You can tell a bowhead from a right whale by the white patch on its chin and the lack of callosities on its face.
In 2007, a bowhead killed by Inuit whalers was discovered with the rusted tip of a harpoon embedded in its blubber. The harpoon head was identified as a variety made in New Bedford, MA around 1890. This means that the whale, which most likely would not have been targeted until it was a young adult, was probably at least 120 years old.
Moray eels have been bred for the first time at a Zoo in Austria, and the babies are now old enough to show off their very impressive teeth. “Up to now, nobody knew what the larvae look like, what they eat and how they behave“, said the zoo’s director, Dagmar Schratter, who hopes to breed more moray eels now that they’ve finally figured out the right conditions.
We like to think the internet within the past half decade or so has honed shitposting down to a science but racing horse names have us beat by decades
This is a case of necessity is the mother of invention- for both race horses and purebred show animals, every.single.animal. needs to have a unique name for record keeping purposes.
Imagine trying to come up with a cool username if you aren’t allowed to add random numbers and underscores- only pronounceable words. Now imagine that this website has had tens of millions of users, and even after someone leaves the site their username can never be recycled.
WELCOME TO PEDIGREE SHITPOST BINGO
Pedigree Shitpost Bingo would make a great horse name
a flock of bushtits on the suet feeder today! they’re tiny, hardly bigger than a hummingbird.
Scientists taught 23 riding horses of various breeds to look at a display board with three icons, representing wearing or not wearing a blanket. Horses could choose between a “no change” symbol or symbols for “blanket on” or “blanket off.” Previously, their owners made this decision for them. Horses are adept at learning and following signals people give them, and it took these equines an average of 10 days to learn to approach and touch the board and to understand the meaning of the symbols. All 23 horses learned the entire task within 14 days. They were then tested in various weather conditions to see whether they could use the board to tell their trainers about their blanket preferences. The scientists report online in Applied Animal Behaviour Science that the horses did not touch the symbols randomly, but made their choices based on the weather. If it was wet, cold, and windy, they touched the “blanket on” icon; horses that were already wearing a blanket nosed the “no change” image. But when the weather was sunny, the animals touched the “blanket off” symbol; those that weren’t blanketed pressed the “no change” icon. The study’s strong results show that the horses understood the consequences of their choices, say the scientists, who hope that other researchers will use their method to ask horses more questions.
i love everything about this but especially the last sentence
https://embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js
A Pretty Taste for Paradox 