Animals <3

Bats, Owls, Penguins, Mosquitos, Leeches, Spiders, Caecilian, Olm, Bigfin squid, Fireflies, Crow

Bat - Bats as a class of animal have always been some of the coolest animals to me. Specifically I mostly love microbats as I find echolocation fascinating. It's also interesting to me that the carnivorous species of bat are the smaller ones given that we're usually taught to think of herbivores as lower on the food chain and therefore typically smaller.

Bigfin Squid - Bigfin squid are some of my favorite deep ocean creatures. The fact that they can grow so large as to have 4-8 meter long tentacles while supposedly feeding relatively passively is so interesting to me. They also just look creepy, and I'm a sucker for a creepy deep sea creature. The visual of being a much smaller creature in such a deep, dark, high-pressure environment and suddenly being entrapped by ten long spindly tentacles is so deeply evocative.

Caecilian - Caecilian are a type of amphibian that I only recently discovered exists, but I fill in love with immediately. They're still amphibious but look more like a worm or a snake, and their heads looks so silly that I can't not love them.

Mosquito - Mosquito are some of the most hated animals on Earth - potentially the most hated. This is understandably so, given their status as the single deadliest animal on Earth for humans and their propensity for spreading disease, but I'm a contrarian. I think they're fascinating, and I'm privileged enough to be vaccinated against the diseases they tend to spread, so the risk to me is relatively low. I also find that the itchiness and discomfort from mosquito bites bother me less than they do other people, so I'd rather they bite me than bite someone else who would suffer more from it. Group-scale harm-reduction, I guess. I do like to watch the blood sack on the mosquito fill up as it harvests though, so I'm also just a weirdo.

Olm - Olm are some of my favorite weird looking little creatures. Something about their similarity to a more standard animal like a salamander while also lacking eyes and pigmentation makes them the perfect balance of weird and familiar to be appealing. I also think they're a great example of evolution based on very specific pressures. The utter darkness of their cave ecosystem obsoleting their eyes and pigmentation makes them very plainly and distinctly a reflection of their environment.

Owl - Owls have been one of my favorite kind of birds for most of my life. They're super cool-looking, have long symbolized wisdom. They're also famously often nocturnal, and as a life-long insomniac, I've always found that relatable.

Spectral Bat - Spectral bats are a very pretty species of bat. I particularly love its almost translucent wings, but it also has other interesting details. It's the largest bat in the so-called Americas, and it's the only member of the Vampyrum genus because Europeans thought it consumed blood and decided to name it based on that fact despite never seeing it alive to consume anything. It's also monogamous which is rare for bats and does somewhat fit the image of a solitary hunter like a vampire. It also has extremely keen senses and hunts many other animals including other bats.

Vampire Bat - Vampire bats are probably my favorite bat species. It's a basic choice given the association between bats and vampires, but I have an odd affinity for bloodsuckers.