animal fact o'the week: flamingos weird water abilities

flamingos are the only animal that can drink almost boiling water!
most flamingos live near bodies of water with high salt concentrations, and sometimes the only source of fresh water for them are boiling geysers. so, in order to survive, they had to adapt to be able to drink that nearly boiling water. in addition to this, flamingos can stand in this hot water without getting burns.

the adaptation to being cool with boiling water also makes sense in the competition aspect… if you can stand in a place others cannot.. that’s YOUR spot! and all the little bugs and fish that others cannot get to are allllll yours. mmmm, boiled bugs.

flamingos are full of surprises and body-oddity. they secrete salt through specialized glands in their nose (nature’s the saltiest boogers!), their knees bend opposite ours, AND their pink color is not due to the color of their feathers but rather their shrimp diet! what wonderful weirdos!

in early AI image generation days (ya know- before we were worried about midjourney stealing artists’ jobs lol), my husband and I inputted “flamingo mosh pit”

I already feel nostalgia for those early AI image generator days. I loved the dreamy quality you could get. it was such a fun tool to make absurd imagery…


speaking of dreamy imagery and flamingos… here’s a real photo of flamingos taking shelter from a hurricane in the men’s bathroom at a Miami zoo in 1998. they look ready to fight that crew they see in the mirror!

animal fact o'the week: squids can get brain damage if they eat anything too large

the colossal squid has a donut shaped brain- and through a tiny hole in the center runs their esophagus. becuase of this perculiarly placed esophagus, they have to be mindful of what & how they eat- as anything too large could cause brain damage! they tear their food into teeny tiny pieces so it can fit through their teeny tiny esophagus (measuring about .39 inches wide) (which is particularly impressive when you consider these big boys measure about 46 ft long and weigh up to 1500 lbs!)

because these squid live in extremely cold temperatures (up to 7200 feet deep! and off the tip of africa through antartica), their metabolism moves verrrrry slowly and they don’t have to eat very much.

animal fact o'the week: squirrels don't take fall damage

squirrels do not take fall damage! they can survive impacts at their terminal velocity (the fastest speed they can fall at due to air resistance/drag)- they reach the full speed of their fall in 3 seconds. the reason for their low terminal velocity is that the surface area of their body relative to their weight is fairly large…. that big ol’ fluffy tail helps slow down their fall.

we have some extremely territorial grey squirrels in our yard- they LOVE to yell at my small hairless cat. the other day, she was staring directly at one that was munchin’ on a nut and the squirrel THREW THE NUT at her. the nerve!
my neighborhood in inland southern california didn’t have squirrels until around 2012 or so but they’ve really made themselves at home ( and with such confidence!)
we have a lot of cats, and they coexist much more peacefully with the squirrels then i would imagine. the squirrels love to eat the cat food we leave out, and our cats will patiently wait their turn for the food

also, my friend cheyne shared this with me… the infamous superhero squirrel landing pose

animal fact o'the week: tarantulas with pets

i absolutely love unusual animal friendships. i think the reason i enjoy them so much is because it makes the world seem more like a disney movie (sans the sexist damsel-in-distress-with-dead-parents thing) (and with less musical outbreaks, thankfully)(i digress)

so this week’s animal fact is about an unexpected pairing: tarantulas that keep little frogs as pets!!

there is a very tiny (very cute) species of frogs called microhylids, which measure just under 1/2 inch in length & we’ve observed them in india, sri lanka, and peru living with tarantulas! maybe you are wondering why, or maybe like me, you just figure the tarantula has good taste in company… regardless… there are some hypothesis about this phenomenon.

from the frog’s point of the view, the benefits are obvious. the tarantula serves as a bodyguard of sorts (who wants to mess with a big buff hairy spider??). the frogs also can feed their tadpoles with the tarantula’s leftovers & eat the bugs that are drawn in from said leftovers. for the tarantula, however, the benefits are a little less obvious. one definite advantage of having the frogs around is that they eat the extra teeny ants that normally would go after the tarantula’s eggs. these relationships happen in different parts of the world, and maybe their relationships vary slightly from location to location. maybe the tarantulas just think the frogs are cute. maybe the tarantulas like the sound of the frogs ribbit….. hmm!

there is some debate about whether this relationship is considered commensalism (one species benefits at no real benefit or cost to the other) or mutualism (both species benefit from the other). i don’t know, if i were that tarantula i would be pretty happy about a pet that protected my unborn children…. seems pretty important!!!

(i love the above photo because the frog looks like he is defending his beloved pal)
in case you are the type who likes to read scientific studies, you can read the 1989 study here

animal fact o'the week: male seahorses are the best dads

okay the title may be a stretch, BUT male seahorses do more than most dads in the animal kingdom- they give birth!

after performing a mating ritual dance (see video below), the female seahorse implants her eggs into the male, who then fertilizes them (see the video below the video below)(this one feels a little invasive… but it’s just so cool to see)

male seahorses birth up to 2000 teeny-tiny youngins at a time. the incubation period is 10 to 25 days, depending on the species, and during this time the female grows new eggs. this process makes for super effective reproduction- the female has time (& energy) to grow more eggs while the male carries the babies. he can actually be impregnated with a new litter the same day he gives birth to the others.

animal fact o'the week: sloths are slow internally, too

hello everyone! let’s talk about our wonderfully weird & slow friends- sloths! and their eating habits

we all know that sloths move slowly around on their trees. but! their insides also move verrrry slowly. it takes a sloth 30 days to digest a leaf!!!!!!! their metabolism extracts energy from that leaf over an extended period of time because of their lethargic lives. they poop one time a week, and lose up to a third of their body weight when they do :0 depending on which species of sloth they are (there are 6), they eat other things besides leaves; bugs, lizards, fruit, twigs and bird eggs.
if their food chain is disrupted, they can actually starve with a full belly because it takes their system sooooo loooonnng to break their food down.

i have many more sloths facts, but i am saving them for a future post! so instead, enjoy this cutie munchin’ on a leaf! i also love this video of a sloth crossing the road:

animal fact’o the week: sea otter techniques for not floating away from each other

while i usually try to share facts that are unusual, this week i just wanted to share one of my favorite cute animal facts.

sea otters hold paws while they sleep so they don’t drift away from each other!! (see adorable video below)

while they are resting, sea otters actually hang out with a same sex group of otters (between 10-1000 otters). to prevent themselves from floating adrift, they actually wrap themselves up in kelp to stay together & this formation of sea otters is referred to as a raft. i sure wish they all held hands to stay together, but the kelp solution is also pretttttty cute.

when momma sea otters are hunting to provide vittles for their baby, they tie their little one up in kelp to keep ‘em stationary. look at this literal fuzzbucket of a baby below! baby sea otters are too buoyant to hunt for the first 2 months of their lives.

sea otters have the densest fur of any other animal (1 million furs per square inch!!!) because they exclusively use their fur to stay warm. most other sea dwelling mammals also have blubber for insulation. sea otter’s fur only works for warmth when it is clean (as it keeps them warm by trapping air & repelling water), which is why you see them almost constantly grooming.

animal fact o'the week: caterpillars completely liquify in their cocoons

hello again everyone- this week we have a bug fact!

caterpillars…. they eat and eat and eat until they are ready to build a cocoon/chrysalis… then they magically come out as a moth or butterfly! but what happens inside that cocoon you may be wondering??? well! It turns out they don’t stop being hungry in their cocoon…. they digest themselves (!!!) until they COMPLETELY liquefy. so they dissolve themselves into primordial goo… then… reform as a flying beauty. (perhaps the strangest way to experience puberty) what makes this particularly amazing to me though, is that they retain their memories during this process! where, in their liquefied selves, do their memories get stored?? and do they remember their time as caterpillar soup, too? is it weird to digest yourself? does it hurt? feel good?

the video below shows 3-d scans of the chrysalis formation- it’s pretty cool to see! (also, it’s worth noting.. caterpillars spin a cocoon when they are going to become a moth and harden into a chrysalis when they will become a butterfly).

unrelated but i have a sweet caterpillar story. so my dad is the family handyman- he spends his days landscaping, fixing anything/everything, painting, and so on. he spent the other day painting some plywood he just installed at a family friend’s house. after he finished up, he drove over to the hardware store to pick up some supplies he would need the next day, cruised over to tommy burger to get fav snack, came home and munched. now, tommy burgers are exceptionally greasy, so after he ate he was washing his hands in the sink, looked up, and saw a monarch caterpillar standing up on his shoulders. i imagine they stared at each other awhile, perhaps the caterpillar was cursing at him for not sharing any french fries or introducing him to the staff at the hardware store. my dad, who literally would not harm a fly, knew he had to find this lil dude a new home. now, monarch caterpillars like to feast on milkweed (a fact we learned last year, when my dad found one stranded on our driveway & wanted to rehabilitate it (apparently he & caterpillars have a way of finding each other)) but we don’t have milkweed in our yard. soooo my dad drove back to our friend’s house and deposited the caterpillar where it had hitched onto him- the milkweed! so cute.

animal fact o'the week: calico cats are almost always female and orange cats are usually male

howdy howdy! today we are gunna talk about cat coloring…

over 99% of calico cats are female! the 1% that are male have an extra X chromosome- meaning they are XXY- and are (almost always) infertile.

on the flip side, upwards of 80% of orange cats are male. the orange fur gene is also on the X chromosome- but for a female cat to be orange she must inherit the orange coloring from both her X chromosomes.. meaning both her parents must be carriers (so her mom just has to carry the orange gene, but her dad must actually be orange)

in my experience, and the experiences of those i’ve spoken with, orange cats seem to be more affectionate that your average gato. my childhood orange cat sanga (pronounced song-ah), is an avid gift-giver. he started by finding the largest leaves in the neighborhood and bringing them to our front porch… then he started stealing wiffle balls from our neighbor (he brought us 28 balls before we figured out who he was stealing them from!). after that, he started bringing gifts from within the home- bras & CDs & anything in a plastic bag. sanga is 17 now & can’t bring us gifts anymore- but he only stopped a couple of months ago. below is a recent picture of our handsome sanga, taken by my husband on one of his lomography cameras.

two years ago we had an orange stray cat appear in our backyard & begin feasting on our cat kibble. he started greeting me every single time i went outside & following me around so of course we had to adopt the lil dude. we named him pepe ( a man of many nicknames, peppers, pepsi, peepee, pepperoni, the list goes on…) & he is another high quality cat. (pictured below)(also a lomography shot taken by my dearest Jonas)

i’ve just never met an orange cat that wasn’t exceptionally friendly. whenever people tell me they don’t like cats, i want to advise them to go adopt an orange cat and see what happens. i did some cursory googling on what makes orange cats superior…. but nothing conclusive. and again, this is a nice one to wonder about.

okay and one more cute orange cat fact…. they have a tendency to develop black freckles- which can be seen around their nose, eye, and mouth. but it turns out… they may be freckled all over their body :0 ! check out pepe’s face freckles

animal fact o'the week: koalas are STD-ridden dum-dums

howdy howdy! today we will be talking about another cute australian creature: koala bears!!!

koalas bears… cute, cuddly, and naaaasty. there is currently a major outbreak of chlamydia among them; upwards of 90% of koala bears have it! yikes.
though most of them catch it through sexual transmission, baby koala bears can catch it from eating pap- their mother’s nutritious poop (yikes pt. 2).
in humans, we treat this STD with antibiotics. but giving antibiotics to koala bears is not a good treatment plan, as their gut bacteria is finely tuned to allow them to eat eucalyptus leaves & antibiotics indiscriminately destroy gut bacteria. eucalyptus leaves are high in a compound called tannin, which is a highly toxic if ya don’t have the right stuff in your belly to break it down. we have developed a vaccine for treatment, but as you can imagine, vaccinating wild animals is…. tricky.

and if we didn’t have enough of a reason to feel bad for our lil koala buds- due to their minimally nutritious diet of eucalyptus leaves, their brains are shrinking & becoming smoother. their cranial cavity is much larger than their brain, so their brain is just shakin’ around in there. oh koalas! we are trying to save you… but you are making it a bit difficult.

animal fact o'the week: blue whales are bigger than anyone else ever was

hello hello ! i am back again to tell you about our gorgeous oceanic giants: blue whales!

blue whales are not only the largest animal on the planet right now… they are the largest animal that has EVER lived on our planet. blue whales are larger than any species of dinosaur we have discovered (yes, jurassic park lied to all of us!!!!) they are so gigantic, in fact, that their tongues weigh as much as an elephant!

i found one source that said that a human could water slide through a blue whale’s heart- then saw another model that showed it smaller(the entire heart was about the size of a human). not much is known about blue whale hearts & i am choosing to believe we could water slide through ‘em; an alternative version of jonah & the whale, if you will.
(i actually really like when we, as humans, don’t know. in the age in information, it is refreshing to wonder!)( i also like when i don’t know & my factual accuracy is ultimately inconsequential. i like to choose to believe in the more magical version of things, when i can).

and while we are talking about whales….
when whales die, their carcass falls down to the ocean floor (referred to as a “whale fall” when it falls deeper than 1,000 meters) and serves as a feast for their oceanic brethren. their carcass can support an entire ecosystem for decades when it falls into the deep sea! deep sea dwellers don’t mess around with resources.

animal fact o'the week: wombat poop

so i’m obsessed with animal facts. i love learning lil tidbits about the wonders & delights of the world all around us….. it gives me hope, usually makes me giggle, and gives me the opportunity to reflect upon how enchanting our lives on this magnificent planet are.

so for the first one… let’s talk about wombat’s fabulous feces!

wombats, the adorable short-legged marsupial beans native to Austrailia, have CUBE SHAPED POOP! what! (yo what do their butts look like?!) they produce 80-100 dice-sized poop cubes a night. some scientists say it’s to mark territory (cubed poos never roll away) but i think they wanted to make biodegradeable stackable blocks for their kiddos. only the wombats themselves could answer our questions but unfortunately they don’t speak any human languages (yet).

if you are interested in hearing more about their excellent excrement, one of my favorite podcasts “every little thing” hosted by flora lichtman & produced by gimlet media, has an excellent episode about the subject called “Who Invented the Bloomin’ Onion? Plus, Biology’s Best Butt”

and i know you need to see a picture of the world’s #1 number two so here ya go:

what DIY means to me

my recent obsession with DIY came about when i realized i needed business cards for my senior art show (which was a week away). i started by making a prototype. then i made another prototype. then another. i realized i could make a bunch of cards that were similar enough but change little bits & play with color & composition & so on.

so i hand drew my business cards (there were only 50)(and there was something so wonderful about that too). it was an awakening for me.

doin' it myself forced me to slow down & reconnect with what i enjoy about creating. i'm too anxious of a person to live a fast paced life; i get so caught up in the list of things i need to do that i forget to enjoy whatever i'm currently doing. 

doin' it myself meant being in control of all the means of production. i don't have to worry about color issues, weird formatting, and i have time to experiment & change my mind as many times as i want. there's variety in the product, some come out better than others, but it keeps the process engaging. 

the photo above is actually of my silkscreened business cards; i had to compromise a little. but silkscreening also produced varied & funky little cards.

i currently hand drawn buttons, shirts, hats, and whatever else i can get my grubby little paws on ;)

eva