This barbet knows you’re there, but is refusing to acknowledge your presence because it still remembers the off colour joke you told at a party seven years ago.

Three generations ago, there were around 55,000 Egyptian tortoises in the wild. Today, thanks to habitat destruction and the pet trade, there are around 1,000.

So if you want to see one, best visit a zoo.

Salamander whose starving family caused him to steal, whose ineptitude at theft got him caught and jailed, whose patience got him out, whose cleverness and luck bought him a brand new life, whose strength got him noticed, and who is now trying to decide whether to allow an innocent bear his punishment or publicly come forward as Salamander 24601.

This spider got bit by a radioactive high schooler and now has the proportionate ability to make poor life choices and get B’s in Chemistry.

The spots on this frog made me start to think of anti-vax jokes, but really, a social movement that kills our kids just isn’t funny.

As much fun as it is to call them “stupid”, the lack of education in our population reflects on our society’s spending priorities and – for decades – we’ve preferred killing others to protecting our children and creating a better world in which they could live. We’ve allowed a privileged few to create an uneducated population just to keep them in power – risking all of our lives and creating a weakness to be exploited by foreign agents.

The return of measles and mumps are just the leading edge of the maelstrom of consequences heading our way.

So, sorry, but other than ourselves, no joke here today.

This tortoise would like to point out that, had aliens visited Earth and set up terraforming equipment that pumped carbon into the atmosphere and raised planetary temperature, humans would have fixed the problem in a couple of years, then would invented interstellar space flight, new weaponry, and spy tech, and then flown off to kick ass.

Not pictured: the other sign reading “You’re about to find out!” and the crumbling walkway.

Rats have been around a long time. Rats were there when a weird looking primate decided to climb down from the trees and build a new life. Rats were there when those primates learned to work together – to protect one another – to ensure everyone had enough to eat. Rats were there when the primates developed technology, when they developed new methods of communication, when they learned to pair greed with fear, leveraging their desires for safety and comfort to drive world-wide expansion. Rats watched the primates slowly subvert the promises of safety and comfort into glee from taking those very things away from others. Rats watched most primates fight with one another over scraps while a small number of primates took more and more away from the rest – and not only the primates that were there, but the primates that were yet to be – stealing from the future simply so they could confidently withhold safety and comfort from those in the present.

Rats are watching primates destroy their own children’s’ future for no reason other than they know they won’t be alive then so it doesn’t matter. Rats don’t understand how – in a world where the majority power of these primates follow tenants that involve treating others well, feeding them, clothing them, taking care of them – the same majority power treats others poorly, starving them, stripping them, actively harming them. Rats don’t understand how primates can develop the ability to see the future and then, as a group, agree that the future doesn’t matter. Rats don’t understand, yet, but they’re trying. They’re studying. They’re learning.

When their turn comes around they won’t make our mistakes.

The black spotted turtle, Geoclemys hamiltoni, was named after the Scottish ichthyologist Francis Hamilton, not Alexander. This is a shame, as had things gone differently, we could have had a rap-battle musical with turtles in.

Turns out it’s hard to get a good photo of locusts that both show the insects and that show just how much they cover everything in their path.

Still, they seem to like this post anyway.