"When I'm a small prey mammal and I've evolved to survive the barren rocky landscape by optimizing into a tan egg"
For posts about animals that loosely fit the description above. While the animal does not have to hit all the requirements, it should hit some of them:
Origin:
cross-posted from: https://mastodon.neatobuilds.com/users/mrpistachios/statuses/114547541225845936
The Squirrel's here were too brave, don't eat a snack with them around or they will swarm you!
#sjsu #sanjose #california #bubonicplague #nature #photography #taneggs #squirrel
Taken to drastically reducing how often and how much I mow. One area is now a de facto butterfly garden. It includes a bird bath I use as an altar to give presents to the crows. We've also got deer (a doe and her two young bucks) and turkeys (a flock with three toms and probably a dozen hens).
Between the Smokies and the Blue Ridge, in the Cherokee Forest (I mean, im not in the park but the forest doesnt stop), not far from the AT. Beautiful place to live, I'm gonna be real pissed off if I've gotta leave.
Bonus critters
From Jeffery Cassiers
Bank vole, The Netherlands, 11/05/2025 Canon R5 II - Canon RF100-500 ISO6400, 500mm, -0,3 ev, F7.1, 1/640s
This little tan egg seems very common in much of Europe. I like it!
https://asknature.org/strategy/asymmetric-burrow-openings-create-passive-ventilation/
Differences in position and shape of burrow openings of black-tailed prairie dogs create passive ventilation from wind energy by altering air pressure
Prairie dogs are highly social rodents that build extensive underground burrows in the plains of North America to house their family groups. The burrows can reach 10 m (32 ft) in length, and this size means that diffusion alone is not sufficient to replace used air inside the burrow with fresh air. The way that a prairie dog builds the openings to its burrow, however, helps to harness wind energy from the windy plains and create passive ventilation through the burrow’s tunnels.
As air flows across a surface, a gradient in flow speed forms, where air moves more slowly the closer it is to the surface. The prairie dog is able to take advantage of this gradient by building a mound with an elevated opening upwind and a mound with a lower opening downwind. Wind velocity then is faster over the higher opening than the lower opening. Since an increase in speed creates a decrease in pressure (according to what is called “Bernoulli’s principle”), the burrow now has openings with two different air pressures on them. The result of this difference is one-way air flow through the burrow as air rushes out the higher opening and is drawn in to the lower opening.
It's never a bad day for love! Love to you!
To a registered charity, all I need is a pint a day...
I'm so proud of how hard you're fighting! I'll try to hang in there too!
Heart rate? 1,500 beats per minute.
Breathing? 600 times a minute.
It eats twice its body weight daily just to stay alive.
Clicks to hunt. Whiskers as radar.
Jumps, darts, devours — all in the blink of an eye.
It may only live two years, but in that time, it's a lightning bolt with teeth.
Tiny. Fierce. Unstoppable.
Lemmings strong together! But no, these are not Lemmings, they are hyrax. Still cool, like you.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/29037842
I was introduced yesterday to the FIMS hypothesis by PBS Eons.
The Fungal-Infection-Mammalian-Selection (hey that ryhmes!) hypothesis asks the question of why reptiles didn't bounce back as much as mammals did after the asteroid K/Pg extinction event.
After all, they need less energy than mammals as cold-blooded creatures, and they produce way way more offspring than mammals.
One theory is fungi: there was an explosion in fungal activity after the asteroid due to the now dark and dingy hellhole the Earth became, and a ton of fungal spores were floating around at the time, as seen in geological record.
Apparently fungal infections are not that deadly to mammals (it just irritates us), but were disastrous for reptiles. Plus us mammals had a new food source in the absence of plants and meat.
There's no conclusive proof, still, it's an interesting theory as to why the dinosaurs didn't bounce back and why us mammals took over.
And gurl, you look cute today! You got this!
