the fact that pro-monarchy arguments have degenerated, over the past few centuries, from “the king rules by divine right and is accountable to nobody but god”, to “uhm the royals generate a lot of income from tourism” will never stop being extremely funny to me
the monarchs… bad. but the castles? oh, the castles are positively lush with rats… 👅
International Vulture Awareness Day is almost upon us! To celebrate it, I’d like to introduce you guys to a vulture species I’ve photographed over the past couple of years.
To start of with is the Palm-nut vulture (Gypohierax angolensis). This is a smaller Old World Vulture that’s mostly seen throughout coastal areas of the African continent, from The Gambia to Kenya and as far south as South Africa. The population is currently listed as Least Concern by the IUCN.
These birds have a wingspan of about 150cm and weigh in at around 1.3-1.7kg. These birds are quite unusual for birds of prey, since it mainly feeds on the fleshy fruit-husks of the oil-palm and on the palm-fruits of raphia. These fruits make up about 60% of an adult’s diet, and up to 90% of a juvenile bird’s diet. Besides that, it feeds on crabs, molluscs, frigs, fish, locusts, small mammals, reptiles’ eggs and hatchlings, and even domestic poultry on occasion as well as carrion.
Some might think of this gorgeous vulture species as an eagle, considering their beak and their claws. But they’re real vultures. And one of my favourite species of vultures. ❤️
I can’t believe I had to wait until i was 25 to learn about the voynich manuscript. I’m so upset right now
Like. Don’t talk to me right now unless you want to talk about this mysterious 15th century manuscript written in either a code so complex academics and amateurs alike have spent over a hundred years failing to decode it or meaningless nonsense organized in such a sophisticated manner that it follows language patterns with remarkable accuracy, especially for the time period
The Halloween moon crab (Gecarcinus quadratus) is a largely herbivorous species of crab found in mangroves, sand dunes, and rainforests along the Pacific coast from Mexico south to Panama.
It lives in the forest at least some of its adult life, but needs to return to the ocean to breed.
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a florida photographer spotted a black vulture and bald eagle sharing a meal together. while vultures are often sterotyped as dirty scavengers and bald eagles as strong hunters, they both eat carrion, and sometimes bald eagles eat & socialize with vultures.
These beautiful endpapers are found inside our copy of Notes on Metallurgical Analysis, published in 1903. The book was written by Nathaniel Wright Lord, a mining engineer who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 26, 1854. Lord worked at Ohio State University in various capacities (including Director of the School of Mines, Dean of the College of Engineering, Professor of Metallurgy and Mineralogy) over the course of 33 years. He died of heart failure on May 23, 1911.