This is unrelated to anything else with the silly “Dire Wolf” controversy but them putting these images in all the articles give me the weirdest uncanny valley discomfort. Like it is hard for me to take these photos seriously. Do you know why?

Wolf pups just do not look like that. Because wolves typically have their pups in underground dens, it is an evolutionary advantage for the vulnerable pups to blend in with the dark earth of the den. If they were born white, they’d be sharply contrasted and easier for predators to spot. Even arctic wolves are born dark and gain their typical white coat a little later (though not all arctic wolves are white either).

Fun fact in Game of Thrones they used domestic dogs to play the dire wolf pups; puppy Ghost is cute but he’s clearly no wolf!

Giving birth to pups that are darkly colored is a pretty basic adaptation in a lot of canids that litter underground. Red foxes and arctic foxes are also born a very nondescript shade of dirt. Exceptions exist, but this is just a thing that a lot of wild canines do. Here are various canids (red fox, Ethiopian wolf, maned wolf, and African wild dog) that do this

I don’t know if we have any proof that dire wolves had their pups in dens but it would be kind of weird if they didn’t. So even if the dire wolf had a light coat as an adult they would likely still be born with a darker color to act as camouflage.

So when I keep getting this image

blasted on all my feeds you can understand why my brain has trouble registering it even as a gray wolf pup. It’s just weird. It looks like what chat gpt would spit out if you requested an arctic wolf pup. That thing would stand out like crazy in an underground den. You can make something look like something else all you want but the evolutionary history of a species is too complicated for us to ever faithfully recreate from scratch.

It's a neat trial run of doing CRISPR on wolves, I guess, but I can't even figure out why it was important that the pups were white to begin with, since as far as I know theres no evidence dire wolves were white.

the "dire wolves are no longer extinct" stuff is gonna be the most annoyingly persistent science misinformation for the next decade at least

my theory is they went with dire wolves because it's the easiest pop culture-famous extinct animal to evoke. anything people would see as cool or notable enough to care about, like a dinosaur or a woolly mammoth or a dodo, is really hard to genetically edit into existence; the exception being dire wolves, which people both think of as an epic game of thrones fantasy creature that also looks exactly like a normal wolf (as opposed to a large bush dog that isn't that closely related to grey wolves)

here's a good article from New Scientist for anyone who wants it!

lets ambush mama

Cephalopod lovers, meet a squid that’s as cute as its name: the dumpling squid (Euprymna tasmanica)! Also known as the southern bobtail squid, this cephalopod inhabits shallow waters off the coast of southern Australia. It’s an ambush predator and uses mucus glands in its skin to coat itself in sand, where it then lies in wait for prey, like shrimp and small fish. Dumplings must learn to hunt fast: Because males of this species die shortly after mating and females die soon after laying eggs, newborn squid need to fend for themselves. These precocious hatchlings can snag prey twice their size!

Photo: Rachel Price, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

not that i am against the concept of international trade nor do i think tariffs are based or whatever but what is interesting is seeing how much of the american reaction comes down to “but *i* dont want to work in a factory for pennies and *i* dont want my currency to be worthless and to have to pay one billion dollars for iphone” without even acknowledging your comfort depends on a global population who is forced to live under those exact conditions. right. like it or not, for the world to exist as it does, someone’s got to do it. someone’s got to mine the precious metals, someone’s got to forge the machine parts. someone’s got to ruin their body for slave wages, somewhere. the fact that you and i don’t is a result of winning a total genetic lottery and it is the exception not the norm and do what you want with that information but at least dont be callous

another selkie illustration.

I miss doing large motor exercises.

I miss doing competitive horseback riding and hiking and swordplay and dancing and yoga and SCUBA diving. All I can do now is gentle swimming and it sucks!

My PCP told me to exercise more but it's so difficult. All the exercises I technically can do are so slow and I'm bored out of my mind!

Not only that, but I miss the jobs I used to be able to do.

I loved doing vet work and being a stablehand for most of my teens. Being out in the sun and getting dirty while lifting 100 pounds of hay was satisfying! Can't do that anymore because I'm in so much pain! Fieldwork for ecology? It's so fun but I also have trouble with that now.

the hardest part about wanting to catch up with friends who i've barely spoken with since before my chronic illnesses worsened is figuring out a cool and casual way to tell them that my entire life fell apart

@loriannah :

"Here's more close up and personal slow motion footage taken of yesterday's Common dolphin megapod. Some just feet away, splashing us as they swam along side. These cetaceans were seen coming in hot, catching us while we were whale watching off the coast of San Clemente, California. Suddenly they sped up and the HUGE stampede began.

I've seen a lot of megapods yet never as large as this group!

It was insane!

Estimated at approximately 5000 dolphins.”

Ahhh, there’s the obvious conclusion.

If we can de-extinct* species, surely there’s no point in worrying about endangered species anymore! We can bring them back anytime!

*depending on your definition of de-extinction.

And remember: they arent actually ignorant of anything here. Its not that they falsely think species can be brought back.

Its that they already don't care if most life on earth went extinct, but they know the general public and many fellow politicians might feel differently. They hope this misconception will trick people into letting them do as they please.

I was very pleased to spot this younger gopher tort hanging out around his charmingly sized burrow.

i need to sit by the ocean about this