Leafyfern - Flora And Fauna

I picked up some dendrobates leucomelas at the expo this weekend. I’ve wanted these frogs for a long time and I am very happy to finally have them.

Vivarium has ferns, bromeliads, creeping fig, pilea, pepperomia, and tillandsia.

my love language is simple. i *hands you a mushroom sticker* *hands you a rock* *hands you a rock* *hands you a dried flower* *hands you a mushroom sticker* *hands you a twig* *hands you a leaf* *han

Goblincore:

-dirt

-nature

-moss

-bugs, spiders, and worms

-collecting useless stuff

-being comfy and not letting anyone judge you

Dragoncore:

-gold

-gems

-crystals

-silver

-metals

-lizards

-being lazy

Crowcore:

-dark colors

-anything remotely shiny

-screaming

-active and hyper

-sharing your shinies with your friends

Cottagecore:

-warm and cozy

-calming colors

-cookies and baked goods

-tea and hot chocolate

-anything made of wood

-FROGS!!

-fall

Farmcore:

-hay bails

-farm animals

-fields

-vegetables

-sunsets

-wheat

-little cats and big dogs

-fall and summer

Dirtcore:

-moss

-anything in nature

-flowers

-grass

-dirt and mud

-amphibious animals

-trees

-cool looking sticks

-wormwormwormworm

Vulture culture:

-bones

-fur

-magic

-herbs

-spices

-october

Meadowcore:

-flowers

-pastel

-fields and meadows

-baby animals

-butterflies

-spring

Honeycore:

-baked goods

-yellow

-bees?

-farms

-sunrises and sunsets

-summer

-honey, duh!

Grandmacore:

-cozy chair/sofa

-baked goods and other sweets

-cottages

-earthy colors

-nice smells

-cats!!

Naturecore:

-plants

-wild animals

-rivers

-rainbows

-flowers

-bugs

Forestcore:

-moss

-mushrooms

-dirt

-trees

-mud

-sticks

-deer

-bears

-racoons

-beetles

-dead leaves

Earthcore:

-nature

-oceans

-skys

-mountains

-waterfalls

-rainforests

-any animal

-plants

-clouds

Witchcore:

-magic

-lizards

-owls

-cats

-bats

-books

-skulls

-herbs and spices

-dark forests

Bogcore:

-swamps

-bogs

-seaweed

-green water

-frogspawn

-frogs and toads

-lilly pads and lillies

-algie

Mosscore:

-moss

-algie

-mushrooms

-green

-dirt

-mud

-bark

Fairycore:

-pastel

-butterflies

-flowers

-magic

-soft animals

-pink

-sparkly stuff

-spring

Techcore:

-gears

-cogs

-wires

-motherboards

-circut boards

-binary code

-cords

Futurecore:

-buldings

-technology

-robots

-cool cars

-screens

-cameras

-black

-decorative lights

Feel free to add more!!!

People ask me why I find myself hopelessly in love with biology and want to major in genetics. Here’s why:

I have this fish tank. A glass box of water I put sand and rocks in. But the point of a fish tank are the things that are alive. I have plants that reach outstretched hands to the light and grow to the barrier between the clear fluid they live in and the clear gas we breathe. In one single leaf so much chemistry takes place, photosynthesis makes ungraspable light into life supporting substance.

And in my fish tank I have a fish. A fish that can be found lifeless in cups in pet stores, but I’ve seen this fish thrive. I’ve seen him change color due to jumping genes. I’ve seen him play in the filter meaning he makes decisions. Something so small exists and lives and makes choices. It baffles me, truly. Such vibrant color that I can only compare to something man made and yet it was nature that did it first.

I see this little world that I have placed on my shelf. Cared for by me; dependent on me. It amazes me the human emotion I have for them, and how far humanity has gone that I can dose the tank and manage it on a delicate scale.

And sometimes I wonder, what if we exist on a glass box on someone’s shelf? One way glass we can’t look out, but if we could, everything would be different? What if we are all a fragment of someone’s novel or a C+ science project? Life is so so amazing, it’s baffling.

Waaaaaaa…….nooooo

The Amazing Spiderman (2012) dir. Marc Webb + letterboxd reviews

One time my rabbi told us, “imagine you had a box with a little bit of god in it. What would you do with the box?”

So we were like ?? “We’d protect it and keep it nice and clean and polished” and he was like “your body’s that box. Stop eating markers”

Here’s an odd one: the skull of the only known “narluga”, a possible narwhal/beluga whale hybrid. It was killed by a Greenlandic hunter around 1987 and the skull was lying on top of a toolshed in 1990 when it was noticed by a visiting scientist. According to the hunter, the animal was a uniform grey color (as opposed to the mottled narwhal and the white beluga), with the tail of a narwhal but the pectoral flippers of a beluga whale. 

The skull is larger than both parent species’ and its teeth a strange mixture of both. Narwhals don’t have teeth except for the single large tusk of the male, while beluga whales have a full set of smaller teeth. The narluga seems to have a full set of teeth but some of them are strangely elongated and oriented like narwhal tusks, as seen in the third picture. The unusual dentition didn’t seem to bother the animal since it reached a great size but it would presumably have been sterile as most hybrids are. No other examples of narwhal/beluga whale hybrids have been found. 

The skull is currently housed at the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen.

Not only are these pea-sized treehoppers amazing to look at - they sound like tiny dinosaurs. Scientists have studied their calls by pressing phonograph needles to the leaf stems where the treehoppers are often found. They send chattering, moaning calls through the plant to attract mates and warn other treehoppers about predators. I listened to those noises here and they are INCREDIBLE.

The treehoppers shown here are all members of the true bug family Membracidae. Image credits:

Thorn Mimic Treehopper by Yogendra Joshi Treehopper by H. K. Tang Alchisme grossa courtesy of Robert Oelman Ant-mimicking treehopper (Cyphonia clavata) by Andreas Kay Oak Treehopper (Platycostis vittata) by Matthew Cicanese Oak treehoppers with nymph by Ken-ichi Ueda