Whoever is running the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Twitter account should get a raise. To celebrate amphibian week, they recently shard this cringey-but-funny pun-filled post:
If you're NEWt to our account, you know that we TOAD-ally love amphibians. If you promise to AXOLOTL questions, we'd be HOPPY to have you help us celebrate Amphibian Week 2023. It should be quite RIBBETing.
And here's another gem that accompanied a photo (by Samantha Earl) of a northern red salamander:
Sometimes it's hard to be a serious and professional science agency when amphibians like the northern red salamander exist. Our first caption was, "LOOK AT THIS PERFECT SMOL NUGGET! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING MORE PERFECT IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE?! LOOK AT THEM DO THEIR PUSHY UPPIES!
They tried again, coming up with this much more staid version:
Behold the northern red salamander. This stunning amphibian can be found throughout the eastern United States. They serve as a good indicator of stream health, because they're very sensitive to stream erosion and pollution.
I definitely prefer the former, "omg look at this cute animal!!!" version. They did confess in another tweet, though, that while they always try to start out professional, it always ends with "LOOK AT THEIR WIDDLE FEETS!!!"
