Surprising Fly By
Photography by Elena Murzyn, Woodinville, WA, USA
legit crying at this to much to think of suitable captions even
Anonymous asked:
iguanamouth answered:
someone has left an entire slice of watermelo n on this birds head
i havent actually heard of em ! looks like they stick mostly to the amazon rainforest basin, and are so closely related to other royal flycatchers that some scientists just group all four of em together as a subspecies and call it a day, the other three being the pacific royal, the atlantic royal, and the northern royal, with ALL of them belonging to a family called the tyrant flycatchers because apparently these birds seized their kingship by force
all of them have this feather fireworks display type crest though, in varient shades of reds and yellows depending on the bird
looks like only the males have the crest, and like most other plumage based displays its tucked away when not in use. slicked back like a haircut youre ashamed of. some kind of reverse bird pompadour. theres a video of one of them caught in someone hand, trying to be intimidating with the crest and its not working its not working at all im sorry bird
Shared by West Coast Falconry on Facebook: “Here is a priceless photo! Neither birds are West Coast Falconry’s. A captive Harris Hawk at a museum up north was eating it’s rat on a perch outside when a wild female kestrel attempted to steal the rat. She left unharmed and empty taloned. Perfect photo timing = priceless image. :)”
REGRET
“…excuse me.”
nevermind…
Birds in black and white.
so i saw this photo of a harpy eagle
and i thought “woah what a noble beast” so i searched for more photos and i just
even the babies
i mean
this goes with almost all predator birds
like look at this bearded vulture
such a majestic creature
but then it’s like
or this scretary bird like woah so beautiful
nope
even good old bald eagle
like wow so regal
what
it just looks confused
LIFE LESSON: DON’T LOOK AT MAJESTIC BIRDS STRAIGHT ON.
what is it about capybaras that attracts groups of small animals to them?
Its not just mammals either its like birds and turtles and frogs too
look at this shit
They radiate peace
capybaras are friend shaped
that frog is huge
ABC Bird of the Week: Chuck-Will’s-Widow
Chuck-will’s-widow belongs to a family of birds with the folk name “goatsuckers.” The family name, Caprimulgidae, literally means “milker of goats” and is based on an ancient belief that the birds milked goats with their enormous mouths each night.
In reality, the birds’ attraction to livestock was likely due to the presence of insects. Chuck-will’s-widow forages at dusk and dawn, silently swooping over the ground in search of prey. Specialized feathers known as rictal bristles help funnel insects into the bird’s mouth, which is so large that they may occasionally swallow small birds and bats as well!
The “chuck” is the largest nightjar in North America and is almost entirely nocturnal. During the day, the birds roost along tree branches or on the ground, where their beautifully mottled brown plumage provides perfect camouflage against dried leaves and tree bark…
(read more: American Bird Conservancy)
photo by Dick Snell
"This species of Pachysoma grabs bits of poo and gallops forward with it. That is really odd."
I think I’m in love with that beetle.
Anonymous asked:
koryos answered:
I discussed this in a lot more detail in my article on the pekapeka (a bat from New Zealand that spends about half its time on the ground), but in general, here are the reasons:
1. Compared to other flighted animal groups like birds and insects, bats are relatively new on the scene evolutionarily. They evolved flight about 52 million years ago. Compare that to birds, which have had about 150 million years to get comfortable with flying- only a few have ever lost it in that time.
2. Flying is a powerful antipredator defense and allows bats to get at resources they wouldn’t normally get, like flying insects and high-hanging flowers and fruit. This means there is currently strong evolutionary pressure for bats to retain flight in most parts of the world. One example where there was not was New Zealand (until recently). Even then, the pekapeka and its relatives retained the ability to fly.
3. Compared to birds, bats may simply be too specialized for flight to go back to being completely terrestrial. All living bats have modified hindlimbs and pelvises for flight, because their legs actually make up part of their wings.
It may be difficult to tell from that picture, but a bat’s hind legs are rotated at 90-180 degrees (depending on the species) around from where an ordinary mammal’s would be. In other words, their knees point backwards.
(This is different from a pterosaur, by the way- pterosaurs had wing membranes that attached to their hind limbs as well, but retained forward-pointing knees.)
This makes walking on the ground very difficult for them, and is related to why they roost upside-down. (In fact, some species of bats CAN’T walk on the ground at all!) Even when bats have regained the ability to be good walkers, like the vampire bat has, the style of locomotion is very different from all other living animals, like so:
It’s not a BAD way to get around, but energetically, it’s not as efficient as regular quadrupedal walking.
So, for a bat to “de-specialize” from flight completely might require extreme evolutionary pressures that don’t exist on earth right now. Not that I don’t think they could do it- but a flightless bat would end up looking really, really weird, compared to the mammals we’re used to.
Tiny Bats Roost Inside of Carnivorous Plants
BATS roost in big groups in caves. Wrong! If you’re a Hardwicke’s woolly bat, you prefer to sleep in a more luxurious – and private – place.
Kerivoula hardwickii roosts inside tropical pitcher plants in Borneo. These carnivorous plants usually attract insects, but Nepenthes hemsleyana lacks the scents that others have, so few bugs are lured in. Instead, it benefits from the faeces of this tiny bat, which provides more than a third of its nitrogen and may be crucial to the plant’s survival.
"This is the only bat species that has ever been found roosting in pitchers," says Caroline Regina Schöner, whose team discovered the bats in 2009. "These bats managed to find a niche that no one else is occupying."…
(read more: New Scientist)
photographs by Merlin Tuttle/Science Source
The bumblebee bat lives in caves near to bodies of water where insects tend to congregate. Unlike many bats, which spend the entire night searching for food, the bumblebee bat active for only very short periods of time; about half in hour and dusk, and another half hour at dawn. This means their feeding can be easily interrupted by bad weather, leaving the bats to go hungry.
