Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
the ribbon seals most defining feature, their stripes, take 4 years to develop!
here is a short timeline of their development š¦
adorable white coat ribbon seal pups. this baby fur is called lanugo.
after around 1 month pups will start shedding their baby fur to reveal a grey and silver coat
young seals with their grey and silver coat
then, the juvenile seals with start to develop their stripes over the next 3 years. they grow stronger with each moult, females can reach sexual maturity before they have fully developed stripes. this mothers stripes arenāt fully there yet.
once theyāre 4 years old a ribbon seals stripes will have fully developed.
male and female are easy to tell apart by their coat colour, the males will have bold black and white stripes
whereas the females have more brown/beige/silver stripes
lmao on the edinburgh zoo site it says āthere is a daily penguin parade at 14:15 but it may be cancelled last minute as it is a voulntary parade, we do not coax the penguins with food, and they may not want to go outā lmao anarchopenguinism
this is the cutest goddamn thing iāve ever heard
I saw the penguin parade. It was a very slow parade, because the
pingĆ¼inos take their sweet time and arenāt very fast walkers to begin with.
can I volunteer to be a penguin
I feel like the world needs to know the context of the edinburgh zoo penguin parade, becausr Iāve been going there my entire life and I only found out about this the other year.
So a while back (I canāt remember exactly when but I think it was some time around the 40s/50s), a bunch of penguins escaped. A keeper left the gate open so a bunch of penguins justā¦ followed them. And the people loved it. Look at these adorable birds outside their cage just following that guy around! So they get all the penguins back inside and realise that none of them really ran off, they just followed the keeper and went back inside and crowd thought it was amazing, so why not make it a regular thing? Get enough people there that if one of them goes to make a run for it (which at least one has in the past), they canāt get past the people, and let the ones who want outside have a little wander. So every day, they get a crowd, they open the gate, and whatever penguins want to get out can go, waddle about, squawk at people, and then hop back inside.
Also, one of those penguins is Brigadier Sir Nils Olaf III, Colonel-in-cheif of the Norwegian Kingās Guard. This isnāt really related to the parade at all, I just love the fact that thereās a penguin in the Norwegian army
Reblogging with Brigadier Sir Nils Olaf III inspecting his troops.
Carry on ā¦
I love everything about this post.
A GOOD POST
A lovely older friend of mine lived in Edinburgh when she was a small child, and regularly attended the penguin parade ā as a penguin. That is, she was a small toddler and thus about the right height and speed, and she just waddled along with everyone else who was about 2ā high.
So the answer to ācan I volunteer to be a penguinā is at least occasionally āyes.ā
Penguin escapes killer whales by jumping onto a boat.
Antarctic penguins (and most other Antarctic animals for that matter) are very interesting because they lack a natural fear of humans since, of course, humans are not a natural occurrence on the continent. It is one of the few places on earth where it is completely normal for fully wild animals to be comfortable around you. In fact, most react as though humans are just especially large penguins as those are the only flightless biped native to the area.
As far as this gentoo penguin is concerned, it was saved by a float of large yellow penguins also hiding from orcas.
@byk23 Hannipenguin is that tiny guy in the background running in the other direction
@byk23 @roguequartz - Or: Hannipenguin has already murdered another penguin. That’s why there is the blood in the foreground. He observes the police running to his victim. When he is sure his bad deed has gotten enough attention, he leaves his observation post and takes shelter behind the hills….
This is the opening sequence of every Hannibal episode
Oh!! gosh that’s tough actually. My first instinct is to say penguins, but flamingos are fucking badass.
Flamingos court and nest in highly alkaline lakes that would kill most other animals. They gather in huuuge flocks, like in the thousands. The lakes where they live sometimes freeze at night, so the birds are trapped and must wait until morning to free themselves.
There is a lake in Tanzania, Lake Natron, which supports 75% of the world’s flamingo population. There’s a bit about it in one of the nature docs that has come out in the last few years. Might be Planet Earth? Definitely worth watching and learning more about these incredible, and highly specialized, birds.
Penguins! I mean this is kinda tough bc penguins are a broad category!! You have your Emperor penguins (tallest), well known nowadays from March of the Penguins. But also Little Blue penguins (smallest)! Chinstrap penguins (one personal fav)! There is even a species sometimes called the Jackass penguin bc their calls sound like donkeys.
Not all penguins live in Antarctica. They can be found in S. America, Africa, and Oceania. There are even penguins above the Equator in the Galapagos! (but not the arctic! polar bears and penguins never meet in the wild) Some even spend the breeding season in towns among people. (If I can suggest another nature doc, Penguin Town is adorable)
Some have cool hair styles like the Macaroni and Rockhopper penguins. Rockhoppers lay their eggs in the same nest year after year.
We love how cute they look waddling over land, but they fly through the water. It’s beautiful and amazing to watch.
Another fun fact about penguins is they were named based on their resemblance to a northern bird, called an Auk or Great Auk, which is now extinct. Consequently, the genus “Pinguinus” is used for auks, but not for penguins, as they are not closely related. Taxonomy!
