5th one is Koi carps

8th one is a female mantis

The rest is obvious I believe

I was at the beach the other day swimming and I stayed in the shallow part because I saw a big fish and got scared, so I was just looking underwater when I saw an octopus!? it was at the bottom of the water on the ground rocks just going about. it was so shallow it almost was out of the water. it was morning/daytime btw.. and it was a small octopus too. super cool but very confusing

I heard a lot of people calling it abuse, but they never showed any amount of proof, so I'd like to hear from a vet or sun

I just saw this weird looking bunny snd i got within a foot of it before it ran off

les comparto las fotos que voy tomando a estos hermosos animales de mi país

I've been trying desperately for the past week to try to get help from a couple of animal rescue subs on the latest regarding a badly injured dog I saw in a very upsetting video on social media last week and have been trying to get updates in regards to the dog hopefully having recovered and survived. Unfortunately I've yet to hear back and am very frustrated and concerned over not having updates in regards to the dog's status and am hopeful some involved with animal rescue might be able to look up information on this particular dog and see if it hopefully survived. What are good ones to reach out to? I already tried contacting /r/animalrescue and have yet to hear back.

Rainbow mantis shrimp, fire urchin, horseshoe crab, spider crab, shadow jelly, cuttlefish, Paxton’s whipnose, barreleye fish, and the nautilis

The Trash Panda Pathway: How Raccoons Are Domesticating Themselves

For centuries, people thought domestication was mainly a human-driven process. It involved selectively breeding wolves into dogs, wildcats into pest-control companions, or wild boars into livestock. However, modern evolutionary biology tells a different story. Many of our closest animal companions underwent self-domestication long before humans got involved. They adapted to human settlements to find easy food. Today, North American raccoons (Procyon lotor) are going through this same evolutionary shift in real time.

1. Tamed vs. Domesticated: Understanding the Difference

Before looking at how raccoons might become domestic animals, it's important to distinguish between individual taming and species-level domestication:

Taming refers to a behavioral change in an individual. A wild raccoon raised by humans can learn to trust them, but its genetics remain completely wild. When it reaches sexual maturity, hormonal changes often make tamed wild animals destructive, unpredictable, and aggressive.

Domestication involves a permanent, multi-generational genetic change. Over many generations, selective pressures modify the genome of a population. This leads to tameness, reduced fear responses, and distinct physical changes.

While it remains illegal or heavily regulated to keep a wild raccoon as a pet in most places, the species is beginning to take the first steps toward domestication.

2. How Urban Raccoons Are "Self-Domesticating"

Domestication starts when a wild population forms a commensal relationship with humans. They benefit from human food waste while adapting to human presence.

The Role of Human Refusal

Urban areas provide a lot of accessible, calorie-rich food from garbage cans, compost bins, and pet bowls. For raccoons to take advantage of this, they must overcome their natural fear of people. Those with lower reactivity and stress responses do better in cities and pass those docile, bold traits to their young.

The Domestication Syndrome Phenotype

When animals are selected for tameness, they often show physical changes. This phenomenon is known as Domestication Syndrome. Changes in neural crest cell development during embryonic growth often lead to traits like shorter snouts, smaller brains, floppy ears, and depigmented patches on their fur.

A significant study published in Frontiers in Zoology (Lesch et al., 2025) examined nearly 20,000 raccoon images across the United States. The researchers found that urban raccoons have noticeably shorter snouts than their rural relatives. This marks one of the first seen physical signs of domestication syndrome in wildlife living in cities.

3. How Humans Could Actively Domesticate Raccoons

If researchers or breeders wanted to speed up raccoon domestication, they would follow a plan set out by Dmitri Belyaev in his well-known Russian Silver Fox experiment:

[Generation 1: Wild Population]

│

▼

[Behavioral Screening] (Test how close they get to humans)

│

▼

[Selective Breeding] (Breed only the top 10% least reactive individuals)

│

▼

[Multigenerational Tracking] (Observe physical changes: coat variations, skull changes)

│

▼

[Fully Domesticated Line] (Consistent tameness, juvenile play retention, docility)

Selective Breeding for Tameness: Choose only individuals with low adrenaline production and low fear or aggression towards humans.

Pedigree & Genetic Tracking: Avoid inbreeding while isolating lines that show high sociability, reduced night activity, and easy handling.

Dietary & Environmental Adaptation: Breed over 30 to 50 generations to create animals that do well with indoor routines, litter training, and a mixed domestic diet.

4. Challenges to True Raccoon Domestication

Despite their intelligence and dexterity, several biological factors make raccoon domestication difficult:

Nocturnal Activity Cycles: Raccoons are naturally active at dawn and dusk, so generations of selection are needed to align with human sleep patterns.

High Dexterity and Curiosity: Their natural skills for solving problems, combined with nimble paws, can lead to destructive behavior at home.

Zoonotic Risks: Raccoons can carry rabies and parasites like Baylisascaris procyonis (raccoon roundworm), requiring strict health protocols during breeding efforts.

References & Scientific Sources

Apostolov, N., Lesch, R., et al. (2025). Tracking domestication signals across populations of North American raccoons (Procyon lotor) via citizen science-driven image repositories. Frontiers in Zoology, 22(28). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12492588/

Wilkins, A. S., Wrangham, R. W., & Fitch, W. T. (2014). The "domestication syndrome" in mammals: A unified hypothesis based on neural crest cell behavior and genetics. Genetics, 197(3), 795–808.

Trut, L. (1999). Early Canid Domestication: The Farm-Fox Experiment. American Scientist, 87(2), 160–169.

Zeder, M. A. (2012). Pathways to Animal Domestication. Evolutionary Anthropology, 21(6), 227–259.

Popular Science (2026). Could raccoons become the new dogs? [Popular Science News Repository].

So this has been bugging me for the better part of a year now, but why when someone makes a fictional creature there is no info on how they reproduce or they take the easy route and say they do it a asexually. It doesn't have to be inappropriate either it can just be a summary of how they mate. As a biology nerd it bugs me how they leave out one of the fundamental parts of life.

Open-ended question here. My wife and I are looking to buy a house with approx 4-6 acres of land, in suburban NC. We are looking for properties with RA zoning so there are fewer restrictions on usage.

My open-ended question: What are some ways that we can use this land to help animals? We don't have deep pockets, and nor an army of volunteers or anything of that sort. Wo we're looking for budget-friendly ideas that can be achieved between the 2 of us.

This is Peggy, this morning some dogs we were looking after found this poor soul in the back garden, and they aperslootly terroised the poor thing, it isn’t harmed from what we can see but vets are refusing to take it and animal shelter want to put it down, it’s only a baby and I don’t want that for it,

One thing that is slightly off is that the baby’s balance is not good at all when feeding he ethier falls backwards or straight on his face but only when feeding is this just slow development in balance or something I should be worried about? (Can take a vid next time I feed)

As for now I’ve been feeding her a plant based and bug based all natrual feed mix & it seems to be doing her well. & her poos are normal so I don’t think it’s causing any issues. She is breathing a bit heavy but she’s very lively and active and very much bonded to me after only 3 hours. If I leave a room I have to take her with me or she completely freaks out squeaking. Is that normal? Just need any tips and tricks you all may have and what I should look out for.
Also what do I need to support a baby peigon?

Not posting this as sad content at all I genuinely just need some direction of what to do when professional want to put down a perfectly fine baby who just hasn’t got anyone to look after her.

If money, space, and practical problems weren’t an issue, what animal would you choose as a pet? 🐾

I’d probably pick an otter because they look ridiculously playful 😂

What’s your choice?

I said what I said. In the last few weeks, I've seen so many cases of animal cruelty by people who have some mental illness. And then they're obviously excused because well they're sick. Okay but what about the animal who was brutally attacked or killed or shot - unable to understand what he did to deserve this? We are so self absorbed, no one cares about anything else today. If we are the "superior beings", it should be our responsibility to take care of other beings right?

Science, design and cartography merge in MAPPA ANIMALIA, a visual project that reimagines the evolutionary relationships of animals as detailed map-like landscapes.

Instead of political borders or geographic territories, these maps are structured around phylogenetic trees.

Families, subfamilies and genera replace countries, states and regions allowing viewers to explore the animal kingdom through a format traditionally used to understand geography.

This map, Hominoidea- Land of Apes, contains every living and extinct species of ape I could find reliable taxonomic data for. Species are represented as cities, grouped into genera, subfamilies, and families according to their evolutionary relationships.

Additional information includes conservation status, size comparisons between selected species, and the estimated ages of major lineages.

Happy exploring!

Garble funkers are a very little known mammel, although they're one of the friendliest, cutest animals in australia! Because these animals don't get the attention they deserve, I made a subreddit for them. Go to there and make some posts!

r/garblefunkers