@astralgardens

@astralgardens

Simple lifeform facts I take for granted that I've now seen blowing people's minds on here:

That sea urchins walk around and have mouths with teeth on their undersides

That corals are related to jellyfish

Barnacles being related to crabs and shrimp

Ants being an offshoot of wasps

Termites being totally unrelated to ants and all similarities just being convergent evolution (they're actually a group of cockroaches, but even science didn't know that part until a few years ago)

Starfish having an eye at the end of each arm

That the bodies of ticks and mites are also their heads, essentially big heads with legs (they even frequently have eyes way up on "the body")

Sperm whales have no upper teeth, and also their bodies are flat from the front

Goats also having no upper teeth

Tapeworms having no mouth at all and just absorbing nutrients over their entire body surface

That flies are bigger pollinators than bees

That moths are bigger pollinators than bees

That wasps are just as important pollinators as bees (more important to many groups of plants) and when we say they're "less efficient" at it we just mean individually they get a little less pollen stuck to them.

That honeybees are nonnative to most of the world and not good for the local ecosystem, just good for human agriculture

That earthworms are also nonnative and destructive to more habitats than the reverse

There being no hard biological line between slugs and snails; all slugs aren't necessarily related to each other and there are gastropod groups where some have shells and some don't

That ALL octopuses (not just the blue ring) have a venomous bite

Most jellyfish and sea anemones being predators that eat fish

"Krill" being shrimp up to a few inches long and not some kind of microbe

Blue whales therefore being the deadliest predators to ever evolve as they eat up to several million individual animals per day

Fungi being no more related to plants than we are, maybe a little bit closer to us animals actually

Venus fly traps being native to only one small area of North America in all the world

Parasites being essential to all ecosystems

Leeches not having a circular ring of teeth anywhere

That algae is not a type of plant

That most seaweed is just very big algae

That enough wood ends up in the ocean that plenty of sea life evolved to eat only wood

Speaking of which the fact that the "ship worms" that make tunnels in wood are just long noodly clams

Rabbits and hares being totally distinct kinds of lagomorph without interchangeability, like how a squirrel and a hamster are different rodents

Butterflies technically just being a small weird group of moths we gave a different name to

That insects only get wings once they reach maximum size and therefore there can never be a younger smaller bee or fly that's not a larva

Spiders not being any more likely to cannibalize their own mates/young than just a cat or dog might, for most species maybe a lot less often?

BPD symptoms to stop making fun of and recognise as what they really are:

Needing attention Outbursts of emotion (especially anger) Not getting out of bed Social withdrawal Self-destructive behaviours Being ‘clingy’ Forgetting things Getting upset about everything Bad self-care Promiscuity ‘Weird’ or ‘unusual’ triggers Needing validation

It IS ableist to laugh at politicians displaying symptoms of disorder.

It IS ableist to say that them becoming disabled is punishment for being shitty.

It IS ableist to say that a politician becoming disabled is a reason they shouldn’t be in office.

Those politicians are shitty. That’s it. You don’t have to being disability into it. Disability isn’t a punishment for being shitty. Disability isn’t the reason they shouldn’t be in office.

Also, that politician isn’t who sees you laughing at them for being visibly disabled— it’s your disabled community members who do.

Tbh, I hate most politicians. But them being disabled, fat, etc. isn’t why I hate them. I don’t need to talk about it at all actually. You can point out egregious human rights violations and abuses without ever mentioning them being disabled. When you actually hate someone for being shitty and harmful, but all you make jokes about it their disability, you’re not accomplishing anything helpful aside from furthering ableist stereotypes.

Stop and consider: Does this joke actually bring light to the ways they’re genuinely awful, or does it just make people hate them for being a part of a marginalized community?

It’s thinly veiled ableism and y’all will say we’re sympathizing when we’re literally just saying don’t pin their shitty behavior on them being disabled.

You can hate someone’s actions and leave their disabilities out of it.

you ever go nonverbal but like... online? too fatigued to reblog anything with tags or interact with people

cat jpeg made me emotional so i drew it