This is a Phyllobius

These Russian Tortoises (Testudo horsfieldii) were the first animals to go around the Moon! (Along with some fruit fly eggs and plants and such. But the turts were probably the smartest of the bunch.) They went on the Soviet Zond-5 mission.

It is sad that they were subject to invasive scientific experiments, which meant they were euthanised after the flight. Hardly a treatment worthy of space pioneers! I wish they had been subject to other kind of scientific experiments. (Like, how about this: let's have a group of these tortoises, some go into the spacecraft and some don't, and then we monitor them until the end of their natural lifespans and see if the spaceflight affected them. That would have been good data. And would have let these shell-buddies to just be shell-buddies.)

Edit: Oh I forgot how camera-shy these buddies look in the photo. Turt on the right: Doing the Turtle Thing. Turt on the left: This is why they are called turtlenecks, people.

Thinking I should get him one of these, he looks so happy.

I saw a post from the rescue I volunteer at saying we got this absolutely adorable 2 week old groundhog!

It was found all alone outside its den, so now it will be living with us until it grows up and is ready to start a den of its own. This little one doesn't even have those big sharp teeth yet.

Despite its scary situation of being lost by its family and then found by scary humans, it looks to be having a nice nap and some active dreams.

Some people may not enjoy these critters, but they are just as special as any other!

cross-posted from: https://piefed.blahaj.zone/c/wholesome/p/708617/quiet-times

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/59089694