From Jellybean To (frosted) Cinnamon Bread Loaf...

Bat Profile: Spectral Bat

Vampyrum spectrum

Source & Photo credit: Jennifer Barros

RANGE: Central & South America

CONSERVATION STATUS: Near-Threatened

HABITAT & DIET: Like so many bats, we still have a lot to learn about this species. But we do know a few things about their diet and roosts. First, they are carnivores. This species is particularly large (see below) and thus they will eat birds are large as doves and cuckoos, as well as rodents and other bat species. They have even been observed eating bats right out of researcher's nets!

They live in smaller groups that are most often found in hollow trees. One of their unique traits is that they appear to form monogamous pairs, which is very unusual for bats.

Fun Fact: With a wingspan of about 1 meter, the spectral bat is the largest bat species in the western hemisphere and also the largest carnivorous bat in the WORLD!

Here is my small piece of advice/plea for for the future for y'all for today, and I may be lightly skirting an NDA to say it, so please listen:

If you can, buy physical books.

I work in publishing and I'm scared about what the election results are going to mean for the future of books by and about marginalized people, especially books for children. There are a lot of things you can do by trying to get involved locally, especially to mobilize against book bans and laws targeting libraries and schools. Voting with your wallet is still an extremely important tactic, because we're going to be hit with economic issues re: diverse books before we get hit with legal ones. But my immediate concern is what might happen with e-books.

It's already a known problem that if you "buy" a book on Kindle or another e-reader, that you're essentially renting it from that retailer, and if that retailer decides to remove that book, they can wipe it from your device. We also know that servers can be shut down. Content policies can change. It could get very difficult to find a copy of the files to pirate, much less to purchase.

But you can't delete a physical book from the world.

Physical books are about to become very important repositories. Collect them, if you can. Go to library sales. Go to thrift stores. Go to your local bookstore -- and bonus point here: independent bookstores are and will be great hubs for organizing in the coming days. Hell, I'd even encourage you to go through Amazon to send a message that these books are still financially viable. Lord knows the latter doesn't want to advertise them to you.

I know (I know) that physical books are expensive and getting more so. I know space is at a premium in a world where we're being pushed to live in smaller and smaller apartments with more and more roommates. But if there's a book that was important to you, and if it's a book you think a bigot wouldn't want to exist in the world, I urge you to get your hands on a physical copy of that book. If nothing else, to preserve it for the next generation.

ALL of us can be librarians. ALL of us can be archivists. ALL of us can work together to preserve marginalized voices, and to ensure that they are heard.

I love you. Keep fighting. We're in this together.

They make little Igloos

Tailed Tailless Bat, photographed by Irineu Cunha, (source)

I judge how difficult a day has been by how many times I've caught myself having the Bat Fantasy

Neither did I! It's in the OP's last fact sheet; Tadarida brasiliensis (TABR) is the scientific name for the Mexican free-tailed bat. Or, rather, the Brazilian free-tailed bat, of which the Mexican freetail is a regional subspecies thereof (Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana).

Fun fact! TABR are the fastest flying animals, clocking in with a level flight speed of almost 100mi/h - or roughly 160km/h. While the peregrine falcon is capable of sustaining higher velocities, that is in a dive and thus gravity-assisted - not sustained level flight. (and if some fellows might want to banter on about that somehow counting against the Molossidae, well... an individual has the option to reference STS-119.)

They also smell like corn chips / tacos. No, that's not a joke. https://batworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/free-tails-smell-like-tacos.pdf

A zine i made for my art class talking about bats and all the facts i know about them!

create

Bonus comics: patreon.com/nhoj

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For my non-German mutuals wondering wtf is happening in the Bundesrepublik of Beer and Bread, here is an overview over the clown show so far:

Nov 6 - chancellor Olaf Scholz fires minister of finances Christian Lindner (FDP) for being an incompetent little bitch and drags him on live TV, resulting in a government crisis as the three party coalition (named Ampel aka "Traffic Light"), which is ruling the country at the moment, falls apart.

Scholz also calls for a vote of confidence on January 15th which (if lost) will lead to the Bundestag being dissolved, triggering snap elections in March. This sends everyone into a panic because the ultra right-wing AfD (with Best Of hits such as "Russia is sexy.", "We should criminalize abortions and force every woman to have more babies instead of rights." and "Deport all immigrants and traitors." and the inofficial ones such as "Why don't we just kill everyone we don't like, let's start with the queers.") has been gaining support for a while (because MAGA has no monopoly on racism, sexism, hate and overall stupidity) and no one with an ounce of empathy or a triple digit IQ likes that very much and is thus worried they might actually make it into a new coalition.

Nov 7 - minister for justice Marco Buschmann is heartbroken over the Ampel-Aus and resigns.

Volker Wissing (FDP), minister for transport, commits the funniest anime betrayal and backstabs his party in order to keep his job, leaves the FDP but gets promoted to minister of justice as a little treat. The memes skyrocket.

Bettina Stark-Watzinger, minister of education and research, resigns along with Buschmann and gets replaced by Cem Özdemir (current minister for food and agriculture) because agriculture - education - at the end of the day where's the difference, right?

Federal President Steinmeier hands Christian Lindner his official participation certificate in an awkward ceremony at castle Bellevue. This is broadcast live on television so everyone can be sure that the little bitch is really leaving.

Friedrich Merz (CDU) threatens the nation with the promise that if he (Merz) becomes chancellor, he will let Lindner back into the government so they can keep fucking up the country's budget together. Bffs.

Nov 8 - after backstabbing the FDP Wissing's website gets hacked in retaliation to display FDP ads.

Meanwhile concerns are being voiced that snap elections in March might be way too early due to a lack of paper.

Robert Habeck (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), vice chancellor and minister for economic affairs and climate action, announces that he will be running for the position of chancellor with a social media post that shows him wearing a Swiftie bracelet which spells "Kanzler-Era" (chancellor-era). This sends Gundolf Siebeke from the super conservative CDU spiralling.

Nov 9 - Siebeke fires off a tweet stating that if Habeck becomes chancellor that would of course be totally the fault of women alone (who are all too emotional to make rational decisions) and Germany should "inofficially" consider revoking women's right to vote and officially implement "antiemotional" history lessons in school, earning him a massive shitstorm (completely deserved). Siebeke deletes the tweet.

Nov 10 - previous minister of justice Marco Buschmann processes his grief over the end of the traffic light coalition by composing and uploading a song to Soundcloud (feat. Gregorian chants) which is not exactly a banger but is admittedly still better than 99% of Germany's entries in the ESC these past few years.

Siebeke is still on his misogynistic bs and makes another incoherent and sexist tweet, this time yapping about queens and Christianity while trying to paint himself as the misunderstood victim.

There are sadly no more Volker Wissing memes.

Nov 12 - everyone has agreed to move the elections from March to the end of February because paper is no longer an issue, I guess? However, now everyone is unhappy because the date clashes with the carnival. No joke.

Siebeke changes the banner on his Twitter profile to read "Frauen. Wahl. Recht. Der 19. Januar 1919" / "Women. Right (to). Vote. January 19th 1919" in a pathetic attempt to show how much he actually (not) respects women while at the same time claiming in his Twitter bio that "only conservatism can secure democracy, freedom, rule of law, equality, climate and culture". No comment.

Nov 13 - 113 members of parliament have officially called for the Bundestag to open the long overdue investigation in order to finally ban the AfD.

It has been the longest week in the history of the Bundesrepublik. Everyone needs a fucking break.

To be continued

Redneck necromancer who uses wd40 to cast, because "If it don't move and it should, use wd40"

Sending love to everyone who is just... tired. Life is a lot, and sometimes the answer to it all is to just be still and silent for a while. Give yourself space and grace. Whether it’s decision fatigue, anxiety fatigue, information fatigue, routine fatigue, getting life back together fatigue, career fatigue, social fatigue, financial fatigue, or physical fatigue—take a moment to breathe and recharge. You deserve it.