To a lot of people, my Mum included, ACG is nothing but an escape from life and a waste of time, so I always make it a point to mention something learned from watching an anime or reading a manga. I mean, come on, why else would a non-scientifically minded person like me knew about Lagrangian Points or space debris before actually learning them in school?

Of course, science isn't the only things I've picked up from my ACG hobby. There's also cultures, languages, trivia, history, biographies, etc. Here, I would like to demonstrate this learning-from-ACG by an example today: Mobile Suit Gundam episode 29.

The battlefield has switched to South America when White Base moved in to join the Federation base there. Throughout the episode, there's various animals and plants shown, some for only a second or so. Being the animal fan that I am, I couldn't help but pause the video to start googling the animals. 1.5 hours passed by the time I was done with the 25-minute episode.

Here's a short list of animals and plants I noticed while watching the episode
- Scarlet ibis (they reminded me of vultures for some reason, even though their diets are far from similar)
- Capybara (I just stared at the screen when I first saw them 'cause I had no idea what they were. One of the websites I visited showed a video clip where a female anaconda preyed on a capybara. I can feel her appetite, for I happened to be eating dinner, too)
- Morpho butterflies (I have yet to find the species to match the colouring patterns shown, though)
- Arapaima (the whole Google spree started when I saw the Zock swam by this living fossil looking fish. I was a little disappointed when I found the real thing to be not as ancient looking as the one shown)
- Spider monkey (not sure what kind of monkey was shown, but this is the closest I can find. I'm not interested in Primates...)
- Amazon River dolphin (wonder why it's not the more famous pink dolphins...)
- Curare (blowguns!)
- Red mangrove (just like the ones in Northern Taiwan!)
- Hoatzin (I got blown away when I read that they have no natural enemy because their meat tastes foul and they stink XD)

That's my biology lesson of the day. XD