A place with minimal rules for stuff that makes you go awww! Feel free to post pics, gifs, or videos of cats, dogs, babies, or anything cute and remember to be kind to others.
AI posts must be labeled [AI] in the title and are limited to one per week.
While posting and commenting in this community, you must abide by instance-wide rules: https://mastodon.world/about
This little guy is called quokka. They only live on a small part of Australia, and they're unbelievably cute! Just found out about them today
Getting high on the beach with these guys scurrying about is always a fun summer night.
They’re famous for selfies. They look like they’re always smiling. People call them the happiest animals on Earth.
But when danger comes for their babies… They don’t fight. They don’t protect.
They throw their babies at predators and run.
That’s right — mother quokkas have been observed tossing their joeys out of their pouches to distract predators while they escape.
It’s brutal. It’s cold. But it’s survival.
Scientists call it “infant abandonment as a defense mechanism” — and in quokkas, it’s instinctive. The moment they sense they’re beieing ruthless does. jettison the baby and run for cover.
No last look. No hesitation.
Because in the wild, being cute doesn’t keep you alive. Being ruthless does.
I was wondering which part about them makes them dangerous or fucked up, given they're from australia. Thanks for providing the answer lol
The island is called rottnest because the Dutch explorers thought they were rats.
Wait till you see his tail
I'll have what he's having 😜
I love these goofy little bastards...
More pixels
You made him even more lovely thanks 😍
I'm all right, don't nobody worry bout me
I feel like the picture needs it holding a knife to be believably Australian
Nah, if you need to know why they've been vanquished to Australia you just need to look into their defense strategy.
This is the reason for the sly smile
When a female quokka with a joey in her pouch is pursued by a predator, she may drop her baby onto the ground; the joey produces noises which may serve to attract the predator's attention, while the mother escapes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quokka#Description
Just gotta outrun babies, smart
*knoife
You call that a knoife? This, is a knoife 🥄!
And yet it's killed more humans than all the animals in Africa combined.
I want to see what it looks like when aggressive lol
Are you sure you're not conflating it with the drop bear?
......this little guy??? Daaaaaamn!!!! Homie is hardcore, yo!
They look like puppets and not real living wild animals.
Like Disney Animatronics
I found out about them about a year ago thanks to Lemmy, funnily
I was wondering why one of the Aussie instances was called quokk.au
Glad I promoted a curiosity.
This guy looks like Fozzie Bear waiting for the audience to react to one of his jokes.
Quokka Quokka
robert irwin holding quokkas is literally my favourite thing in the world tbh