"Why Didn't They Just Communicate?? They're So Stupid!" Have You Considered That Communicating With Someone

where's that "was anyone gonna tell me" meme when you need it because holy shit did the bird app just slap me in the face with this

(and yes, it's real and terrifying tbh)

Southern Mountain Cavy (Microcavia australis)

photo credit: Ezequiel Racker

*releases a single angelic note*

the air conditioning is OFF.

the window is CLOSED.

he is listening to BABY SHARK 10 HOUR LOOP.

i hate this dog.

Incamys bolivianus was a caviomorph rodent representing an early member of the chinchillid family, with its closest modern relatives being chinchillas and viscachas.

Living in what is now Bolivia and Argentina during the late Oligocene about 27 million years ago, it inhabited an arid open grassland at a time when the area's climate had drastically cooled due to the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

It's estimated to have been similar in size to a large modern chinchilla – weighing around 700g (~1lb 8oz) and measuring about 25-30cm long not including the tail (~10-12").

An endocast of the shape of its brain from a near-complete fossil skull shows that it had a well-developed sense of hearing, particularly in vocalization processing, suggesting it may have been a social animal living in groups communicating with complex calls similar to modern chinchillids. It was probably a ground-dweller less agile than its modern relatives, but still capable of fast movements.

———

NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Bertrand, Ornella C., et al. "The virtual brain endocast of Incamys bolivianus: insight from the neurosensory system into the adaptive radiation of South American rodents." Papers in Palaeontology 10.3 (2024): e1562. https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1562

Rasia, Luciano L., Adriana M. Candela, and Carola Cañón. "Comprehensive total evidence phylogeny of chinchillids (Rodentia, Caviomorpha): Cheek teeth anatomy and evolution." Journal of Anatomy 239.2 (2021): 405-423. https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.13430

Wikipedia contributors. “Agua de la Piedra Formation” Wikipedia, 06 Jan. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agua_de_la_Piedra_Formation

Wikipedia contributors. “Incamys” Wikipedia, 19 Jan. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incamys

It's time for rat fact number TWO

Today's rat source:

Pest Reaction

The Biggest Rat In The World (Gambian Pouched Rat)

Whether you're a rat lover or just curious about the natural world, join us as we dive into the world of the biggest rat in the world - the

"You think you're informed just because you read a bunch of grainy PDFs?"

Yeah man. Reading scholarly works on a topic informs you on that topic. That's how this works.

why do spiders get these very cool unique eye arrangements compared to a lot of other tiny creatures which seem to do a lot of like, big compound eyes?

spider eye arrangements