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Defector


<p>charismatic megafauna (they/them)</p>


Sabrina Imbler

three photos of subadult male northern elephant seals, one named Brian, one named Dennis, and one named Carl

Creaturefector

The Gang’s All Here!

a close-up of a green skink with its tongue out

Skink Outside The Box

two small brown hexapods called globular springtails jump. off a white surface and spin into the air, against a purple background.

Meet The Round Little Gymnasts In Your Backyard

two penguins stand in front of an inflatable rainbow arch in a penguin enclosure

Sphen The Gay Penguin Broke The Ice

Stonehenge, Wiltshire, circa 2015. General view at dusk with the Moon above the stones. (Photo by English Heritage/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Science

Extremely Heavy And Incredibly Far; Or, The Saga Of The Strangest Rock At Stonehenge

A yellowish lizard called the Jamaican giant galliwasp curled up in a jar of preservative

How A 170-Year-Old Lizard Finally Came Home To Jamaica

A neopet dragon broods over its hoard of gold.

Capital

Is It Ethical To Be A Billionaire In Neopets?

a mother cape fur seal screaming in front of some pups

How To Eavesdrop On A Seal In A Crowd Of 90,000

Close up view of the face of a blue shark showing details of the eye, mouth and sensors in it's snout. This image was taken on a baited shark dive 50 kms offshore past Western Cape.

Frankly It Would Be Surprising If No Sharks Were On Cocaine

150-million-year-old fossil of Stegosaurus specimen is on display at Sotheby's in New York on July 10, 2024.

No One Person Should Be Able To Own A Dinosaur

a close-up of a male common noctule bat against a dark background. the wings week logo is in the leftmost corner

Wings Week

Bat Boy Summer Goals: Hang With The Bros, Chow Down, And Make A Lot Of Sperm

How I Learned To Moth And Embrace The Dark

a Japanese honeybee slapping an ant off a ledge with its fluttering wing

Watch As Honeybee SLAPS Ant In Heated Exchange

A crowd of ants, in which an ant in the middle is receiving an amputation from another ant

Make A ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Spin-Off But This Time It’s Ants

A round stingray (Urolophus halleri) I photographed in shallow water at Bolsa Chica wetlands (Southern California). The clouds of sand around the eyes and and body were formed as the stingray flapped and positioned deeper in the sand, expelling water. You can see the spiracles behind the eyes.

Charlotte, The Stingray At The Heart Of Scandal, Has Died

A photo of a brown rat fluorescing white and blue under UV light

Does A Rat Need A Reason To Glow Ethereally?

Close up of Tiger leech hanging off the edge of a leaf in Danum Valley rain forest

A Slimy New Contender For The Olympic Diving Team?

a yellow and blue striped joro spider in a web

The “It Girl” Spiders That May Or May Not Be Taking Over The East Coast, At Some Point, Eventually

Defector Up All Night

It’s A Lovely Day In The Pleistocene And You Are A Horrible Giga-Goose

a large red deep-sea squid holds a mass of brownish eggs in her tentacles while her big eye stares out at the camera

Did Your Mother Cradle You Lovingly In Her Suckers?

Kelsey McKinney

Alex Sujong Laughlin

A young woman in a swimsuit and sun hat poses with a drink at the edge of a pool

Announcements

The Normal Gossip Summer Guide To Eavesdropping

a gif of a dragonfly and other flies flying into a mountain pass in the Pyrenees

The Big Bug Migration Of The Pyrenees Mountains

Why The Matador Bug Is A Walking Red Flag

A single ant eating a drop of honey on a white background

If You Give An Ant A Panera Charged Lemonade It Will Become More Powerful Than You Could Possibly Imagine

a mimic blenny hiding in a burrow in a rock in a coral reef in Indonesia