#i know they’re crustaceans but

[daisychainsandbowties]

Me: *shows my partner pics of strawberry squid* isn’t it neat?

Partner: It’s… macabre.

Me: Macabre? How so?

Partner: … it just is.

Me: But… it’s strawberry colored?

Partner: *under their breath* You are the worst crustacean ever.

to be fair it is the worst crustacean ever because it’s actually a mollusc

but i mean

look at this guy. that is a fruit

#worst crustacean has to be the tongue worm though they’re technically a degenerate crustacean #best? probably shrimp (lmao definitely shrimp) #i might not know all 67000 species but one look at a shrimp and it’s like. love adoration violent affection #i say this as someone allergic to strawberries the strawberry squid is my precious baby #so well-adapted to it’s environment #actually that’s gonna be my new pickup line #hey are you a strawberry squid because you seem to have adapted well to your environment #i bet you could see through the luminescent camoflage of your prey 😘😳😉 #anon #no shade to your partner at all i too was surprised to learn thay squid are in the same phytum as snails #and clams!

[corellianhounds]

Star Wars has me up researching how I can mush two different geographic regions together to come up with the right ecological setting for this fic

#And I am loving it #Research makes me excited #I found one nasty little crustacean that inspired me to write a scene where farm kid Winta chases city boy Toro around with it #He’s both the cool uncle and loser older brother at the same time in Sorgan #He can’t relate to rural farm / working class people very well #But it’s easier to talk to kids because to him they’re basically all the same #He says he doesn’t like kids but it’s bc he’s barely ever spent time around them #But he knows how to play soccer and he at least doesn’t talk down to them #So the kids are generally pretty happy to have visitors like him #And also: it’s easier to seem impressive to a bunch of kids than everyone else #He’s a vainglorious twerp but he means well

[catgirlkirigiri]

If I had a nickel for every isopod I’ve had to catch and release this week so it wouldn’t get squished I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice. Especially because it’s usually just stinkbugs that are everywhere but this year it’s isopods?? Oh well, at least it’s a bug I can pick up so I don’t need a cup :P

#yea I know they’re not bugs they’re crustaceans but listen. bug is easier to use generally. #zoracontent #isoposting #<- knowing me I will start posting about them more so. tag time #first two are a guy that was in my house Monday night. second one I just caught on my way to the target break room lmao #isopod #idk what type they are specifically otherwise I’d tag them in depth. they’re not ones that roll up and I’m in SE Michigan if anyone wants to #try identifying them lol

[tkingfisher]

Right! Apropos another post, let’s talk about lawn crayfish aka The Lobsters Beneath Our Feet!

This is Craw-Bob. He’s about three and a half inches long.

Long ago, when I had only gardened in the Southeast for a year or two, I saw an interesting hole in a flowerbed. It was rather deep and had a muddy front porch. I gazed into this hole, thinking “Ooh! Is it a rodent? A snake? A toad?”

And then I saw…the Claw.

It was unmistakably a crustacean claw. And it was in a hole in my yard. My terrestrial yard! Why was there a crustacean in my flowerbed?!

I could not have been more astounded if an octopus tentacle had come flopping out. I ran screaming for my husband and the internet, both of whom said “Yeah, that’s a lawn crayfish, they do that.”

And yes. There are about 400 species of crayfish* in North America, and a not inconsiderable number of them are burrowing species. The devil crayfish, which builds little mud towers, ranges from the Rockies to the Atlantic and as far north as Ontario. There are a number of other species as well. Some are limited to stream banks, but many burrow in lawns, flowerbeds, and other places with consistently damp soil, which means that there is a non-zero chance that when you wander around the grass, a tiny lobster is lurking somewhere beneath your feet.

You would think that more people would know this, but at no point in my life had anyone ever mentioned it to me.

Being me, I immediately set out to determine if other people knew about lawn crayfish and I had just somehow missed it. I took an informal poll—by which I mean I accosted random strangers at the farmer’s market, the coffee shop, and my doctor’s office—and discovered a stark divide. Half the people looked at me like I was telling them I’d seen a lawn chupacabra and the other half looked at me like I’d asked if they’d ever heard of squirrels.

It was not divided by social class or education. The farmer with the heirloom breed hogs knew about them, his wife did not. My nurse practitioner first thought I was hallucinating, then went out into the clinic, and began demanding to know if her co-workers had heard of this. My barista was like “Yeah, mudbugs,” but he’s from Florida, so may not count.

My theory is that if you know they’re there, it’s just a fact of life so obvious that you don’t bother to comment on it, and if you don’t—well, why would you ever assume that any given hole in the ground comes from a goddamn MINI LOBSTER? And since they mostly just hang out underground during the day and don’t really hurt anything, it just doesn’t come up very often, until one day you’re at the farmer’s market, just trying to sell some organic tomatoes, and a wild-eyed woman with a Studio Ghibli T-shirt descends on you yelling “Are you aware of lawn crayfish?!”

(Yes, they’re edible, but it’s a lot of work popping them individually out of their burrows.)

During torrential rains, they will often leave their burrows and wander around, which is how I got the photos of Craw-Bob. My hound spotted him in the garden and poked him with her nose, whereupon Craw-Bob poked back. Hound, not sure what was happening but that it was probably bad, began doing her “release the humans!” alarm bark, and I came out to find her toe to toe with a crustacean who was waving its claws and presumably screaming “Come on if you think you’re hard enough!” in Lobster.

Despite their willingness to fight everything, they’re pretty harmless. The most they do is move soil from underground to a little pile above. I’m sure golf courses hate them. Our local county extension office suggests “These nonprolific creatures should be appreciated like an interesting bird or turtle living on the property.” Some, like the Greensboro burrowing crayfish, are so rare they were thought to be extinct until somebody found one in the backyard.

So. Lawn crayfish. They exist! And could be lurking underfoot as we speak!

*or crawfish, depending on where you’re from.

#crayfish #crawfish #crustaceans #nature

[crevicedwelling]

i feel so nuts right now i had no idea insects were crustaceans i thought they overlapped like a venn diagram. the more one knows i suppose LOL

they’re in the Pancrustacea, closest to remipedes and Triops + fairy shrimp!

[bogleech]

Less Famous But Super Weird Deep Sea Fish

 I’m gonna write a post of cool animal facts just to Blaze later. Typical deep sea anglerfish and some others are pretty famous but I’m going to spend maybe even ten whole dollars to make an extra thousand people look at these other fish that I don’t think enough people know about. Sources included for all images, many with additional information wherever possible, but there’s still very little known about many of these animals!

GIGANTACTIS - common name ”whipnose seadevil” - the Schmidt ocean institute recently took this detailed photo from a deep sea ROV of a fish almost never observed live, but it sure does actually look dead. These anglerfish spend most of their time floating upside-down like this with their proboscis-like lure dangling below, and one guess is that they may send the lure down into the tunnels of burrowing worms or crustaceans. In some species, the lure can be over six times the length of the body. MORE FISH:

MONOGNATHUS - meaning “one jaw” - never observed alive and never given a common name (how about just monojaw?) this animal is closely related to the more famous “pelican eels” or “gulper eels,” but lacks the huge, expandable mouth. Instead, Monognathus has a strange skull with technically no upper jaw, just a gaping hole or in some species a bill-like protrusion. The thin, simplified lower jaws exist to swing prey into the single, venomous fang on the roof of the mouth.

 THAUMATICHTHYS - common name “wolf trap anglerfish” - also going by the cute name “wunderfish,” the source of this illustration was a japanese marine bio site that unfortunately went down over a decade ago, and no live photographs have ever been taken. The “lure” (illicium) of an anglerfish is actually modified from the first ray of the dorsal fin, but this angler’s anatomy is so twisted that the same appendage protrudes from the roof of its huge, broad upper jaw, which folds in half like a hot dog bun to create an illuminated tunnel (figure 2 in the image) that snaps shuts like a Venus’ fly trap on very gullible prey. On this page is a fantastic x-ray scan of one specimen.

IPNOPS - common name “Grideye” - this fish has adorable and beautiful larvae found closer to the sea’s surface, with large and well developed eyes. As they mature, the eyes deteriorate until they’re gone altogether, replaced with a pair of reflective, luminous yellow pits on the top of the skull, looking like somebody scooped its brains out. These pits are lined with thousands of photosensitive cells that must allow the fish to “see” even the faintest traces of distant light, and especially the light emitted by other deep sea organisms.

STYLEPHORUS - common name “tube eye” or “threadtail” - incredibly rare close up photographs almost all come from Dante Fenolio, see HERE. This fish is so weird that it’s even in its own entire order, which is basically like if only one single beetle or one single frog was ever discovered on the whole planet. Its big, binocular-like eyes see in full detail as well as full color, which is quite unusual for deep sea creatures. It also has a very large mouth, technically, but a very tiny mouth opening, its jaws covered in a stretchy membrane with only one tiny, tubular hole. As it widens the jaws, it pulls water (and tiny prey) through the hole with powerful, precise force that disturbs little of the surrounding water; it’s a living vacuum cleaner with pinpoint sniper accuracy.

TYPHLONUS NASUS - common name “faceless cusk eel” - hauntingly weird video clip of this animal here. There are many species of deep sea cusk eel, and they have a few things in common with the more popular but unrelated “blobfish;” they tend to be soft, bulbous creatures adapted to float neutrally in the water until they really need to move, feeding on just about any small creature they bump into. This species is so named because its mouth and nostrils are on the underside of its fat, gelatinous head and its tiny eyes are invisible beneath many layers of tissue. Yeah I know what else some of you think it looks like so feel free to get that out of your system.

MALACOSTEUS - common name “stoplight loosejaw” or “rat trap fish” - photos from Descna, these are dead specimens but the “fleshless” jaw and “detached” head are both completely normal: this fish can swing its skull outward like an arm to grab prey, and the lack of any floor to the lower jaw allows it to lash out with more extreme speed. This is also one of the few deep sea fish to produce red light, from bright “searchlights” under its eyes. The red spectrum of sunlight doesn’t penetrate into the deep sea, so the color red is invisible to most of its inhabitants. The loosejaw’s red lights allow it to brightly illuminate its prey before striking, while the victim usually sees no light at all. A fantastic illustration here by abiogenesis on Deviantart.

 If you ultimately liked getting a list of preposterous little creatures as a blazed post let me know and I will eventually maybe do others, especially if I just make the money back through my site and store (see profile)

#biology #animals #marine biology

[froody]

my autism makes me pedantic sometimes and I really apologize, I know it makes me seem like an insufferable wanker when I pop in with the “actually they’re crustaceans” after someone tags a picture of an isopod as being an insect. I try to hold it in I really do. teachers didn’t like me in school

[cloudyswritings]

Hollow knight bugs & real world species

basically this is just a place for me to dump my thoughts about the species of Hollow knight characters. Let’s start with the easy ones.

Divine & Leg Eater: These two are very obviously a termite king and queen, Divine literally can’t be anything else.

Ogrim: The biggest shitter, dung beetle obvi.

Cornifer & Iselda: Weevils, aka the best bugs. Look at their proboscis’

Mantis lords: Mantids, probably based mostly on the Chinese Giant Mantis specifically.

Flukes: They’re just flukes, disgusting.

Unn: Objectively the best goddess, big slug

Quirrel: So it seems likely to me that Quirrel is a isopod of some sort, most likely an armidilidium species, I think it’s something about his hunched/slightly curled posture and body segmentation.

Radiance: A silkmoth, her wings look to be in proportion with the species and everything else screams silkmoth.

Grimm: it’s a common theory, but his resemblance to a vampire moth is striking.

Mask maker: Bro is very obviously a whip scorpion, the arms are what really seals the deal, but living among other predators with ease(ie deepnest) and twitchy motions are staples of whip scorpions irl.

Cloth: a Cicada nymph, hence her whole burrowing thing and the sounds she makes. Plus this is actually confirmed.

God Tamer: She’s an ant, but not a queen. She’s probably a worker who got separated from the colony. Her antenna are fairly distinctive in Hollownest and are very ant like. Plus she tames other species, something ant colonies effectively do by treating aphids like livestock

Ze’mer: So there’s two equally good guesses for what she is. The first is that she’s a silverfish, this would support her outsiderness given silverfish are a truly strange and primitive branch of bugs. The second possibility is that she’s a glow worm beetle, the adult stage of glow worm. This is also super plausible because of the antenna those beetles have lining up nicely with her fluff and drooping antenna. I think either one is a great interpretation.

now the harder ones.

Sly: So his size is notable, as is his eyes being very visibly compound, that combined with his mobility in the air and the sort of buzzing yoda type sound his voice has makes me think he’s a fly of some sort. Plus it rhymes.

Herrah: she’s most likely a horned baboon tarantula, the colors and size line up with what we see compared to the weavers and devout. Plus the horn on those tarantula line up shapewise fairly well with hers.

Pale King: This man to me has two different possibilities, either he’s a leg less lizard of some sort or more probably he’s some sort of really fucked up crustacean. We know Wyrms molt so that almost certainly rules out option one. My thought is that Wyrms have the same issues lobsters run into where they get bigger with every molt, so their exoskeleton gets heavier, thicker, and harder to break out of. Eventually they die, crushed under their own weight and unable to molt(this is when Wyrms generally abandon their larger form to make kingdoms). Verdict: something terribly cursed.

Bardoon: Bardoon, Bardoon, Bardoon, why must you be so difficult? So at first Bardoon really looks like a silkworm, the color is right, even the face of the two look super similar. But Bardoon is demonstrably longer than a silkworm has any right being, and his little nub/tail that you can hit distinctly resembles the “horn” all hornworms have. Despite that I’m nominally going to say he’s a silkworm until I find better evidence. Verdict: Concerning implications.

Gubs and Grubfather: Parasitic wasps maybe? The charm is called Grubberflys elegy, but their behavior mimics the way some wasps lay eggs inside of hosts so their young can eat their way out. Verdict: wasp things probably.

Tiso: So Tiso and Sharpe both look remarkably similar and from the very, very limited amount we’ve seen from both move similarly. In that vein they both look vaguely like assassin bugs, specifically assassin bug nymphs.

Vessels: Something even more fucked than the Pale King, they’re like mostly plant though I think? Like their masks look like his but are actually made of the White ladys bark/wood and grow constantly, their horns look a lot like her branches too. I imagine that their bodies have the same crustacean exoskeleton thing going on their dad has, so they’re probably incorporating heavy metals into their chitin. In all likelihood their mother being a plant and the light absorption the void displays means they’re photosynthetic in some way, it might explain how they grow too. The dangling bottom parts of the shades also look sorta like roots honestly, this also meshes well with how thorns of agony appears as void tendrils when activated. Verdict: Who tf knows, they’re definitely photosynthetic though.

The Shade Lord: So obviously this big chonker is literally just void, but their form distinctly resembles a dragonfly nymph, with four main arms/legs being used, and a distinctly predatory head shape. Plus we don’t see their bottom half, so I imagine it’s either a mass of roots like their mother, or something vaguely wormy. Verdict: Dragonfly thing

Isma: She is super fucking weird tbh, her head is shaped a lot like Vespas. Obviously however she’s some sort of pant being given the way we find her. My theory here is that she’s actually some other sort of bee, there’s a ton of bees that are solitary species. Based on that I’d say she was a bee— probably a white-banded digger bee— who became a devotee or worshipper of Unn. This may explain how the Pale king was allowed to build in green path. Unn let him build in her land and in return she got a loyal and powerful spy/pair of eyes in the Pale court.

#hollow knight #bugs #headcanon #entomology #the pale king #hk vessels

[parkersbliss]

070: “Married life, am I right?”

“We’re not married.”

“Not with that attitude we are.” With five? I don’t know, thought it would be funny.

Hotel Waffles | F. Hargreeves

pairing: five hargreeves x reader

warnings: none

wc: 600??

synopsis: if only retirement actually meant retirement for you and Five

requests: CLOSED

prompts:  070: “Married life, am I right?” “We’re not married.” “Not with that attitude we are.”

Masterlist | Taglist | Prompt list 

—

“What kind of hotel doesn’t serve waffles?” You mutter, coming to stand next to Five with your plate.

“You can just get pancakes,” He suggests.

You scoff. “Five, it’s a right of passage to eat hotel waffles. They’re like… magical. I don’t know what they put in them—”

“I’m gonna take a guess and start with flour.”

You slap his arm lightly. “Five! Seriously, have you never had them before?”

Five turns to face you with a neutral expression, and you nod. “Oh, right. Apocalypse.”

He gives you a tight-lipped smile, moving down the buffet when Klaus jogs up to the two of you.

“Hey, uh, what do you say we get outta here? Take a little road trip?”

Five raises a skeptical brow, lifting the cover of one of the containers. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about a sojourn to the countryside. You, me, (Y/N), the wind in our hair.” Five scoops out the pancakes, still eyeing Klaus. “Thelma and Louise on the open road.”

“You know they die in the end, right?”

“Holding hands, living our best life my little cherub.” Five stops to put some fruit salad on his plate, and you follow, grabbing one of the pieces of melon off his plate and eating in.

“Listen to me. I nearly died last night because of Luther’s sleep farts,” Klaus said quietly, and you stifle a laugh. “We need to get out of here! Get some fresh air.”

Five turns around to face his brother. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why us, Klaus?”

“Because you said - you said you’re both retired, and that’s what retired people do. And don’t you deserve some fun? We can get… hotel waffles!”

You perk up at that, turning to Five to tell him you should go, but he stares at the empty tank.

“There’s no lobsters,” Five observed.

Klaus gives Five a weird look. “Excuse me?”

“There were three lobsters in that tank a minute ago,” You mumble, noticing the strange disappearance of the crustaceans at this time of the morning.

“Yeah, well, you know, maybe Chet blended ‘em into a morning smoothie.”

Five shakes his head but smiles. “You’re an idiot, but we’re in.”

You wrap an arm around Five, “Yes!”

…

“This actually isn’t so terrible,” Five admits glancing out the window at the rolling hills.

Klaus smiles. “See? Told you.”

“Come to think of it, my whole life, I’ve been under the gun. Missions for dad, working for the commission, trying to survive the apocalypse. I was always looking around the corner, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s nice to just breathe.”

You prop your head on the center console, smiling at the two boys. “Yeah, I love retirement.”

“Good for you guys. Retirement is suiting you.”

“Oh!” Five suddenly perks up. He grabs something from the passenger side drawer. “Uh… all right. So, I’ve circled all the roadside attractions along the way.”

“Oh… I’m not sure we’re gonna have time for all that,” Klaus trails off.

“I have the Brownsville big nickel.”

“Oh, Ricky’s bakery has award-winning pies,” You chimed in, and Five points to you with a nod.

“Well, if you just let me explain—”

“Or there’s the cow henge—”

“Listen to me. Just shut up for two seconds, okay? Just two seconds, all right?”

“Okay,” Five said. “I’m all ears.”

“Me too, Klaus.”

Klaus takes a deep breath. “We are going to Pennsylvania to find my birth mother, okay? Yay!”

“Excuse me?” Both you and Five said, eyeing him up and down.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I just needed someone to come with me for emotional support.”

“Oh, emotional support? Like a schnauzer?”

“Yeah, yeah, and I knew you guys wouldn’t come if I told you, so what was I supposed to do? Well, (Y/N) would have, but you wouldn’t let her.”

“You’re goddamn right we wouldn’t have come, Klaus. You know why? Because we are supposed to be retired!” You can see the vein popping out of Five’s neck as he leans toward Klaus. Though you do agree with Five, you didn’t mind supporting his brother as much as he did.

“Yeah, I know—”

“This was supposed to be a carefree road trip.”

“Well, it still can be, babe,” Klaus offered, smiling at Five. But Five’s eyes catch a sign.

“Ball of twine! Klaus, turn!” He shouts.

“What? Five? Five!”

“Ball of twine, turn!” Five grabs the steering wheel and jerks the car to the left. “It’s one of the best ones, c’mon!”

“Five!” You yell, flying around in the back seat from the sudden turn.

“Five, we’re gonna die! Ah!” Klaus screams when they almost hit a car.

Five’s hand grips the steering wheel. “I don’t care. Let’s go!”

“Five!”

“You know what? No twine, no birth mother!”

And that settles the argument pretty quickly. Klaus pulls up to the ball of twine, following behind you and Five.

“You know, I expected it to be bigger,” You said.

“Seems pretty big to me,” Five shrugs.

“Well, that’s what you tell yourself,” You snort.

Five scoffs at you, but you can see the smile on his features. “I just think this is boring. We could go to like… Hershey park!”

“Hershey park?” Five questions.

You nod eagerly. “Chocolate and roller coasters, why not?”

“I think the Philadelphia bell is a much better idea.”

“Nuh-uh,” You said.

“Yuh-huh,” He replied, and you go back and forth for a while until Klaus comes to a stand next to you.

“Married life, am I right?” He sighs.

You give Klaus a puzzled look. “We’re not married.”

Five whips his head towards you, crossing his arms. “Not with that attitude we are.”

You slap his arm lightly, looking towards the ground at his comment, and Five asks Klaus about his birth mom, and you tune out the conversation. It was between them, anyway. Instead, you just stared at the huge ball of twine, wondering if this really was the end. You could see yourself happy married to Five, driving around the country, and doing what retired people are supposed to do. Even though you both still looked like kids.

Perhaps that was a benefit though. You wanted to see if you could convince him to drive to the world’s longest water slide.

Five’s hand slides around your waist, pulling you out of your thoughts. ��C’mon, we’re going to help Klaus.”

You hop into the backseat, getting comfortable, only to find after maybe thirty minutes, you were there. Klaus steps out, and Five gives him a pep talk before opening the backdoor and coming to sit beside you. He takes out the map, and a pen, turning to you with a smile.

“So, where to?”

You grin, leaning your head on his shoulder and pointing towards a few attractions. “Oh, I hear Disney World is a lot of fun!”

“Disney, huh?”

“There’s the Aero and Space museum nearby too, founded by Kennedy.”

Five shakes his head. “I think I’ve had enough Kennedy for a while.”

“So, Disney it is?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Really?” You asked with a laugh, surprised he was agreeing so easily. “You wanna go to Disney with me?”

Five nods, “I’ll admit it’s not my thing, but it’s what you want. Hershey Park is a no, though.”

“Disney World for the win!”

Five smiles, circling Disney on the map and putting a heart with your initials by it. “Disney it is.”

You smile up at him, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek as he hums along to the song on the radio. “You don’t even know my name,” Five sings along, feet propped up on the seat as he looks at the map. “I go inside the—”

Something suddenly knocks against the car, flicking you both to the side. You knock against Five, groaning. “What is—?” Five questions, standing up to find the field of cows is empty. You come to stand next to him, your shoulders falling. “Fuck.”

He gets out and sighs. “Oh, can’t we get one fucking day off?”

“So that’s a no to Disney, isn’t it?”

Five gathers you in his arms, “One day. Disney and hotel waffles, I promise. Right now we just…”

“Have to save the world again?”

“One more time.”

— END —

🏷 five taglist: @clearbasementvoid @halfumbrella @esmedith @navs-bhat @alexxavicry @thelaststraw3 @rainbows-r-nice05 @gcldtom @bokuakadaily @3ternalreal1ty

#five hargreeves x you #five hargreaves x reader #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader #tua five x reader #tua #tua fic #tua five #number five x reader #number five #five x reader #five x you #five x y/n #aidan gallagher #tua season 3 #tua s3 #the umbrella academy #the umbrella academy season 3

[iamthekaijuking]

I didn’t have a part in this one since no organ system illustrations were needed and the bones of crabs are on the outside, but it’s still a really fun video because crabs are always a really fun thing to research.

Like UHC said, the duo having half the legs of other decapods is actually advantageous at a larger size. Less legs means less energy expenditure and more focus on the legs you have, and many of the fastest running animals only use 4 or 2 legs so it’s also a speed advantage.

And surprisingly, at least in sunbreak, Hermitaur and Ceanataur have somewhat realistic crab mouths. While their mouths are surrounded by spikes, they do have 2 out of the 3 maxillipeds visible. Albeit just oriented weird.

I do have to disagree with UHC thinking they’re unrelated though. They have too many anatomical features in common and their juveniles are identical as well. But as far as where they and by extension Shen Gaoren go in the decapod family… it’s hard to say. I’m not entirely sure since I’m not very knowledgeable about crustacean phylogenetics. Hermit crabs are an obvious answer but the ‘taurs have abdomens that are very different from real hermit crabs (although it’s entirely possible the person who modeled them didn’t know what hermit crab asses looked like).

(Image curtesy of @krmoaten-blog)

#monster hunter #monhun #monsterhunter #monster hunter biology #UHC #unnatural History Channel #shogun ceanataur #daimyo hermitaur #speculative biology #speculative evolution #speculative zoology #speculative ecology #Youtube

[crabs-co]

Just discovered that crabs can "fly" under water and I love it haha. Horseshoe crabs are my favourites, but If I remember well they are more spiders than crabs? not sure. Wich species are the most colorful ones? Greetings, thank you.

wow. a lot in one ask; cool.

1) yeah most crabs have little flap-appendages on the back that operate like propellers on a boat. it’s really funny to look at and they can move relatively quickly

2) horseshoe crabs are not crabs at all, they’re aquatic arachnids. iirc they evolved 450 million years ago while crabs first showed up in the early jurassic (201 - 174 mya). i could go on about etymology in biology but that’s going to be saved for the future.

3) well the halloween crab is quite colorful; but if you want to know the most colorful crustacean, the mantis shrimp takes the spot.

#crustaceans #crabs #ask box #infodump #btw i’m not an expert #im just a dude with a special interest in arthropods #txt

[sagaedling]

Vegavis

I’ve spent way to many hours researching this bird now, and still know way too little, but here’s my take on Vegavis. With feet propelled swimming and high metabolism I’m doubtful of them mainly predating on fish. I’ve instead gone with a bird living in more shallow waters of cold climate with a beak akin to an eider for eating mollusks and maybe crustaceans or other bottom-fauna.

I love feet-propelled divers across the board, and I really hope I get to learn more about this birb and it’s habit in the future!

Sources and stuff under the cut.

The main sources to guide me were theese two papers:

- ”New data on the Vegavis iaai holotype from the Maastrichtian of Antarctica” 2021. Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche and Trevor H. Worthy. Cretaceous Research.

-”Bone microstructure of Vegavis iaai (Aves, Anseriformes) from the Upper Cretaceous of Vega Island, Antarctic Peninsula” 2017. Jordi Alexis Garcia Marsà, Federico L. Agnolín & Fernando Novas. Historical biology.

I also looked at the paleoart made for the 2021 article as well as a piece made by Gabriel L. Lio for the Museo de Ciencias Naturales in Bernardino Rivadavia, Argentina.

For the anatomy in my piece I’ve also looked at extant birds: mainly at eiders, since they’re the right size and climate, but also other diving ducks as well as mergansers and loons for the feet swimming.

#fossil novembirb #Vegavis #birdblr #palaeoblr #paleoart #extinct animals

[bitey-baby-shark]

Facts of the Day: 🐛Rubby Ducky Isopods🐛

Scientific Name: Cubaris sp. “Rubber Ducky”

Size: 2 cm

Lifespan: 2 to 3 years

Reproduction: They breed year round, with gestation periods of about 60 days, and laying around 5 to 10 eggs at a time. 

Diet: Detritivores, meaning they feed on dead organic material, like rotting plants, leaves, and vegetables.  

Habitat: They inhabit limestone caves in Thailand

Status: They are a rare species but not yet classified as an endangered status due to them being a relatively new scientific discovery.

Summary: Rubber Ducky Isopods are a relatively new species of isopod that, like their name implies, look like rubber ducks from the front. This species is so new that it and it’s subspecies remain scientifically unnamed. These isopods are unique not just because of their rarity but also because they’re a cave dwelling species, often found in the limestone caves of Thailand. This species, while freshly discovered, has taken hobbyists by storm. People who breed and care for isopods consider this new little insect a hot commodity, with prices for a cup of five isopods reaching easily in the hundreds of dollars.

I know isopods technically aren’t real insects and technically are crustaceans. I didn’t know what category to put these guys in. 

#baby shark bites! #i want to keep isopods again so badly #insects #insect #bug #bugs #tw insect #tw insects #tw bug #tw bugs #Age Regression #Agere #age regressor #sfw age regression #sfw regression #sfw agere #sfw age regressor #sfw petre #sfw pet regression #sfw pet regressor #petre #pet regression #pet regressor #isopods #rubber ducky isopods

[picapicamagpie]

Sing Marine Life!

I’ll deal with you at the end.

As promised, here’s the follow up post including the marine animals! We don’t see many in the film, so I’ve broken it down by each species.

Squid

I love these guys. They don’t do much, but they look cool. The most notable thing about them is their bioluminescence, which is indeed a trait some real squid have, though not to this degree. Based off their size, bioluminescence, and spotted patterns, I believe these are firefly squid. The bioluminescence is very inaccurate in Sing, but it’s probably exaggerated for dramatic effect and it’s totally fair because the scenes they’re in look amazing. In real life, only the spots on the squid light up and they are only blue, I don’t believe they can change the colour.

Something worth pointing out is that the anatomy of the squid in Sing is completely wrong. And I mean royally messed up. Squid have a mouth that is more like a beak, no lips, certainly no teeth, and it’s located in the middle of the tentacles. The eyes are also further down the body, basically on the tentacles too. What Illumination has done is use the mantle as the squid’s face, when that’s actually their body. It’s the equivalent of putting Buster’s face on his torso. Soooooo something happened to the Sing squid to completely rearrange their bodies and essentially swap the locations of their head and body. Wild.

Shrimp

This is fairly accurate because some crustaceans can survive on regular air for a short time and don’t need to be constantly submerged. Like the squid, these guys have been given a more mammalian body type and can even wear clothes. I don’t know the specific species of shrimp because my God, they all looked the same to me. There’s also this concept art crab who is just chilling about on land. He’d either be dead in a few hours or Sing crabs can now live on land. But I won’t explore it much as it’s not something that’s actually appeared in the films so it’s not canon.

Whale

He doesn’t appear very much, but he’s there. We don’t see enough of him to determine his species but he wears a neat hat. I have nothing else to say about him. Why is Buster in the sky

Fish

Again, super brief appearance and oh my God this screenshot was so hard to get?! I had to load up the film and grab it myself because no one cares about these fish at all. It’s too blurry to tell what species they are, and again, not much to say on them.

Walrus

I have beef with this walrus because his design interrupted the old, more realistic style of Sing. He really cemented the feeling to me that Sing 2 is no longer using the “rules” set by Sing 1. I remember first seeing him and thinking how odd and out of place he looked. While I thought he was a funny character, his design just bothered me so much, something about him felt so off. The sheer audacity of this man to walk on two feet and basically look like a big ape. Generally, Sing was quite realistic with its body types. Ok except the squids. Although technically four legged, walruses and seals have flippers and such a unique way of moving that I really kinda expected Sing to stick to this, or at least make them more hunched over or do something to make them a bit more real, instead of the weird “walrus head on gorilla body” design we got.

To start with, walruses are insanely heavy and huge. A male gets up to 12ft long. To put it into perspective, a walrus standing up would be roughly the same height as an elephant. Mason really should be as tall as Meena but he’s like, 2 Busters.

Real life walruses could never stand on their rear flippers because of their sheer size, and because flippers are not legs. They’re too large and heavy for their adapted limbs to support. That’s why they do that weird flopping about thing that walruses and seals do. So it’s not a case of just making them stand on two legs like every other animal. However now that I’ve looked at him a bit more, Mason is a lot smaller than he “should” be, which makes me think maybe Sing walruses evolved quite differently. They’re much smaller, lighter, and thus able to stand. Maybe also their rear flippers never reached the stage of being super short and small, and are some sort of weird leg/flipper middle stage rather than just being flippers.

Ok Mason, you’re not as bad as I thought you were. But I still don’t like your design.

Also according to the Wiki there’s seals in some advert somewhere but I can’t find it. I’d love to see if they are designed the same as Mason so please if anyone can find it, let me know!

Here’s the canon “rules” I can gather for aquatic animals:

🐳 Honestly there aren’t any

🐳 ok ok, they generally only wear accessories rather than proper clothes but some do also wear full outfits (shrimp)

🐳 They still need water to survive and it hints that there’s an aquatic biome for them to live and work in, with regular cities having waterways as a method of transportation for them. I like this idea and hope it’s explored more

🐳 Bioluminescence can do whatever you want it to do as long as it looks nice, but it’s still limited to animals who have it in real life (which is basically just some fish and invertebrates)

🐳 Some, like the whales and fish, are essentially just the same as real life ones. Others, like squid and shrimp, are more mammalian now. Somewhere, evolution went wild and completely changed the body design of squid completely, reversing their heads and torsos

🐳 Walruses are smaller than they are in real life, and now able to support their bodies on two… flippers? They are much, much more humanoid now and are incredibly different to their real life counterparts

My main take away from this is that mammalian body types have become the norm in the Sing universe. Take (almost) any real animal, make it sort of humanoid, and it’ll belong in Sing. I reckon it’s some kind of convergent evolution thing where animals end up looking similar.

#this one is LONG #if you made it to the end I’m proud of you #note: I do not really hate Mason I just like hyperbole humour #and he’s just further evidence that Sing animals can do whatever the heck you want them to #sing #sing 2016 #sing 2021 #Buster moon #sing 2 #sing movie #sing buster #sing Mason #sing headcanons #sing ash #sing johnny #sing mike #sing meena #sing meme #clay calloway

[crevicedwelling]

SO I’m writing a story that involves a lot of different bugs and bug like creatures (like isopods and other crustaceans) and I have a character who is like a feral child who was raised by giant roly polys. I’ve been trying VERY HARD to find literally any information about the social habits of these animals, because I refuse to just make stuff up to fit this fantasy story, and I can find almost nothing about it. since you know a lot about bugs n such, I was wondering if you had any knowledge about this kinda stuff that you could share.

most isopods don’t have super stratified social structure (from what I can find), and live in loose colonies that aggregate for safety and to conserve water by huddling. if you’d like to embellish a little on usual isopod behavior, I’d say a sort of herd-animal type lifestyle where males gather a harem of females they defend would work, since a number of the larger European species in the hobby have showy males that chase off other males. males are forceful when mating (likely because females are only receptive for a short while after molting) and the pill-rolling species may spend hours trying to pry open a conglobated female. most isopods show only brief parental care, with mothers standing guard over their young shortly after birth before they all disperse.

isopods are more aggressive than it might appear to look at them, and will squabble over food like hungry jackals. they also eat more animal matter than most people realize, and don’t care if the animal they’re eating is still alive as long as it is too injured to move. this includes cannibalism, and they’ll eat molting conspecifics if pressed to by hunger. they do still largely eat plant matter though, and venture out at night to forage for food (sort of like herding mammals grazing) and hide by day.

if you want to make up an isopod species that might raise a non-isopod (rather than devouring a weak youngster on sight), consider Hemilepistus reaumuri, a desert species that unusually exhibits monogamy and extended parental care.

there’s also a number of isopods that live in ant nests, and eat their trash while enjoying the safety of the colony. this is sort of the opposite thing though

[ranahan]

Flora and Fauna of Manda’yaim

Of Manda’yaim’s native species, striile are six-legged, fur-covered, mammals. Mythosaurs are enormous, horned creatures—essentially, dinosaurs. They’re said to be four-legged, but I headcanon them six-legged as well because if we look at Earth biology, basic bodyplans tend to be fairly well conserved. So from those two examples my conclusion is that Manda’yaim’s dominant native fauna are six-legged, warm-blooded, fur or feather-covered (you know, like we now know dinosaurs to have been), dinosaur-lookalikes. That also means that most native fish have three pairs of fins. There are of course also other phyla of life as well (the equivalent of crustaceans, insects, and simpler animals).

Where am I going with this? Well, I was inspired by fialleril’s Amatakka dictionary and its abundance of local flavour, and thought that the Mando’a dictionary I’ve been working on could use some too. And, well. I’ve both studied biology and worked as a wilderness guide, so nature is kinda close to my heart? I couldn’t imagine a language without a rich vocabulary for its native environment.

And while that dictionary is a work in progress, I thought I might post my head-canon creatures for your amusement. Some are named, some are not yet (suggestions are welcome); the names are provisionary, but I think I like the ones I’ll be posting enough to keep them at least as regional synonyms even if I end up changing them later. I’ll be posting these under the tag #mandalorian nature. Bucket permission as always for any of my mando stuff.

#mandalorian nature #mandalorian headcanons #meta: mandalorians #mandalorian culture #mando’a #mandoa #mando’a language #mandalorian language #mando’a extended dictionary #mandoa project #mando’a project