#Tsetse Fly

[disease]

Messenger of Death: Tsetse Fly

[bluebutlikenotalways]

As a birthday treat I decided to do a little concept work on this

I call this “The Creation of loneliness” 2024 And then I decided to do more 🫠

And I kinda want to keep going, but idk maybe

[sybilhallward]

Actually you know what I dislike most fibromyalgia related tattoos but a photorealistic tsetse fly on my arm would be so fucking funny

[feral-babe]

I finished the first 6 cards in a tarot deck I’m working on! I have descriptions of each card here on my website

💜

[mattibee]

ant/bee/hornet queens probably have it beat by a longshot but adult domestic silk moth is probably one of the the most gregnant bugs

[www-proxxicles-com]

BUGS BUGS BUGS! But the good kind.

Alrighty, let’s go through all the mobs and their features! Left to right, top to bottom, image one through image two. Since this’ll take FOREVER, use the read more! Look forward to a part two focusing on even more bugs!

SNAIL

Snails spawn in forests and swamps. Snails leave a harvestable trail of slime that can be affected by their food- make it bouncy (by feeding them blueberries), fast (raspberries) or honeyed (honey bottle). Snails come in various shades of browns, grays, greens and ruddy berry colors.

GIANT WATER BUG

Spawning in the beaches (any body of water, really), water bugs are defensive and will attack if you get close. When tamed by obtaining their eggs, water bugs make for good guard dogs- they can be commanded to stay, follow, wander, and by shift-clicking- set to neutral, passive or aggressive. GWBs come in shades of browns and blacks.

SLUG

Slugs spawn in jungles, and leave behind trails that can be used to make redstone components with upgraded signal strength. They come in shades influenced by real-life slugs- pictured is the rare banana slug.

MEALYBUG

Ah, mealybugs, the bane of any farmer. Spawning on crops, mealies eat and suck at crops until they’re sated. However, if you’ve befriended any ants, these bugs become a source of hearty honeydew, which when bottled makes for an incredible food source. Mealybugs only have one color- a dusty, pale white.

FLY

Flies spawn around carrion blocks, buzzing around and being general nuisances. Flies can be tamed by feeding them rotten flesh, and can swarm around attackers on command, descending down from the heavens to make enemies’ lives living hell. Keep an eye out for the rare tsetse and horse flies, larger and more dangerous breeds. Flies have two variants- brown and dark grey.

LIGHTNING BUG / FIREFLY

During the nighttime, look out for fireflies in the distance (since they only spawn during the night). Fireflies can be bottled and tamed with fruits, and can be placed down for a light show. Non-entity fireflies spawn around Naturality’s frog species and certain grasses, if you want the two-pixel variation. Fireflies can be dyed both as entities and as bottles, and dyeing them colors their lights. Fireflies come in a few different variants, all based on real-life species.

COCKROACH

Cockroaches spawn in Naturality’s new caves (the limestone cave and the sunken jungle) as well as in the new beach grottos. Cockroaches can be used as clean-up-crews, consuming detritus and fertilizing farms as they make their way around. Smaller cockroaches have a tendency to swarm players just like flies, and all cockroaches can be tamed. Cockroaches come in a horde of variants based on real roaches, like B. giganteus (giant cave), B. dubia, M. longipennis and B. germanica (German).

MAGGOT

Maggots are the larvae of flies, found in carcasses. They can be itemized and used to tame other creatures, if you’re a monster.

DRAGONFLY

Dragonflies spawn around bodies of water, attacking other insects to eat their fill. They can be tamed and their wings used to upgrade elytras. Dragonflies also can be used as the poor man’s elytra- allowing you to hover and slow-fall. Dragonflies come in some green and blue colors, and one iridescent one.

APHID

Another crop-destroyer, make a farm and the aphids will come. Unlike mealies, they can’t be harvested, only itemized or used in fiber and wood farms after being tamed with offerings of plants. Aphids have one variant- green.

ISOPOD

Isopods spawn in forests, and are used to culture molds and other fungi. They’re basically crustacean puppies. Also see my prior isopost for more colors. Pictured is the rubber duckie variant- the true amount of isos is a secret :)

BUTTERFLY

Butterflies spawn nearly everywhere during the day, and during the night are replaced with moths. Butterflies are basically bees, only instead of honey, they’re used to obtain nectar, which functions as natural potions that give different effects depending on what flowers they come from. Moths, on the other hand, work as glares- they dislike darkness and will point it out if given some nectar as a treat. Butterflies come in a horde of variants.

LADYBEETLE / LADYBUG

Ladybugs and other beetles of their ilk spawn in the plains, and are useful for their shells- which can be made into tough armors. Ladybugs suck at crops, and if tamed will trawl through your fields, picking only the good bits out.

GIANT ISOPOD

Giant isos spawn in the deep seas, and make a living cultivating mosses in the depths. Perhaps you could gain their trust and use them for your own good? The ways of these depth-dwellers are a mystery. They come in three variants- light, dark and pink.

Congrats! You made it down here. Have a cookie 🍪

[crevicedwelling]

Today I learned that flies can technically be pregnant.

I did not want to learn this. why the heck are Louse flies so gross and weird.

not just louse flies, but plenty of sarcophagid flies are too! they drop off eggs that hatch instantly or give live birth to larvae, which gives them an advantage in gobbling up meat or perhaps wiggling into what they parasitize (not all flesh flies are scavengers, some are parasitoids of insects or reptiles!)

the infamous tsetse flies also have a pretty weird reproductive strategy: instead of laying a lot of eggs at once like most flies, a tsetse fly gestates a single larva in her uterus (like you mammals out there) and feeds it on a milky secretion she produces. she won’t “give birth” until the larva is ready to pupate, so it’s very rare to find tsetse larvae.

parasitic and micropredatory (bloodsucking) lifestyles do some weird things to flies…

[speedywithadhd]

Even though you're a little shit and interacted here's another bug fact: unlike other species of flies that lay their eggs, the tsetse fly actually gets pregnant and will incubate her young inside her own body

I am not a little shit I am just silly!!!! I've never ever seen a pregnant fly before, or bird, or fish, or snail

[lionmom-svenomverse]

Sharing the concept art for my Chryslestia family! Gonna have to snip a lot of HCs/notes so you can find the full thing over on my dA. Anyways, more info under the cut!

💙 Queen Celestia - Ruler of Equestria. Sun Deity. Royal Batpony Alicorn (With Heliacorn Attributes). Agender (She/he/it/they), Pansexual Demi 💙 Queen Chrysalis - Ruler of Equestria, Former Queen of the Changeling Hive. Reformed/Former Villain. Non-Reformed Queen Changeling. Nonbinary (It/xey/they/she), Bisexual Demi 💙 Princess Antlion Aphid - Princess of Equestria. Heir to the Sun. Solar Astronomer/Engineer. Has anxiety. Royal Alicorn-Changeling Hybrid (With Batpony/Heliacorn Attributes). 35 y/o. Nonbinary (It/its and She/her mainly), Lesbian. Likes studying the sun, sundresses, large hats, hosting parties, yoga, calligraphy and diplomacy. Aphie is based off of antlion larvae, not so much aphids but it's a cute lil addition to her name. Special talent is using the sun to power technology! 💙 Princex Hercules Metalmark - Princex of Equestria. Heir to the Sun. Armorer. Has autism. Royal Alicorn-Changeling Hybrid (With Batpony/Heliacorn Attributes). 35 y/o. Agender (They/them and xey/xem mainly), Trixic. Likes puzzles/cipher cracking, keeping fit, fruit, fire, sappy movies, giving gifts and winter. Inspired by the Hercules Beetle and the Metalmark Butterfly! Special talent is crafting enchanted armor! 💙 Prince Joro Orb Weaver - Prince of Equestria. Heir to the Sun. Seamster at Carousel Boutique. Royal Alicorn-Changeling Hybrid (With Batpony/Heliacorn Attributes). 35 y/o. Transmasculine/Nonbinary (He/him, It/Its, She/her), Bi. Likes designing outfits, spoken word poetry, spiral patterns, fantasy shows/books, posters, journaling and social events. Inspired by the Joro Spider and the common Yellow Garden Spider/Orb-Weaver! Special talent is sewing outfits! 💙 Princex Tsetse Deathwatch "Click" Beetle - Princex of Equestria. Heir to the Sun. Nurse. Gravedigger. Mute. Has autism. Royal Alicorn-Changeling Hybrid (With Batpony/Heliacorn Attributes). 35 y/o. Genderfluid (They/them and it/its mainly), Omni. Likes history documentaries, playing the guitar, baggy clothes, cemeteries, volunteering, birds and brownies. It was initially named "Princex Malachite" and based off of the Malachite butterfly, but since I've changed its' name it doesn't really resemble what its' currently named after: the Tsetse Fly and Click/Deathwatch Beetles. Special talent is healing creatures! 💙 Princess Venusta Orchard Mason - Princess of Equestria. Heir to the Sun. Gardener. Builder. Farmer. Royal Alicorn-Changeling Hybrid (With Batpony/Heliacorn Attributes). 35 y/o. Transfeminine/Nonbinary (They/them and She/her), Aro/Sapphic. Likes worms, pottery, lemonade, architecture, foraging, climbing trees, falling leaves and making friends. She's mainly inspired by the strikingly blue Orchard Mason Bee, which I first saw around my early high school years iirc and fell in love with it. The other half, Venusta, comes from the Venusta Orchard Spider! The 'Venusta' part of their name actually wasn't initially there, but I thought it'd be a pretty edition, especially since the two bugs share the word 'orchard' in their names. Special talent is building strong structures! 💙 Prince Rosy Maple Brimstone - Prince of Equestria. Heir to the Sun. Influencer. Disc Jockey. Party Thrower. Royal Alicorn-Changeling Hybrid (With Batpony/Heliacorn Attributes). 35 y/o. Intersex (He/him), Ace/Queer. Likes hyperpop/house music, makeup, bright colors, flea markets/antique malls, soap carving, blogging and raves. Rosy is mainly based on the Rosy Maple Moth, but the other part of his name comes from the Brimstone Butterfly! Special talent is DJing and music production! 💙 Prince Atlas Adonis Blue - Prince of Equestria. Heir to the Sun. Drag Queen. Royal Alicorn-Changeling Hybrid (With Batpony/Heliacorn Attributes). 35 y/o. Demiboy (He/him and They/them), Gay. Likes singing, the stars, glowsticks, finance, karaoke, collecting mugs, clubbing, glitter and cleaning. Atlas is of course inspired by the Atlas Beetle and the Adonis Blue Butterfly! Special talent is performing!

[erikahenningsen]

Sneak peak Friday?

Spoilers for chapter nine

“You sound crazy,” Janis tells her when Cady shares her theory. “Regina is not your soulmate. She’s a blood-sucking parasite who will leave you shriveled up and dead when she’s done with you.”

“Like a tsetse,” Cady says.

“Bless you.”

“No,” Cady says. “It’s a fly indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa that feeds on humans and other mammals. They’re notorious for transmitting disease.”

“Exactly.” Janis snaps her fingers. “Regina is like that. And now you have a disease.”

Cady frowns. “No, I don’t.”

“You do,” Janis counters. “She’s burrowed into your brain and has you saying batshit stuff like what if we feel each other’s pain? I’m speaking from experience here, Cady. Learn from me.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Cady admits quietly. “I don’t know how to stop it, though.”

Janis sighs wearily, like a person who has just put down a great load. “You have to stop giving her attention. Stop clapping and she dies.”

“What?” Cady asks, confused.

Janis blinks at her. “Tinkerbell?”

“Who?”

Janis waves a hand. “Never mind. Stop trying to fix her, Cady. You’re only feeding into the insanity.”

[scotianostra]

November 10th 1871 saw the Journalist Henry M Stanley find the missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone with the classic “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”

In 1867, Henry Stanley became special correspondent for the New York Herald and two years late would be sent to Africa in search of the legendary explorer David Livingstone.

Livingston had been following his obsessional search to find the sources of the Nile River and no one had heard from him for three years.

Stanley got to Zanzibar in 1871 and headed out on a 700 mile trek through tropical rainforest. Because the Herald had not sent the money promised for the expedition he borrowed in from the US Consul. He used this cash to hire over 100 porters for the expedition.

The trip did not go well. During the expedition through the tropical forest, his thoroughbred stallion died within a few days after a bite from a tsetse fly. Many of his porters deserted, and the rest were decimated by tropical diseases.

Seven months after arriving in Zanzibar Stanley found Dr Livingstone near Lake Tanganyika in present-day Tanzania and greeted him with the famous quote: “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” Or did he?

There is some doubt about whether the line was actually ever said.

Pages that relate to their meeting were torn out of Stanley’s diary by the man himself and neither he nor Livingstone mentioned them in their letters.

It surfaced over a year later in a summary of Stanley’s letters in The New York Times.

When Livingstone died a few years later Welshman Stanley continued to explore huge amounts of central Africa.

The rest of his career was just as eventful.

He was a key part in opening up the lower Congo to trade which meant the creation of the Congo Free State under King Leopold II of Belgium.

Despite his supposed famous line and explorations giving him his place in history there have been a number of criticism levelled against him.

He was accused of indiscriminate cruelty against African even saying himself: “Many people have called me hard, but they are always those whose presence a field of work could best dispense with, and whose nobility is too nice to be stained with toil.” It is also argued that he had a very conflicted view of women describing them as “toys” and “trifling human beings”.

Livingstone died from dysentery and malaria on May 1st, 1873, at the age of 60, in Chief Chitambo’s Village, near Lake Bangweulu, North Rhodesia (now Zambia).

[bluebutlikenotalways]

We always chance the unknown, but once we find it there’s a chance that it might not live up to our expectations.

By making the unknown known we have made it mundane.

By removing a wrestler of their mask they lose that charming mystery.

Why remove that bit of joy from life?

Because I’m a dick

[sybilhallward]

does anybody know why my grandparents have known all my life what a tsetse fly is? my best guess is during fascist colonisation efforts in africa it became common knowledge in italy that they were dangerous but tbh i'd like to know if there's a more innocent reason

[feral-babe]

The Empress card in Tarot is a symbol of abundance, nurturing, and the creative forces of nature. She represents fertility, growth, and the connection to the natural world. The Empress is often associated with motherhood, beauty, and the cultivation of life.

Tsetse flies are known to provide care for their offspring by producing a milk-like substance very similar to what mammals produce - This nurturing behavior reflects the Empress's qualities of fostering growth and ensuring the survival of future generations.

Additionally, the Empress embodies the natural beauty and harmony of the environment. Despite the negative perception associated with tsetse flies, they are still part of the intricate web of life. This card reminds us to appreciate the diversity and interdependence of all living beings, even those that are often misunderstood or deemed undesirable. It encourages us to recognize the beauty and interconnectedness of nature and embrace the inherent creative and nurturing energies within ourselves.

Prints available on Redbubble and Inprnt

Instagram

[oddmawd]

2, 10, and 29 for the 35 Questions Meme :3

2. Why do you write fanfiction?

i'm just horny a lot ig

10. What’s your favorite genre to write for?

romance and smut, i'm horny a lot ig

29. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out?

oh yeah, the smut is a brand new venture for me...writing and posting The Hunt was an exercise in taking my sense of shame behind the woodshed and clubbing it over the head with a 2x4, everything just snowballed from there LMAO

turned out pretty well, that fic's done well for itself and now i'm a monster who's horny a lot ig

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

i feel like i need to be writing little smutty one-shots and drabbles if i'm ever gonna build a proper audience for my degeneracy, i see other people doing it and it looks fun but tbh it's intimidating and i have no idea how to start and also i have the attention span of a tsetse fly and probably never will hey at least i'm honest about myself

i did not intend this response to contain the refrain of "i'm horny a lot ig" but then again i also didn't intend for this account to become a smutty place...alas, i'm sensing a theme

[poniatowskaja]

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the common vampire bat mainly poses an airborne threat and that if you ever spotted one approaching, you could try to swat it away. But according to scientists, the species is far more stealthy than this. It is, they say, a “capable runner” and a furtive one. Its ability to scuttle along the ground, on its legs and folded wings, allows it to sneak up on cattle and other prey, which have sometimes included sleeping humans. After this silent approach, it will use its razor sharp teeth to make a small, painless incision. How it processed its food had been something of a mystery. But researchers have now shed light on how the species rapidly draws energy from the blood it laps up, via an experiment that involved getting several bats to spend more than an hour running on a treadmill. Vampire bats are the only mammals that rely exclusively on the blood of other animals for their nutrition. The research revealed that to survive on this highly specialised diet, they rely on an unusual method of extracting energy from the protein it contains. Researchers at the University of Toronto first captured two dozen adult common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) in Belize. The animals were brought to a laboratory and fed on cows’ blood that had been enriched with two amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. These contained isotopes of carbon that acted as chemical markers. The bats were then placed on a treadmill inside a sealed plastic box. This allowed the researchers to track how much oxygen they were using and how much carbon dioxide they were exhaling, as they ran at speeds of up to about 1.1 mph. Showing significant stamina, most of the bats kept moving for all of the 90-minute experiment. After analysing the carbon isotopes in the exhaled breath, the researchers learnt that they were pulling energy from their recent blood meal, rather than relying on stored fats or sugars as almost all other mammals do. The results indicate that proteins from the blood samples were responsible for as much as 60 per cent of the energy used by the bats as they scampered. In most mammals, running is fuelled by carbohydrates and lipids, while amino acids contribute less than 5-10 per cent of the energy used. The researchers had seen a similar system for extracting energy from protein in the tsetse fly, a bug that also feeds on blood and is responsible for spreading sleeping sickness in Africa. “We found vampire bats can fuel most of their running with amino acids in a blood meal eaten only minutes before, just like some insects,” said Kenneth Welch, of the University of Toronto, a co-author of the paper. Michael Hiller, a researcher at the Loewe Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics in Frankfurt, who was not involved with the paper, told The New York Times that the ability to draw energy from amino acids in less than ten minutes was “unparalleled in mammals”. The findings were published in the journal Biology Letters, which is published by the Royal Society.

Rhys Blakely, The Times (6 November 2024)