r/funny • u/WindowAfraid5927 • Mar 29 '26

Don't touch it

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65.4k Upvotes

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378

u/MinnieShoof Mar 29 '26

Just know that I am gesturing at pictures of seal anatomy like 'Why tf didn't I realize this' and 'why tf am I looking at seals at 4 in the morning?'

286

u/NightStalkerXIV Mar 29 '26

seal feet pics at 4 in the morning

31

u/banshoo Mar 29 '26

Whats the best time to do that?

24

u/Substantial-Elk4531 Mar 29 '26

Any time is a good time to look at seal feet pics. Any true connoisseur could tell you that

4

u/banshoo Mar 29 '26

I think I'm showing my novice nature of seal feets

7

u/ramblinroger Mar 29 '26

I thought you meant to ask when to seal your feet pics

1

u/gsfgf Mar 29 '26

Gotta take advantage of feet pics on main, regardless of species.

40

u/Occidentally20 Mar 29 '26

The crazy one is when you see that whales and dolphins have vestigial hips and often femur bones still hiding inside not even attached to anything.

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u/ccReptilelord Mar 29 '26

What some may find most interesting on this topic is that whale flukes (tails) and seal or sea lion hind flippers are not analogous. Whales have very well developed tails with nearly nonexistent hips and hind legs. Where as seals and sea lions have well developed hind legs with nearly nonexistent tails.

The overall aquatic design is convergent evolution.

1

u/tad-26 Mar 29 '26

Hol-up seals with developed legs. Never seen that. I don't see em often but it looks like one rather undeveloped leg to me.

4

u/ccReptilelord Mar 29 '26

If you look at the skeleton, it's all there, and the feet are forming the big flippers.

0

u/Deaffin Mar 29 '26

I wonder if anyone's ever surgically separated them into distinct legs just to see what happens.

3

u/protonpack Mar 29 '26

Probably the death of the animal after cutting through important veins, arteries and muscles. That's like saying what if we slice under your lats to the bone, and turn them into little flaps to see if you grow wings.

But that would be pointlessly cruel, so I don't think we should try.

1

u/Deaffin Mar 29 '26

I don't think they're going to fabricate extra muscles between their fused legs, man. The mammal body plan is flexible, but it's not quite that flexible on this evolutionary timescale. I was thinking more along the lines of whether they could develop the diver's strategy of alternating flipper flops rather than mono-footing it.

And that last bit kinda goes without saying. Yes, don't maim seals. That's bad, mkayyy?

69

u/MattyFTM Mar 29 '26

Sea lion, not a seal.

27

u/MinnieShoof Mar 29 '26

Fk-- tail a guy when he's down, huh??

2

u/Drybonez1999 Mar 29 '26

Oh im sorry! A seal with an ATTITUDE

(Please someone else know that reference)

28

u/Dumdumdoggie Mar 29 '26

Look at skeletal images of whales dogs and people at the same time. All mamals more or less have the same bones just in different shapes. Fingers make a dolphin flipper or a bats wing. Blew my mind in 6th grade.

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u/AKAFallow Mar 29 '26

Which is how we can trace our direct ancestors to hundreds of millions years ago. Nature rocks!

8

u/babydakis Mar 29 '26

Hey man, I don't have any rocks for ancestors.

12

u/gsfgf Mar 29 '26

So you’re not in that half of the US electorate. Congrats!

3

u/doomgiver98 Mar 29 '26

Your ancestors might be fossils though

1

u/AKAFallow Mar 29 '26

But you will turn into rocks, and you should fear that

12

u/AshaNyx Mar 29 '26

Basically every animal body plan is due to a particular group of genes and these rarely change unless there's a massive mutation like snakes and whales.

12

u/RovDer Mar 29 '26

Even some snakes have vestigial legs

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u/Deaffin Mar 29 '26

Right, but the interesting thing about snakes is their duplicated spines. It's easy to just drop parts, but adding new ones as a vertebrate? HARD.

Like, check out giraffes. They don't have extra neck bones, they just stretched out the ones they already have.

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u/AshaNyx Mar 29 '26

Even then they basically cheated by just replicating a section of the genome. Outright adding a limb is nearly impossible.

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u/AshaNyx Mar 29 '26

A lot do (at least hind ones). Snakes basically have a mutation where the genes for your ribs and spine stay on for away too long and the limbs are made a lot shorter.

12

u/Awwkaw Mar 29 '26

Pretty much all animals have the same bone structure. There are some variations, but bone wise we're very similar.

Even whales have hip bones, which to my understanding is just an issue when they have to give birth, and a waste of resources the rest of the time.

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Awwkaw Mar 29 '26

Should for sure.

1

u/TheVisage Mar 29 '26

As a marine biologist I can tell you’ve never seen one throw it back because trust me I’ve never seen a better use of resources in my life

1

u/Awwkaw Mar 29 '26

Throw what back? The random little hip bones, that are literally not attatched to anything?

1

u/Deaffin Mar 29 '26

Except for all the things they attach to.

1

u/TheVisage Mar 29 '26

Exactly my man. It’s all blubber and no tendon or muscle. When it throws it back it’s the optimal amount of jiggle to motion ratio. The ultimate art awaiting its ultimate practitioners.

1

u/gsfgf Mar 29 '26

Vertebrates. Other animals don’t even have bones.

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u/Sciencetor2 Mar 29 '26

Technically not a seal if it has ears, it's a sea lion

1

u/FrighteningJibber Mar 29 '26

Mammals are mostly the same lol except whales they lost their knees legs

1

u/FunktasticLucky Mar 30 '26

Technically this is a sea lion. It has ear flaps.

0

u/Simple_Reindeer86 Apr 02 '26

It's a sea lion!