beanytuesday
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Animal Crackers
🕑 Added 2021-02-16 18:25:36 +0000 UTCThis is very much a throwback to the older, shittier-drawn, less wordy style of comic, but I still think the concept is pretty good. Perhaps I need to refine my ultra-cartoony style, though...
I was a zoology and philosophy double major in college. Taking philosophy definitely helped improve my writing and critical thinking skills, and taking zoology improved literally nothing about my life. I did, however, get to learn and memorize a shitload of bones and muscles and the names of a ton of weird-ass animals. It's truly given me an appreciation for the invertebrates of the world, which are usually overlooked but are often the stuff of nightmares and fever dreams. All the same, though, convergent evolution being what it is also leads to what you see above. I imagine God was quite pissed when found out all the genetically distinct micro-organisms he handcrafted had all just lazily evolved into the exact same shit.
Theres an old mega64 bit where they talk about how NASA keeps announcing incredible discoveries, only for them to be "just more fucking rocks, you nerds", with Derrick following up by adding "I don't want to hear about any more discoveries unless you say 'We found a building on Mars and we don't know who built it.'" All the same, with Zoological discoveries. Guys we made an INCREDIBLE new discovery, an entirely new phylum we never new existed! Oh, fuck! What is it? Is it some deep-sea lovecraftian abomination we just recently unearthed from an ancient slumber? Some shit made entirely out of air? I bet it looks like one of the angels from the latter half of Evangelion. Oh, its actually just some shit we already knew about that you just put into its own category for some boring genetic reason? Look, unless the reason is "this belongs in its own phylum because it actually came from outer space" I don't care!
Fun fact; if my zoology knowledge serves me correctly, humans are more genetically similar to the humble sand dollar than to the hyperintelligent cephalopods or leg-bearing insects, due to our shared "ass-first" development (deutorostomy). It's true!
There is probably a lot more I could say about the animal kingdom, and they deserve a more fleshed-out comic (or several!) but I didn't want to overbloat this one. Stay tuned!
One final note for the nitpickers; yes, the ad boasts a dozen distinct phyla, but the cookie shapes in the picture are classified by class. They are, however, all from different phyla as well! I classified them by class because otherwise the "worm-like mollusc" bit doesn't work.
Comments
Martynas Klimas
The new discoveries part is 100% relatable.
j. birdhead
mmmm clades my dad did his degree in fisheries biology for which you can substitute the worms of this joke with "winged arthropods" and get the same general effect
