Mermaids “talk” via whale-like humming. Unlike humans who rely on pre-defined words for expression, mermaids can directly convey and understand emotions and ideas based on tone.
Due to mermaids communicating based solely on tone, they’re able to not only learn human languages quickly, but assess a human’s true character the moment they speak.
It’s no coincidence that throughout history, rowdy sailors and pirates have been drowned by mermaids.
Pirate: Hello, darling 🙂 Mermaid, analyzing tone: [Dishonest. Condescending. Bad breath.] Mermaid, about to sink the ship: Hello to you too 😉
Funko will release Pop toys and Pop keychains based on the Disney’s Gargoyles in July. The animated series aired for three seasons from 1994 to 1997.
Pops include Goliath, Demona, Brooklyn, Broadway, Hudson (Funko specialtiy series) Bronx, and Lexington. There will also be stone variants of Goliath (Target exclusive), Demona (Hot Topic exclusive), and Hudson and Bronx two-pack (FYE exclusive). Key chains of Golaith, Demona, and Demona’s stone version (Hot Topic exclusive) will also be available.
For the same reason the safe money says your school, like mine, taught you he was probably a drug addict who hated everybody and had no friends and drank himself to death.
Because by some wacky mix-up, somehow the right to legally execute Poe’s literary estate and therefore the public image he carried following his death was transferred to a dude who openly and without shame hated Edgar Allan Poe.
Due to some legal mumbo-jumbo and trickery, this dude Rufus Wilmot Griswold somehow managed to get the rights of literary executor to Poe’s estate from his aunt (which she didn’t technically have the power to give, that power remained with Poe’s sister), and he and Edgar Allan Poe hated each other SO MUCH in life, that after he died, this asshole published a memoir of Poe’s life in which he was totally demonized.
Rufus Wilmot Griswold is one of the most successful character assassins of all time. Because of him, schoolchildren are taught that Poe was a depraved misanthropic lecher who lusted after his underage cousin, was never sober, and died of drinking too much even though all of those “facts” have been discredited. Poe was a shy and reserved, though generally personable, man who married his cousin so to establish legal guardianship and provide for her financially.
He was also apparently a total lightweight who got tipsy after a few sips of wine, but occasionally drank socially or when feeling particularly down. His doctor insisted there were never traces of opium in his system. Poe’s friends insisted that he was not an alcoholic. At the time of his death, he had quit drinking, and the idea that he was one was heavily promoted by other members of the Temperance movement who claimed his death was a relapse as a cautionary tale. The most commonly accepted theory as to Poe’s death is that he was abducted, drugged, and beaten by political agents who forced him to vote for their candidate, changed his clothes, and then forced him to vote again and again to stuff the ballots.
Anyhow. This is why you should evaluate the validity and agendas of your sources.
That last bit seemed exceedingly peculiar to me and I had difficulty believing it, so I looked it up, and apparently it’s not the most commonly accepted theory at the moment, but it is a legit possibility and a thing that actually happened in the 19th century often enough to be given a name. It was plausible enough for quite a few of his biographers across several decades to agree on that theory, at least. So that’s a thing.
His exact cause of death is mysterious, especially since most of the records have been lost, but the drinking binge theory is unlikely. It’s more plausible that he died of an illness or foul play.
guess what, it’s time for another episode of Weird Biology! today we’re going to learn about a creature that looks like a stained-glass window, but stalks the oceans with toxic might powered only by the wind like a sailing ship of old.
that’s right, it’s the devil’s own shopping bag-
the name is almost longer than the animal.
The Portuguese Man o’ War is a floating jellyfish relative called a Hydrozoan. it was named after the 18th century sailing ship, apparently by a blind person. “oh, it looks like a sailing ship under full sail” no it doesn’t, shut up. it looks like a rogue walmart shopping bag that blew into the Atlantic and makes a living by strangling innocent sea turtles.
but like the aforementioned plastic bag, the Man o’ War uses its lovely blue-purple air sac to catch the breeze. it wanders in groups through the warm waters of the Atlantic, driven along by the wind and tides. kind of poetic, really.
as long as you don’t look underwater, anyway.
I’m about to ruin it for everybody, hang on.
like so many other things in life, it’s not what you see on the surface that’s important but what is underneath that counts.
in this case, what’s underneath is up to 165 feet of venomous tentacles. it’s like that thing they say about icebergs, where you only see the top 10% and the rest is an invisible ship-killing nightmare? it’s exactly like that.
except with poison tentacles.
the Man o’ War is basically a biological fishing trawler, trailing these stupidly long tentacles like a fine mesh net through the water. and when an innocent fish who probably has a family at home comes into contact with this “net”, specialized cells called Nematocysts are triggered to fire tiny poison harpoons into the victim, causing instant death or paralysis.
the tentacle then reels itself upward into the body of the Man o’ War like a fishing line, dragging its helpless victim upward to be digested.
so, uh, actually not like a fishing trawler then, not like a fishing trawler at all.
unless the fishing trawler was designed by Junji Ito.
though the Man o’ War may look like a jellyfish, it’s definitely not. in fact, it’s not even a single animal! it’s actually four separate organisms jammed into a venomous trenchcoat like three best friends trying to sneak into an R rated movie.
“how the fuck even”, I hear you say. and that’s a valid question! it’s not everyday that we discover that what we thought was a single animal is actually four smaller animals living communally to form a larger, more dangerous animal. it would be like discovering that opossums are actually comprised of 17 rats each.
no word on if they do a silly dance and tap their fingers together to fuse or what though.
in the Man o’ War’s case, these four individual kinds of “polyps” that comprise the complete final form are the air sac polyp (gets the gang around), the digestive polyp (converts murdered fish into energy for the whole gang), the reproductive polyp (makes small clones of each individual gang member), and the tentacle polyp (murders things indiscriminately for the sheer joy of it).
that’s right, the tentacles are a separate animal! you might be wondering if they sometimes come loose, wander off, and just sting people/animals randomly when they drift into populated areas. what a silly question!
yeah, happens all the time.
SHIT.
while rarely fatal, Man o’ Wars stings can seriously injure humans. this is a big problem in areas where Man o’ Wars are common, because storms and predators can knock the tentacles right the fuck off. the tentacles drift away, only to wash ashore and sting a hapless beachgoer weeks later. that’s right, rogue tentacles can still sting for days or weeks after separation! even if the Man ‘o War is beached! isn’t that neat! fuck!
the discovery of a beached Man o’ War usually closes the entire fucking beach, for this reason. would YOU want to go fuck around in the sand if it might be full of over a hundred feet of poison spaghetti too fine to notice with the naked eye?
if the answer is yes, I have great news about a bridge I’d like to sell you.
if all this information upset you, I’d like to offer my deepest condolences. but buckle up for one last upsetting fact, and here it is: Man o’ War are spreading.
usually restricted to warm waters, climate change has driven the Man o’ War as far north as Great Britain. that’s awful awful awful news for any country that touches the Atlantic ocean, which is lots of them.
luckily, we have dependable allies in this fight: sea turtles and the Mola Mola! (which I’ve written about before) unfortunately just about all we can do at this point is to cheer these awesome devil-balloon-munchers on from the safety of shore, while trying to invent a Man o’ War-proof barrier net.
for now, watch out for anything that looks like a floating plastic bag.
and for god’s sake, watch where you step.
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thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series here.
if you enjoy my work, maybe buy me a coffee or check out my Patreon to see extra content and support Weird Biology.
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IMAGE SOURCES
img1- National Geographic img2- The Garden of Eadon img3- Sean Nash img4- Enrico Villa img5- livescience.com img6-
it suddenly occurred to me that im in charge of when i post something and not everything is an assignment that has to be 100% rendered and perfect to post!!! and share with others!!!!
so here is a Jedi Master Finn Doodle!
i’ll post another of Older!Jedi Master Finn with some baby Padawans too…. but later….
tora42's nonsensne 