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10 ancient beasts your pet might be related to.

Today is Charles Darwin's 207th birthday! Darwin, who famously wrote "On the Origin of Species," the book that introduced much of the world to evolution and the theory of natural selection, didn't just write about animals. He also kept quite a few of them as pets, including several dogs, a tortoise (kind of), and pigeons.

Just like Darwin, Mother Nature shares her home with some interesting animal companions. And if you squint, you can see the resemblance they have to more familiar animal faces.

So in celebration of Darwin's birthday and his pets, here are 10 cool animals that don't look exactly like your domesticated Fluffys, Pollys, and Rexes but just might be related to them.


1. Your fluffy house cat may be related to the smilodon.

Image from Sergio De la Rosa Martínez/Wikimedia Commons.

Smilodon! One of the fabled saber-tooth cats. They lived up until about 10,000 years ago in North and South America.

2. And your dog has some family to match — dire wolves.

Image from Sergio De la Rosa Martínez/Wikimedia Commons.

Yeah, George R. R. Martin didn't just make up House Stark's emblematic animal out of whole cloth. Like the smilodon above, these guys roamed up until about 10,000 years ago. While superficially similar to modern wolves, your average dire wolf would have weighed about 25% more.

3. But it's Lamb Chop's cousin you have to really watch out for.

Image from Boris Dimitrov/Wikimedia Commons.

What do you get if you cross a sheep with a wolf? This guy! He's an andrewsarchus, and though he might look more like some kind of prehistoric hyaena, evidence suggests he belongs in the same order as goats, sheep, and deer.

4. Babe's cousins are no slouch either.

Image from Heinrich Harder/Wikimedia Commons.

And people think warthogs are ugly! These distant relatives of pigs, known as entelodonts, lived about 33 million years ago.

5. Think your brightly colored, talkative parrot is a handful? Try sharing your home with Haast's eagle.

Image from John Megahan/Wikimedia Commons.

This featured creature also has the distinction of being the only thing on the list to have lived in modern times – up until the year 1400. The species lived in New Zealand, where it preyed on the giant, flightless birds known as moa. They may even be the giant man-eating birds of Maori legend!

6. The creature in this illustration is related to today's horses. Really, I swear. I'm not making it up.

Image from Jay Matternes/Wikimedia Commons.

Though they might look more like a gorilla (or Joe Camel) than Black Beauty, these are in fact distant relatives of modern horses known as chalicotheres. They died out about 3.5 million years ago.

7. This massive titanoboa just wants to give you a hug.

Image from Ryan Somma/Flickr, taken at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

Yes, that is a snake big enough to eat a crocodile. Titanoboa lived about 60 million years ago, at a time I imagine it must have ruled the post-dinosaur world.

And sorry, Potterheads, but as far as history and science are concerned, there is no record of one of these behemoths living in a Chamber of Secrets below a magical school, and though titanoboas aren't around today, no, they weren't wiped out by a messy-haired, bespectacled pre-teen wizard stabbing a dusty old diary with a fang either.

8. Your goldfish dreams of life as a megalodon.

Image from Karen Carr/Wikimedia Commons.

Megalodon is not just the star of bad science fiction movies! The megalodon really did munch its way through the ocean from about 16 million to about 3 million years ago. If your goldfish could LARP, it'd probably go as one of these toothy giants.

9. Even turtles have some impressive relatives in their family trees.

So, yes, there are more lifelike drawings of this massive turtle known as archelon, but you really gotta check out the size of this thing. Archelon lived about 80 million years ago and must have weighed at least two tons. And it had an even larger cousin — stupendemys!

Finally, I'm so sorry, but I have to include at least one huge bug on this list. Look away now if you hate creepy crawly critters.

10. This is a pulmonoscorpius.


Some people like to keep scorpions as pets, but even they would probably think twice before adopting pulmonoscorpius.

The thing was more than two feet long! Luckily, of all the creatures on this list, we're the furthest away from the time that spawned this massive bug — the species died out over 300 million years ago. Thank goodness.

It might be hard to imagine trying to keep any of these creatures as a pet. But, Fluffy and Rex aren't the only animals with weird cousins.

After all, it's not too long ago that we looked like this ourselves:

A reconstruction of homo habilis. Image from lilyundfreya/Wikimedia Commons.

Everything on Earth is, ultimately, related to each other. That's one of the greatest ideas that Charles Darwin handed down to us. Humans, animals, even our pets. We're all one big, weird — sometimes incredibly weird — family.

And if homo habilis up there is what we looked like 2 million years ago, what are we going to look like 2 million years in the future? Maybe we'll out-weird them all.

Planet

Easy (and free!) ways to save the ocean

The ocean is the heart of our planet. It needs our help to be healthy.

Ocean Wise

Volunteers at a local shoreline cleanup

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The ocean covers over 71% of the Earth’s surface and serves as our planet’s heart. Ocean currents circulate vital heat, moisture, and nutrients around the globe to influence and regulate our climate, similar to the human circulatory system. Cool, right?

Our ocean systems provide us with everything from fresh oxygen to fresh food. We need it to survive and thrive—and when the ocean struggles to function healthfully, the whole world is affected.

Pollution, overfishing, and climate change are the three biggest challenges preventing the ocean from doing its job, and it needs our help now more than ever. Humans created the problem; now humans are responsible for solving it.

#BeOceanWise is a global rallying cry to do what you can for the ocean, because we need the ocean and the ocean needs us. If you’re wondering how—or if—you can make a difference, the answer is a resounding YES. There are a myriad of ways you can help, even if you don’t live near a body of water. For example, you can focus on reducing the amount of plastic you purchase for yourself or your family.

Another easy way to help clean up our oceans is to be aware of what’s known as the “dirty dozen.” Every year, scientists release an updated list of the most-found litter scattered along shorelines. The biggest culprit? Single-use beverage and food items such as foam cups, straws, bottle caps, and cigarette butts. If you can’t cut single-use plastic out of your life completely, we understand. Just make sure to correctly recycle plastic when you are finished using it. A staggering 3 million tons of plastic ends up in our oceans annually. Imagine the difference we could make if everyone recycled!

The 2022 "Dirty Dozen" ListOcean Wise

If you live near a shoreline, help clean it up! Organize or join an effort to take action and make a positive impact in your community alongside your friends, family, or colleagues. You can also tag @oceanwise on social if you spot a beach that needs some love. The location will be added to Ocean Wise’s system so you can submit data on the litter found during future Shoreline Cleanups. This data helps Ocean Wise work with businesses and governments to stop plastic pollution at its source. In Canada, Ocean Wise data helped inform a federal ban on unnecessary single-use plastics. Small but important actions like these greatly help reduce the litter that ends up in our ocean.

Ocean Wise, a conservation organization on a mission to restore and protect our oceans, is focused on empowering and educating everyone from individuals to governments on how to protect our waters. They are making conservation happen through five big initiatives: monitoring and protecting whales, fighting climate change and restoring biodiversity, innovating for a plastic-free ocean, protecting and restoring fish stocks, and finally, educating and empowering youth. The non-profit believes that in order to rebuild a resilient and vibrant ocean within the next ten years, everyone needs to take action.

Become an Ocean Wise ally and share your knowledge with others. The more people who know how badly the ocean needs our help, the better! Now is a great time to commit to being a part of something bigger and get our oceans healthy again.

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A new trend in treasure hunting called magnet fishing has blown up over the past two years, evidenced by an explosion of YouTube channels covering the hobby. Magnet fishing is a pretty simple activity. Hobbyists attach high-powered magnets to strong ropes, drop them into waterways and see what they attract.

The hobby has caught the attention of law enforcement and government agencies because urban waterways are a popular place for criminals to drop weapons and stolen items after committing a crime. In 2019, a magnet fisherman in Michigan pulled up an antique World War I mortar grenade and the bomb squad had to be called out to investigate.


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Modern Solid Wood Dining Table Set with 2 Benches

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