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#predation

3 posts2 participants0 posts today
Continued thread

Here in New Zealand we have the hura, NZ giant centipede, Cormalocephalus rubriceps. It can grow to over 25 cm long and is known to eat small reptiles and amphibians as well as invertebrates. The largest individuals of hura are now only on offshore islands, as those on the mainland tend to get eaten by rats before they can reach gigantic size.

The related Phillip Island centipedes (Cormocephalus coynei), from the Norfolk Island group, have been calculated to eat up to 3,700 seabird chicks each year. (!!)

theconversation.com/giant-bird

The ConversationGiant bird-eating centipedes exist — and they’re surprisingly important for their ecosystemAt night the centipede crawls through thick leaf litter, using two sensitive antennae to navigate a labyrinth of seabird burrows across the forest floor.

The journal Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution has an article out reviewing cases of centipede predation of vertebrates, "documenting centipede predation on amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and occasionally fish".

"Our synthesis highlights the underappreciated role of scolopendrid centipedes as mid-level predators capable of influencing small vertebrate populations"

doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2025.1634

FrontiersFrontiers | Centipede predation on vertebrates: a review with the first bat case from AsiaCentipedes (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha), long regarded as generalist arthropod predators, are increasingly recognized for their capacity to subdue and cons...

A quotation from Bill Watterson

   CALVIN: (walking through snowy field) You know, Hobbes, it seems the only time most people go outside is to walk to their cars. We have houses, electricity, plumbing, heat …. Maybe we’re so sheltered and comfortable that we’ve lost touch with the natural world and forgotten our place in it. Maybe we’ve lost our awe of nature. That’s why I want to ask you, as a tiger, a wild animal close to Nature, what you think we’re put on Earth to do. What’s our purpose in life? Why are we here?
   HOBBES: (stating the obvious) We’re here to devour each other alive.
   CALVIN: (back in the house, yelling) Turn on the lights! Turn up the heat!

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1991-01-06)

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/watterson-bill/4075/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #billwatterson #calvinandhobbes #circleoflife, #meaningoflife #naturalorder #nature #predation #purpose

A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

   [… P]redatory wealth — of the wealth accumulated on a giant scale by all forms of iniquity, ranging from the oppression of wageworkers to unfair and unwholesome methods of crushing out competition, and to defrauding the public by stock jobbing and the manipulation of securities.
   Certain wealthy men of this stamp, whose conduct should be abhorrent to every man of ordinarily decent conscience, and who commit the hideous wrong of teaching our young men that phenomenal business success must ordinarily be based on dishonesty, have during the last few months made it apparent that they have banded together to work for a reaction. Their endeavor is to overthrow and discredit all who honestly administer the law, to prevent any additional legislation which would check and restrain them, and to secure if possible a freedom from all restraint which will permit every unscrupulous wrongdoer to do what he wishes unchecked provided he has enough money.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Message (1908-01-31) to Congress, on Workers Compensation

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/roosevelt-theodore/7…

En chasse pour nourrir les petits, les Martins-pêcheurs peuvent être plus faciles à apercevoir.
Celui-ci a fait des dizaines de vols stationnaires et de pêches (d'où les photos précédentes) et à un moment il est passé juste devant moi alors que j'étais sur le bon réglage manuel de la mise au point. Hop, dans la boîte (le souvenir, pas l'animal !)

(Martin-pêcheur d'Europe, Loir-et-cher, Fr, 05/25)

#PhotographieOiseaux #Oiseaux #ObservationOiseaux #Ornithologie #OiseauxAquatiques #Martinpêcheur #Martin #EnVol #Predation #Etang #Roseaux #Roseliere #Sologne #BirdsOfPixelfed #BirdsOfMastodon #BirdsOfFediverse #Birds #BirdWatching #Birding #BirdPhotography #Ornithology #WaterBirds #Kingfisher #Flying #Reeds #ReedBed
Replied in thread

Malm noted: “1840 was a pivotal year in history, for both the Middle East and the climate system. It marked the first time the British Empire deployed steamboats in a major war. Steam power was the technology through which dependence on fossil fuels came into being: Steam engines ran on coal, and it was their diffusion through the industries of Britain that turned this into the first fossil economy.

“Only by exporting it to the rest of the world and drawing humanity into the spiral of large-scale fossil fuel combustion,” Malm writes, “did Britain change the fate of this planet: The globalization of steam was a necessary ignition. The key to this ignition, in turn, was the deployment of steamboats in war. It was through the projection of violence that Britain integrated other countries into the strange kind of economy it had created — by turning fossil capital, we might say, into fossil empire.”

systemchangenotclimatechange.o

System Change Not Climate Change · Massive-Scale Genocide and Ecocide Are Close Relations - System Change Not Climate ChangeSCNCC’s Ken Boettcher reviews a lecture by Andreas Malm that draws chilling parallels between Israel’s annihilation of Palestine and capitalism’s global destruction of ecosystems.

23 years of predation data from Yellowstone Park (U.S.A.) shows that when large prey (e.g., elk) become scarce, cougars switch to smaller prey (e.g., deer) to reduce kleptoparasitism by wolves and bears.

Summary: phys.org/news/2025-04-prey-siz

Original paper: nature.com/articles/s42003-025

("Kleptoparasitism" seems like a good word to describe the actions of billionaire oligarchs.)

Phys.org · Prey size plays surprising role in competition among wolves, bears and cougarsBy University of Minnesota
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"Je soutiendrais que le cinéma a joué une place prépondérante dans l'élaboration d'une culture de l'inceste où l'inceste n'est pas présenté comme un acte de domination ni comme un crime, mais banalisé sous la forme d'une relation de domination érotisée.
Le manque de récits du point de vue de la victime (homme on femme) et la fabrication de la figure de Lolita ont fait basculer notre culture dans un monde où l'inceste non seulement n'est pas tabou, mais où la responsabilité de l'inceste entre l figure paternelle et la victime féminine est placée sur la petite flle "séductrice" ; et celui entre un garçon et sa mère est représenté comme une étape constructive de sa virilité. Il existe donc une différence genrée dans la représentation de l'inceste : les scénarios répètent que la responsabilité en revient toujours aux filles et aux femmes, jamais aux hommes ni aux garçons."

extrait de "La Culture de l'inceste", un livre de Iris Brey, Wendy Delorme, Ovidie, Sokhna Fall, Juliet Drouar, Tal Piterbraut-Merx, Dorothée Dussy

Continued thread

Et le mépris pour la population exprimé par l'autrice de cet article achève de démontrer à quel point elle est à côté de la plaque! Non, que des dizaines de milliers de personnes ou plus tombent dans cet énième piège d' #openai et d'autres entreprises en #ia, suivant ce même type de #modèleéconomique basé sur la #prédation pure, n'est pas juste un problème individuel et tant pis pour ces "imbéciles"! Purée, si vous ne pigez pas que c'est un #ProblèmeCollectif, retournez sur les bancs de l'école!

Replied in thread

Comment les institutions [qui mentent] filtrent les suspicions d'inceste ?

"Véritables filtres entre les services de terrain et le procureur, les professionnels de la CRIP [Cellule de Recueil des informations préoccupantes], des travailleurs sociaux pour la plupart, évaluent, eux, non pas les faits suspectés, mais les suspicions. Ils décident (ou non) de les transmettre au substitut (du Procureur de la République] pour l’ouverture d’une enquête de police. Ils doivent rester prudents."

"Sans propos directs de l’enfant, les professionnels de la CRIP, embarrassés, sont pris entre des professionnels de terrain inquiets pour un enfant et des substituts exigeants sur la nécessité, la faisabilité et la chance de réussite d’une enquête de police. Ils interrogent la qualité de la suspicion. […]

"Deux travailleurs sociaux évaluent donc la situation de la famille concernée, mais sans pouvoir interroger la suspicion d’inceste, prérogative exclusive de la police. Ce qui les place, à leur tour, dans l’embarras, puisque cette suspicion d’inceste reste à l’origine de leur évaluation."

Léonore Le Caisne : theconversation.com/suspicion- 🧶

The ConversationSuspicion d’inceste : comment un signalement est-il traité ?A quelles conditions une suspicion d’inceste parvient-elle aux services judiciaires ? Quelle solution existe-il pour protéger un enfant lorsque les éléments sont insuffisants pour un signalement ?