Tag: animal

The Fungus That Turns Ants Into Zombies Is More Diabolical Than We Realized

foxlablanc:

bogleech:

Science wasn’t actually certain how fungi like cordyceps “hijacked” their host’s behavior, and we always kind of assumed it was causing some relatively simplistic damage to the brain, but now it seems the truth is much more like all the dramatized versions of it in sci-fi horror.

These fungi integrate themselves on the cellular level with the host’s tissues all throughout their body, actually seem to send signals to the host’s muscles and even alter the host’s genes with their own.

And all the while, it turns out THE BRAIN ISN’T TAKEN OVER AT ALL.

These fungi, all along, have been converting their hosts into animal-fungal hybrids they control while the host’s brain and consciousness remain helplessly alive and largely unaltered.

Sometimes science inspires all the amazing possibilities your imagination can possibly conceive.

Other times, science shows what kinds of fresh hell lurk in the darkest corners of our world, even those beyond our worst nightmares. What fun.

The Fungus That Turns Ants Into Zombies Is More Diabolical Than We Realized

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

pervocracy:

Fun statistical fact: Cows are about 300 times more likely to kill you than coyotes.

Minor sidenote to statistical fact: If it was common for people to keep several hundred coyotes on their property and routinely chase them into a corral and handle them, this statistic would be different.

this is a great summary of ‘conditional probability’, a statistical property many people grapple with 

sixpenceee:

Locals
in Kyoto got a shock in 2009 when what looked like a RIVER MONSTER
climbed out of the water! This is actually a 105cm long giant
salamander. Law enforcement were called, and the salamander was
eventually released unharmed upstream in a less populated area.

Giant salamanders can grow to 150cm long and weigh 20kg.

(Source)

emma-regina4ever:

rembrandtswife:

theactualcluegirl:

becausedragonage:

thanos-the-rad-titan:

rehfan:

digitaldiscipline:

dear-tumb1r:

srsfunny:

Canadian Nightmare

JESUS CHRIST

WHO THE FUCK LET THAT EXIST

The Canadian regionalization DLC for Nyan Cat looks amazing.

This is nothing I wanted and yet everything I ever needed

Bless you Canada and your gigantic dinosaur snowplow monsters

Woo woo, motherfucker!

@a-mahariels-travels

Goddamned Mezolithic Megafauna’s what that is. Goddamned warranty expired on those things centuries ago, but do they care? Do they go decently extinct, like the ground sloth, gigantopethicus, or wooly rhino? Fuck that, they’re doing downhill runs on your favorite skiing course is what. Because Fuck it, is why.

Now I understand why moose are built the way they are.

It’s so they can gallop untrammelled through six-odd feet of snow.

Jesus Christ I read those mother fuckers could run 55km an hour but seeing it is another thing especially plowing through the snow

Source: srsfunny

punk-rock-pidgey:

swimmingferret:

chyna-r:

silenthill:

chyna-r:

silenthill:

imagine a crocodile with horse-like legs
 unstoppable
 i would love to ride one o’ those into battle

are you..high 


.carry on 

Fun fact these ‘crocodile cousins’ with ‘horse-like legs’ existed and was known as a ‘sabre-toothed cat in armour’ due to it’s speed out of water and long fangs. There was the ‘DogCroc’ ( Araripesuchus wegeneri) and ‘BoarCroc’ (Kaprosuchus). The DogCroc (featured above) was only around the size of a small dog, with its skull easily fitting into the palm of someones hand. It lived during the Lower Cretaceous-Upper Cretaceous period;

*Comparison of a DogCroc’s skull to a Sarcosuchus skull. (Sarcosuchus is the largest known crocodile species and was large enough it could even prey upon a T-Rex and could weigh up to ten tonnes and be over forty feet long.)

However the BoarCroc (Kaprosuchus) was twenty-foot long and could gallop across land and preyed upon dinosaurs.

That’s a fucking dragon

merosmenagerie:

helloitsbees:

skyfirerevenge:

vividlyme:

gif87a-com:

Credit: @pelagicventures

Uhm what is that it’s huge?

Issa sea tortoise, like the ones that can live to around 500 years old. They’re capable of getting quite large from what I gather.

A big boy!

Sadly, this is forced perspective. Sea turtles (not tortoises, those are land reptiles) can get big but not nearly as big as the camera makes this lovely one look.

They did used to though! There was a genus of sea turtles called the Archelon that would put even this perspective shot to shame.

It’s late and I’m too tired to actually say anything coherent but yeah
 sea turtles don’t get that big, at least not anymore. In the time of the Archelon sp. though? Massive.