Had Enough Of Bath Time Thanks

“Seals And Sealions” by Kelly Robinson

A WALK ON THE WIDER SIDE

hello and welcome to another episode of Weird Biology with me, your host Bunjy! this week’s creature is hard to see and kind of dangerous, so we’re just going to watch our step as we-

OOP WATCH OUT!

you almost stepped on him!

you should be more careful, you could have really hurt his feelings.

it’s time to meet-

*muffled hysterical laughter*

the Gaboon Viper is found in the forests and savannas of sub-Saharan Africa. its boldly patterned scales are perfectly camouflaged against the forest floor, making it all but invisible. 

its incredible striking speed and strength are renowned throughout the reptile world, and its venomous bite is powerful enough to kill even a grown man! clearly, this is not a creature to be trifled with.

and it is, as they say in herpetologist circles, a Swarthy Lad.

*continued hysterical laughter*

as you may have noticed from the pictures, the Gaboon Viper is very, uh, wide. and flat. like a pancake. a pan-snake, if you will. in fact, they’re so wide that their wikipedia page has an entire measurement category called “girth” just for them. (no, I’m not joking) and it’s over 14 inches, if you were curious. that’s usually a measurement reserved for pizzas.

there’s good reason for this, because the Gaboon Viper is the heftiest viper in the world! they generally reach only 4-5 feet long, but may weigh nearly twenty pounds. that’s completely fucking ridiculous.

that’s like a normal snake, if that normal snake had just eaten a couple of 7-pound free weights.

Gaboon Vipers are at the top of the snake list for a lot of different qualities, as it turns out. it’s not just that manhole cover physique, this snake has the WHOLE package. they are known for being incredibly fast despite their size, and for wrestling prey to the ground with their sheer strength like it’s the last five seconds of a ladder match. but now get ready for a real double whammy-

they have the longest fangs of any snake! OF ANY SNAKE. they also produce the most venom per bite of any snake! OF ANY SNAKE. wow! fuck!

aaaa! I still think you’re adorable!

those fangs are two fucking inches long, for reference. two inches. let’s think about that for a minute. 

oookay we’re done thinking about that. so now let’s consider the fact that a Gaboon Viper can deliver up to 7 ml of venom per bite! alright, so that doesn’t sound like a lot. but please remember that the lethal dose for a human is 0.06 ml. jesus. imagine carrying enough poison in your face to kill like a thousand people.

and for a species that mostly eats small animals like rabbits, this is absolutely stupid amounts of overkill. like, hunting-pigeons-with-a-rocket-launcher levels of overkill.

people probably would be into that if it was allowed, actually.

alright, so we’ve definitely laid out the facts that make Gaboon Vipers so terrifying. but now I’ll hit you with the good news! 

human deaths from Gaboon Viper bites are very, very, very rare. and it’s because Gaboon Vipers are very good flat boys.

no seriously, some of that is because Gaboon Vipers live way the fuck out in the woods but it’s mostly because these snakes are some of the most laid-back reptiles in existence.

yes, really.

don’t have a cow, man.

Gaboon Vipers are tolerant, docile animals that are extremely unlikely to bite you. in fact, they’re so chillax that scientists have been able to pick them up barehanded and stick them in collection boxes.  (WE DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS. SCIENTISTS ARE OFTEN A LITTLE NUTS.) apparently the snakes just kind of went along with it. maybe they were bored? 

usually when people ARE bitten, it’s because they didn’t see the snake and fucking stepped on it. and even then, stomping on a Gaboon Viper doesn’t always earn a bite. (BUT DON’T DO THAT. IT’S MEAN.)

they’re good sweet boys, is what I’m getting at here.

the GOODEST good boy. look at his widdle face.

thankfully, the Gaboon Viper is doing pretty okay! the species is still widely distributed, and has a conservation status of Least Concern. (it probably helps that they have so little conflict with humanity! chillness is its own virtue.)

it’s not often that I close a Weird Biology article with that kind of good news, so this deserves to be celebrated! clap your hands and jump around a bit! Yaaay, Gaboon Viper! we love your chubby little face and your ridiculously chill lifestyle!

maybe we could all take a lesson from the Gaboon Viper, and relax a little more.

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thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series here.

if you enjoy my work, maybe buy me a coffee or check out my Patreon to see extra content and support Weird Biology.

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IMAGE SOURCES

img1- Wikipedia.zh img2- The National Zoo img3- Julie Larsen Maher @WCS img4- reptiletalk.net img5- Reptiles Magazine img6- AnimalSpot.net img7- Carnivora img8- AboutAnimals.com

PWEASE HEWP ME I’M BUWNING AWIVE

That rabbit/hare post is messing me up. I’d thought they were synonyms. Their development and social behavior are all different. They can’t even interbreed. They don’t have the same number of chromosomes. Dogs, wolves, jackals, and coyotes can mate with each other and have fertile offspring but rabbits and hares cant even make infertile ones bc they just die in the womb. Wack.

NAUTICAL NONSENSE

WHOOOOOOOO

LIVES IN A SPIRAL SHELL UNDER THE SEA?

BACKWARDS AND STRIPEY AND BUOYANT IS HE!

okay, I’d better stop before Nick L. O’deon tells me to cut it out. so here we go! 

the Chambered Nautilus is an ancient deep-sea-dwelling mollusk, distant kin to both octopuses and those clams you had for lunch. they’re one of the oldest kinds of cephalopod on the planet, going all the way back to the Triassic. which, you know, 251 million years ago. (plus or minus a few million years.) they survived the extinction event that ended the reign of the dinosaurs, which also terminated their close cousin the Ammonites. these little shell dudes are true survivors.

since then, the Chambered Nautilus has bobbed its way into our collective consciousness. it inspired the very first fictional submarine, as well as an even more badass and actually-real-this-time submarine. its gorgeous shell can be found in nautical-themed restaurants worldwide. the Chambered Nautilus is a pretty big deal.

for a shellfish, anyway.

Chambered Nautilus grow to be about ten inches across the shell, which may not sound impressive but is actually an incredible feat of engineering. you’ve probably seen it before, but the Chambered Nautilus has a really trippy segmented spiral thing going on in their shell that a: makes for a great album cover, and b: creates a neutrally buoyant home that can stand the pressure of the deep sea! which is lucky, because that’s where the Chambered Nautilus lives.

these shelled little weirdos are found in the waters of the Indo-Pacific, where they live on the deep edges of coral reefs and sea canyon walls. but not below 2,600 feet, as their shells dramatically implode at that point! ha ha!

see, the nice thing about human houses? they don’t usually implode.

the Chambered Nautilus is sort of like a snail, except more complex and more backwards. (yes, I’m serious.) the soft gooey body of the Chambered Nautilus only fits in the first compartment of their shell, including their hearts, eyeballs, probable souls, various gross buoyancy organs and their roughly 90 tentacles and jet propulsion system.

yes, those last two things are totally real, I swear. let’s get into it!

I hope you like tentacles!

I’ll address the jet thing first. the Chambered Nautilus is similar to squid, in that they experience the world mostly backwards. they have a water intake valve called a hyponome which is basically a fancy tube that they keep somewhere in their tentacle zone. they use this weird pipe to draw water into an inner chamber inside their shell, and then violently squirt it right back out. this causes the Chambered Nautilus to lurch backwards at high speed like a startled raccoon.

but I didn’t even get to the best part! see, the Chambered Nautilus has very simple eyes and terrible vision. and they can’t even really see around that honkydonk badonkadonk shell anyway, so they lurch violently backwards and then bump comically into things. ALL THE TIME.

like, often enough for it to be a documented species trait. ADORABLE.

but you’ve been waiting patiently, and it’s time to get into the best part: those tentacles! and boy I sure hope you’re a fan, because the Chambered Nautilus has around 90 simple retractable tentacles called cirri. (make sure you write these down, as there will be a short quiz following this program.)

these cirri are covered in tiny ridges, like gross wet velcro spaghetti. this gives them a really absurd amount of grip, like REALLY absurd. apparently it’s easier to accidentally rip them right off the Nautilus than it is to get them off a scientist’s glove. 

I’m sure that researcher felt REALLY bad afterwards.

this insane grip comes in handy (pun!) though, when the Chambered Nautilus is on the hunt. these voracious shellboys mostly eat fish, crabs and shrimp, but they aren’t above scavenging and will eat whatever is available. 

once the Chambered Nautilus has spotted a likely meal, it splats itself onto it face-first like a goddam Looney Tunes character and grabs on. once they prey is snagged, it’s curtains for that particular shrimp. because like all cephalopods, the Chambered Nautilus has a razor-sharp nightmare beak hidden somewhere in all those tentacles. yum!

I mean, I’m not going to poke around in there and look so you’ll just have to trust me on this.

but the Chambered Nautilus isn’t doing so hot these days, and it’s all because of that lovely steampunk shell. its pearly luster and geometric intricacy make them prized by humans, who slaughter the Chambered Nautilus by the thousands to get them. fuck!

this shell-focused hunting has greatly decreased the Chambered Nautilus’s numbers in the past decade, and they’re almost certainly endangered now. efforts are underway to protect them, but in the meantime: DON’T BUY ANY NAUTILUS SHELLS. just get an Ammonite fossil, it’s basically the same thing but without the moral baggage or angry cephalopod ghosts.

the Chambered Nautilus survived the extinction that killed off the Ammonites and Dinosaurs, hopefully it will survive this one too.

ANGRY. CEPHALOPOD. GHOSTS.

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thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series on my tumblr here, or check out the official archive at weirdbiology.com!

if you enjoy my work, maybe buy me a coffee and support Weird Biology!

and if you’d like to see exclusive Weird Biology content, check out my Patreon today!

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IMAGE SOURCES

img1- Monterey Bay Aquarium img2- Monterey Bay Aquarium img3- National Aquarium img4- Monterey Bay Aquarium img5- NOAA Fisheries img6- Monterey Bay Aquarium img7- Among the Reef img8- California Academy of Sciences

Migrating Eagles Bankrupted a Russian Science Study With Excessive Mobile Charges

The steppe eagle is an endangered species, with declining numbers in Eurasia, and an estimated global population that may be as low as 50,000 mature individuals.

It’s not easy studying birds. They fly away for months at a time, and even if you can track them down again, their frivolous texting habits threaten to leave you utterly penniless.

That’s what happened to a team of Russian scientists in Siberia, whose research budget blew out when the migrating eagles they were tracking hit a costly snag all high-flying travellers fear: global roaming charges.

Continue Reading.