Too Tiny To Even Leave Footprints

Today we learned that conches, the sea-dwelling mollusks who live inside those big, beautiful conch seashells in warm tropical waters, peer out at the world with cartoonish eyes on tiny eyestalks. They see you. They see everything. And what’s more, they can regenerate their peepers should they happen to lose one or both of them.

“One 1976 paper dug into the specific behind these animals’ alien eyestalks. Sitting at the tips of long stalks, they contain retinas with both sensory cells and colored pigment cells. But the story gets weirder because obviously, it gets weirder. After amputating the conchs’ eyes, a fully-formed replacement took its place 14 days later. Humans, we really are losing this evolutionary game.”

But wait, that’s hardly the only surprising set of eyes under the sea. Scallops have eyes too, LOTS of them:

Conch photos by Redditor buterbetterbater and via @shingworks.

[via /r/pics and Gizmodo]

What we lose when animals go extinct

Animals are disappearing at hundreds of times the normal rate, primarily because of shrinking habitats. Their biggest threat: humans.

“One way to think of a species, be it of ape or of ant, is as an answer to a puzzle: how to live on planet Earth. A species’ genome is a sort of manual; when the species perishes, that manual is lost. We are, in this sense, plundering a library—the library of life. Instead of the Anthropocene, Wilson has dubbed the era we are entering the Eremozoic—the age of loneliness.”

every time I start thinking about lepidodendrons I always end up thinking about what it would be like to Jurassic Park one back to life and settle the 10099880 questions about how they existed once and for all

Whenever I see a stingray skeleton I’m like oh that’s just one of those fake Target Halloween decorations like the skeleton spiders and shit but NO stingrays are actually Like That and it is concerning

“Meet the Shame-faced Crab”

Thank you, I will!

ok damn sorry 2 interrupt whatever this is

me @ the stars: help me

When you’re sorting the tank filters and a big boye wants cuddles. 

(Source)

Hey just an idea but maybe instead of pushing veganism or vegetarianism on everyone in our society, we re-evaluate our society’s entire lifestyle and make changes to our individual lifestyles based on that because let’s be real: traditional veganism is not any better for the environment or physically healthier than eating animals products if you’re not doing your due diligence. By being conscientious about where all the products you buy are sourced, you can have a bigger positive impact than simply going vegan.

If you’re:

Eating sustainably/carbon negative farmed meat and/or hunting your own meat, and only eating wild caught fish

Not using sea salt due to its microplastics

Not using products containing palm oil

Eating your own cultivated organic fruit and vegetables or purchasing organic fruit/veggies

Buying honey from local beekeepers as well as having solitary bee hotels around your neighborhood

Not buying new plastic or reusing and recycling that little plastic you inevitably still have

Not purchasing brand new electronics unless 100% necessary

Buying leather or suede second hand instead of purchasing PU leather, and in general trying to purchase second hand clothes rather than buying new

Mostly using cheese and milk from a variety of animals that have lower carbon emissions than cows, ie Sheep and Goat milk

Participating in a city wide composting scheme so your food waste doesn’t go into the landfill and end up producing methane

Donating to lobbyist groups that advocate for the elimination of non-recyclable and non-compostable plastics as well as for the elimination of pesticides and toxic fertilizers

Reducing your carbon footprint by only using public transport or an electric/hybrid car

Collecting rainwater when possible

Choosing not to embalm when burying passed loved ones

Buying or making your own biodegradable soaps instead of purchasing soaps with pollutants and microplastics

Tending to eat local/native grains instead of buying grains from far away places where labor is cheap, and the nutritious food (quinoa for example) is exported rather than eaten by locals

Buying second hand furniture or only purchasing furniture that is made of solid wood and eco friendly materials instead of buying laminate and plastic furniture

Buying bamboo toothbrushes and hairbrushes instead of plastic ones

Buying personal items like bedding and underwear and sneakers and you opt for bamboo based materials instead of polyester, this goes for your mattress as well since you can buy bamboo based foam mattresses

Picking up litter you see on the street

Not smoking cigarettes due to the plastic in them nor vaping from single use cartridges

Volunteering for community wide eco-education

Doing any other eco-friendly lifestyle choice not mentioned...

... You are making a bigger impact on the world than anyone choosing to make a single change to their lifestyle like going vegan. Becoming carbon neutral and making choices that encourage carbon neutrality makes more of a difference than one single lifestyle change. Switching to an electric vehicle is meaningless if you still buy from companies using herbicides and pesticides. Eating organic is still not good enough if you let your food go to waste in a landfill. Choosing locally sourced honey over agave makes a difference (supporting small beekeepers will help maintain local bee populations). Choosing locally hunted meat over quinoa for protein makes a difference (deer populations have grown exponentially due to smaller wolf populations, and you can help your local ecology by hunting and eating them or buying from local deer hunters) but make sure that that is the right choice for you. Furthermore, something you would think is silly and unimportant, like buying wild caught fish instead of inorganic tofu can actually make a difference. Every choice you make has an impact and/or consequences. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes hard to know which choice is best, especially because we have so much misinformation on how to make the right choices. The only solution therefore, is to learn about your community and the environment in which you live. Educating oneself on which choices are best for themselves and their community’s lifestyle is something that very few people will ever take the time to do, even though it is something we really need to start doing. Buying organic fresh fruit and veg may be good for a community living in a perennially warm environment, but if you’re in a colder climate, in winter, when berries are out of season, buying organic fruits and veg might not be the best option since they’re likely to be imported via airplanes not only contributing to carbon emissions but also, they are likely to be much more expensive and unaffordable to the majority of the community. Similarly, in some parts of the world, cows milk might be the most affordable and environmentally friendly milk option, while in another part of the world, goat or sheep’s milk might be the more environmentally friendly and affordable option (side note: almond milk is almost universally never environmentally friendly, soy milk is really quite bad for you, so please choose organic rice (almost never brown rice though due to the high amounts of arsenic) or organic oat milk if you cannot have regular milk. Bonus enviro points to you if you make your own oat or rice milk btw!). So, do your research and then: use your spare time to educate your community and spread your new knowledge about how to make good ecological and health choices, call friends and family out if you see them littering or doing something wasteful, do what you can with your money to support local companies being proactively environmentally friendly, and use the power of your vote to support policies and politicians that will eventually force stagnant industries and corporations to become at the least: carbon neutral.

Dm me if you want some more interesting enviro food facts btw! There’s a whole arsenal of knowledge that I can give you!

Have fun learning to change the world folks!!

☺