Canopy Critters: Arboreal Hamsters of the Middle Rodentocene
The Middle Rodentocene has seen massive explosions in hamster diversity, as various species adapted to take advantage of the banquet of different resources available to them in a mostly-vacant planet. And so, with most of the niches on the ground filled one way or another, the hamsters turned to the much un-exploited resources up above: the trees.
A veritable smorgasbord of seeds, nuts, leaves, fruit, bark and various invertebrates, there was more than enough reason for the hamsters to head skyward into the treetops to feast on the abundance. A tree-dwelling life favored those with more flexible paws for gripping, more agile reflexes, and long tails for aiding in balance, and 10 million years PE, the race to the treetops brought about the evolution of a diverse family: the Arbocricetimorpha, a family comprised of the squizzels and spunkmunks (Arbocricetidae) and the kiterats (Volaticricetidae).
The squizzels are among the most diverse forms around in the treetops, occupying virtually any biome possessing trees, such as tropical jungles, temperate forest, and even in the snowy tundras, where some species, such as the snowy ground squizzel (Pilosocaudamys arcticua) nest in the few sparse conifer trees that thrive in the chilly plains, but forage for food mostly on the ground, retreating to the trees only to sleep or to flee from ground-dwelling predators.
Squizzels are omnivores, feeding on a wide variety of food, with the long-nosed squizzels (Ardillacricetus spp.) being noteworthy for their more insectivorous diet, but nuts and other hard-shelled seeds are a particular favorite of the majority, with them storing nuts in holes gnawed into trees as larders for later meals. Many squizzels are gregarious creatures that store enormous hoards of seeds and nuts from the work of at least a dozen related individuals: benefitting them all in particularly cold climates as it improves the chances of survival of them working together as opposed to just hoarding seeds on their own.
But while most other squizzels are sociable, docile creatures that nest in small family groups, one small subclass, the spunkmunks, are notable for their vastly different temperament: highly aggressive and territorial, they are far more solitary than their gregarious peers, and thus defend themselves from predation not by cooperation or advantage in numbers, but simply by being absurdly vicious for their size. In fact, many species are rather poorly camouflaged: conversely, they have bright warning coloration contrasting light, dark, and warm colors easily seen by diurnal predators-- instead of hiding from their enemies, they outright advertise themselves as something not to be trifled with.
One such notable species is the rocking punkmunk (Rufomelanomys thanatometallicum), distinctive for its pronounced sexual dimorphism: females are a drab shade of brown, and are somewhat more tolerant of other females nesting in the same tree, though not as gregarious as other squizzels are. Male punkmunks, however, are fiercely defensive of their territories and the females their range overlaps with, engaging any other male on sight, and try to intimidate rivals with an exuberant display. They erect a crest-like mane of brilliant orange hair running along their backs, stand on their hind legs, and bare their teeth while making unearthly high-pitched screams to attempt to scare off their rival. This display is their first and final warning: if neither competitor backs down, it quickly escalates into a violent struggle that very frequently results in a messy end for the weaker of the two parties, as their sharp teeth, fast reflexes, and ferocious tenacity can lead to bloody wounds, severed paws, gouged eyes, or even outright evisceration-- and subsequent consumption of the loser by the victor.
Meanwhile, on a separate branch of the family tree from both their gregarious, cooperative cousins and their aggressively-antisocial ones are the kiterats (family Volaticricetidae), a lineage more commonly found in the forest grasslands: areas where small, dense bunches of trees are spread unevenly across thick grassland. With trees being too far away from each other to simply jump too, and the multitude of dangers lurking in the tall grass below, the kiterats instead opt to take to the air: converging heavily on a wide array of unrelated gliding mammals found on Earth.
Kiterats posses stretchy membranes of skin between their wrists and ankles, acting as gliding surfaces as they leap from one tree to another. Flat, feather-like tails act as rudders to change direction and control their descent, and with a good tailwind can easily travel up to 100 feet in a single glide. This enables them to travel quickly and efficiently across the sparse canopy, searching for food, escaping enemies, and tracking down mates as they journey across the treetops.
But of notable interest is one highly unusual kiterat that stands out among the twenty or so species in the Middle Rodentocene: the flittering jazzhand (Protopteramys razzli), the only member of its genus. Its divergence is evident from its broad, webbed hands, which specialized to catch flying insects midair --indeed, it differs from most other omnivorous kiterats by its almost-obligate insectivory-- which it grabs midair with a downstroke clap of its arms. However, these webbed hands serve more than to just act as bug-catching nets: they also increase the jazzhand's gliding surface in order to traverse longer distances than its solely-patagium-based cousins. They are also known to twitch their webbed hands mid-glide in order to gain lift and prolong their glides, and coupled with their insect-seizing clapping motion, would gradually give rise to a stronger flapping downstroke- the beginning of powered flight.
The Arbocricetimorpha, however, are not alone in the trees. A completely separate lineage, the bossums (family Didelphocricetidae) have also colonized the trees at this point. More closely related to the fearrets than they are to the other tree-dwellers of the era, the bossums thrive primarily as arboreal insectivores in dense, tropical jungle.
With grasping paws bearing semi-opposable thumbs and long, flexible tails, the bossums are highly agile and acrobatic in the trees. Most species simply use their tails as counterbalances, as well as tufted flags for signaling, though one species, the speckled bossum (Didelphocricetus variegata), has adapted its tail into a surprisingly-prehensile grasping organ, acting almost as a fifth limb while it clambers about in the treetops.
Most bossums feed mostly on insects, and many species which ambush pollinators among flowers and fruit have taken a liking to the flowers and fruit themselves. However, one genus, Dirodidelphis, has turned its attention from simply bugs and berries, toward another equally-abundant food source in the treetops: other arboreal rodents. The largest species, the tiger bossum (Dirodidelphis pantheri), is roughly the size of a small house cat and is the apex predator of the treetops as of the Middle Rodentocene, hunting squizzels, kiterats and even smaller bossum species as well. Agile in the treetops and able to scale vertical branches and leap from tree-to-tree in a manner akin to the Madagascan fossa of Earth, this canopy carnivore is well-suited for a high-living life, also managing to avoid competition with its distant cousins, the fearrats, which hunt prey on the forest floor and seldom if ever ascend to the trees.
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This is a good point. I am reblogging about the antisemitism relating to the war rather than what is happening in the war itself, but I can see how this is can be unfair to those who are looking for positivity or trying to avoid the negatives rn. There should be discussion about where are the appropriate boundaries for the tags. Maybe people like me should stick to other tags (I am lately using #judenhass and #queer antisemitism because those are far less likely to be co-opted than #antisemitism), or maybe they should use other tags themselves. But it isn't fair to people's mental health to leave them without a safe space where they aren't constantly retraumatised. There's also of course the perennial question of what aspects of hiloni life and Israeli life outside of religion should count as part of Jewish tumblr.
Guys. If you’re gonna make a post about Israel or Gaza, and just Israel or Gaza, can you get off the #jumblr tag
That’s a tag for Jewish tumblr. Yknow, Jewish stuff. Mezuzot, stories from the mikrah, converts talking about the process. The politics of one Binyamin Netanyahu and his cronies is a different topic and for the love of god I want to get a break from this shit sometimes.
Imma start blocking people who do it istg
Where The Buffalomys Roam: The Mison
The largest land animals of the Early Therocene are the giant, herbivorous descendants of the cavybaras, known as the mison. One of the most successful megafaunal herbivores of this age, they are represented by several dozen species in five genera, and are found in various biomes of the continents of Nodera, Westerna and Ecatoria.
The mison first emerged at the end of the Late Rodentocene, having evolved from the still-extant alpine cavybaras (Pilosocricetus spp.) native to the continent of Westerna. A lowering of the sea levels during a short period of glaciation at the end of the Rodentocene exposed land bridges from the shallow seas and allowed the mison to migrate west to Nodera and south to Ecatoria, where they became isolated once the sea levels rose and eventually evolved into different species.
Today, the mison are among the most abundant grazers throughout the plains across all three continents, and also the biggest. Weighing up to two thousand pounds and standing six feet as the shoulder, they are the biggest hamsters of this age, far outclassing their cavybara ancestors and rivalling the biggest rodent ever to live on Earth, the prehistoric giant pacarana, Josephoartegesia monesi. Their enormous size leaves them nigh-invulnerable to predators once they are fully grown, by sheer virtue of being so big.
The bearded mison of Westerna (Bovitauromys spp.) is the most basal genus, native to the cold plateaus of the Westernan continent where the mison first originated. Their Noderan cousins, the plains mison (Buffalomys spp.) and the savannah mison (Bisonomimus spp.) are adapted to warmer climates, with the plains mison being a resident of relatively warmer temperate plains, and the savannah mison being far less shaggy than its cold-clime relatives, as well as sporting a distinctly shorter and blockier head, as an adaptation for stronger jaw muscles to masticate the tough succulents of the dry semidesert.
In the southern continent of Ecatoria, however, live a distinct lineage of mison, which sport an unusual adaptation: a pair of tusks. All mison species possess molars that, much like their incisors, have evolved to grow constantly, allowing them to cope with the constant wear and tear of grinding tough woody vegetation. This branch of the mison family tree, however, modified their first upper molars into a pair of prominent protruding tusks, as while their sheer size was protection enough from fearret predators in Nodera and Westerna, in the continent of Ecatoria the mison had a different, endemic carnivore to worry about: the hamyenas.
The steppe tusked mison (Ceratodontomys spp.) sport small straight tusks, which serve to dig up ground plants and defend themselves from predatory hamyenas with jabbing thrusts of their massive heads. The southern tusked mison (Megaloceratodon spp.), on the other hand sport enormous, curving tusks, which it uses to sweep aside snow, fend off predators, and compete with other males- while both sexes sport tusks, they are markedly bigger in the males, which they use to joust with rivals over territory and mates.
All species of mison are grazers, specializing to feed on low-growing vegetation such as grasses, bushes and shrubs. Their immense sizes and tendency to travel in large herds numbering in the hundreds make them important ecosystem engineers, grazing through tough, thorny vegetation and promoting the growth of other plants that other herbivores, such as boingos and hamtelopes, rely on for food.
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Hebrew should be coloured blue here
Etymology for chess in European languages
I'm puzzled as to some of my recent followers. Why am I, a queer secular Israeli, getting followed by an anti-Israel account and by a socially conservative Christian nationalist? Are these hate follows?
If only I could do that with my friends IRL. A lot of us bake, but we live too far apart
reblog to give warm bread to your mutuals
Same across all my social media. Also avoiding works by creators that say antisemitic stuff has left me with less and less entertainment to consume.
i finally started just unfollowing people who reblog antisemitic posts on here but now i have run into an entirely different problem
i'm not seeing any fandom posts about things i like on my dashboard anymore. that's the entire reason i use any social media, i want it back
pretty much the only things on my dashboard now are from other jews and they are understandably mostly just posting about the war and their own experiences with antisemitism
why are my options either "i constantly see people saying they want me and my people dead" or "there is nothing fun on my dashboard"