• samus12345@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    Death held out a hand. I WANT, he said, A BOOK ABOUT THE DANGEROUS CREATURES OF FOURECKS-

    Albert looked up and dived for cover, receiving only mild bruising because he had the foresight to curl into a ball.

    After a while Death, his voice a little muffled, said: ALBERT, I WOULD BE SO GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD GIVE ME A HAND HERE.

    Albert scrambled up and pulled at some of the huge volumes, finally dislodging enough of them for his master to clamber free.

    HMM… Death picked up a book at random and read the cover. “DANGEROUS MAMMALS, REPTILES, AMPHIBIANS, BIRDS, FISH, JELLYFISH, INSECTS, SPIDERS, CRUSTACEANS, GRASSES, TREES, MOSSES, AND LICHENS OF TERROR INCOGNITA,” he read. His gaze moved down the spine. VOLUME 29C, he added. OH. PART THREE, I SEE.

    He glanced up at the listening shelves. POSSIBLY IT WOULD BE SIMPLER IF I ASKED FOR A LIST OF THE HARMLESS CREATURES OF THE AFORESAID CONTINENT?

    They waited.

    IT WOULD APPEAR THAT-

    “No, wait master. Here it comes.”

    Albert pointed to something white zigzagging lazily through the air. Finally Death reached up an caught the single sheet of paper.

    He read it carefully and then turned it over briefly just in case anything was written on the other side.

    “May I?” said Albert. Death handed him the paper.

    “‘Some of the sheep,’” Albert read aloud. “Oh, well. Maybe a week at the seaside’d be better, then.”

  • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I saw a snail hunting a pack of elephants yesterday, the elephant was screaming something about him being immortal and if he touched him he would die.

    • HobbitFoot
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      6 days ago

      And it isn’t like you’ll be punished evolutionarily if you ultra kill.

      • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        6 days ago

        Making all that extra poison constantly ain’t cheap. You also have to keep it from killing you. Which means they absolutely needed that much poison. What horror lies beneath Australia…

        • DUMBASS@leminal.space
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          5 days ago

          What horror lies beneath Australia…

          Yeah, we’re not allowed to talk about that to non Australians, it’s better if you don’t know.

  • judgyweevil@feddit.it
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    6 days ago

    They understood perfectly well, too bad that they have no idea what an elephant is so they got venom that could kill anything, just in case

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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      6 days ago

      They understood perfectly well, too bad that they have no idea what an elephant is so they got venom that could kill anything, just in case

      Their ancestors knew. And they solved that problem.

  • Elaine Cortez@lemm.ee
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    5 days ago

    I love Australia but I’ve always wondered what exactly it is about Australia that made evolution go “yes, let’s make this place like Master Mode in BOTW where everything is OP, wants to kill you, and can one-shot you”

    • Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 days ago

      It’s really more of an easy mode with a couple of super unlucky bullshit gameovers scattered around than a master mode. Look at how many builds have overtaken the Australian meta since their introduction: dogs, cats (okay, they’re an apex predator everywhere), foxes, rabbits, cane toads, mice, rats, deer, camels, scottish thistles, horses… I could go on.

    • Gronk@aussie.zone
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      5 days ago

      I mean yeah it’s one-shot land but I’d feel more comfortable in the Australian bush than in other territories, a lot of these creatures can be avoided with a little bit of knowledge and caution, but there’s no large predators

      Most large creatures here can beat the shit out of you but they wouldn’t unless you threatened them.

  • ZeroHora@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    Waste of points, could spent it into INT or HP. Fucking glass cannon species.

  • MTK@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Wait until you hear about deadly toxin producing bacteria.

    You only need about 6 kg of Clostridium botulinum to produce enough toxins to kill all mammals on earth.

    Assumptions:

    • weight of a single bacterium is 1 picogram
    • a single bacterium produces 0.5 picograms of toxin
    • All mammals on earth are 1.4 gigatons of mass
    • a lethal dose is 150 nanograms per kg
    • flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz
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      6 days ago

      Yes but the delivery is a problem. How do we package, ship and then get each mammal on earth to ingest 150 ng of the toxin?

      • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Simple. Start a new plandemic and give out free vaccines! It worked last time, that’s why we’re all dead.

      • MTK@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Well, if all it takes is 6 kg, I don’t think it would be that hard to make like a few tons and fly around the world throwing a kg at a time into any body of water you find.

        Sure, you wouldn’t kill everyone, but probably most 🤷‍♂️

        • ryedaft@sh.itjust.works
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          5 days ago

          I think about 96% of mammal biomass is either humans or domestic animals so if we ignore the 4% wild animals it suddenly because a much easier task.

          Like, throwing enough botulinum toxin into the ocean to kill all the whales would be annoying.

          • MTK@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            It would a lot less interesting.

            Literally everyone dies except a few that drink only bottled water. Society is now 90% people who believe that alkaline water is magic

            • Riversedgeknight1@lemmy.world
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              5 days ago

              More likely 10-15% of people die then everyone figures out it’s the water, identified the cause of death, develops filters to remove the toxin, and then the filter becomes commercialized.

              • MTK@lemmy.world
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                5 days ago

                Like the first half of the movie is just what you would expect from a batman movie, but then after thousands die and batman catches the villan it just conintues into a documentary about how this event eventully led to the “2026 Water protection law” and the political fights around it.

    • misteloct@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Genocide is evolutionary beneficial for the toxin producer, maybe there’s a ring of truth to it. Poison everything around you, free up resources for yourself.

  • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Blue ringed octopus is just using tetrodotoxin though, it’s not like they developed that toxin through evolution. Bacteria are the ones that made TTX so toxic. I’m not impressed.

  • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Kill? Why not paralyze or severely wound? Slow enough that you can kill with I don’t know a pointed stick, rock or gravity? Why make the venom do all the dirty work?

    This message paid for by toothjuice 417 local union