Giant tarantulas keep tiny frogs as pets. Insects will eat the burrowing tarantulas’ eggs – so the spiders protect the frogs from predators, and in return the frogs eat the insects. Source
This has blown my mind for years. It’s so unreal. It’s almost the same exact reason humans and cats started living together.
Tiny frogs are tarantula housecats. A science fact seldom gets to sound that much like meaningless word salad.
This is legit, guys. And I’m excited about it.
Someone needs to draw a tarantula person with a tiny pet housefrog now. Please let this be a thing.
[Video of venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough standing amid vegetation. On a near-horizontal branch above his head is a brown and yellow greater bird of paradise, about the size of a crow, with big floaty yellow plumage puffing out along its back.]
Bird: Pwuk. Pwuk. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: This, surely – Bird (hopping along the branch): WUKWUKWUkwukwukwukoooh. Oooh. Oooh.
[Cut. Same shot.]
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: This, surely, is one – Bird: Kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: This, surely –
[Cut. Same shot but the bird is on the other side now and venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough has his hand on the branch.]
Bird (hopping up and down on venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough’s fingers): Eh-eh. Eh-eh. Eh-urrrr. Eh-urrrr. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: Close up – Bird (hopping away from him): Tiktiktiktik. Tiktiktiktik. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – the plumes – Bird (hopping around): Huek. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – are truly – Bird: Huek. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – exquisite. Bird: Huek. Eh-eh. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: The gauzy – Bird (hopping and spinning on the spot): HukWUKWUKWukwukoooh. Oooh. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: …
[Cut. Same shot but the bird is back on the original side of the branch.]
Bird: Aark. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: Of course, by the eighteenth century – Bird: Ehhh. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – naturalists realized that birds of paradise – Bird (hops across to the other side of the branch) Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – did have – Bird (hopping back again): Krrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – legs. Even so – Bird: WUKWUKWUKWukwukwukooh.
[Cut. Same shot.] Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough (apparently trying to tickle the bird’s tummy): – by about the eighteenth century – Bird (hops away and spins round) Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – and so – Bird: AAAAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK aaak. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough (wearily): … Very well.
[Cut. Same shot.]
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – but Karl Linnaeus, the great – Bird (vibrating rapidly on the spot and then flapping its wings): PWAAAAAAAK. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – classifier of the natural world – Bird: AAAAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAUUH. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – when he came to allocate a scientific name – Bird: … Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – to this bird – Bird: … Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – called it – Bird: Wooo-ooo. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – wooo-ooo – Bird (surveys the surroundings with a dignified turn of the head) Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: ‘paradisia apoda’: the bird of paradise – Bird: Hoooo. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – without legs. Bird: Eh-eh.
Update: he finally got the cat to the vet to see if she had a microchip
I was already on board with his sweet wholesome open-to-love-and-nurturing heart but I was fully unprepared for getting to that last tweet and seeing how off the hook HOT dude is
This is true! The zoo where I volunteer (the illustrious Columbus Zoo & Aquarium) was one of the pioneers of this program.
Our zoo is known for raising cheetah cubs. Cheetahs have a terrible infant mortality rate and cubs are often rejected, so we get a lot of cubs to raise from all over the country (other zoos and sanctuaries, mostly).
The cubs are placed with a puppy friend when they are wee and small, so they grow up together like littermates. They play together, wrestle, and the dogs (yellow Labs) are so calm, friendly and well-socialized that the cheetahs take behavioral cues from them. When they meet new people, or go into new situations (which they often do, as ambassador animals for cheetah conservation), they check out if their dog friend is feeling chill – which he is – and then they know it’s okay for them to be chill, too.
Basically the dog is a service animal for them.
The cats need their dog friends less and less as they get older and more comfortable, but they still often hang out as grownups.
Our zoo does cheetah runs, where the cheetahs get to chase a lure and show off their speed. Often they’ll have one of the cheetahs run (we have like twelve cheetah), and then they’ll have one of the dogs do the run to show how much faster the cats are. People get a kick out of that. The dogs…let’s just say they try their best.
This fucking comic. I. This fuckign. This comic make me have emotiosn over a crab. I am almost in tears because of this ufkcing crab. what te fuck what the hell is going
wupacing 