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Michelle A. Rodrigues 🐒

@marspidermonkey.bsky.social

5.3K followers 1.8K following 5K posts

Primatologist. Biological anthropologist. Recovering academic. Mammal Madness fan. Dog mom to the cutest rescue dog. Expertise in social relationships and stress in monkeys, apes, & humans, and the systemic inequities in academia & science. She/her

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Michelle A. Rodrigues 🐒 @marspidermonkey.bsky.social · 10d

Starting a pinned thread of book reviews! This is the review for Apes on the Edge, by Jill Pruetz!

Michelle A. Rodrigues 🐒 @marspidermonkey.bsky.social · 23d

Time for a book review! Starting out with Apes on the Edge: Chimpanzee Life on the West African Savanna by Jill Pruetz (University of Chicago Press, 2025)! (1/11)
🧪🦊 #Primates #Booksky #ScienceBooks #BookReview

The book "Apes on the Edge: Chimpanzee Life on the West African Savanna" by Jill Pruetz on a colorful background. The cover is a picture of a young adorable chimpanzee hanging from a vine about a pool of water, with his lips just touching the ater and his reflection mirriored in the rippled pool

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Imani Gandy Corn 🎃 @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 1h

literally what

onion person @junlper.beer · 10h

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Thor Benson @thorbenson.bsky.social · 4h

More posts like this from politicians please

Senator Ron Wyden @wyden.senate.gov · 22h

Thoughts and prayers to Cosplay Cop Kristi who had to brave the dogs, farmer’s markets, capybaras, and marathon runners of Portland this week.

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em unfaithful (faithful version) @revengeem.bsky.social · 14h

Rewatching Buffy and I’m reminded that when I first watched it I loved that they cast Amber Benson because she was such good representation for fat girls. 2000 was madness:

Sarah Michelle Geller an Amber Benson sitting next to each other. While Sarah is a smaller human both are objectively thin

Amber Benson wearing a skirt and tank top that exposes her stomach

Amber Benson wearing a bear shirt and black pants, midriff exposed.

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TashasEv[ered Head] @tashasev.bsky.social · 22h

Zuri had to wear her raincoat for walkies this morning

A ridiculous looking large fluffy white dog wearing a bright light blue and teal doggy raincoat. She looking straight up at me even though she is standing because she’s a delightful weirdo

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Zach Rabiroff @zachrabiroff.com · 10h

I think it was really nice of our president to personally, repeatedly make sure that we knew tariffs are his favorite thing in the world, so every time this happens we can direct a little more boiling resentment specifically toward him.

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Michelle A. Rodrigues 🐒 @marspidermonkey.bsky.social · 10h

Yikes.

Daily Trix @dailytrix.bsky.social · 10h

Very cool new system, indeed.

UPS is 'disposing of' U.S.-bound packages over customs paperwork problems

Shifting Trump tariffs have created a nightmare for UPS, as thousands of packages from overseas pile up at its hubs while they await customs clearance.

www.nbcnews.com

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Rob Sheridan @rob-sheridan.com · 10h

Just had my first-ever experience of a delivery guy needing to collect a tariff from me in order to give me my package. Only a bank or cashier’s check is accepted, so no way for me to pay, I have to go to the bank tomorrow and the postman will try again. Very cool new system, America is great again

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Michael Ian Black @michaelianblack.bsky.social · 10h

We're already at the hiding people from the secret police phase?

Sophie Sherry @sophiesherry.bsky.social · 19h

During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door.   It wasn’t the feds — it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help.

He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days.

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before th...

chicago.suntimes.com

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 11h

Yes, I know we just went for a walk. But what about second walkies?!?

Odie, a big tan dog, lies on a dog bed staring at the camera.

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Michelle A. Rodrigues 🐒 @marspidermonkey.bsky.social · 11h

Scary water horse!

Nome @nome.bsky.social · Mar 12

They're also known from time to time to decide "Fuck this boat in particular" and just chase boats going "BOING BOING MOTHERFUCKER" as they bounce after them.

Hippo Chases Boat: Show's Boaters Who's Boss | The Dodo

YouTube video by The Dodo

www.youtube.com

Michelle A. Rodrigues 🐒 @marspidermonkey.bsky.social · 11h

Adorable water horse!

Nome @nome.bsky.social · Mar 12

Instead, they... they just fucking gallop underwater.

They're running along the muddy bottom, leaping as they do. They can do this at about 5mph, for as long as they want.

Which is faster than even the fastest human can swim, except for short bursts.

a couple of hippos are swimming in a tank with the website senorgif.com visible

Alt: A baby hippo chasing after an adult, both of them leaping and galloping underwater, as viewed from a glass-walled aquarium.

media.tenor.com

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Karla Pacheco! @thekarlapacheco.bsky.social · Mar 12

So this whole entire thread is fantastic, but I'm picking this bit to highlight because as soon as I saw the earlier post about the body fat percentage I started chuckling.

Nome @nome.bsky.social · Mar 12

What's truly wild is that, for an animal that spends most of its time in water, Hippos can't swim.

2% body fat, remember? They're all *incredibly dense* muscle and bone. They're one of the few mammals which aren't naturally bouyant, and are evolved to just *walk* across the bottom of rivers.

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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 12h

I googled “patron saint of frogs” for a bit and then immediately abandoned the bit because I would so much rather actually talk about St. Ulphia the 8th century hermit who cursed her local frogs for keeping her up at night and making her sleep through church

Her hermitage was located in a marshy wetland, inhabited by frogs whose loud croaking kept her up all night. One day, she was so tired that she slept through when Domitius knocked at her door, and he, thinking she had already gone on ahead, left without her. Legend states that Ulphia placed the frogs in the area around her under interdict as a result of their loud croaking, which kept her awake at nights.
A 19th century hagiographer noted that the frogs in the area around the oratory of Saint Ulphia were, indeed, very quiet. However, if these frogs were taken elsewhere, they became boisterous once again.
At the end of her life, she formed and directed a community of religious women at Amiens.
In iconography, she is depicted as a young nun seated in prayer on a rock with a frog in the pool near her.

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Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 14h

This man is being Gorilla Channel'd with a rotating selection of AI slop riot porn by several known white supremacists who are secretly running the government.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 16h

Trump: "Portland, I mean -- every time I look at that place it's burning down. There are fires all over the place. When a store -- there are very few of them left -- but when a store owner rebuilds a store they build it out of plywood. They don't put up storefronts anymore. They just put wood up."

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ᓃᔪᑲᒥᑳᐸᐤ Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles, Ph.D. (he/they/wiin) @niiyokamigaabaw.bsky.social · 12h

The argument that Land Back is ethnonationalism in the “blood and soil” vein is especially shoddy when one looks at the origins of “blood and soil” and see that it actually has a lot in common with settler colonialism versus anything to do with Indigenous land relations.

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Freya 💙 @freyalux.bsky.social · 12h

youtube.com/watch?v=gu1l...
Unqualified, un-trained Trump’s Militia harassing drivers at Ohare airport in Chicago! Profiling black and brown people! 🤬

Several people detained by ICE agents at O'Hare Airport rideshare parking lot

YouTube video by NBC Chicago

youtube.com

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Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 19h

ICE went after rideshare drivers at O’Hare today, according to statement from Illinois Drivers Alliance

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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 13h

The Trump administration has been spreading anti-vaccine propaganda for months. Tonight, Trump's physician announced he just received a flu shot and a COVID booster.

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Virginia Gewin @virginiagewin.bsky.social · 14h

Journalist here

I’m interested in talking to a federal agency scientist who was fired, then rehired. I can keep you anonymous. I’m on Signal ginnyg.04

Reposts are appreciated!

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Michelle A. Rodrigues 🐒 @marspidermonkey.bsky.social · 13h

The Book of Kells is such a beautiful piece of art.

Open Culture @openculture.bsky.social · 21h

The Medieval Masterpiece, the Book of Kells, Is Now Digitized and Available Online

If you know nothing else about medieval European illuminated manuscripts, you surely know the Book of Kells. “One of Ireland’s greatest cultural treasures” comments Medievalists.net, “it is set apart ...

www.openculture.com

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Reverend Jesus "H" Christ @reverendjesus.com · 1d

Blessed are the frogs, for they keep making authoritarians look incredibly stupid

Three persons in inflatable frog costumes. One of them is holding a nicely painted sign with two little cartoon frogs holding hands, below the text "FROGS TOGETHER STRONG"

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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 13h

There it is, folks.

The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 16h

His slip of the tongue reveals who’s really in charge. trib.al/mIvP0yE

“Illinois governor says we’re provoking actions that are unlawful,” Miller said on CNN. “If I put federal law enforcement and National Guard into a nice sleepy Southern town, is anyone gonna riot?”

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Dr. Rebecca Gibson @drrgibsongirl.bsky.social · 14h

"It's not relatable!!" Yo, I can't fucking afford even one night at the Plaza Athénée, but I can understand the feeling of being somewhere you're meant to be having fun and feeling great, but feeling morose and broody because you just got a weird phone call from a loved one.

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darth™️ @darthbluesky.bsky.social · 16h

that johnson is more terrified of seating a duly elected democrat who could force an epstein vote than having the entire government shut down really makes me wonder about that epstein vote tbh

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Michelle A. Rodrigues 🐒 @marspidermonkey.bsky.social · 1d

Post yourself from a different era.

Scotland, ca 2003.

Young Michelle in a light blue rain jacket, long denim skirt, and sandals, with wildflowers tucked behind her ear, lying in a grassy bluff surrounded by wildflowers. In the background is a rock formation and these sea.