The Female of the Species
This blog post is primarily an opportunity to post cute animal photos.
Oof! I had a really hard time with this blog post. Let me tell you why . . .
A few weeks ago, I rediscovered the 90s alt rock banger Female of the Species by Space. Around the same time I saw of photo of a male and female cardinal hanging out together on a tree branch.
Image licensed from stock.adobe.com
⬆️ Not THIS kind of cardinal
As we all know, there is no female of THIS species!
THESE cardinals ⬇️
Image licensed from stock.adobe.com
While female cardinals are - indeed - lovely, they don’t hold a candle to male cardinals! This led my ADHD brain to think of all the species where the male is waaaaay cooler looking than the female. Especially in the bird world.
HINT: There are a whole bunch.
OBVIOUSLY, the next step was to figure out what that phenomenon was called.
Finding the definition was easy enough, but try googling “sexual dimorphism images.” My search results were definitely NSFW.
Image licensed from unsplash.com
One of the most obvious examples in the mammalian species is lions.
Word
Mix-Tape Must-Have
As per usual, a song inspired my blog topic.
Animal Eye Candy
This image serves no purpose beyond its own cuteness.
And maybe as a cautionary tale. If you stumble upon an otter as adorable as this (or even an ugly one), keep walking. Don’t make eye contact. Attempt a quick photo if you must, but NOT a selfie.
While otters may LOOK as precious as baby lambs, they are actually vicious killing machines. They’ll rip out your trachea.
Ok. Maybe not that vicious. But close.
Otters belong to the mustelid family.
So do honey badgers.
Isn’t zoology marvelous?
Palette
Because chickens
Corny Joke
A GIF That Keeps On GIFing
Sexual dimorphism often results in the male of the species being bigger and brighter.
However, there are exceptions.
