Aussie Fauna
from fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz on 17 Apr 11:41
https://mander.xyz/post/28309326

#science_memes

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flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz on 17 Apr 11:49 next collapse

You never know when you’ll need to kill a herd of elephants, better be prepared.

ladicius@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 12:30 collapse

Don’t tell me what to do, you are not my dad!

tetris11@lemmy.ml on 17 Apr 12:34 next collapse

Reminds me of the advice my dad gave me on my wedding night: “if you ever go to Australia for any reason, then be prepared to kill a herd of elephants”

Words that I live by to this day

raoulduke85@lemm.ee on 17 Apr 15:00 next collapse

You’re not mad at me, you’re mad at your dad! I forgive you!

WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 16:01 collapse

Search your feelings, you know it to be true!

ptz@dubvee.org on 17 Apr 11:49 next collapse

Evolution is just future-proofing Australian animals.

OpenStars@piefed.social on 17 Apr 13:51 collapse

<img alt="img" src="https://i.imgflip.com/11dtap.jpg">

GreatRam@lemmy.world on 18 Apr 18:01 collapse

I’m a fan of “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly”

OpenStars@piefed.social on 18 Apr 18:08 collapse

Hrm... so then for you, "poorly" is "right"!? 😜

propter_hog@hexbear.net on 17 Apr 11:58 next collapse

Don’t forget the sea kraits that live off the coast in Australian waters

RedCarCastle@aussie.zone on 17 Apr 12:05 next collapse

First line of defence

guillem@aussie.zone on 17 Apr 12:08 next collapse

And the inland taipan, the most venomous snake in the world!

codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 17 Apr 15:42 collapse

Well, I guess they aren’t a sea krait anymore, blabber mouth!

propter_hog@hexbear.net on 17 Apr 19:32 collapse

🥁

codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 17 Apr 19:56 collapse

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/b5fb9dc0-5ba0-4623-bb8f-67b8b851064d.webp">

🐍: Anything you share with me is strictly confidential! (Doctor-patient privilege)

stupidcasey@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 12:12 next collapse

I saw a snail hunting a pack of elephants yesterday, the elephant was screaming something about him being immortal and if he touched him he would die.

tetris11@lemmy.ml on 17 Apr 12:35 collapse

I just realised where It Follows got its inspiration from

roguetrick@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 12:46 next collapse

Blue ringed octopus is just using tetrodotoxin though, it’s not like they developed that toxin through evolution. Bacteria are the ones that made TTX so toxic. I’m not impressed.

algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org on 17 Apr 14:27 collapse

Bacteria be like “You merely adopted the tetrodotoxin. I was born in it, molded by it…”

dumbass@leminal.space on 17 Apr 12:55 next collapse

Yeah, but why possibly kill when you can definitely kill?!

HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club on 17 Apr 13:09 collapse

And it isn’t like you’ll be punished evolutionarily if you ultra kill.

huf@hexbear.net on 17 Apr 13:27 collapse

Making all that extra poison constantly ain’t cheap. You also have to keep it from killing you. Which means they absolutely needed that much poison. What horror lies beneath Australia…

dumbass@leminal.space on 18 Apr 00:58 collapse

What horror lies beneath Australia…

Yeah, we’re not allowed to talk about that to non Australians, it’s better if you don’t know.

MTK@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 13:07 next collapse

Wait until you hear about deadly toxin producing bacteria.

You only need about 6 kg of Clostridium botulinum to produce enough toxins to kill all mammals on earth.

Assumptions:

  • weight of a single bacterium is 1 picogram
  • a single bacterium produces 0.5 picograms of toxin
  • All mammals on earth are 1.4 gigatons of mass
  • a lethal dose is 150 nanograms per kg
Mora@pawb.social on 17 Apr 13:17 next collapse

Can I buy that on Amazon?

MTK@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 13:18 collapse

You can make it at home!

ulterno@programming.dev on 18 Apr 13:35 collapse

Just need to isolate the correct bacterium first.

misteloct@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 14:17 next collapse

Genocide is evolutionary beneficial for the toxin producer, maybe there’s a ring of truth to it. Poison everything around you, free up resources for yourself.

mmddmm@lemm.ee on 17 Apr 14:46 collapse

I always wondered if the toxin didn’t kill the bacteria.

ryedaft@sh.itjust.works on 17 Apr 21:01 collapse

Bacteria doesn’t have nerve cells.

flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz on 17 Apr 14:58 collapse

Yes but the delivery is a problem. How do we package, ship and then get each mammal on earth to ingest 150 ng of the toxin?

MTK@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 17:54 next collapse

Well, if all it takes is 6 kg, I don’t think it would be that hard to make like a few tons and fly around the world throwing a kg at a time into any body of water you find.

Sure, you wouldn’t kill everyone, but probably most 🤷‍♂️

DJDarren@sopuli.xyz on 17 Apr 17:57 next collapse

Are you a Batman villain, threatening to poison Gotham’s water supply.

MTK@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 18:02 collapse

It would a lot less interesting.

Literally everyone dies except a few that drink only bottled water. Society is now 90% people who believe that alkaline water is magic

Riversedgeknight1@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 22:10 collapse

More likely 10-15% of people die then everyone figures out it’s the water, identified the cause of death, develops filters to remove the toxin, and then the filter becomes commercialized.

MTK@lemmy.world on 18 Apr 01:18 collapse

Like the first half of the movie is just what you would expect from a batman movie, but then after thousands die and batman catches the villan it just conintues into a documentary about how this event eventully led to the “2026 Water protection law” and the political fights around it.

ryedaft@sh.itjust.works on 17 Apr 21:06 collapse

I think about 96% of mammal biomass is either humans or domestic animals so if we ignore the 4% wild animals it suddenly because a much easier task.

Like, throwing enough botulinum toxin into the ocean to kill all the whales would be annoying.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 19:33 next collapse

Deliciosa soup for their family?

Lemminary@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 22:22 collapse

Simple. Start a new plandemic and give out free vaccines! It worked last time, that’s why we’re all dead.

detector9777@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 13:15 next collapse

Great meme. Keep it up!

ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip on 17 Apr 13:30 next collapse

I feel like if evolution is correct (I’m confident it is) then it must be evolutionarily advantageous to have the capacity to kill a herd of elephants with one’s toxin, assuming all animals in the group have that capacity.

skisnow@lemmy.ca on 17 Apr 14:39 next collapse

A lot of people think of “venomous” as being a one-dimensional property like strength or speed that you have to build your way up towards. But really it’s just how this substance your body produces that reacts with another substance in another creature who evolved on a whole other continent to you.

There doesn’t need to be a strong evolutionary imperative to be able to kill a herd of elephants, it’s enough for there to not be a strong disincentive not to produce enough venom to do it.

ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip on 17 Apr 16:26 collapse

right but if I’m thinking correctly (maybe not) then if it “merely” wasn’t harmful, wouldn’t there be room for variation within the species of toxicity?

gnutrino@programming.dev on 17 Apr 15:31 collapse

Basically it means the animal’s prey(/predators for defensive toxins) has evolved a massive resistance to the toxin that elephants haven’t.

Zerush@lemmy.ml on 17 Apr 13:31 next collapse

Australian animals don’t need to kill Elephants

samus12345@lemm.ee on 17 Apr 13:52 next collapse

Apparently they didn’t get the memo.

rumschlumpel@feddit.org on 17 Apr 14:16 next collapse

Very few animals (probably none) that rely on venom have any need for killing elephants, including those who live near elephants. What’s a spider supposed to do with a 2 ton carcass?

Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 18 Apr 00:59 collapse

What’s a spider supposed to do with a 2 ton carcass?

It’s for the achievement.

<img alt="Spore achievement: Epic Killer. Kill an epic creature in creature stage" src="https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/c69efd50-34fa-4ba0-8e07-1613901c9c94.webp">

lastunusedusername2@sh.itjust.works on 17 Apr 15:08 collapse

Not anymore

lowleveldata@programming.dev on 17 Apr 13:36 next collapse

Resistance?

Dave2@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 17 Apr 13:41 next collapse

I mean if the venom you stumble into is too strong, would you bother weakening it?

samus12345@lemm.ee on 17 Apr 13:54 next collapse

Death held out a hand. I WANT, he said, A BOOK ABOUT THE DANGEROUS CREATURES OF FOURECKS-

Albert looked up and dived for cover, receiving only mild bruising because he had the foresight to curl into a ball.

After a while Death, his voice a little muffled, said: ALBERT, I WOULD BE SO GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD GIVE ME A HAND HERE.

Albert scrambled up and pulled at some of the huge volumes, finally dislodging enough of them for his master to clamber free.

HMM… Death picked up a book at random and read the cover. “DANGEROUS MAMMALS, REPTILES, AMPHIBIANS, BIRDS, FISH, JELLYFISH, INSECTS, SPIDERS, CRUSTACEANS, GRASSES, TREES, MOSSES, AND LICHENS OF TERROR INCOGNITA,” he read. His gaze moved down the spine. VOLUME 29C, he added. OH. PART THREE, I SEE.

He glanced up at the listening shelves. POSSIBLY IT WOULD BE SIMPLER IF I ASKED FOR A LIST OF THE HARMLESS CREATURES OF THE AFORESAID CONTINENT?

They waited.

IT WOULD APPEAR THAT-

“No, wait master. Here it comes.”

Albert pointed to something white zigzagging lazily through the air. Finally Death reached up an caught the single sheet of paper.

He read it carefully and then turned it over briefly just in case anything was written on the other side.

“May I?” said Albert. Death handed him the paper.

“‘Some of the sheep,’” Albert read aloud. “Oh, well. Maybe a week at the seaside’d be better, then.”

tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip on 17 Apr 14:50 next collapse

Never enough Discworld

southsamurai@sh.itjust.works on 17 Apr 17:03 collapse

judgyweevil@feddit.it on 17 Apr 14:01 next collapse

They understood perfectly well, too bad that they have no idea what an elephant is so they got venom that could kill anything, just in case

lightnsfw@reddthat.com on 17 Apr 14:32 collapse

They understood perfectly well, too bad that they have no idea what an elephant is so they got venom that could kill anything, just in case

Their ancestors knew. And they solved that problem.

atyaz@hexbear.net on 17 Apr 14:03 next collapse

Maybe it softens up their meat all nice and tender

max_dryzen@mander.xyz on 17 Apr 15:54 next collapse

Cone snails represent

ZeroHora@lemmy.ml on 17 Apr 18:27 next collapse

Waste of points, could spent it into INT or HP. Fucking glass cannon species.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world on 17 Apr 19:31 next collapse

Kill? Why not paralyze or severely wound? Slow enough that you can kill with I don’t know a pointed stick, rock or gravity? Why make the venom do all the dirty work?

This message paid for by toothjuice 417 local union

quotable@sh.itjust.works on 18 Apr 08:52 collapse
Corno@lemm.ee on 17 Apr 21:19 next collapse

I love Australia but I’ve always wondered what exactly it is about Australia that made evolution go “yes, let’s make this place like Master Mode in BOTW where everything is OP, wants to kill you, and can one-shot you”

sad_detective_man@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 17 Apr 21:36 next collapse

Castle doctrine but it’s mother nature and also sometimes your house

Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 18 Apr 00:49 next collapse

It’s really more of an easy mode with a couple of super unlucky bullshit gameovers scattered around than a master mode. Look at how many builds have overtaken the Australian meta since their introduction: dogs, cats (okay, they’re an apex predator everywhere), foxes, rabbits, cane toads, mice, rats, deer, camels, scottish thistles, horses… I could go on.

Gronk@aussie.zone on 18 Apr 13:43 collapse

I mean yeah it’s one-shot land but I’d feel more comfortable in the Australian bush than in other territories, a lot of these creatures can be avoided with a little bit of knowledge and caution, but there’s no large predators

Most large creatures here can beat the shit out of you but they wouldn’t unless you threatened them.

GlenRambo@jlai.lu on 17 Apr 23:06 next collapse

The emus didnt only start a war with humans u know.

lengau@midwest.social on 18 Apr 13:00 collapse

Fucking warmongering dinosaur cunts…

MrAlternateTape@lemm.ee on 18 Apr 08:39 next collapse

Perhaps we have not yet found the animals that they have had to kill in the past to survive…

Spacehooks@reddthat.com on 18 Apr 11:48 collapse

Sometimes I wonder if this is a deathworld by planetary standards. Like we go to other planets and its super chill.

Something like the first part this: youtu.be/x1aZEz8BQiU?ol0IyB2BmDW4VBov