Spencer's Monitor aka Spencer's Goanna (Varanus spenceri), STANCED!!!, family Varanidae, Australia

photograph by Rob Sorrentino

I've seen 19th century taxidermy made by people who had never even been on the same continent as a monitor lizard, let alone seen how one is able to move, that looks more realistically posed than this thing. Monitors have a shape and we cannot quantify what shape that is.

this is actually a VERY good question and it's related to several interesting pieces of monitor lizard anatomy!

• The throat is doing that because monitor lizards are in possession of an expandable pharyngeal space, also known as the gular pouch. In laymen's terms, it's a throat balloon. They can inflate this structure as part of their threat displays, and it's also related to the gular pumping that occurs as part of their respiration. (I'll spare you the details but the way lizards breathe is weird.)
• The neck is doing that because arching the neck is also part of the threat display- it's thought that it makes the gular pouch look bigger and helps prime the neck muscles for a quick lash-out and bite.
• The legs are doing that because the classic monitor "I am going to fight you now" pose involves getting as tall as possible. Monitors, like all lizards, have highly mobile shoulder joints and a sprawl stance, and we're used to seeing them in that sprawl position. But their limbs are much longer than we give them credit for! They just can't... walk... when they're doing this. Which is why this is the "I am going to fight you now" pose and not the "I'm going to run away from you very, very fast" pose.
• The tail is doing that because it's a weapon. Both ends of the monitor are sharp and can do some damage, but their first defense is usually to lash out with the tail... because their brain isn't in it. When a lizard bites, it's exposing its head to a potential threat. But if the threat goes for their tail? Way less dangerous. In some species (not monitors), they can even drop the tail and are more likely to escape. Cocking the tail like that is what you see before it hits you. To do that, the tail has some extremely powerful muscles at its base; at the tip, it's just bone, connective tissue, and hard scales. Kind of what you'd expect at the tip of a whip.

I wish we could teach each other how to love the way we can teach animals that aren’t supposed to be able to feel it.

@kaijutegu is this cute? I know you deal with tegus and not iguanas, but I didn't know who else to ask

This is precious.

So, first thing you need to know is that is a very visibly healthy adult green iguana. Every part of the iguana is sharp. The claws evolved to haul a ten pound lizard up a tree. The spines are like tiny icepicks. The tail is a bullwhip. The teeth evolved to shred leaves, but they'll just as easily shred your flesh. Good luck making a healthy adult iguana do anything they don't wanna. That puts us on our first thing to look at- is the animal capable of defense and getting away, physically? Yes, definitely.

Next thing to know is what does a threatened or scared iguana look like? When an iguana is threatened, it doesn't stand on its hind legs like that; it stands on all fours and puffs itself up to look bigger, aggressively bobs its head (note: head bobbing is a behavior used for a LOT of things, it does need context- for example, they also head bob as part of mating displays), there is hissing, there is tail whipping- iguanas are not subtle creatures. None of this is the behavior of an iguana that feels threatened or is being a threat!

So what does standing like that mean? That's just simple reaching. The iguana sees something they want and is attempting to reach it, and what they want appears to be uppies, because they settle into the human's grip immediately.

Then, we see some GREAT handling from the human. There's really great communication happening between the two of them! The person picks up the iguana very securely- pelvis and pectoral girdles are well supported, and he doesn't grab. (Iguanas typically do NOT like being grabbed around the sides; many of their predators are birds and coming at them from above or gripping the sides is scary!)

As he goes in for the pet, he lets the iguana support their back half on his knee. The hold is secure but not tight; at any point, if the iggy was distressed, they could leave. But they don't- instead, you see them leaning into the pets, actively participating in the behavior. They're not even closing their eyes to block stimulus. They want this to happen.

This is the kind of bond that's possible when you can prove to a big lizard that you're trustworthy, and easily the best iguana video I've seen in a long time. Thank you for tagging me in!

Some green iguana body language resources under the jump!

Keep reading

enough about my guts

it’s time i rearrange his penis.!!!

on it boss!

the world is so neutered it genuinely makes me soooo angry. you can't access any porn web sites in america without providing a selfie and your legal ID. if you save one photo of a shirtless guy to a pinterest board not only will pinterest disable pin recommendations for that board based on their "decency" algorithm, they will notify you that your board violates their policy. this website (and a few others) won't let you search any nsfw terms or even vaguely naughty words without censoring it for you and saying "this search looked sexy so we've prevented you from seeing results!" like what the fuck are we doing? i'm a 28 year old person. i'm an adult. i've seen naked people. i've had sex. if i want to look at some porn i should be able to do that. if i want to see erotic imagery online then i should be able to do that. what are these websites trying to protect me from? what are these websites trying to stop me from seeing or feeling or learning? why don't i get to decide what i see or feel or learn?

who else up & bisexual⁉️⁉️⁉️ And very afraid

Can we find a sun god or diety from every timezone and make a map of them all?

We probably can, but the question is should we?

How else will ship captains know who to pray to when they circumnavigate the globe?

…Give me until the end of the weekend. 

I actually had some unexpected free time today so I was able to create this a lot faster than I expected. 

It isn’t perfect, but following the initial post I assigned each timezone one sun deity, so travelers know who they might pray to while exploring the world.

This was a lot of fun to create and to research mythologies from across the world, and I think I learned a couple of things doing so!

Well, there you have it folks. Safe travels.

Reblog to promote the use of sun deities’ names to identify time zones

male entitlement in academic spaces is so boring. can’t tell you how many times i’ve been in a class and a girl gives a short, insightful analysis, and then a dude raises his hand and says “jumping off of that…” then says literally the same thing she said but longer and worse.

I hate to be that guy, but it doesn’t just happen to women. The assholes who do that will do that to anyone who’s analysis isn’t sufficiently complex and long winded for them. 

Been done to me by people of both genders. 

Also I have been guilty of doing this, so I apologize. Because I was overly excited and just couldn’t wait to talk…. yeah. 

(Nothing is ever clear cut eh….) 

dude.

this is art

#a fun fact about tumblr is that if you dare to complain about a mundanely frustrating type of person#that exact type of person will appear in your notes as if summoned via a ouija board

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Why can't billionaires go back to throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at weird little freak artists they basically keep as pets and just let them free roam creatively

I believe it was called "patronage"

Anyway, if any billionaires are interested, I'm available for the position of pet freak artist

this callout couldve been a block button

this callout couldve been a private conversation

September 28, 2025 - A group of ICE and Border Patrol agents try to arrest a random food delivery person in Chicago for the crime of looking like a person of color, but luckily the incompetent piece of shit Nazis fucked it up, despite there being like fifteen of them. [video]