ellaandtheocean

[ellaandtheocean]

Alright we’ve all seen and been unsettled by fin whales breaching and minke whales breaching. Now may I present: Bryde’s Whale

#the way they move is upsetting #official breaching post

[ellaandtheocean]

Wet Beast Wednesday: spiny softshell turtle

It may be neither Flat Fuck Friday nor Turtle Tuesday, but because this is my series and I can do what I want, I'm talking about a very flat turtle. The spiny softshell turtle (Apalone spinifera) is the most widely distributed and possibly the most common softshell turtle in North America. Its range covers most of the Eastern half of the USA and stretched into Canada and Mexico. There are 6 subspecies separated by geography and hybridization can happen in places where their ranges cross. Hybridization has also been known to happen with the Florida softshell (Apalone ferox). The subspecies are the northern (A. s. spinifera), gulf coast (A. s. aspera), Texas (A. s. emoryi), pallid (A. s. pallida), Guadalupe (A. s. guadalupensis), and black (A. s. atra) spiny softshells.

(Image: a spiny softshell turtle seen from above and to the side. It is a turtle with a wide, flat shell. Its head and one foot are visible. The head is skinny and has an elongated nose. The foot is wide and flat, with webbed toes. The turtle is an olive green with black dots on the skin, yellow stripes on the face, and dark spots on the shell. End ID)

The thing that makes a softshell a softshell is the lack of keratinized scutes on their shells. This makes the shells smooth and leathery. The center of the shell has a layer of solid bone user it, but this does not extend to the edges of the shell, making it less rigid. Softshells are the fragile speedsters of the turtle world. Their shells are a lot lighter and often more streamlined, allowing for faster movement both on land and in water, but they provide less defense. Spiny softshells have spiny projections along the front edge of the carapace (upper shell), with males having more than females. They are some of the largest North American freshwater turtles. Females can reach a carapace length of 54 cm (21 in) and 11 kg (25 lbs) while the smaller males max out at about 25 cm (10 in).

(Image: a spiny softshell being held by a person, seen from the front. The leading edge of the carapace is visible, showing off the small spines. End ID)

Spiny softshells have wide, flat, paddle-like feet with three claws and an elongated nose that acts like a snorkel. The turtles are born a bright olive color with striped faces and dark spots on the shell. Males keep their juvenile coloration for their entire lives while females grow darker ad lose many of their markings. It can be very difficult to tell females of different subspecies apart, while males and juveniles can be distinguished by their markings. Smooth skin and highly vascularized membranes in the cloaca, mouth, and throat allow the turtles to breathe by diffusing dissolved oxygen from the water into their blood.

(Image: a male and female spiny softshell facing each other. The male is less than half the size of the female and has an olive colored shell and skin, with dark spots on the shell. The female is a uniform muddy brown color. End ID)

Spiny softshells are generalists able to live in a wide range of habitats. They prefer streams, rivers, and ponds with muddy or sandy bottoms and high visibility, but can live in most freshwater habitats. Softshells are diurnal, spending their days basking and feeding. Being turtles, they are ectothermic, meaning their body temperature matches the surrounding temperature. To warm themselves up, the turtles bask in the sunlight. They can often be found resting on exposed rocks, logs, sandbars, or shorelines. While not particularly social animals, the turtles will bask in groups. When threatened, softshells will attempt to swim away and/or bury themselves. In the right sediment, a softshell can bury itself in under a second. Because their shells are less rigid, softshells have to actively defend themselves when cornered and will bite and scratch. People have to be careful when handling them. They brumate (that's hibernation for reptiles) during winter. While brumating, they bury themselves underwater and slow their metabolism and oxygen requirements. In this state they can fully sustain themselves on oxygen absorbed through their skin or special membranes.

(Image: a spiny softshell turtle buried in its hunting strategy. Only the head is visible above the sand. End ID)

They are primarily carnivores and will eat anything that can fit in their mouths. Aquatic insects, crayfish, worms, amphibians, mussels, snails, fish, and more are on their plate. While capable of fast swimming, they are not pursuit predators. They employ two primary hunting strategies. The first is to bury themselves in the sediment and wait for prey to come by. The second is digging in the sediment to find worms and other animals. Fish have been known to follow digging turtles around to feed on animals unearthed by them.

(Image: a spiny softshell in captivity. It is swimming at the surface of the water in a tank, amongst artificial leaves. End ID)

Spiny softshells mate in spring. Males attempt to woo females by swimming over to them and bumping heads together. The male then sits on top of the female to mate. Unlike most species of turtles, the males do not grab onto the female's shells during mating. Eggs are laid between summer and early fall and will hatch next spring. The female will dig a nest in sandy or gravelly banks and bury the eggs once they have been laid. She provides no further care. Females will typically mate multiple times each year, with each mating having a different nest. The juveniles take 8 to 10 years to reach sexual maturity and they can live up to 50 years in the wild. Many turtles determine sex by the temperature the eggs are incubated in. This is not the case with spiny softshells, who have genetics based sex determination.

(Image: a group of 5 juveniles. The photo focuses on two who are sitting next to each other. One has its front right leg on the shell of the other. They have similar coloration to an adult male. End ID)

(Image: a newborn emerging from its egg. The egg is round and white, looking like a ping-pong ball. Only the head of the turtle has emerged. End ID)

Most subspecies of spiny softshell are classified as least concern or near threatened by the IUCN, meaning they are not in danger of extinction. The exception is the black spiny softshell, also known as the Cuatro Ciénegas softshell, which is critically endangered. The primary threats to the turtles is habitat loss due to human activity. Adults have no natural predators outside of the Florida and adjacent state populations, which are prey to alligators. Juveniles are eaten by a variety of animals including fish, snakes, raccoons, and herons. People will also eat the adults. Because it can take a whole decade for juveniles to become reproductive, losses in population take a long time to replace. They have been introduced to areas outside of their native range, most notably the western USA. Most of these introductions are due to people releasing pet turtles into the wild.

(Image: someone holding a juvenile. The shell is 2-3 times the size of the human's thumb. End ID)

#these are very nice

[ellaandtheocean]

Grampuses by Louis A. Sargent. From Wild Beasts of the World, Vol. Two. Written by Frank Finn, published in 1909.

Internet Archive

#oh #this made me go down a bit of a rabbit hole and realize I've been getting grampus and krampus mixed up for... a while

[ellaandtheocean]

i fucking hate how when i am super depressed and sickly feeling, the following things fix it: cooking a good meal, drinking more water, stretching, having a long shower, brushing my teeth, talking to someone…like how dare you first of all

#My mum always tells me to sit in the sun and/or eat a banana #and 9 times out of 10 it works ridiculously well

[ellaandtheocean]

[ellaandtheocean]

let’s hear it for the world’s smallest whale (the vaquita) you guys!!

[ellaandtheocean]

'Dinosauria' is rooted in Greek and frequently quoted as meaning 'terrible lizard'. But in coining the term in his report, Owen refers to dinosaurs instead as 'fearfully great', acknowledging their large size - significantly surpassing that of any living reptile.

[source]

[ellaandtheocean]

Koki Tsujimoto — Auspicious Blue and White Whale (mineral pigments on japanese paper mounted on wood panel, 2022)

#love some good whale art

[ellaandtheocean]

this is what i'm doing with my tumblr mutuals

#cephalorhyncus my beloved

[ellaandtheocean]

ANTARTIC PENGUINS CHAMPIONS OF POWER NAPS

Microsleep in humans are dangerous when driving, but just now, researchers found out penguins dominated microsleep, using these short sleep periods as strategy to balance sleep and vigilance requirements. An international team of researchers at the King George Island were looking at breeding chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus) using remote electroencephalogram monitoring, to they found out penguins nodded off more than 10,000 times a day, for only around 4 seconds at a time, but penguins still managed to accumulate close to 11 hours of sleep.

The brown skua (Stercorarius antarcticus), are very smart birds, and one of the main predators in nesting colonies. During incubation, skuas are known to prey on penguin eggs mainly on the border of the colony. As one penguin parent must therefore guard the eggs or small chicks continuously while its partner is away on foraging trips lasting several days, they face the challenge of needing to sleep while protecting their offspring In addition, they also have to effectively defend their nest site from intruding penguins, they need to stay alert.

-Recordings showing typical microsleep episodes in chinstrap penguins.

The investment in microsleeps by successfully breeding penguins suggests that the benefits of sleep can accrue incrementally.

Reference (Open Access): Libourel et al. 2023. Nesting chinstrap penguins accrue large quantities of sleep through seconds-long microsleeps. Science

#wish i could do this at work :/

[ellaandtheocean]

love leopard seals. they are so dragon coded. that is an entire mammalian marine wyrm

[ellaandtheocean]

🌑 Black beauty! This manta is an example of the uncommon melanistic manta - a color mutation that results in more dark pigmentation than normal (like the opposite of albinism, which is a lack of pigmentation!) It lacks the white chevron on its back and white belly, making it truly striking.

[ellaandtheocean]

"Autistic characters in popular media are always robots or aliens" I mean, that's just not true. Autistic characters in popular media in fact span a wide range of backgrounds, including (but not limited to):

Time traveller

Former cultist

Morbid little girl

Grown in a tube

Ambiguously foreign

Talking animal

Curse victim

Tech support

Raised by wolves

Ninja assassin

World famous detective

French

#morbid little girl #terrified my year 2 class by giving a very detailed presentation on box jellyfish and their toxins!

[ellaandtheocean]

YES I’ve been chased and hissed at by a Canada goose but it doesn’t make me hate them guess I’m just built different

#these absolute menaces hiss at me when I cycle past them sometimes #but I think it's important to face some challenges and fears in our everyday lives

[ellaandtheocean]

The fact that israel revels in the destruction of a hospital and gleefully attacks civilian centers while Iran responds to an attack on it by striking military targets, yet the former is called "restrained" and "democratically humanistic" while the latter is villified as "aggressive" and "dangerous" should tell you everything you need to know about both western liberal democratic imperialism and western media's class nature.

#ALSO #Iran said they would not retaliate IF the UN Security Council condemned Israel's attack on their embassy #Of course

[ellaandtheocean]

I found these moths separately, and placed them on the tree together I walked away for some time and came back to the little one hiding out under the larger one’s wing :3

#love big moths <3

[ellaandtheocean]