Reader of Entrails

@haruspex.bsky.social

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Zoo pathologist 🧪💀🧑🏻‍⚕️ She/her 🏳️‍🌈
Unsettling animal facts & inadvisable humor.
Posts are my own and do not represent current, past, or future employers.
My day job: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/zoo-animal-deaths

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When I die I don't want anyone to talk about what killed me. Please list all the incredibly stupid things that I survived

The pilot on this flight just said, “Remember folks: Gravity. Nobody escapes gravity.” My dude, this reminder of the hubris of humanity and the inevitability of the force of nature we are currently crammed into a metal tube to overcome is… not it. Just. Maybe try a little less with the Ominous™️.

The Roll n’ Scones

Kris Croisssant

I will be teaching about cognitive biases, among other things, next week. I intend to inform the students that we’re all monkeys with anxiety running the most complicated computational computer in the known universe on two slices of wet Velveeta & 12 watts of power. No wonder we're error-prone.

🧪 Out of context bits of email: Tigers and lions have the same number of bones in their skulls as each other. (I know this because all the papers on how to tell their skulls apart say things like, “Compare these 12 measurements,” instead of, “Lions have a [whatever] bone, while tigers do not.”

🧪 Cursed knowledge time! There is a species of flea, Uropsylla tasmanica, whose larvae CHEW their way into hosts and then just burrow around in the skin eating tissue & molting to larger instars until pupating & turning into an adult flea that lives on the skin. It’s from Australia, of course.

Ectoparasites and Skin Lesions in Wild-Caught Spotted-Tailed Quoll (<span class="genus-species">Dasyurus maculatus</span>) (Marsupialia: Dasyuridae)bioone.org Ectoparasites were collected from 32 wild spotted-tailed quolls (Dasyurus maculatus) trapped in the Tuggolo State Forest, New South Wales, Australia, during February and March 2005. Species collected ...

The crime. The criminal. Friggin gremlin ambushed my defenseless cheddar sourdough. Real bread is so rare in our house that I forgot this jerk is Not to Be Trusted™️ around full-test baked goods.

🧪 This adaptation is present in multiple lineages and evolved at least 7 times (convergent evolution) We knew flapping helps move air in the respiratory system, but this is the respiratory system aiding flight!

🧪 New avian anatomical feature just dropped! Soaring birds have an inflatable air sac in between chest muscles to improve the leverage of those muscles for holding their wings out for long periods of time.

UF researchers: Soaring birds use their lungs to modify mechanics of flight - UF Healthufhealth.org GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Soaring birds — like osprey, eagles, falcons, even vultures — can stay aloft in the air seemingly forever, rarely flapping their wings.…

I have excellent news! It’s Lap Cat Day! About once a month, my ridiculous feline himbo stops bouncing off the walls and swearing at birds long enough to curl up in a lap.

Fawn update: still extremely cute! (Mom is just out of frame.) Fun facts, deer lack a gall bladder. (So do horses. Cattle have them tho.)

Grindl, the dating app for bog dwellers living with their moms and looking for rough trade.

PlentyofDish, the dating app for messy bitches

This has been one of my favorite books this year. Strongly recommend to any fellow weirdos, and especially those who vibe with T. Kingfisher.

“It was some sort of love. Not the kind of love that made you plant your eggs in someone and turn them into a parent, but a kind of love.” Alright this book is great already.

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Today in unsettling facts: Your teeth are not bones. Teeth are older than bones, older than trees. Teeth are your last scales. Teeth are the repurposed remnants of a time before any of your ancestors braved land. They are your body’s memory of the sea. And you trade them away for coins.

Hey! Happy Pride! If you’re a book nerd like me and love the idea of a queer e-library of books and audiobooks that offers cards free of charge, consider donating to help keep this amazing project going. 📚 🌈

Queer Liberation Library PRIDE 2024!lqp15z.fg49.fdske.com By Queer Liberation Library

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Libraries are under attack in the US. Here are some easy ways to help them out! ♥️ bookriot.com/easy-ways-to...

Easy Ways to Support Your Public Library Right Nowbookriot.com At a time when libraries need more help than ever before, here is a list of easy things to do to help support your local library.

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Unsettling 🧪 fact! Tiger salamanders have a “cannibal morph.” Yepper, sometimes larval tiger salamanders get competitive & develop into their Pokémon battle-variant beast mode. Bigger heads, more developed teeth, teeth in the roof of the mouth. And then they hunt smaller typical larvae. 😳

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🧪 Ruminants (yaks, goats, giraffes, camels) have a giant fermentation vat at the start of their digestive system. It’s great at working *with* gravity but super terrible at keeping things down when gravity is not in their favor. For this reason, I do not recommend taking yaks to space.

🧪 Bear goo update: The slide has few cells, mostly keratinocytes, the nonviable flakey keratinized outer skin cells. There are bacteria, but they all look like normal skin flora. What I DON’T see is more relevant: no protein, fat, or inflammatory cells. He’s not making milk 👍 & no inflammation 👍👍

🧪 Today as I left work, a coworker waved me into his office to ask, “Hey, can I get your thoughts on some bear nipple goo cytology tomorrow?” And honestly, I’d thought he’d never ask! (The gooing bear is male and should not be making any mammary goo at all.) Stay tuned for tomorrow’s goo report!

Y’all, I was sent a free sample of a “booty mask”. Usually, I let my undies mask all that’s needed down there, but no. Someone invented a product specifically for tautening the tush. Perking the peach. Re-embouncing the booty-skin. And then someone *wrote this copy & instructions*. Please enjoy!

I strongly recommend a video search for pika war cries. They are like the angriest squeaky toys.

No lie, the first time I heard a pika scream I had to both watch & listen to it scream like 3 times in perfect unison before I could convince myself *that* sound was coming out of *that* animal… it is absolutely wild…

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While we're talking about how everyone should be able to marry the person they love, here's a reminder that disabled people still can't get married legally because they will have their benefits taken away. In many places, they can't even -live- with their partner unmarried without losing benefits.

🧪 My favorite lagomorph is not a rabbit or a hare, but a secret, third type: PIKAS. They are smol, round alpine critters that gather flowers and also shriek in rage and defend territory with vicious murder. 🥹😍 So ofc, I had to help write about their pathology. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

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🍄 A sample page from my brand new mushroom foraging zine! You can read the whole 21 page comic for free right here, right now: ko-fi.com/s/6c16d1553e

Some Important Things Happened™️ and… yanno what, here is a little fawn who scampered past me this morning on my bike ride to work. Pardon the blur, that kiddo was HUSTLING.

Hi, I’m a zoo pathologist! My greatest hits include “Pieces of live things & whole dead things, but no whole live things.” “Yes, I want the patient’s history, I do not care if you worry it will bias me. It should.” And, “Just because they’re dead, it doesn’t mean I don’t tell them they’re adorable.”

Hi, I'm a paleontologist! My greatest hits include “I’m sorry, but that’s just a rock,” “Actually, that’s not a dinosaur but a different kind of reptile,” and “No, not like Ross on Friends.”

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sorry, we had to boil the earth to fuel our machines that made wrong answers

Unsurprisingly, rising projections of power demand in the US are resulting in plans to keep coal-fired power stations open longer, and US states are fighting EPA power pollution rules on the grounds fossil fuel is "needed" to power AI. www.ft.com/content/ddaa...

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I'm glad people CAN purchase LGBTQIA+ merch from big stores these days, but as an LGBTQIA+ business owner who staffs queer people, if you have the spare moment to look for queer small business in June, 100% of that money goes toward queer survival, versus a 10% tax write off for big corporations.

🧪 Opossums are mammals. Mammals can get rabies. Pleas PLEASE stop sharing, writing, or accepting when people claim “opossums are immune to rabies”. Unvaccinated mammals are NOT immune! And vaccinated ones should get boosters if potentially exposed. Which includes being bitten by an opossum.