Atretochoana eiselti is a bizarre, limbless amphibian known only from museum specimens until 2011, when researchers led by Marinus Hoogmoed documented living individuals in the Brazilian Amazon. Populations were found in lowland rivers near Belém and near the Brazil–Bolivia border, in warm, turbid, fast-flowing waters, challenging previous assumptions about its habitat.
Examination of three specimens confirmed its broad, flattened head, smooth banded body, and complete lack of lungs, showing that lunglessness is a stable evolutionary trait. The species may have a wider distribution than previously thought, but remains cryptic due to its secretive aquatic lifestyle.
The rediscovery highlights the little-known diversity of Amazonian fauna and demonstrates how unique anatomy and ecological adaptations can persist unnoticed.
hey, all of you! Yes, you too! remember the last time you had to pull over to clean the bugs off your windshield in the summer between gas stops because the driver couldn't see? What about people pulled over to do just that? What about the last time you had to clean your windshield, regardless of the distance or time you'd travelled, because it was covered in bugs enough to interfere with the drivers vision?
Horrifying, right?
We went from a normal part of EVERY summer road trip FOR EVERYONE, to there being so comparatively few bugs that it NEVER happens to ANYONE, barring some sort of insect plague of a single species that's similarly new.
That's a MASSIVE segment a whole CLASS of life of every ecosystem/food chain shared with humans - everywhere there's carstheshared experience of virtually everyone reading this has been literally WIPED CLEAN INSIDE. LIVING. MEMORY. ... a part of the ecosystem that necessarily fed an equally numerous and diverse population across orders of life which have since starved, whose shared absence has permanently altered every other facet of the food web and depleted the entire domain of life... and that's assuming that what wiped out the bugs was where the death started, like the cars wiped out insects, which is so typically naive of humanity we might as well pretend it's true.
Extinction is absence and absence is silent and invisible; we're not realising it because the phenomenon of mass erasure of the living world is alien to our species going ALL THE WAY BACK. Why/how do you build the capacity to notice and remember a force of nature that's only existedas a constantfor the last 100 years of the entire history of our evolution?
This means that we've caused SO MUCH damage in the lifetimes of people reading this we've exceeded the capacity of our ABILITY TO PROCESS loss.
The scale cannot be overemphasised and the only other constant that even comes close in terms of scale is how fast that silence is growing.
There has never been a threat to life as complete as modern humans simply following the plan and we're so stupid, not only are we not trying to stop the problem or even slow it down, we're still handing out medals to the few of us that figure out how to speed it up.
Unless a silent planet Earth is our singular goal, we're running in exactly the the opposite direction of real progress.
tl;dr - That overwhelming sense that something is wrong in the world is your inner ape screaming at you to read the fucking thing until it actually hits like a real emergency because that's what this is... on a planetary scale.
Yeah, I try not to think about it because it makes me feel anxious and uneasy. But maybe it is good to feel uneasy and I should think about it more. There are definitely things I could do to be more environmentally conscious.
Never thought about the whole insect on the windshield thing but damn your absolutely right. When i was a kid and would take trips from NJ to MA to visit family the car wpuld be absolutely covered in bugs...just took a drive from NJ to FL recently and there was barely anything. Sucks were killing this planet so fast.
Several studies were made to quantify the phenomenon, with sample collecting devices fixed on car windshields. On certain roads, the number was down to 80% less insects in 10 years!
As a biker, when I first got my license for it 15 years ago, at every trip I had to stop once or twice at a gas stop to clean my visor from bugs. This summer I rinsed it twice, twice for the whole summer and it was mostly just dust.
I agree. With all of this. And I am so glad to hear somebody say it.
If you are not an environment geek, talk the people out in nature, they know what's going on. You may notice your food costs going up or the absence of rain in a rainy town. Smog may make it hard to breathe. You may see the massive storms. But those working in nature, especially those restoring habitat can tell you that these horrifying things start small.
Invasive species threatening certain trees. Wildfires setting 120 year old cedars ablaze after the water table has depleted in drought. Fish from southern waters showing up in the northern hemisphere. Vernal ponds drying up. The birds and squirrels dying from the heat. The bugs and fungi that play crucial but unnoticed jobs disappearing....It's haunting, at times, to realize that even if you are working to save it, countless lives have already been lost in our nature. And we are not exempt from their fate, should be continue like this.
That just shows that life finds a way, even in the harshest of conditions. I think the word for it is 'extremophile.'
I would not be surprised if life continued existing far below the deepest seabed. How can anything be surprising when we've found fungus growing in the Chernobyl reactor. And it's not that it is just surviving in such an extreme environment, it is actually thriving because of it.
Extremophiles and Extremotolerants are quite interesting. Animals that either thrive in or can tolerate extreme conditions like Hydrothermal Vents, Ice Sheets, or the Intertidal Zone
The 4th picture is not Atretochoana, but a different species of caecilian, Caecilia thompsoni. You can tell by the blue coloration of the body and downard pointed nostrils. They are similar in many things, except Atretochoana eiselti has no lungs - which is why it has been reclassified into its own genus.
Could have been killed many years ago before proper records were taken or donated from a private collector who had got it from someone else and didn't know the full details.
Anything with teeth in movies and tv REALLY gets to me, I physically flinched back in horror at the start of that scene. The reveal had me crying laughing with relief haha
an unexpected bacon in my life was when he showed up at my friends house. didn’t know what to say bc the only movie i saw him in was the beauty shop but i wanted to go on and on about his wife’s work. just said hi and kept it moving lol
Yeah, they secrete a nutrient-rich milky substance to feed their young with, making them one of the only amphibians (that we know of) to nurse their babies! They're actually pretty cool.
Atretochoana eiselti is a bizarre, limbless amphibian known only from museum specimens until 2011, when researchers led by Marinus Hoogmoed documented living individuals in the Brazilian Amazon. Populations were found in lowland rivers near Belém and near the Brazil–Bolivia border, in warm, turbid, fast-flowing waters, challenging previous assumptions about its habitat.
Examination of three specimens confirmed its broad, flattened head, smooth banded body, and complete lack of lungs, showing that lunglessness is a stable evolutionary trait. The species may have a wider distribution than previously thought, but remains cryptic due to its secretive aquatic lifestyle.
The rediscovery highlights the little-known diversity of Amazonian fauna and demonstrates how unique anatomy and ecological adaptations can persist unnoticed.
source
[removed]
Hell, probably what we've already lost and don't even realize it
hey, all of you! Yes, you too! remember the last time you had to pull over to clean the bugs off your windshield in the summer between gas stops because the driver couldn't see? What about people pulled over to do just that? What about the last time you had to clean your windshield, regardless of the distance or time you'd travelled, because it was covered in bugs enough to interfere with the drivers vision?
Horrifying, right?
We went from a normal part of EVERY summer road trip FOR EVERYONE, to there being so comparatively few bugs that it NEVER happens to ANYONE, barring some sort of insect plague of a single species that's similarly new.
That's a MASSIVE segment a whole CLASS of life of every ecosystem/food chain shared with humans - everywhere there's cars the shared experience of virtually everyone reading this has been literally WIPED CLEAN INSIDE. LIVING. MEMORY. ... a part of the ecosystem that necessarily fed an equally numerous and diverse population across orders of life which have since starved, whose shared absence has permanently altered every other facet of the food web and depleted the entire domain of life... and that's assuming that what wiped out the bugs was where the death started, like the cars wiped out insects, which is so typically naive of humanity we might as well pretend it's true.
Extinction is absence and absence is silent and invisible; we're not realising it because the phenomenon of mass erasure of the living world is alien to our species going ALL THE WAY BACK. Why/how do you build the capacity to notice and remember a force of nature that's only existed as a constant for the last 100 years of the entire history of our evolution?
This means that we've caused SO MUCH damage in the lifetimes of people reading this we've exceeded the capacity of our ABILITY TO PROCESS loss.
The scale cannot be overemphasised and the only other constant that even comes close in terms of scale is how fast that silence is growing.
There has never been a threat to life as complete as modern humans simply following the plan and we're so stupid, not only are we not trying to stop the problem or even slow it down, we're still handing out medals to the few of us that figure out how to speed it up.
Unless a silent planet Earth is our singular goal, we're running in exactly the the opposite direction of real progress.
tl;dr - That overwhelming sense that something is wrong in the world is your inner ape screaming at you to read the fucking thing until it actually hits like a real emergency because that's what this is... on a planetary scale.
This is the thing that gives me my baseline level of ceaseless anxiety.
Yeah, I try not to think about it because it makes me feel anxious and uneasy. But maybe it is good to feel uneasy and I should think about it more. There are definitely things I could do to be more environmentally conscious.
This always makes me feel better heavy breathing intensifies
Never thought about the whole insect on the windshield thing but damn your absolutely right. When i was a kid and would take trips from NJ to MA to visit family the car wpuld be absolutely covered in bugs...just took a drive from NJ to FL recently and there was barely anything. Sucks were killing this planet so fast.
Several studies were made to quantify the phenomenon, with sample collecting devices fixed on car windshields. On certain roads, the number was down to 80% less insects in 10 years!
I thought much of it was due to better aerodynamics -- the bugs get swooped over the top instead of going splat.
As a biker, when I first got my license for it 15 years ago, at every trip I had to stop once or twice at a gas stop to clean my visor from bugs. This summer I rinsed it twice, twice for the whole summer and it was mostly just dust.
I agree. With all of this. And I am so glad to hear somebody say it.
If you are not an environment geek, talk the people out in nature, they know what's going on. You may notice your food costs going up or the absence of rain in a rainy town. Smog may make it hard to breathe. You may see the massive storms. But those working in nature, especially those restoring habitat can tell you that these horrifying things start small.
Invasive species threatening certain trees. Wildfires setting 120 year old cedars ablaze after the water table has depleted in drought. Fish from southern waters showing up in the northern hemisphere. Vernal ponds drying up. The birds and squirrels dying from the heat. The bugs and fungi that play crucial but unnoticed jobs disappearing....It's haunting, at times, to realize that even if you are working to save it, countless lives have already been lost in our nature. And we are not exempt from their fate, should be continue like this.
It always bothered me that we are quicker to think of that corporation selling us junk than the glory of the rainforest that had its name stolen.
I feel the same way about the name “Tesla”
"The" is a significant component
And if there's a disturbing species, it is us.
Got one for ya. Chrysomallon squamiferum. Interesting fella, this one is.
https://preview.redd.it/9tnr0jjyz87g1.png?width=1067&format=png&auto=webp&s=1c43f0514dac156cbd58ac90c0a9f49c1e14654b
That just shows that life finds a way, even in the harshest of conditions. I think the word for it is 'extremophile.'
I would not be surprised if life continued existing far below the deepest seabed. How can anything be surprising when we've found fungus growing in the Chernobyl reactor. And it's not that it is just surviving in such an extreme environment, it is actually thriving because of it.
Extremophiles and Extremotolerants are quite interesting. Animals that either thrive in or can tolerate extreme conditions like Hydrothermal Vents, Ice Sheets, or the Intertidal Zone
Extremophile is a funny concept. If you consider the universe, earth’s temperate climate is extreme compared to the average of space
That is true, but compared to earths temperate climate these conditions seem quite extreme.
Its very contextual.
I was focused on warm and turbid
The 4th picture is not Atretochoana, but a different species of caecilian, Caecilia thompsoni. You can tell by the blue coloration of the body and downard pointed nostrils. They are similar in many things, except Atretochoana eiselti has no lungs - which is why it has been reclassified into its own genus.
Where did they find the museum specimens 🤔
Could have been killed many years ago before proper records were taken or donated from a private collector who had got it from someone else and didn't know the full details.
Ummmm….. In a museum.
Thanks for this information. I had to scroll way too far to find it.
https://preview.redd.it/sbhbwhadv97g1.jpeg?width=2880&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2fff842a4f223e94b591b4a226fcabd401064459
Ahh, Phteven.
Thanks for the memory-lane laugh.
https://i.redd.it/d57vty2og87g1.gif
All I can think of with this is the robot chicken bit with these guys
"We're just gonna eat him when he gets here, right?"
"Ok right, it's cash then."
Imagine a whale going apeshit over a single plankton
Tbf, they shot its stomach a few times
https://preview.redd.it/5xfm01cb787g1.png?width=268&format=png&auto=webp&s=8fbf1e95bda8d57b765ef12dadee9d033d802c41
https://i.redd.it/3wvp0igf097g1.gif
https://preview.redd.it/wmvrx6abd97g1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2f3da4df09ac65c6e9076b66c73f3e6786108d12
https://preview.redd.it/5q0hhvuet97g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=17b0db7190f4ec7b16f66789d4d6aa3a3b17f94a
https://preview.redd.it/nq5i20ct3a7g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3f0d2d17347b466c4599d4c8e859fb1b48485f7
https://preview.redd.it/bmy6qd7apa7g1.jpeg?width=735&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae6fc5bba41b9b7ac070ee783f8f72792447145d
My G.O.A.T Sonar mentioned
https://preview.redd.it/zb346kna3a7g1.png?width=1988&format=png&auto=webp&s=8bdbcb80de7941eb6d8c811a93a91c97535179c9
https://preview.redd.it/xr7yfrk7l97g1.png?width=1144&format=png&auto=webp&s=ceba3872a70f10977ba831d8c8b4bad2d1a3a310
Call in backup.
https://preview.redd.it/0rkoatrfs87g1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=212bb4c8f0c05c0dd60ee0d25edd269e14a5a704
quickly counter him with the testicular torsion spell so he wont get your penis
https://preview.redd.it/fa8s53vk197g1.jpeg?width=498&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9b11ec0000dd7228d2e16114cf43af27a0c66437
https://preview.redd.it/17d12tgyb87g1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06fc0238922751c09f3735ab424b93bbf7c20c60
This is such a good one, fuck that made me laugh 🤣
jfc reddit lmao
He had enough interviewing geh people, now hes going after them.
This is exactly what getting a dick pic is like
This post itself gave me an impression of a dick pic randomly appearing on my feed.
The same first thought of “ew gross” too
Yes, the same feeling of instant revulsion
Damn, some of y'all getting sent some hammers then.
Nah, it’s missing the POV where you see the guy’s boxers around his feet while he took the photo in his bathroom.🤣
Can you ask the other ones where they got the teeth upgrades?
This is exactly the image I would send in response to a dick pic.
As soon as I saw that creature I knew this would be here 😂😂😂
Oh yes. As reliable as gravity.
But in reality there was no double take until the teeth
Penis-dentata?
Danger dick.
God bless Steve Irwin. I wish he was alive today to teach the next generation about loving and caring for animals
Now you're just being an Anti-Dentata
Definitely exists in some Hentai somewhere
https://i.redd.it/l998lzgpba7g1.gif
bruh
What the fuck
There was absolutely zero chance of the top comment being anything else 😂
There's a chance of it being the reversed meme instead, but that's about it
it's like a weird form of telepathy
Ditto… first comment, too!
Now I have the song "Detachable Penis" in my head lol.
"I woke up this morning, with a bad hangover, and my penis was missing again."
I forgot about that classic! lol
https://preview.redd.it/2h01ael1s87g1.jpeg?width=524&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a9ddb60976d7cc569ae55bbb64c027457a288ea5
https://preview.redd.it/t85dtu34697g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d7ec4ed47da506610a7aa8d1e5fd5dfae09a3611
The context of this thread made me read your user name as “JackPerv.” (Sorry)
Your comment also made me read that person's user name and "JackPerv."(Not sorry)
https://i.redd.it/rikpunzic97g1.gif
https://preview.redd.it/n69xhc0a997g1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f4e0aa0480e3a49a01d4d9503b8c557e28eff1a
I wish I could return to one minute ago, when my mind was happier having never seen this.
Ok, yes, but it did make me laugh.
https://i.redd.it/jc8r666wz97g1.gif
https://i.redd.it/qzn2ufbyd87g1.gif
The reverse is always twice as good
Good as twice always is reverse the
No, it’s much much better.
Always twice as good, the reverse is
That's what she said
A penis with teeth!
This is the correct gif.
I just want you to know, I upvoted you before the GIF even loaded, because I immediately knew what it would be.
are you on 56k
https://i.redd.it/4c0xt7ngi87g1.gif
It's dicksturbing
With teeth...
I thought it was a clip from a BBC documentary.
Kevin Bacon's hair in this movie deserves its own recognition in the end credits.
Agree
Unexpected Bacon
Unexpected Swanson!!!
Edit: I was having a crumby day and you lifted me up w this. Ty internet stranger
Anything with teeth in movies and tv REALLY gets to me, I physically flinched back in horror at the start of that scene. The reveal had me crying laughing with relief haha
an unexpected bacon in my life was when he showed up at my friends house. didn’t know what to say bc the only movie i saw him in was the beauty shop but i wanted to go on and on about his wife’s work. just said hi and kept it moving lol
Damn you got unexpected bacon live!!!!
Remember back in the day when Burt seemed crazy but now he’s like average.
This gif is perfection
Population: 12
We're gonna need Burt for these new toothy-dicks
https://preview.redd.it/yr7k0cg7h87g1.jpeg?width=506&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=95c2a75e52bc087dd63ebe15693cccb73709333c
First thing I thought of
https://preview.redd.it/pwjxdqos897g1.jpeg?width=461&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9089b5f15e5386f2434e24da5db986c9f4e88504
If your pp looks like this, you should see a doctor
If my pp looks like this I can see whoever I want.
Came here to see this, I knew someone else had the same thought!
sighs
goes to check comments knowing exactly what's going to be there
And we’re not disappointed 😂
Yeah and it’s a lot of memes to steal >:3
https://preview.redd.it/k5mfmtsg687g1.jpeg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=80e68187681a9d52e3308b0482868f8284d9f74b
https://i.redd.it/o8sumf53g87g1.gif
https://i.redd.it/9z6mex59q87g1.gif
https://i.redd.it/hxbx7kc2s87g1.gif
Reminds me of the thing in “Tremors.”
This is what every woman sees when they get a Dick Pic.
If you think Caecilians are weird now, wait until you find out they produce milk! Oh, and they're venomous.
milk?
Yeah, they secrete a nutrient-rich milky substance to feed their young with, making them one of the only amphibians (that we know of) to nurse their babies! They're actually pretty cool.
I thought you were making a penis joke in your original comment to go along with the multitude of them in this thread, but that's super cool!
That's the beauty of nature! You can take it both ways!
Ayo
That’s what she said.
I heard they're all dickheads !
This is like the follow up to Teeth
https://preview.redd.it/micysm9wq87g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c516bb3a0868f6e23784c6bf674b62f43026db12
Dad! WTF?
Fuck bro I was enjoying my coffee
I'm sorry!
I should have known you were having coffee 😔☕
https://preview.redd.it/ur7pkl3r487g1.jpeg?width=888&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ab3df8534a27f5da055135532eebcca68f7d479
Tbh it also looks kinda funny
Its like an eel and a blob fish had a baby.
Then suddenly.... TEETH
Same face even.
https://preview.redd.it/jhhg4j58c87g1.jpeg?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f4b08c22a16d2e0a7864e45d9bd298d4e183c94e
A lot of animals have teeth.
Yeah but do many animals look like a penis AND have teeth?
My penis does
https://preview.redd.it/z7ycjajch87g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd20c038bf10bdc194435a134a86beb50afd32da
How could I not upvote this every time?
https://i.redd.it/ohli0f7ea87g1.gif
Smiling friends worm news cast?
https://preview.redd.it/2jnh5iy1r87g1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03f0dd2737028bd94f6448a25905db40ffd82827
https://preview.redd.it/j2nrl308b97g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=019f8049786f8ff6a1679baba28d44afd5a87a38
One of my ex-wife’s favorites
Diagusting. Where can I find her? What's her number? So I can avoid her!
What's your current wife's favorite?
Some type of mollusk, I assume.
https://preview.redd.it/ndmon96zd87g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5122fd80aa3a41c263b97b5b08d62347395668c7
He was gay? Atretochoana eiselti
https://i.redd.it/e9meb6e2p87g1.gif
Big man on his way to grease some union people
https://preview.redd.it/79i8agnjg87g1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=24a2944d27a5668a2720c66bec86714c64ba2468
This one made me laugh more than it should have. Kudos and cheers.
The amphibian she tells you not to worry about
looks like my boyfriends cock
Bro I literally just opened Reddit
everything reminds me of him
...I should call him
I think it just looks really silly
https://i.redd.it/w4aov320f87g1.gif
Why…… 😭
Nothing disturbing about that Good Boy.
"disturbing" and its an animal that looks like a sock puppet
https://preview.redd.it/kb85qj64t87g1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=69fde6603b61e2a253e8346883b0d952128eedd3
https://preview.redd.it/brfrzza5p87g1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=fc2d677385dfcd1797c0bb258e07b5639df6e5e1
🙂
What's disturbing about it?
https://preview.redd.it/d8iw4zeep97g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aedb2e66d1c6e44242da75bd66eafdcd8c1b52c8
Bruh I’m in line at a coffe shop smh
Tremors irl
I bet his name is Johnson
https://preview.redd.it/0e6d7rhps87g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=876d22a4475e570d70486f80c745886e8b3a85ee
https://preview.redd.it/5c374nphb97g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=88118264a7d73230702e3b2fe6d32d4552108648
Help... me
Your friendly PSA!