content has been removed for violating Tumblr’s Community Guidelines” notice really adds a lot of flavor to this post and somehow makes it MORE obscene than whatever that actually was
World Heritage Post
I regret being the bearer of bad news, but I thought it should be shared that Walnut passed away in January of this year (2024). There's a lot of mixed info about the lifespan of cranes (due to people misunderstanding what a median is...) but the average for most species I know of is 20-30 years (in the wild if nothing eats them/they don't die young), and 30-45 in captivity, with the oldest known white-naped crane having loved to be 46. Given that she was 42, this old gal did good, and I'm certain she will be missed by folks here.
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@wakeupclownboy submitted: I went to an oddities expo and got to hold this darling girl! Thought of all the blogs you'd appreciate her most!
Apologies for the quality, my camera is the worst
Quality is perfectly fine and she's beautiful!
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Stella molted while I was away! she is so big now
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you guys Need to start seeing bugs as animals im not even joking anymore. the second u start seeing them as tiny animals the more your world opens up and the more you accept different types of life Into that world. youll begin accepting that even life you cant understand is still worth living. and itll legitimately make you a better person. fuck
Not a bug, but a shameless self-promo for my Instagram! I don't post much insect related content on there, instead I usually post other animal photography :)
Gorgeous girly, Sydney grey huntsman