Humans and other-than-human-animals (animals) share spaces, food, and lives. This gives rise to possibilities of interspecific learning, social facilitation and interspecific communication, and the po...

iStockphoto / vora There is an incredibly popular new tattoo trend involving wolves and skulls but not wolf skulls. The designs are actually pretty great and feature a wolf’s face on one side and a skull on the other. A scientist and ‘anatomy propagandist’ on X by the name of Kairo took notice of the trend. They shared a now viral thread on X explaining what’s really going on here. Interestingly, the thread was actually posted on Tumblr many moons ago by this same author. The tattoo trend persists and is as popular as ever. The thread kicks off with “I love this tattoo design because the message behind it is just so unintentionally GREAT” and then they proceed to expose all of the tattoos as actually featuring a wolf’s face next to a raccoon skull that was mislabeled on Pinterest. Check it out… > So there’s this one tattoo design that’s pretty popular. > A wolf face on one side and a skull on the other side. > > I love this tattoo design because the message behind it is just so unintentionally GREAT….🧵 pic.twitter.com/Jxk1q2yKRD > > — Kairo (@Kairo_Anatomika) January 9, 2024 Yup, raccoon skulls. All of them. Every single one. How do we know that? We’ll get to that in a moment. But first, let’s stick with the thread: > Because… it’s not actually a wolf skull. It’s a raccoon skull. > > Yes, all these are ALL Raccoon Skulls. pic.twitter.com/yflicCrLXD > > — Kairo (@Kairo_Anatomika) January 9, 2024 Wolf skulls do look pretty awesome: > Wolves are chase predators. They identify a target, and then tag team chase it until it gets tired and then tear it apart. > > They have wide cheekbones to anchor large powerful jaw muscles so they can hang on to huge struggling prey animals like bison. pic.twitter.com/8U61fiMnjN > > — Kairo (@Kairo_Anatomika) January 9, 2024 Contrary to popular belief, raccoons are not rodents. > Raccoons are omnivores > They take whatever comes their way and make the best of it. > > Life is all resourcefulness and luck, and they have a bunch of different teeth types to handle different situations. pic.twitter.com/tS42FEDKKU > > — Kairo (@Kairo_Anatomika) January 9, 2024 ‘Ultimate Imposter Syndrome Tattoo’ has to be a new sentence, right? > In and of itself, this is a fun design, but the combo of outer wolf and inner raccoon makes this design truly brillant. > > IT'S THE ULTIMATE IMPOSTER SYNDROME TATTOO > > Majestic, Confident, Badass Apex Predators on the outside. No obstacle too big, no mountain too high. UNAFRAID. > > — Kairo (@Kairo_Anatomika) January 9, 2024 This is reminiscent of the late 90s and early 2000s when Chinese and Japanese character tattoos were very popular. Only nobody knew or could verify what they were getting tattooed in another language and a lot of people got a lot of weird things tattooed on themselves. > Bumbling around, making the best of life as it comes on the inside. > Does anyone REALLY and TRULY know what they're doing? > > I love it… it's so HONEST and REAL pic.twitter.com/DAEqOI8Jow > > — Kairo (@Kairo_Anatomika) January 9, 2024 How do we know this Wolf Skull Raccoon Tattoo is from Pinterest? Well, the next part of the thread ties it all together. Every single one of these alpha male raccoon tattoos is tied back to a mislabeled Pinterest post… > But wait there’s something else….. If you look carefully at all these raccoon skulls, they all seem to have this one tooth missing. > > Which means that they’re all based on the same individual skull….. pic.twitter.com/klo4LhJzCM > > — Kairo (@Kairo_Anatomika) January 9, 2024 > Somewhere out there, is a raccoon skull with one incisor missing that has served as the reference for all these designs. > > Oh wait…here it is. > > It’s from Pinterest. Somebody took a raccoon skull and labeled it “Wolf Skull”. pic.twitter.com/u54iXm8EOS > > — Kairo (@Kairo_Anatomika) January 9, 2024 Be careful what you tag things on the Internet… > Raccoon skulls DO look better than wolf skulls from the front, and the compounding popularity from multiple searches has pushed it to the top of Google search for “Wolf Skull Front View” > > A piece of misinformation can easily be accepted as fact if it looks appealing enough. pic.twitter.com/EUk8ywDAzu > > — Kairo (@Kairo_Anatomika) January 9, 2024 In case anyone had doubts: > So this is it then…. > The skull that launched thousands of unintentionally great tattoos. > > It's still being used in tattoos all the time. Take a look at https://t.co/0cPNiyNTUA on instagram to see how many you can spot pic.twitter.com/jHI5pN0B0v > > — Kairo (@Kairo_Anatomika) January 9, 2024 There is no shame whatsoever in getting a raccoon tattoo. Raccoons are objectively awesome. Rocket Raccoon was one of the best members of the Guardians of the Galaxy squad. It’s just hilarious that this tattoo trend exploded with guys thinking they’re getting ‘two wolves’ tattoos only for some scientist to come along and ‘well, actually!’ them on X. Do you know someone with the wolf skull tattoo? Do them a favor, send them this article. They deserve to know the truth. > pic.twitter.com/0AxG3GSMrE > > — Kairo (@Kairo_Anatomika) January 9, 2024 Raccoons = awesome. Wolves = awesome. But the wolf skull tattoo isn’t what it seems to be and that’s the main takeaway here.