“No Matter What Happens In Life, Be Good To People. Being Good To Others Is A Wonderful Legacy To Leave

>"Because of their size, bats are notoriously difficult to find deceased from natural causes, and by the time they are found, the bodies have often already decomposed beyond value."

Sad, but true point to mention here: if one were to visit a wind-energy farm during bat migration season, one will find dead bats. Aeorestes cinereus in particular are all but doomed to be sacrificed on the altar of capitalism/the dollar, it seems...

Here's your yearly reminder NOT to purchase bat taxidermy products.

Because of their size, bats are notoriously difficult to find deceased from natural causes, and by the time they are found, the bodies have often already decomposed beyond value.

As sad as it is, it's true — As holidays approach, I know many people with an interest in these critters have the potential to receive gifts that are very unethical for the creatures they care about. Bats are killed for the sole purpose of displays like this as a soulless cash grab. Already, there are dozens of bat species that are threatened or endangered. It is not fair to them to support an industry that is actively trying to extinguish their life for decoration.

You can read more about this crisis here and here.

Photo provided by Denley Photography on Unsplash.

Reblogs on this post are encouraged.

x.x

to be honest, I think the author missed an opportunity here. In the passage after the party recovered from the wild currents; Gregor making a joke potentially might not have been enough to snap Thalia out of her spiral, which heightens the urgency of the party to help the lil'bat.

Cue Hazard hugging Thalia, and then reciting the bonding oath, holding her thumb claw, providing extra stability which she could latch onto. Significant emotional moment... And then, later, she perishes. And Hazard can't help her. None of the party can help her. Maybe she even dwells on that tiny glimmer of hope that she'd wake up again, emerge from the state of intense panic that must have infused her final moments, similar to that the wind chamber experience... Hazard helped her recover from that, he'll be there to guide her through this, right?

Marks of Secret, pretty much

they shoulda just gone on that dang picnic

For my non-German mutuals wondering wtf is happening in the Bundesrepublik of Beer and Bread, here is an overview over the clown show so far:

Nov 6 - chancellor Olaf Scholz fires minister of finances Christian Lindner (FDP) for being an incompetent little bitch and drags him on live TV, resulting in a government crisis as the three party coalition (named Ampel aka "Traffic Light"), which is ruling the country at the moment, falls apart.

Scholz also calls for a vote of confidence on January 15th which (if lost) will lead to the Bundestag being dissolved, triggering snap elections in March. This sends everyone into a panic because the ultra right-wing AfD (with Best Of hits such as "Russia is sexy.", "We should criminalize abortions and force every woman to have more babies instead of rights." and "Deport all immigrants and traitors." and the inofficial ones such as "Why don't we just kill everyone we don't like, let's start with the queers.") has been gaining support for a while (because MAGA has no monopoly on racism, sexism, hate and overall stupidity) and no one with an ounce of empathy or a triple digit IQ likes that very much and is thus worried they might actually make it into a new coalition.

Nov 7 - minister for justice Marco Buschmann is heartbroken over the Ampel-Aus and resigns.

Volker Wissing (FDP), minister for transport, commits the funniest anime betrayal and backstabs his party in order to keep his job, leaves the FDP but gets promoted to minister of justice as a little treat. The memes skyrocket.

Bettina Stark-Watzinger, minister of education and research, resigns along with Buschmann and gets replaced by Cem Özdemir (current minister for food and agriculture) because agriculture - education - at the end of the day where's the difference, right?

Federal President Steinmeier hands Christian Lindner his official participation certificate in an awkward ceremony at castle Bellevue. This is broadcast live on television so everyone can be sure that the little bitch is really leaving.

Friedrich Merz (CDU) threatens the nation with the promise that if he (Merz) becomes chancellor, he will let Lindner back into the government so they can keep fucking up the country's budget together. Bffs.

Nov 8 - after backstabbing the FDP Wissing's website gets hacked in retaliation to display FDP ads.

Meanwhile concerns are being voiced that snap elections in March might be way too early due to a lack of paper.

Robert Habeck (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), vice chancellor and minister for economic affairs and climate action, announces that he will be running for the position of chancellor with a social media post that shows him wearing a Swiftie bracelet which spells "Kanzler-Era" (chancellor-era). This sends Gundolf Siebeke from the super conservative CDU spiralling.

Nov 9 - Siebeke fires off a tweet stating that if Habeck becomes chancellor that would of course be totally the fault of women alone (who are all too emotional to make rational decisions) and Germany should "inofficially" consider revoking women's right to vote and officially implement "antiemotional" history lessons in school, earning him a massive shitstorm (completely deserved). Siebeke deletes the tweet.

Nov 10 - previous minister of justice Marco Buschmann processes his grief over the end of the traffic light coalition by composing and uploading a song to Soundcloud (feat. Gregorian chants) which is not exactly a banger but is admittedly still better than 99% of Germany's entries in the ESC these past few years.

Siebeke is still on his misogynistic bs and makes another incoherent and sexist tweet, this time yapping about queens and Christianity while trying to paint himself as the misunderstood victim.

There are sadly no more Volker Wissing memes.

Nov 12 - everyone has agreed to move the elections from March to the end of February because paper is no longer an issue, I guess? However, now everyone is unhappy because the date clashes with the carnival. No joke.

Siebeke changes the banner on his Twitter profile to read "Frauen. Wahl. Recht. Der 19. Januar 1919" / "Women. Right (to). Vote. January 19th 1919" in a pathetic attempt to show how much he actually (not) respects women while at the same time claiming in his Twitter bio that "only conservatism can secure democracy, freedom, rule of law, equality, climate and culture". No comment.

Nov 13 - 113 members of parliament have officially called for the Bundestag to open the long overdue investigation in order to finally ban the AfD.

It has been the longest week in the history of the Bundesrepublik. Everyone needs a fucking break.

To be continued

Sending love to everyone who is just... tired. Life is a lot, and sometimes the answer to it all is to just be still and silent for a while. Give yourself space and grace. Whether it’s decision fatigue, anxiety fatigue, information fatigue, routine fatigue, getting life back together fatigue, career fatigue, social fatigue, financial fatigue, or physical fatigue—take a moment to breathe and recharge. You deserve it.

Okay alright sorry for all the sudden German politics influx but lemme explain what happened so far and why Germans are losing it a bit:

The tldr? Our government is getting a divorce and it's turning messy with elections being called early and now being called even earlier.

The longer version?

Okay so, groundwork first:

in Germany there is a coalition currently in power called the Ampel(traffic lights) bc the colours of the party are red, yellow and green (or not anymore or for much longer??). They're centrist slightly more left leaning than right leaning. (You could argue about that I am aware). There has been infighting for as long as this coalition has been going on. It is also the first three party coalition since y know, the Last Time.

So. Enough groundwork. The yellow party (FDP) has a finance minister (Christiane Lindner) it's this guy

You will see him in memes I am sure. We don't like him. He's an asshole and has blocked every meaningful change that the coalition had been trying to accomplish. He also got his finance plan blocked by our highest court because parts were against our Constitution.

(.... I am oversimplifying hard here it's actually more complicated than that and not fully his fault, but it's also not the focus)

What WAS the fault though of him and the FDP was that they had a strong position of "saving money at all costs" which made bigger and bigger rifts with the two other coalition partners who were more leaftleaning. The war in Ukraine, Infrastructure, climate change - there were many places that needed more money and Lidner was like naaahhhhh for no fucking reason other than "oh we need to save money!!"

Long story short there have been arguing all the fucking time and therefore have started to lose approval. Drastically lose approval. As on for the first time since the Last Time there is a far right party in charge for part of the country that is also being investigated for being Nazis. (Oversimplifying again).

Which is. Worrying. You know. Especially with Trump now being elected. It has us all a little skittish.

The finance minister has also now been fired.

You see. We were all still trying to stomach Trump winning the US election, when Scholz, in the same fucking evening, fired Lindner.

And not in a polite way. Nah. Olaf fucking Scholz our Chancellor, notorious for saying literally nothing, and with a running joke that he regularly stops existing bc that man Does Not Take Stances, a spine of wet cardboard, delivered this yesterday evening:

(English subtitles by me you already got this far watch it I spent too much time on this lol)

And it is insane alright. For his standards and German politic standards thats the equivalent of calling Lindner a egomaniacal bitch that has only his self interest at heart and can not be trusted.

Lindner and his party have been pulverised in all recent elections. Which means that after he was fired, the FDP completely withdrew from the coalition and all minister from the FDP resigned.

....well all but one who apparently stayed in his positions because he's leaving the FDP over this. What sort of shitty backstabbing kindergarten fight is this. (Jokes aside hes the minister of transportation and says he needs to stay in office in important projects. Which. True. Having minister resigning en mass is not good)

Alright cool cool cool cool. Current situation yesterday is the following:

So. Trump is president. Fuck.

Lindner got fired! Yaaay!

Wait my goverment is now also falling apart! Fuck.

Which all lead to new elections being called in Germany.

Mind you, that's not usual ok. I know other countries have systems where they can call an election whenever but that is not a thing that normally happens here. We have a schedule alright. (Insert obligatory "Germans and their plans and structure" joke)

So new elections are called for spring, nearly a year early. Cool cool cool. With a right wing rising in Germany and deeply unpopular current leadership. On the eve of motherfucking trump getting elected.

Habeck, leader of the green party and one of the few policians in germany I think is vaguely liked by ppl (the general attitude in German politics is less "I like this guy" and more "you are the least shitty choice I guess") has appearently also nearly started crying after the news broke. So. Yeah.

Now. Let's make this shitshow complete,alright?

There is this party. CDU. They had been in charge for a very long time in Germany. Centrist, right leaning, with the afd on the rising even more right leaning than before. Their current leader is Friedrich Merz, as unpleasant as human beings can go.

He has now called for the new election to be not in a few months but like. To be called next week.

In the current climate.

So yeah. if you're German mutuals and friends are currently going through their own stages of grief - this is why.

Thumbless Bat Skull (Furipterus horrens)

Since there weren’t many good reference photos of the thumbless bat available (a tragedy!!), I took a shot at its bizarre-looking skull. Evolution has done to many bats what man has cruelly wrought on domestic dogs- though the difference is that it actually works for the bats.

The thumbless bat, as you might imagine from looking at this skull, has a very squished-in face, with fur and skin obscuring the extreme bend above the eyes. This might aid it in echolocation by turning its head into a radar dish, similar to an owl’s. There are definitely a lot of bats that seem to have converged on the flattened-face design. But that isn’t an Official Scientist’s Opinion, just mine.

I should mention that despite their common name, thumbless bats actually DO have thumbs, just reduced ones with tiny, functionless claws. This brings up the question of how they crawl, since most bats use their thumbs like pitons while moving around on their roosts. The answer may be that they just don’t crawl that much- a creature thoroughly adapted to life in the air.

Another fun fact about thumbless bats: their nipples are located on their abdomen, rather than under their armpits like most bats. This means the babies have to orient themselves head-up on their mothers (who are hanging upside-down, of course) to nurse. But how do they do this without functional thumbs to hold on with? I have so many questions that the internet cannot answer.

Finally, please enjoy this thumbless bat art by famed naturalist Ernst Haeckel, circa 1904:

once again thinking about gregor and ares' brief divorce arc, it's honestly unbelievably funny. they're so violence kill and then they aren't speaking for like. a day. but then after that they're completely ride or die for each other

like this is so funny. they're so stupid. then the next time they interact gregor had just hit all the blood balls and ares is whisking him away from everybody and they're besties again

live reaction: "...That's a frugivorous species, a fruit bat, of the Artibeus genus. not a carnivorous bat. might have a nose leaf and sharp teeth but they're not like a Chrotopter- oh, it's pregnant."

congrats to the lil'bat, and blessings upon the even lil'er bats!

"Hehehehe... I'm full of littler bats"

--

Bringing you the great fruit-eating bat because this image in particular has brought me and my friends a lot of joy over time!

image description: a very fat bat with white stripes and a prominent nose leaf being held up for the camera by a hand.

Thank you for sharing.

If you're still taking requests for doodles... (quoting from Code of Claw)

"Next, I will sing one for you!" announced Boots, pointing at the bat, who actually flinched.

Or maybe a hypothetical scenario of Angelina and Larry meeting Luxa, with Gregor in attendance? (Gregor having brought Luxa on a topside excursion for pizza, and then his friends just randomly show up at some point through sheer coincidence.) Ooooor, maybe Gregor's school friends dropped by his apartment to meet up, with one of the other tenants directing them to the laundry room 'cause they saw the kid in there as they left… Gregor juuuust departing to the Underland but suddenly hears his friends' voices coming from the approach and he can't just dip because what if they find the access point on their own and the currents at that moment aren't favorable for a non-assisted descent. So he has to get back up into the laundry room quickly and so manages to do so in time but the grate either makes noise as it closes and thus invokes curiosity, or Gregor tries to be stealthy and quietly closes the grate but the other two kids catch him in the act... ...this is all a lead-up to hypothetical scenario/image of Angelina and Larry encountering/maybe chatting with Nike. (Or, maybe it's Ares in the shaft...)

apologies. can't make up my mind on which to choose.

this is so fucking funny