#arthropod perfection
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ah yes, the main functions of arthropod appendages: eat shit fuck shit grab shit go places
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Some drinks I made based on Bug Fables food.
Love it when games that aren't about cooking have cooking. Maybe I should look for fantasy cooking games. Maybe that would fix me.
Anyway, a little bit more about the drinks!
Honey'd Tea. Tea mixed with a drop of honey and served in Roseline's special tea set. Honey and tea go together wonderfully, clearing your mind, warming your soul and healing your body. The straw makes it easy for bugs like Roseline to consume it. Just make sure there are no leaf bits!
Burly Candy Drink. Berry juice mixed with crushed burly candy and then sprinkled with some more burly candy. The drink is bitter-sweet and refreshing, just the way Zabava likes it. The wideness of the glass makes it easy to consume for bugs like Zabava and the bits of candy make for a good after-crunch. You'll be ready to face anything with this!
Spicy Candy Drink. Spicy candy dissolved in berry juice, with chunks of spicy berries added later. Very bubbly. Very spicy. A total sensory overload. Something that Bink finds very enticing and something she simply cannot handle. Every time she orders it and every time she suffers. Alas, it's very tasty and energizing. Really packs a punch!
#mousedrawings art#id in alt#bug fables oc#roseline oc#zabava oc#bink oc#game drinks#Ah yes my favorite made up drink: tea with honey#I had lots of fun doing this tho!#Maybe I should make a bartender bug OC?#Does anyone know a perfect arthropod for this?
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Glasswing butterfly
#tough but fun#my art#daily drawing day 87#insect#butterfly#glasswing butterfly#it's just such a perfect creature#lepidoptera#arthropod#nature#animals#pretty#flowers
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The black percher dragonfly
#photography#macro#macro photography#macrophilia#macro/micro#macro perfection#dragonfly#insects#arthropods#fauna#dragonflies
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Pill Scarab Beetles: these beetles are covered in plates that perfectly interlock when the beetle folds its limbs, lowers its head, and curls itself into a ball
Above: Eusphaeropeltis sp. (top/bottom left) and Ceratocanthus aeneus (bottom right), two different species of pill scarab beetle
Beetles of the Ceratocanthinae subfamily (also known as pill scarab beetles) rely on a unique form of conglobation to conceal themselves. As the beetle tucks its head down and folds its legs up against its belly, the plates on its head, thorax, abdomen, and legs all come together to form a solid shield; the plates on its legs even have grooves and corresponding ridges that allow them to neatly interlock.
As this blog post explains:
Adult Ceratocanthinae are best known for their ability to conglobate: rolling into a nearly perfect ball. The elytra, pronotum, head, and all six tibiae interlock with each other by means of grooves and corresponding ridges, forming a tightly connected external surface. Many beetles take the form of a tight compact structure when threatened, however in Ceratocanthinae the tibiae of all six legs participate in forming the external hard surface of the sphere, unlike in other beetles.
Above: Ceratocanthus sp.
The Ceratocanthinae subfamily contains many different genera/species, and they are all collectively known as pill scarabs. Many of them have a colorful, metallic appearance; they may be green, red, blue, brown, black, or multicolor.
Above: Germarostes globosus
Sources & More Info:
Gil Wizen: Transformers (Ceratocanthinae Beetles)
Communications Biology: The Evolution of Conglobation in Ceratocanthinae
Arthropod Systematics and Phylogeny: Rolling into a Ball: phylogeny of the Ceratocanthinae
ZooKeys: The Ceratocanthinae of Ulu Gombak
Pavel Krásenský Photography: Scarabaeidae (this site is written in Czech)
#entomology#insects#beetles#pill scarab#ceratocanthus#ceratocanthinae#coleoptera#coleopterology#nature#scarabs#Eusphaeropeltis#gil wizen#Pavel Krásenský#cool bugs#cute animals
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which insect could one most reasonably describe as a Beast™️. like which one would show up in amphibia or pikmin or any microworld that all the characters only speak of in hushed tones using the title The Beast™️
Well, it's an arachnid, but solifugids are the most picture perfect Beasts at that scale. Like I went into in a post days ago they just rapidly mow down prey after prey during their brief period of frenzied hunting and then spend 90% of the rest of their life hibernating. If other arthropods had such a level of cognition, the few who survive an encounter with a "camel spider" would spend the rest of their lives having no idea what the hell that thing was, and the reason they survived the encounter may have been that it was too busy eating an entire scorpion, centipede or tarantula twice its own size.
One thing I didn't already mention about them before is that they also attack ants! Some of them do, anyway. Other predators like mantises and tarantulas live in fear of ants or at least refuse to risk pissing them off because a single ant always has potentially limitless backup, but a single solifugid will apparently just massacre every ant in its path and won't even slow down to finish eating any of them until it's safe to do so, which would only be when the ants stop coming or it just gets tired enough of killing them that it decides to leave. So for ants this animal creates a "the entire squadron just never came back and whatever did it left no trace" situation.
The next most Beast of arthropods might be robber flies? I don't know if a sleek flying creature is very Beast coded and they're also probably too common to be regarded that way, but a robber fly kills and eats literally any other "bugs" it wants and can allegedly tackle vertebrates at least the size of hummingbirds or tiny frogs and lizards.
Dragonflies are the largest, most successful flying predatory insects and the most successful predators ON EARTH but a robber fly can still beat one:
Most predatory insects also have kind of a minimum size prey they'll go after, too; something can be too small for a mantis or a spider to care about as food for instance, but a robber fly will also go after gnats so small they're barely larger than the fly's proboscis, just obliterated instantly, like eating one M&M.
I guess more than a The Beast situation a bug world might think of robber flies as like the Sky Demons, and they'd just be a constant fact of life.
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hi, i have a potentially silly question. are ispods and cockroach species any bit related? ive noticed certain exoskeletons between the two look similar
isopods are an order of crustaceans while cockroaches are an order of insects. an isopod is more closely related to a lobster or shrimp than it is to a cockroach: the last common ancestor they shared probably lived over 500 million years ago, before either insects or isopods or any other animal had come on land yet.
you can chalk their similar appearance up to convergent evolution: a large head shield and domed, segmented body is useful for burrowing and protecting the legs and underbelly from predators and dryness. there are even a few cockroach species that can curl into a perfect ball much like some isopods can.
hopefully I’m not confusing things further, but: insects are part of the Pancrustacea, a huge grouping of arthropods traditionally considered “crustaceans” even though insects weren’t included for a long time. think of insects being crustaceans sort of like birds being a highly distinctive group of dinosaurs. however, the divisions between them are far more ancient!
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Tinytopia Chapter 9: Bloodthirst (Part 1)
Story Masterpost
On AO3
Thanks to my beta/sensitivity reader @appelsiinilight and my bonus beta reader for the next two chapters, @whumpsday!
In this chapter: Thistle indulges in getting cozy, but finds the house disturbed by yet another new arrival.
With respect to @whumpsday, the og of hungry vampire sadbois, and @entomolog-t, the og of tiny vampires.
***
There were now enough pixies for a pixie pile.
Thistle was ecstatic. He’d grown up sleeping in a pixie pile, and he’d missed it, longed for it, ached for it ever since his separation from his family.
Sleeping on top of Moon was nice enough, but he wasn’t a pixie. And with Marigold here, there were two pixies. Not enough for a pile.
But Jax had a pixie incarnation now. There were three pixies, which met the minimum number needed to be a proper pile.
Moon would be included, of course, even if he wasn’t a pixie. The pile would simply go on top of him.
Thistle made sure everyone had a nice, soft pair of pajamas. Enough thick, fuzzy socks. Enough blankets and soft pads to sleep on. Hot, sweet drinks to sip in the evening before falling asleep.
Oh, yeah. This was going to be perfect.
Thistle cleared enough space in his wooden castle–for once, he was worried he might not have enough room in there for something. He arranged everything just right, plumping pillows and layering blankets and smoothing out sheets. He wove small animals out of plant fiber–such toys weren’t out of place in pixie nests, quite similar to humans’ stuffed animals. They didn’t usually make them bears or cats or dogs, though–pixies had a completely different array of animals that were culturally important.
Thistle remembered his Mother’s Mother’s hive having a nest of ants in the bottom of the structure, tended to like a herd–he couldn’t remember if they’d done anything besides occasionally eating the larvae. It’d been such a long time ago that all he remembered was that they tasted quite good. Before Thistle had left, Mother had been in the process of trying to make space in their tree for clusters of honeydew-producing aphids. She’d also told Thistle that some hives knew how to rear moths or spiders for their silk, which Thistle had always longed to see, but she’d said moths were more complicated than aphids and spiders had a safety risk.
There had been that one time his older brother Oak had brought home a disfigured moth which would have died without help–its wing had gotten caught in its cocoon while trying to emerge, and now it was wrinkly, tiny, and useless for flying. Mother let Oak keep the moth as a pet, even though it had no practical use. It was fuzzy, nice to hold, and pretty to look at. Oak had named it Cattail.
He lovingly traced the memories as he wove, imagining himself making a toy for Dewdrop. Aunt Winter’s new baby, Dewdrop. He wanted to meet Dewdrop so badly. Thistle was really the only one in the hive good enough with his hands to make toys without using magic. He would have been making all the toys for Dewdrop. Had someone else been making them? Was Dewdrop wanting for toys?
He suddenly realized he’d begun crying when a tear dripped down onto the moth doll he’d been making. He slowly wiped his eyes on the back of his hand, then sniffled and straightened himself up.
There was no need to be sad. He was going to have a pixie pile again. Dewdrop was fine, and so was he.
He arranged a moth doll and an aphid doll so they were nicely on top of the covers, then stood back to examine his work. I should sell those on Etsy, too. Everyone would go wild for them. He started writing the listing title mentally. Miniature insect bug arthropod crochet doll lifelike fidget toy Micro realistic choose SET or INDIVIDUAL made to order. He could sell one for $20 or a set of three for $50. Yeah. That would be good.
He walked out and pushed Marigold’s wheelchair to the entrance of his wooden house. “Are you ready for bed, Marigold?”
He nodded.
Pixie-Jax flitted on the roof of the house, jumping down onto the ground. “I am too!”
“Shh,” Thistle said. “Speak quietly. We’re supposed to be calming down now.”
Jax nodded, looking very serious in his oversized pajamas that swallowed his hands.
Moon arrived five minutes after the agreed upon time, as always. He had an eye mask on his forehead and an extra pillow under his arm. “I stayed up late so that I could be tired precisely for this slumber gathering,” Moon declared. “Let us commence.”
“Okay,” Thistle said, trying not to get excited. He was supposed to be calming down. “Moon, you go in first, and then we’ll all get on top of you.”
Moon ducked to go into Thistle’s house. “Good Heavens! It’s a proper cornucopia of comfort in here.”
Thistle poked his head in and watched as Moon arranged himself, pulling the covers back. Moon held his arms up. “I’m ready for dogpiling, boys. Have at me.”
“Okay, Jax next.”
Jax dashed into the wooden structure and snuggled up under Moon’s arm. “Like this?”
“Yes, perfect. Okay, now Marigold.”
Thistle lent Marigold a hand to stand up out of the wheelchair. He supported him by the elbow to help him inside. Marigold’s face twinged with pain as he went down into a kneeling position.
“You all right?”
“Yes–just a moment.”
He shifted to a position that apparently lessened his pain, then gingerly lay down under Moon’s other arm, head on the crook of his elbow.
That just left Thistle. He crouched down and situated himself on top of Moon, so Moon’s chest fluff was his pillow. “Everybody comfy?”
There was a round of assenting sounds.
Thistle reached down and pulled the blanket up, swathing them all, and turned off the light. “Good night, everybody.”
“Thistle my boy, would you pull down my eye mask? My hands are quite full.”
Thistle reached up and pulled the mask over Moon’s eyes.
“Perfect, thank you.”
“Good night.”
“Good night, Thistle.”
“Good night, Jax.”
“Good night, Thistle.”
“Good night, Marigold.”
No response.
“Marigold?”
“Good night, Thistle.”
“Good night, Marigold.”
“Good night, Jax.”
“Good night, Moon.”
“Is this really quite necessary?”
“You’re supposed to say good night.”
“...Good night, Jax.”
“Marigold?”
No response.
“Marigold, you didn’t say good night to anyone.”
“Good night Thistle, Jax, and Moon. There.”
“Good night, Marigold.”
“Good night, Marigold.”
“Moon? You didn’t say good night back to Marigold.”
“Good night, Marigold. Are you quite satisfied now? Have we somehow missed a possible permutation here?”
Thistle snuggled closer to Moon, and Jax copied his motion. “No,” Thistle said contentedly. “I think that’s everyone. Thanks. Good night. I love you all.”
“I love you, Thistle.”
“I love you, Moon-”
“We are not doing all that again. I would like to go to sleep sometime in the next twenty-four hours.”
Thistle tugged on the sleeve of Moon's silken pajamas. “Just once? Just one, Moon? Please?”
Moon sighed. “I love you, Thistle.”
Thistle happily flicked his ears and settled in. It seemed like Marigold had already fallen asleep.
They dozed like that. Thistle could hardly get sleepy with how happy he was. It was so warm and fuzzy, and a soft glow of magic welled up inside him. He just lay there enjoying it.
It was a while later, after he’d finally managed to fall asleep, that he woke up. He wasn’t sure why. But-
Oh.
Oooh.
Marcy’s necklace.
It was sitting on the table–Marcy had left it there today. It was glowing. It’d been soft white all night–but now it was bright yellow.
Yellow. Yellow. What had yellow meant?
Thistle disentangled himself from the pile and snuck over to the door, peeking his head out. He didn’t see anybody.
“Hello?” he whispered. “Is somebody there?”
There came a sound, then–a sort of tittering, accompanied by light flapping. He turned his attention upwards and saw some small fuzzy creature way, way high up near the ceiling. It frantically dashed into the room and smacked into the wall, then tumbled down. When it finally stopped its erratic movements, Thistle saw it was a bat with tawny red fur.
No, not a bat–the real creature emerged from the form of the bat as soon as it touched the ground. It was a fuzzy humanoid with protruding fangs and triangular ears.
The fish tank flipped open. “Yo, Thistle!” Jewel shouted. “Are you gonna wake anyone else up and tell them there’s a fucking vampire in the house or do I need to do it?”
“A vampire?” Thistle squeaked.
“Gotta be. I mean, just look at him. Right?”
The new arrival flipped himself upright from where he’d fallen on the ground, still on all fours, ears pinned back against his head nervously.
“Thistle?” said Moon’s sleepy voice, and his head appeared out the door, eyes still half-closed. “What are you shouting about?” His eyes widened as he saw something was up. “Oh?”
“It’s a vampire,” Thistle said. He looked over. “Right?’
“Well yes but, I’m not–I don’t want to hurt you,” the creature said. His ears were still flat and his voice trembled, as though not entirely sure he would be believed.
Oh, he was speaking Pixish. The language a predator would typically speak if their primary prey was Pixies.
“I’ll go get Marcy,” Thistle said. He looked behind him and saw Marigold stirring in the bed, with Jax not far behind. “...I’ll stay here with Marigold. Moon, you go get Marcy?”
“Am I your messenger?”
“...Yes?”
“...All right.” Moon drew himself out of the house and spread his wings, then took off upstairs.
The new arrival watched him with wide eyes. Clearly he’d never seen one of Moon’s kind before.
“Thistle, who’s that?” Jax whispered.
“Just stay inside. I’ll handle this.” He gave a nervous wave to the creature. “Hi. I’m Thistle.”
“I’m Auburn,” he said. Pixish actually had more words to describe colors than English, with Pixie’s sensitive eyes able to see more with minute differences. He wasn't sure if vampires could see the same way, but the word he gave as his name, Kasabrua, the closest translation of which was Auburn, actually referred to the very specific shade of red in the coat of a fox’s fur. That was exactly the color his fur was, so it was fitting–it was basically the equivalent of calling him “Foxy” or “Vixen,” although Thistle knew those two words had…. connotations in English that they wouldn’t have in Pixish.
“Hi, Auburn. It’s nice to meet you. My friend Marcy is coming downstairs. She’s a human. Is that okay?”
Auburn hugged the wall, like he was afraid Thistle was going to attack him. “Yes. Yes, please, I’d like to meet her.”
Thistle and Auburn kept tense eye contact with each other as Moon came back down, followed by Marcy, still in her pajamas. “Oh my gosh, hi!” she said with restrained enthusiasm. She knelt down beside Thistle, who fluttered onto her lap.
Auburn kept his eyes on Marcy, body tense. He was clearly terrified, but he made no motion to leave.
“He speaks Pixish,” Thistle said.
“Hi,” Marcy said gently. “I’m Marcy.”
“I’m Auburn. You’re really big.” He swallowed. “Sorry, um… I'm not supposed to be seen, and I’ve never met a human before. So, so it’s a little scary.”
“She is pretty big,” Thistle said. “But she’s nice. Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?
“Well, um… I heard that all kinds of creatures live here together in peace, even predators. So, so I’m interested in. That.” He flattened himself against the ground, as though to disappear. “If that’s okay.”
“Of course that’s okay,” Marcy said. “Where did you hear it? Who?”
“A, um. A tree creature told me. A dryad.”
Marcy and Thistle looked at each other.
“Could it be the same dryad that told Jax?” Thistle poked his head into the house. “Jax?”
Jax crawled forward, just peeking out. “The dryad that told me was a big tree.”
Auburn shook his head. “The dryad that told me was a holly bush.”
Okay, they were definitely going to have to coerce Trilloras to come out and answer questions. They’d already tried every combination of begging, coaxing, and threatening they could think of to get her to come out, yet her sapling remained totally inert. They were starting to think that maybe she was asleep or unconscious and couldn’t hear them.
“It sounds like they’re different dryads,” Marcy said. “But that’s okay. We don’t have to talk about them. Let’s talk about you.”
Auburn nodded nervously. “Right, right. Um. I just want to live in peace. So, so if this is a place where I can do that. Then I want to stay here. If that’s okay.”
“Sure!” Thistle said brightly, absolutely delighted. “Sure, we’ll figure out a way you can live here.”
Auburn drew forward slightly. “Real, really? Um, mostly I was worried about…where I would hunt. Um, since–if–it seems like everyone here–”
“We can figure that out,” Thistle said. “We have a trick.”
“Can we talk about it in the morning?” Moon said. “I’m not ready to be awake yet.”
“Right!” Auburn squeaked. “Sorry, sorry for interrupting. Um, you can, you can go back to sleep.”
Marcy looked from Auburn to Thistle, then sat on the couch. “I’ll stay down here.”
“Okay,” Auburn said bashfully. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s just to watch things. You’re probably not tired because it’s night, huh?”
“I’m… tired. I could sleep.” He sounded dejected.
“Okay. Um. How do you sleep?”
“On the ceiling.” He looked morosely up at the ceiling. “But there aren’t any footholds.”
Marcy tapped her chin. “Oh! Hold on, I know.” She went into the next room and retrieved Colin’s pullup bar, mounting it in the doorway. “There, like that?”
Auburn clung to the wall with his creepy little hands, shimmying up it until he was far enough to push off and jump into the air. His arms transformed into wings as he flapped them, and he propelled himself up to take hold of the bar.
He hooked his feet around it and hung upside-down, ensconcing himself in his wings like a blanket. “This, this is wonderful. Thank you. I can stay up here?”
“Yeah,” Thistle said. “That’s okay.”
“Thank you.”
Auburn seemed peaceful enough, but Thistle was still glad that Marcy was nearby.
Despite being too tired to function, he wasn’t sure if he would sleep much with a vampire hanging over the room.
***
The pixie pile did manage to get a decent amount of rest in the end. Thistle woke up feeling recharged and energetic–ready for a day full of art. Because that would be step one to welcome a new resident: it was his responsibility to befriend Auburn so he wouldn’t have to hunt. Now that he’d already done it with Severa and knew it was possible, it didn’t seem so daunting. If anything, it was exciting.
True, Auburn was scary. He was almost as tall as Moon. His fangs poked out of his mouth. He clearly was a lot stronger than Thistle. He slept overhead, hanging menacingly. And he drank blood–probably, they hadn’t seen that yet. He’d probably attacked and maybe even killed people. But he was already here peacefully and seemed willing to do what they asked. This couldn’t be harder than Severa, surely.
Auburn was still in the same place hanging from the pullup bar in the morning–true to his word, he was fast asleep and looked exhausted when everyone else was stirring. Teddy and Colin came down, and more introductions were had. Teddy very valiantly hid her disquiet at seeing Auburn, while Colin was concerned about rabies. Marcy reassured them it was safe and that she would handle it, although privately she was also a little bit worried about rabies.
Thistle made the rounds to gather a group for a painting session. Marigold, Jax, and Severa were on board without needing any cajoling. Moon declared he was going to try it, since he was warming up to Thistle’s silly projects. Jewel said he didn’t want to do anything involving paint, since it got all over his skin and felt bad in the water, even if it was nontoxic. Violet couldn’t be coerced to come out even though Petunia definitely would have enjoyed it, but whatever.
“Art is a great way to bond,” Thistle said, laying out his paints. He had Marcy lay out some canvases for them to paint. “It’s a great activity to do together, and you can talk while you do it. This will be a great way to get to know each other.”
“I admit I thought it quite useless at first,” Severa admitted. “But I am starting to enjoy it more.”
“It’s growing on me, too,” Moon said.
Auburn knelt next to the paints, touching one of the tubes. “Great! Um, so, what, what do I do?”
“You, um…” At this point Thistle noticed that Auburn’s hand was shaking. “Hey, are you okay?”
Auburn drew his hand back, then gave a pained smile. “Oh, sorry. Um, I haven’t, um, I’m pretty hungry, that’s all.”
Thistle felt like he’d been smacked in the face. That was why Auburn was tired enough to go to sleep last night? He simply hadn’t eaten and therefore had no energy? He’d been sitting there hungry enough to start trembling and didn’t say anything?
“Hey, we can’t have fun and bond on an empty stomach,” Thistle said gently. “Come on, let’s take care of that first.”
“I don’t want to be a burden,” Auburn said quickly. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“We want to, though. We wouldn’t tell you to stay here and then make you starve.” Oh whoops, Thistle had said that and then remembered that Auburn would presumably have to drink someone’s blood. Thistle certainly wasn’t eager to volunteer himself for that.
Fortunately, Severa spoke first. “I will help you. You drink blood, yes? I have plenty of blood, and my magic is strong.”
Auburn practically wilted with relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Severa reached down and pried one of the scales on her abdomen back, exposing vulnerable, soft flesh. Auburn crept near. “It’s really okay?”
“Yes.”
Auburn leaned over, shaking, and gently made a soft cut with his fangs, then clamped his mouth over the wound, taking small sips.
Severa put her hand on his head. A tear leaked from his eye.
After a moment, he drew back, wiping his face. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Severa pushed the scale back down, wincing but not complaining.
“There,” Thistle said. “Everyone is okay and feels good. Right?”
Severa and Auburn both nodded.
“Good. Now let’s get painting.”
Thistle guided Auburn, Severa, Moon, Marigold, and Jax through laying out their canvas and starting to apply the paint to it. Marcy participated too, sitting on the floor with a proportional paper.
“So,” Thistle said conversationally as they worked. “Auburn, can you tell us a bit more about yourself? What made you decide to seek us out? Why did the dryad tell you to come here? If you know.”
“Oh, um.” Auburn had red paint all over his hands and was putting paw prints all over his canvas. “Well, my family kicked me out of my colony. So, so I didn’t really have anywhere else to go.”
“That’s horrible!” Jax cried. “I can’t imagine if Thistle kicked me out! Why would they?”
Auburn’s ears drooped, and the motions of his hands became slow and unenthusiastic.
“Jax, he might be sensitive about it,” Thistle chided. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, Auburn.”
“No, it’s okay.” He dipped his hands in yellow and started making yellow pawprints. “Well, I’m, um, I’m a Worthless, so when things got tight, I was the first to go.”
The exact word he used was Struntajo, which meant roughly worthless, but he said it like it was supposed to mean something more. Thistle had never heard anyone use it that way.
“What’s that mean?” Jax said, once again failing to understand what a sensitive topic is.
“We can talk about it later if you want,” Thistle offered, wincing.
“No, it’s okay. I didn’t realize you’d have no way to know what that is, I guess.” He clasped his paint-laden hands together. “Um, when prey is plentiful, vampires will sometimes have an extra pup in their litters that’s small and weak. If there’s enough to go around, the runt gets enough food to grow up strong. But, but if there isn’t, then the runt is there to take the hit when they have to make sacrifices if things get worse.”
“Sacrifices?” Severa said.
Auburn shuffled his feet. “Leave it to die, usually.”
“That’s horrible,” Severa said, utterly horrified. “They have an extra baby on purpose for the sake of having something to sacrifice if their gamble doesn’t pay off?”
“I mean, it makes sense if you think about it. At least, I mean. My siblings all contributed more to the colony than I did. So, so when resources started getting scarce, it’s better that they could cut me off rather than someone who actually helped. You know? As soon as I became an adult they made it clear I had to leave if I didn’t contribute more. It wasn't a surprise or anything.”
Severa clenched the paintbrush she was using so hard that it snapped in half. “That is a horrible way to think about it. I could never dream of even considering sending someone I’d raised from a little baby out to die just because they weren’t useful enough.”
Auburn shrunk away from the anger in her voice. “Er, well, if there isn’t enough to go around…”
“Then you get more, or you yourself go hungry. That’s what being a mother means, not this- this perversion where children are seen as an investment you expect returns on in the future.”
Auburn rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, well I’m not a parent, so I guess I wouldn’t know.”
“You’re right,” Severa snipped. “You wouldn’t know.”
“I’m sorry,” Thistle said, trying to rein the conversation back in. “That sounds very difficult. So that’s why you were looking for somewhere else to go?”
Auburn nodded. “I’m bad at hunting. I’m small, weak, not a strong flier, and not good at magic. My family got tired of helping me, so I haven’t been back to the colony.… I’ve been.” Tears welled up in his eyes again. “I’ve been just barely hanging on. You’re the first ones who have been nice to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Marigold said. “I’m surprised to find myself sympathizing with a predator at all, but I truly can’t imagine what I would do if my family were like that.”
Thistle was intimidated to think about Auburn being a runt, considering how very large he still was. Thistle very bravely stood near him. “Do you want a hug?”
Auburn nodded miserably.
Thistle wrapped his arms around Auburn’s midsection, and Auburn’s arms came around him gently.
“Ooh, you’re soft,” Thistle said into his fur.
Auburn chuckled. “Glad there’s something good about me, at least.”
“I am not jealous,” Moon announced mechanically. “I am also soft, and it’s fine that there are multiple soft people in the house that Thistle likes to touch. It does not reflect on my worth as an individual.”
Thistle sighed and looked over his shoulder. “Good job, Moon.”
Moon gave him a thumbs up.
***
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WASP REVIEW - WASPS (ANIMAL CROSSING)
[Image ID: An image of the wasp in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, an orangey-yellow and black paper wasp]
This one is, while not perfect, it's pretty accurate, pretty standard! Very clearly a paper wasp from antenna to abdomen, very nice! I've seen the New Horizons model compared to Polistes dominula (Including by Nookipedia) and I was honestly tempted to say the same, however after some searching I'm actually more inclined to say this lady is closer to Polistes jokahamae!
[Image Source: KENPEI, Wikimedia Commons | Image ID: A photo of a black and almost orangey yellow paper wasp of the species Polistes jokahamae, also known as Polistes jadwigae /End IDs.]
Meanwhile, in City Folk and New Leaf, the model has a closer appearance to the Asian giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia.
[Image Source: First image, Yasunori Koide, Wikimedia Commons | Image IDs: First, an image of a black and orange Asian giant hornet, followed by its equivalent model in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, which is very similar in City Folk /End IDs.]
Quite the charming model if I do say so myself! However, I do have to deduct some points, as while in the original Japanese version of the games this is apparently referred to with a term representative of hymenopterans in general, until New Horizons the English version referred to this critter as a Bee, which is, obviously, inaccurate.
The menu icons also appear a bit different to the species being represented here, with the City Folk icon looking especially like a honey bee
[Image ID: The illustrated menu icon for the "bee"/wasp in City Folk /End IDs.]
Now, in Animal Crossing, this species is one of the few species of insect that can actually harm the player, and while you may think I'd be arguing for a more positive representation of the animal here, while I would like if their benefits were put across in the game, the way they do things here is actually a perfectly understandable representation! In fact, the representation of wasps here may be more accurate than the game's representation of tarantulas and scorpions. The wasps here only attack specifically upon being provoked, when you shake the tree and the nest falls out, which I do think would in fact cause a nest of wasps to become quite agitated!
The museum curator of the Animal Crossing franchise, Blathers, also makes quite the fuss about wasps, however, he does this for quite literally any arthropod you present to him! While his comment in New Horizons could be worded better, it's fairly accurate! Blathers states that these paper wasps are aggressive predators, who hunt and eat other insects as well as almost any other kind of meat. This could be made more clear as the adults do not eat the meat themselves, however, it is specifically mentioned at the end of his paragraph that the wasps do in fact bring their prey home to their larva!
Oddly, despite the existence of honey bees as a separate species in New Horizons and the more accurate translation, their nests (Which are fairly accurately representative of Vespid nests, especially Polistes nests) are used in crafting recipes for honey bee related items like the Beekeeper's hive, Honeycomb wall, and Honeycomb flooring (Interestingly enough, the only other recipe it's used in the medicine used to fix stings)
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Overall (New Horizons): 8/10
Overall (Prior to AC:NH): 7/10 or 6/10 depending on version
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This is wasp was suggested by @pizzaback , leave your wasp review suggestion in the replies or askbox!
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Strange Symmetries #01
Most animals are bilaterally symmetric, having body plans with mirrored left and right sides – which also allows them to have a defined head end, rear end, top side, and underside.
It's not entirely clear what evolutionary advantage this type of symmetry gave to the first bilaterians, which would have been been small "simple" worm-like animals living sometime during the Ediacaran Period between 600 and 560 million years ago. The current generally accepted explanation is that it probably allowed for better active locomotion – clustering sense organs at the head end and directing body movement more efficiently towards food sources and away from threats.
However, this sort of symmetry is never completely perfect. Internal structures like organs are often arranged nonsymmetrically, and the realities of genetics, physical development, and environmental influences always result in external small deviations.
Zebra From The Back by Lynn Greyling | CC0 Public Domain
…But not every bilaterian has stayed roughly symmetrical.
Over the last half-billion years or so some bilaterians have abandoned their roughly-mirror-image body plans in favor of something distinctly wonkier. Asymmetry has evolved multiple times in various different lineages, and so every weekday this month we'll be looking at some examples.
And we might as well start way back near the beginning:
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Strange Symmetries #01: Almost Bilateral
Living in the Ediacaran between about 567 and 550 million years ago, the proarticulatans were flattened rounded organisms with two rows of soft "quilted" rib-like segments (known as isomers) and sometimes a larger fused "head" section at the front. The left and right isomers weren't perfectly mirrored, instead being offset from each other in a glide reflection pattern – but the presence of a clear central body axis suggests these animals may have had some sort of relation to the earliest bilaterians, possibly even being a very early stem group that was experimenting with a not-quite-totally-bilateral body plan.
Discovered in what is now northwest Russia, and dating to around 555 million years ago, Vendia sokolovi was a small proarticulatan measuring about 1.1cm long (0.4"). It had a rather small number of isomers compared to some of its relatives, only 7 per side, and seems to have had a simple digestive tract that branched into each isomer.
(The superficial resemblance to trilobites was coincidental – while we might not be entirely sure what these things were, we do at least know they weren't closely related to early arthropods.)
Very little overall is known about these animals' lifestyles. Trace fossils suggest they were able to move around, feeding on microbial mats on the seafloor, and they may also have been able to firmly stick themselves onto the spots they were currently grazing.
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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Twitter | Patreon
#science illustration#strange symmetries#paleontology#paleoart#palaeoblr#vendia#proarticulata#ediacaran#bilateria#maybe#art#asymmetry#glide reflection
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So what is your opinion on fanfictions where Blake parnets are swingers. To be clear there no cheating or sercets they tell each other everything. I like the idea because I imagine that the Faunas and the LGBTQ+ have to work together at some point to get rights in Rement instead the creators just saying Homophobia doesn't exist. I thing it has both sexy and interesting potential. Sorry this isn't a writing promt. Unless you can get something out of this then please do what you want.
Don't apologize for not sending in a Writing prompt! I love conversation!
I love The Idea of open relationships in Faunus Culture! Genuinely, I understand why CRWBY did what they did with the faunus plotline, which doesn't justify it's many failings, just to say I get it.
I would appreciate if we got more information on Faunus Culture(S)
Which is part of the reasons why I'm writing the Sharc AU.
I want to know what Culture was destroyed, forgotten, twisted because of Humans fighting with Faunus.
Show me Tidal Faunus that lean heavily into the idea that the whole village is a family, where 'Marriage' is a concept only recently introduced by Humans.
I want to hear about the Panther Faunus that once ruled large chunks of Anima, with their legion of Arthropods, primates, and other Jungle Dweller Faunus, and their connections to their wild, dense homes.
Scavenger-Faunus that preform ritualistic cannibalism as death rites to further the Cycles of Life, and forever carry a piece of them.
I feel like someone with more extensive Knowledge on Indigenous peoples could write a compelling character around the idea of being Two-Spirit and how that may affect Aura - Because there is literally someone with two souls inside him, so whose to say Oscar's the only one?
Faunus with high rates of intersexism, and ones that naturally transition in Females (Like clownfish) or get more masculine as they age (Like Peahens losing their brown coloration) Faunus that go through Parthenogenesis!
Humans, as a species, have relatively low sexual Dimorphism. The bone structure of Males to Females is next to none, especially when compared to practically any other animal.
Most others have baculum, some males are fucking tiny compared to females like anglerfish.
There is, notably, a difference in ability - Blake has better hearing than her teammates, Ilia can camoflage better than any one else, prehensile tails are useful.
It was never going to be a perfect allegory for real world things when there was notable differences in functional biological endeavours - to the point where Splatoon did racism better the RWBY.
So embrace that Difference.
Show me how the differences between cultures based on how their physical traits and their environs.
Courting rituals that involve finding and retrieving certain foods to prove that you love someone enough to endanger yourself for their happiness, sports that can only be done with Claws or Fangs, dances that need the dancer to have a prehensile tail.
The limits are near boundless. It all depends on your knowledge, Imagination, and Confidence.
So yeah. I like the Idea of Faunus working with LGBTQ+.
And also the Idea that Ghira and Kali are Swingers, whether or not that comes from their 'original' culture,or if they're just like that.
#asks and answers#cheeseeater2#rwby#faunus#rwby faunus#ghira belladonna#kali belladonna#I have feelings about faunus okay.#I fucking LOVE speculative Anthropology as much as I love Specualtive Biology as much as I love Robots.#Which is to say a whole helluva lot.
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If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is your job and degree? Getting into the field of entomology is a bit intimidating and I would appreciate any any advice.
i tend to be a little cagey about my exact job since my field is quite small and there's enough people following me that the chances of someone deciding to take offense to something and Get Weird at me are nonzero, but that's probably excessive paranoia on my part. then again beloved internet bug person mossworm got recently sacked from their job on account of weirdo online tattletales so maybe not.
anyway i can say i work for a government agency identifying insects from a pretty wide geographic range, looking for new exotic species and potential pests. during the busy season i spend most of my time processing huge volumes of raw trap samples, pulling out insect groups of interest, mostly woodboring beetles, for myself or one of the other entomologists in the lab to identify to species. during the off-season when we're not getting tons of new samples i get a little more free reign to work on other projects of my own design, so for example lately i've been working on my bee identification skills and am slowly putting together a large reference collection of native bee species that i reserved from years of insect trap by-catch.
i got my PHD in entomology without a specific career in mind but knowing i wanted to do something that wasn't just about developing products and methods for killing unwanted insects which seem like the main entomology jobs anyone wants to fund anymore. in a perfect world i'd love a entomological curation job in a museum but those positions are rare and in-demand and i didn't have the mental fortitude to do the kind of academic work in grad school to make me competitive for that field. but then i went ahead and got a job that lets me do some curatorial work anyway so i sort of won? my position is still at least on paper about controlling unwanted insects but in practice i rarely have to do much of that work, at least directly.
i get semi-regular requests for advice on getting a job as an entomologist and i often feel like i don't have much constructive or encouraging to say, since it's hard not to feel like it's one of the many disciplines being squeezed to death by the iron hand of capitalism. more and more positions in the government and academia are being cut or downsized by bureaucrats who don't see the benefit of taxonomy or any other research that doesn't directly result in their department or some corporation making a bunch of money. whole subdisciplines are dying out as the elder entomologists who were the sole sources of knowledge about them die off. there are entire groups of insects and other arthropods that are effectively impossible to identify to species now because the one taxonomic wizard who specialized on them died without having anyone to pass that knowledge onto. Donald Bright, the only living expert on bark beetles in the preposterously diverse and morphologically subtle genus Pityophthorus, died a few months ago without an heir that i'm aware of.
also most of the taxonomic research that is being done these days is all molecular systematics which i have Opinions about but this post is way too long already.
sorry. that was a bummer. i guess i'm proof that it is still possible to get a job like this today, even if i can't help but feel like it was mostly luck that got me here. plenty of the others in my academic cohort (that didn't burn out from grad school stress) also went on to get degrees in their field of study or at least adjacent to them. and again there are still plenty of entomology jobs in other sectors like agriculture, public health, nonprofits and NGOs and stuff like that. you also don't necessarily need an advanced degree in entomology for a lot of these, and a lot of people in the entomology field came in sideways through related disciplines like ecology, evolutionary science, general biology, or even things like viticulture and forensic science to name a couple examples from my own cohort.
looking back, that was mostly a lot of vague grumbling and not much concrete advice, but to be fair asking for "any advice" is a hard prompt to go off of so i tend to default to the kinds of grim thoughts that are usually rattling round in my brain. i may also be in an especially dour mood at the moment because even though my job isn't to my knowledge at any risk of being eliminated, my lab is currently being passively if not outright antagonized by higher-level bureaucrats for genuinely mysterious reasons and i will not elaborate on that any further for reasons i mentioned at the beginning. anyway! i am always happy to at least attempt to give more specific advice but i can't promise there won't be at least a little grumbling in that as well.
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Yorozu for the character thing.
Thank you for the ask! Especially the song part for her was really tricky, but interesting to think about.
favourite thing about them
I love how inventive she is. She grew up in a rural and likely poor region, she was born with a relatively weak cursed technique and she managed to claw her way up, so that even the Fujiwara wanted her in their service. All through her own ingenuity. She has an understanding of physics that's beyond her time. Also I just love her obsessive nature. You can tell that no matter if it's people or a topic she finds interesting, she'll cling to it until she has made it her own. That obsession is what got her into such a high position. Her love for battle and bloodshed is also refreshing. We don't see that that often with female characters, especially not combined with her insect armour that would be considered "ugly" and "too masculine".
least favourite thing about them
All the interesting things I listed above are only there as little mentions or titbits that are dropped here and there. We only get a glimpse of her inventiveness and the struggles she went through. Instead Gege chose to only focus on her obsession with Sukuna and make her especially pathetic through that. Like, if you're gonna drop such an interesting backstory, expand on it at least a little bit? Instead of going out of your way to make it seem like her character revolves entirely around Sukuna. She can have her obsession with him, that's fine, but Gege really did her a disservice there, despite obviously being capable of giving her more depth.
favourite line
"Even handsome men become crusty when dried out. Elegant beauty."
"I want it all to myself. Your solitude is mine and mine alone! The one who will kill you is me!"
"Toodle-loo, I'll be waiting"
brOTP
Hm, either the idea of Yorozu and Uraume very reluctantly getting along, kind of similar to Uraume and Kenjaku (she wanted to invite them to her wedding after all and likes their cooking) or Yorozu and Kenjaku. I think her research about insects and how emulate their qualities with cursed energy and her technique would be very interesting to Kenjaku. And since I hc that Kenjaku likes centipedes or arthropods in general, I'd like to see them nerd about insects.
OTP
Yorozu/Uro! I've ranted about them plenty before, but I'd just once again like to say that they are perfect for each other. Yorozu could've been such an inspiration for Takako back in the day, show her what she could be.
nOTP
Sukuna. I think they're both better off by just moving on and finding better people. Also I don't like this at all in a sexual way.
random headcanon
She has like a full mad scientist layer. Kind of an expansion on what we see in her first flashback. It's full of books and show cases of animals and makeshift terraria where she studies insects to improve her technique. I mean, she knows what an insect's nervous system looks like, she must've picked them apart very thoroughly, probably used her CT as assistance to invent microscopes and other tools that didn't exist back then. Also, the way her servant looks, I think she doesn't shy away from human experimentation either to test a new form of Construction for example.
unpopular opinion
She isn't actually sexually attracted to Sukuna. All she ever talks about is owning and controlling him. The marriage is for her to demonstrate her ownership over him and tie him to her. Even if it's merely his corpse. While I'm all for necrophillia, I don't think that's the intention here.
song i associate with them
I don't yet have a song where I think "yes, that's her!", but I chose IC3PEAK's Плак-Плак for her defying tradition and killing her husband and Red Sex (restrung version) just because I think it embodies her particular brand of insanity quite well, particularly how connected everything about her is to her body. From her being nude in the Heian era to her insect armor. Feels sort of suffocating just like her obsession and some of the strings remind me of the sounds of insect wings.
youtube
youtube
favourite picture of them
Always gonna be her studying nude by candle light
but also of course her insect armour
and her just looking cute/deranged in general
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Been seeing a lot of spider-verse stuff lately, and I'm surprised to have taken this long to think of it but-- imagine a spider-person Shinobu. I mean... it kinda fits. Lost her parents when she was young, lost a major mentor figure with Kanae's bucket kicking akin to a sort of uncle ben, and she's got a thing with bugs. I mean-- arthropods vs. insects but they're *pretty* close.
...that and I just like the mental image of Shinobu in a spider suit. sue me.
It makes perfect sense to me and she would look really cool in some sort of spiderman-esque costume! I really want to watch the new Spider-verse movie, I even finally started working on the multiverse of Shinobus fic and the tentative title is Into the Shinobu-Verse lol
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Phylum #14: Tardigrada, the water bears!
With humans, the only creatures to have reached the Moon alive are small, inconspicuous eight-legged creatures. But they are not spiders, or arthropods for that matter. While still their ancient relatives, tardigrades have followed a very different evolutionary path.
Tardigrades are part of our third and last ecdysozoan group, panarthropods - with a segmented body bearing multiple pairs of limbs. However, most of the tardigrade body isn't homologous to the arthropod one! Instead, most of their limbs correspond to what would become antennas and mouthparts in arthropods, functionally making them a giant head with two back limbs!
Most famous for surviving extreme conditions, from near-absolute zero temperatures to immense pressures or the vacuum of space, tardigrades achieve this thanks to a special capability called cryptobiosis. By entering a dehydrated "tun state", they preserve themselves while nearly stopping their metabolism, and can be revived decades later in perfect health! While they survived on the surface of the Moon, they do not thrive in those extreme conditions, only being dormant - in fact, they prefer moist environments like mosses or hot springs!
Fancy a mystery? Tardigrades today are divided into two main classes - the plump Eutardigrada and the armored Heterotardigrada. However, a third class, Mesotardigrada, was discovered in 1937, with a single specimen found in a hot spring near Mount Unzen, Japan. Of unique appearance among tardigrades, it was never found again despite repeated searches, and the type locality was destroyed years later.
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