Zebras by a termite mound in Okonjima, Namibia. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
Excerpt:
Nobody loves termites, even though other social insects such as ants and bees are admired for their organisation, thrift and industry. Parents dress their children in bee costumes. Ants star in movies and video games. But termites are never more than crude cartoons on the side of exterminators’ vans. Termite studies are likewise a backwater, funded mostly by government agencies and companies with names such as Terminix. Between 2000 and 2013, 6,373 papers about termites were published; 49% were about how to kill them.
Every story about termites mentions that they consume somewhere between $1.5bn (£1.1bn) and $20bn in US property every year. Termites’ offence is often described as the eating of “private” property, which makes them sound like anticapitalist anarchists. While termites are truly subversive, it’s fair to point out that they will eat anything pulpy. They find money itself to be very tasty. In 2011 they broke into an Indian bank and ate 10m rupees (then £137,000) in banknotes. In 2013 they ate 400,000 yuan (then £45,000) that a woman in Guangdong had wrapped in plastic and hidden in a wooden drawer.
Another statistic seems relevant: termites outweigh us 10 to one. For every 60kg human you, according to the termite expert David Bignell, there are 600kg of them. We may live in our own self-titled epoch – the Anthropocene – but termites run the dirt. They are our underappreciated underlords, key players in a vast planetary conspiracy of disassembly and decay. If termites, ants and bees were to go on strike, the tropics’ pyramid of interdependence would collapse into infertility, the world’s most important rivers would silt up and the oceans would become toxic. Game over.
reblog this post with a cool animal species lets make a wholesome thread
ok ill give a headstart:
i really like leopard seals
axolotls are p rad
I LOVE THOSE
potoos look like muppets and i ove tem
here’s a quokka it’s like someone decided to splice together a wallaby and a teddy bear they literally always look like a benevolent cartoon
i don’t think you can get more wholesome than that adorable lil seed-eating smiley face. they’re not even like dolphins, cute on the outside and evil on the inside. they’re herbivores about the size of a cat. there is nothing wrong with them.
The Springhaas, or “irl pikachu” as it is sometimes known, is basically a rat shaped like a bunny abruptly caught in the middle of trying to evolve into a kangaroo. This is why they tend to look startled.
This is a dik dik. They are tiny antelopes from southern and eastern Africa–seriously so smol. With teeny hooves and teeny horns and big soulful eyes. And the name is fun to say. It comes from the alarm call that the females make. They live together in monogamous pairs.
Long Eared Jerboa
The adorable mash-up of a hamster, bunny, and kangaroo. Whiskers with no end, ears that put a fennec to shame, and adorability beyond measure!
bringing this back on your dashes
This is the paradise tree snake of southeast Asia:
Pretty, right?
But that’s not even the best part…
These guys can actually flatten out their bodies and…
FUCKING GLIDE FROM TREE TO TREE HOLY FUCK IS THAT AWESOME OR WHAT
Ratufa indica. Look at this awesome purpley squirrel.
Also they apparently get along with just about everyone and everything. They’re just friendly giant rats that are adorable and they deserve more love.
The honduran white bat is tiny and fluffy.
Platypus!
One of only two mammals that lay eggs, has a venomous spur, can detect electricity, and so fuckin’ weird people thought they were a hoax at first.
Botos – pink river dolphins – are amazing.
When the Amazon rises, they swin amongst the trees and eat fruit.
Also, in local legends, they transform into pretty young men who seduce girls.
the vaquita!!! they’re the smallest and most endangered porpoises on the planet
this is a picture of a calf but they usually grow to 140.6 cm (4.6 ft)
leopard geckos absolutely have to be on this list!! i love them, they are my children
This guy is a hoatzin, also known as a stinkbird. Because it stinks. Like really really bad. ‘Cause it solely subsides on plant matter, which it ferments in its giant crop that, combined with its short wings, make it too awkward to fly properly. It’s a stinky, useless bird that is actually doing pretty okay despite being clumsy and having a specialized diet ‘cause it smells so bad that most things don’t want to eat it. Supposedly it tastes as nasty as it smells.
Also, the babies have little claws on their wings that help them grip on branches and stuff. They fall off when they get older, but still. LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT THEM. LITTLE DINOSAURS.
I love hoatzins. I love these smelly horrible babies.
What a good post! Here’s
Elaphodus cephalophus, aka, a Tufted Deer! Like other, boring-er deer, but with FANGS and a cool hairdo!
I offer you, the highland cow!
They’re a scottish breed of cattle that come in quite the range of colors, have long wavy coats and long horns.
Also their calves look like literal stuffed animals.
Highland coos! So cute.
This here is a coquí (co-KEE) – it is a teensy eensy tree frog whose name comes from the incredibly loud (considering their size) sound they make. They chill out in Puerto Rico and at night they sound like a chorus of fairy car alarms going off.
This is a golden takin. They’re from the Himalayas. I think the first image I ever saw of one was on a piece of Nepalese currency.
Every time when it was raining my wife put all the animals inside the house so they wouldn’t wet and sick. Then my wife went to sleep peacefully, and I couldn’t close my eyes. I was afraid that an egg might fall on my head or the pig would start licking my face. I thank the Virgin of Zapopan because we finally saved enough money to build a shed and a henhouse. Now the animals sleep there without getting wet, and I don’t have them around my bed.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
You must be logged in to post a comment.