Hi-Yo, Scuttles! Away!

February 18, 2015 11:29 AM

Glorious photos of a Reinwardt’s Flying Frog riding a horned beetle , captured by Hendy Mp, wildlife photographer from Indonesia. (previously)
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide (29 comments total)

"Yippie-Kai-Yay, Motherfrogger!"
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:35 AM on February 18, 2015 [15 favorites]

Also: that frog looks like s/he is having way too much fun. The beetle is a good sport.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:36 AM on February 18, 2015 [7 favorites]

This is cute, but it has to have been set up, right?

If you love having a close-up look at the tiny world of frigs, lizards and insects ...

Heh.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:37 AM on February 18, 2015

In the first one, the frog looks like he's bellowing, and he's making the most wonderful "invisible orange" gesture with his forefoot. It's the most metal nature photo I've ever seen.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 11:42 AM on February 18, 2015 [6 favorites]

Ah, the little creatures of nature.
They don't know they're ugly.
That is very funny!
A fly marrying a bumblebee...
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:44 AM on February 18, 2015 [11 favorites]

Clearly a Slaad. h/t Metafilter's own cstross.
posted by graymouser at 11:54 AM on February 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

/r/photoshopbattles having fun with the first image.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:55 AM on February 18, 2015 [5 favorites]

This is cute, but it has to have been set up, right?

For such unusual images, I'd assume they're posed unless the photographer makes an explicit statement otherwise. The photo agency blurb is just ambiguous enough to be read either way.
posted by grahamparks at 11:56 AM on February 18, 2015

"Was that 8 seconds?"
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:56 AM on February 18, 2015 [6 favorites]

Yeah, this article is always my first thought when I see animals posed in slightly too-good-to-be-true settings.
posted by jeffjon at 12:00 PM on February 18, 2015 [30 favorites]

Octopus riding a moray.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:07 PM on February 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

Octopus riding a moray.

Obligatory.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 12:15 PM on February 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

snail on a turtle
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:23 PM on February 18, 2015

Animals sitting on capybaras.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 12:30 PM on February 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

It's probably a cruel staged photo. (Sorry)
posted by BinaryApe at 12:50 PM on February 18, 2015 [10 favorites]

Oops, missed jeffjon's.
posted by BinaryApe at 12:51 PM on February 18, 2015

The shots with the scorpion didn't turn out so well.
posted by pompomtom at 12:54 PM on February 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

Holy crap, BinaryApe. That article is by far more important than the images in the FPP itself (going back now to find where the threads are that were photoshopped out).
posted by yhbc at 12:57 PM on February 18, 2015

Or, you know, jeffjon.
posted by yhbc at 12:58 PM on February 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Why is it that half of everything whimsical with animals on the internet turns out to be cruelty? I guess it's because all the really cute animals got eaten of used as medicine, so now animals have to be forced to be cute.

Except for cats, who know enough to act cute so we don't ID them as the killers they are.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:28 PM on February 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

After that terrible revelation (who invited the vivisectionists?), let's have some squirrels playing with snowballs. They also have cameras. Album.
posted by bonehead at 1:53 PM on February 18, 2015

I'm totally going to photoshop armor onto that frog and use it in my D&D game.
posted by Aversion Therapy at 1:54 PM on February 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

The squirrels were just bribed, btw, not strung up:

Vadim Trunov, a radio engineer from Russia, photographed this red squirrel in a forest in the Voronezh region. "I fed the little squirrel nuts which he then took and hid in the snow. I then made a snowball and put it beside him, and the squirrel ran up to it, grabbed it and picked it up. Perhaps he was looking for the nuts inside. This happened again and again, so I decided to make a small snowman to see if he would be interested. To my delight he ran up and started nibbling on the carrot which I used as the nose for the snowman, it was great to watch," says the 30-year-old who spent around three hours watching and taking photographs, as he lay in the snow close by.

posted by bonehead at 1:55 PM on February 18, 2015

ScanBanan
2 days ago
Wonder if they live in symbiosis.

IanRocky
1 day ago
No I think they live in Indonesia....
posted by louche mustachio at 2:17 PM on February 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

This is the first time I've ever seen an actual resemblance between Kermit and his supposed brethren.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:35 PM on February 18, 2015

I gave this to 4chan. This is what it gave back.
posted by clarknova at 3:55 PM on February 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I think this photog is infamous for staging frog photos with glue and monofilament. Didn't this same person do the frog holding a leaf like an umbrella.

If it's too perfect...
posted by clvrmnky at 4:15 PM on February 18, 2015

Apologies, all. I definitely would not have posted this if I'd known it was staged and the critters were mistreated. Ugh. Thank you, jeffjon and yhbc for sharing that article.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 8:10 PM on February 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

I guess I'm officially old or uncool or something, because I can't get on this 'boredpanda' site and haven't even heard of it, yet no one else here seems to be complaining. Wikipedia doesn't seem to know of the site either, so maybe they are uncool too.

Now I read that maybe animals have suffered so I'm glad they are keeping me out.
posted by eye of newt at 11:51 PM on February 18, 2015