Share Animal Pictures: For Animal Lovers

[BillTre]

I had a dog that would chase its tail for quite a while, if I pulled its tail to get it started.



This guys just spins, but in both directions.

 

[BillTre]

 

[Swamp Thing]

I had a dog that would chase its tail for quite a while, if I pulled its tail to get it started.



This guys just spins, but in both directions.

A bit like those martial art moves ( HIIYAAAAAHWAAAAH!!! )

 

[berkeman]

From FB today...

 

[berkeman]

Wow...

Photographer Andy Woo captured the perfect moment of an osprey gliding on the surface of a body of water, an unusual and spectacular photo of the wild raptor.

 

[berkeman]

Another great sequence of an osprey:

Chen Chengguang
https://www.facebook.com/6BirdSpecies

 

[BillTre]

Friend of mine, at the NIH took a picture of a zebrafish embryo that makes a fluorescent protein in it blood cells. He has taken a lot of pictures (using a microscope) of them.
It just got turned into a US stamp:

 

[BillTre]

Blue is cartilige, red is bone (calcium stain). Some parts didn't clear well.
This is probably a small young animal in which these techniques would work best.

 

[fresh_42]

 

[BillTre]

 

[Andy Resnick]

A few animals we encountered on vacation:

(Our dog @ Bridal Falls, NC)

some kind of water snake? Non-venomous, I think.... did not try to find out :)

sea turtle hatchling headed for the ocean...

humans are animals!

 

[DennisN]

Gosh, that's a cool clip!
I was well aware that cats can be extremely alert, but the snake dodge surprised even me, actually .

 

[DennisN]

I stumbled on this clip on youtube about the Quokka, an animal I've never heard about:

 

[DennisN]

I was well aware that cats can be extremely alert, but the snake dodge surprised even me, actually .

Gosh, they can be fast:

 

[BillTre]

Gosh, that's a cool clip!
I was well aware that cats can be extremely alert, but the snake dodge surprised even me, actually .

the first clip is a startle-escape response. Thing suddenly getting close --> quickly move away.

I would call the cat clip you posted as a series of anticipatory slap downs of the snake as it got closer (best defense is a good offense).

For the cat, nervous system delays would involve several components, including: light activating nervous system (quick), synaptic delays going from one nerve cell to the next, processing (interactions among neurons) to calculate complex situations or outputs.
There would be several nervous system time delays of 2-3 ms/synapse in the visual signal getting to the brain.

• Maybe 2 or 3 in the retina,
• at least one in the optic tectum (lateral geniculate), and
• one or several in the cortex before triggering motor neurons going to
• muscles (muscle spindles actually) where an other synaptic delay would occur.

Minimum of 6 synapses here, but could be more. Synaptic delays account for a lot of the elapsed time.

It took a while for the cat to start moving after the snake lunged, first the cat pulled back its head and then jumped with its body and legs.

 

[BillTre]

Flying Squirrels:



One might be named Rocky.

 

[DennisN]

Just lovely :

 

[fresh_42]

 

[fresh_42]

 

[BillTre]

 

[BillTre]

The cousin Itt of dogs:



Cousin Itt:

 

[BillTre]

 

[BillTre]

 

[DennisN]

Action!

Buzzards swoop into each other over the high hills and grasslands in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, UK, Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

From: The week in wildlife – in pictures (The Guardian)

 

[DennisN]

From: The week in wildlife – in pictures (The Guardian)

Another one from that article... both cool and fun:

"Hey, give me a ride, will you? I can't bear walking anymore."

A bear waves its paw at a vehicle on the road to Nemrut Crater Lake in Tatvan district of Bitlis, Turkey
Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

 

[DennisN]

That is such a lovely clip!

 

[fresh_42]

 

[berkeman]

https://www.birdpoty.com/bpoty-2023-winners

 

[BillTre]

View attachment 331551

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https://www.birdpoty.com/bpoty-2023-winners

That first picture is very cool.

 

[BillTre]

A lot of people may not have seen this before.
This is a clip of a crab molting its old shell.
The process is it softens and thins its old shell from the inside. The old shell cracks open in predetermined locations and the crabs backs out of it. It then has a soft new shell which it inflates (by taking in a bunch of water). This expands the new shell to a larger size than the old one. The new shell then hardens in its enlarged form.



All arthropods (insects, crustaceans, spiders and scorpions, round worms, and a bunch of others) which have an outer cuticle covering do this to grow.
These are now grouped as ecdysozoans now, a relatively new taxonomic group that encompasses many separate phyla (like insects, crustaceans, etc.).
Each time they molt their body shape can change, like during a metamorphosis. Molts often separate important life stages.

If the crab had things growing on its shell which it wants there (like anemones used for defense or camouflage) it would have to transfer them or reacquire them in some way.

This is where the nice clean empty crab shells on the beach come from, as opposed to rotting dead crabs in shells that were not molted.

 

[BillTre]

 

[berkeman]

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ocean-photographer-year-2023-intl-scli-scn/index.html

 

[Swamp Thing]

 

[BillTre]

 

[DennisN]

This swan got really close to the photographer:

 

[Haborix]

This swan got really close to the photographer:

and was never seen again...

 

[fresh_42]

This swan got really close to the photographer:

View attachment 332354

I once was in a park and a couple of black swans approached me. One was terribly limping. Poor bird. I searched for someone responsible for the park and found a lady at the entrance.
Me: "Do you know that one of your swans is injured and terribly limps?"
She: "A black one?"
Me: "Yes."
She: "He limps from his birth on. And when visitors are around then he limps especially severely."

 

[BillTre]

Here's a cool little box jelly:

 

[fresh_42]

Here's a cool little box jelly:

View attachment 332475

This is the other reason why I am convinced our path back into the oceans like the whales have undertaken is in general prohibited for us, and that humans should not enter the sea anywhere on Earth in particular.

 

[BillTre]

This is the other reason why I am convinced our path back into the oceans like the whales have undertaken is in general prohibited for us, and that humans should not enter the sea anywhere on Earth in particular.

@fresh_42I don't understand what the reason is.
I have gone into the oceans many times. Only been jellyfished once.

 

[fresh_42]

@fresh_42I don't understand what the reason is.
I have gone into the oceans many times. Only been jellyfished once.

The other reason is sharks. Both animals I don't want to meet.

 

[DennisN]

The other reason is sharks. Both animals I don't want to meet.

You have my fullest sympathy. I feel the same.
I have some fear of spiders, snakes and a couple of other animals*, but sharks are in a different league - they terrify me.

And add the fact that they are master predators in an environment, water, which I'm just a dabbler in... it's pure terror.

* Why, one might wonder? My guess it's due to genetic imprint from ancient ancestors who learned to avoid certain animals, including poisonous ones. But I'm no biologist/psychologist, so I don't really know.

 

[BillTre]

Fear of particular animals can be overcome by being cautious and understanding the particular kind of animal involved.

water, which I'm just a dabbler in

Everyone (physically limited excepted) should be able to swim and feel at ease in the water.
Its called waterproofing. Its best learned early in life.
Every parent (in a non-desert environment) should make sure their kids can swim.

 

[berkeman]

I was in the water abalone diving here in NorCal back in the 1970s at the same time that a buddy of mine got attacked by a great white shark a couple coves south of me. He survived, but was torn up pretty badly. I hate sharks.

 

[fresh_42]

You have my fullest sympathy. I feel the same.
I have some fear of spiders, snakes and a couple of other animals*, but sharks are in a different league - they terrify me.

I just watched a documentary about the Twilight Zone in oceans at around 1km depth. It was very fascinating and interesting. And watching sharks and Spongebob jelly fishing on TV is not the same as risking an encounter. I would carry a gallon of vinegar with me when I had to risk any jellies, especially box jellies.

 

[strangerep]

Everyone (physically limited excepted) should be able to swim and feel at ease in the water.
Its called waterproofing. Its best learned early in life.

I was taught to swim as a very young child. I loved body-surfing.

But swim competence means nothing against being rammed into the sand head-first by a dumper wave (a mistake I only made once and was lucky to survive without serious injury).

Then there's the blue bottles which got me a few times as I was growing up. They're nowhere as serious as box jellies but they do sting like hell.

Oh, and then there's the shark that (unbeknownst to me) passed within a few metres of me in the surf -- somehow I hadn't heard the life guard's siren nor my mother screaming at me from the shoreline...

 

[fresh_42]

 

[berkeman]

Some of these photos are pretty funny...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/04/travel/comedy-wildlife-photo-award-2023-finalists/index.html

 

[BillTre]

Yum, good!

 

[Borg]

Yum, good!

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A favorite of wizards everywhere.