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submitted by /u/obiefuneo [link] [comments] |
You might not notice at first.. but I do have boobies
Boobies are famous for their bright turqoise feet, which are the result of their very selective diet (the more turqoise their food, the more turquoise their feet). Their feet also play an important role in their charming mating ritual. The male booby shows off his feet with a kind of high-stepping dance, trying to impress the female with his impressive footwork.
While the blue-footed boobies live off the western coast of Central and South America, there’s another species of booby that has a much more controversial reputation. These birds are the red-footed boobies, which live on the Galapagos islands. Unfortunately, the number of these boobies is in decline. Their population has dropped by 50 percent in the last 20 years. This is mainly due to the disappearance of sardines from the boobies’ diet.
Despite their clumsy appearance, boobies are actually quite smart. They’re incredibly well-adapted to their oceanic lifestyle, which includes spending weeks or even months at sea. But their lack of fear for humans has made them easy prey for early sailors, who started calling them boobies to denote their presumed stupidity.
This word is still widely used today, though there’s a bit of a split as to why. Some people argue that the word “boobies” is simply a misspelling of bobo, which has been around since the late 1600s. Others believe that the word boobies evolved from the way that boobies look, with b looking like breasts and oo looking like a pair of boobs together.
