#and some terrestrial invertebrate probably uses something like that

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

Me trying to reason with myself: not every obscure question you have will have an easy to access answer

Me, snapping back at my reasonable take: how hard can it be to find something on how vertebrae jaws work for carnivores, which traits are favored, especially terrestrial ones! All I can find are papers on different families. One on mammals, some vague ones on dinosaurs, and when I look up reptiles all I get are comparisons! It’s all “the difference between reptiles and mammals” and “synapsid vs diapsid” all interesting topics but I’m trying to design a terrestrial carnivorous alien with a vaguely vertebrae style skeleton here! Sure, I’m making them a shape shifter, I’m not going for total realism, but I’m hung up on jaw anatomy! I don’t want to do the whole “make the face flat, bam! Alien” thing, no shade to people who do, but I’m trying to figure out if there is a reason most of their (the real animals) jaws are long-ish and if the mammal style dip between the brain part and the mouth and nose part that you see in Carnivora for example is just a mammal thing or is it advantageous in general?! I know all vertebrates evolved from a common ancestor, even more recently terrestrial ones, but I don’t care! I’m already borrowing enough, I just can’t design a skull! And dentition! I’ve made a few designs but I wasn’t happy with how they fit the rest of the character. And of course I had to make even more species of aliens! Tearing at my hair like an ace attorney witness.

The chill me again: who tf would have an article video or post on that specific thing and how would you phrase it? Nothing you’ve tried yet has gotten anything. Just accept that you might have to ask a subreddit yourself and see what happens. Dig through sci show first though

Frazzled me: but… what if they don’t have anything? I wanted a video or article. :( and what subreddit would I even ask? World building? Would they know what I mean? Is anyone else as autistic about skeletons AND making ocs?

[sunsetsands]

Almud Masterpost

Seemed like a good idea to create a place to compile information about the main planet project I have going.

Most of the pictures here are hand-drawn. I have slowly been improving at digital art, so I do intend on gradually replacing them with procreate recreations, but until then, have these messy pencil illustrations.

The planet’s name is Almud (pronounced “awl-MOO-duh” (yes, the D at the end is its own syllable)). It is the second planet from its star, an orange dwarf. Conditionswise, Almud is very similar to Earth, just a lot warmer and wetter, and without a single large moon. Instead, it has a somewhat recently-formed system of rings. These rings are made of the debris from the planet’s former moon, which floated in past the Roche limit a few dozen million years ago and got torn apart. Almud may or may not also have a smaller moon or two somewhere further out. I haven’t decided on that yet.

This is a map of Almud’s entire geography, which is slightly outdated. I’ll probably make an updated version at some point eventually possibly maybe. If you’re curious, those numbers on the continents were so I could keep track of continental drift to make sure everything made sense. I care way too much about tiny details.

This is a rough (and I mean very rough. Not proud of my craftsmanship on the outlines here) approximation of what Almud’s surface looks like. The foliage uses a teal pigment to photosynthesize, and the sky appears pink during the day. Obviously, not all of the planet is wetlands, but there are definitely more wetlands than there are on Earth thanks to the much higher humidity.

I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what Almud’s animal-equivalent life should be like. After several failed attempts, however, I think I have gotten it to a point I am satisfied with. Below is a phylogenetic tree of all of the “animal” phyla present on Almud, and an overview of what each phylum has going on. I tried not to rip off Earth's phylogeny too much, but there are some notable parallels.

Vaxistoma (roughly "vaccine mouth"): Small fishlike creatures that feed through a proboscis with an extendible needle-tooth-thing inside of it. The rest of their body is covered in thick, hard scales. They mainly inhabit deeper waters where aquatic duossei are less common.

Duosseus ("two skeletons"): The closest equivalent to vertebrates. First members were fishlike, with calcified plates covering the outside of their bodies and rod-shaped bones supporting the inside. The outer skeleton atrophied mostly in the terrestrial members, but most classes do still have notable remnants, as shown in the small drawing above.

Limosus ("muddy, slimy things"): Soft, squishy creatures without much in terms of an internal skeleton, but most groups do have some external armor like their relatives listed above. Can be accurately summarized as "molluscs, but more alieny", though a few members are more like worms or sea stars.

Jocomodivirae (very roughly "funny little guys"): Small velvet worm-esque invertebrates with a thick, leathery pad over their back. A very diverse phylum with many, many members. Definitely not just insects with no exoskeletons.

Planagelattae ("flat jellies"): What if flatworms had three eyes?

Xenigmalus ("strange, mysterious things"): I can't think of a good way of describing these, which is pretty fitting for what they are. Body plans vary wildly here, but are almost always some combination of fins, tentacles, and a big translucent sack. Like the vaxistomans, they usually inhabit deeper waters.

Cornivermia ("horned worms"): Pretty self-explanatory. The flat, hard bits at the fronts of their heads help them dig through softer areas of soil. Some groups use these growths instead as something more akin to pincers, fins, hooks, or shells.

Carniherbae ("meat plants"): You know those animal-fern things from the Ediacaran era? These are just those, but not extinct.

Vivitria ("living glass"): Soft, feathery insides protected by a crystalline silicate shell. Many species in this phylum are colonial, which tend to look like colorful, floating geodes. These colonies often have surprisingly complex sensory capabilities, and some have been found to be about as intelligent as Earth cats.

Xylovitria ("wood glass"): Terrestrial relatives of the vivitrians, almost all of which are colonial. The defining feature of this phylum, besides their terrestriality, is their symbiotic relationship with a wide range of plant-equivalent species. The xylovitrian colony forms a protective, glassy wall around the plants' branches, as well as a system of feathery roots beneath the soil which serve to both gather nutrients for their plant partner and exchange gametes with other colonies to create new, empty xylovitrians for the plants' seeds to land in. In return, the plant gives the colony some of the byproducts of its photosynthesis.

Chiforma ("X-shaped"): Four-sided radially symmetrical creatures. Contains such captivatingly creative groups such as "squids, but four", "clams, but four", "eels, but four", and, most creataculiciously of all, "coral, but four". A shining example of the innovation that specbio nerds are capable of.

Nodovellis ("tangled hair"): Formless, sessile filter feeders. Basically a slime mold trying really hard to be a sponge, but the closest it could get was becoming a loofah.

(Feel free to give critiques or advice on the scientific names I made. All I really did here was mess around with google translate. I know there are guidelines and policies for what is and isn't an acceptable phylum title, but I've never been able to understand what any of them mean. If anything immediately makes you go "That's not how that works!", let me know)

For some additional information, I imagine that life on Almud began in freshwater rather than saltwater. This made the transition to land pretty easy for most of the animals, since they could afford to just flop around in muddy wetlands without any risk of drying out. This does mean that their skin is very, very sensitive to salt, however.

There is one sapient species on Almud: These slug things. Their actual species name is Akada, if that's important. Akada are descended from a social burrowing species that learned how to cultivate the many plants and molds that thrived in the dark, wet conditions of their tunnels. They are herbivorous, have a herd animal-like social structure, and currently have a level of technological advancement similar to ours. For more miscellaneous and mostly jokey info on them, please look here.

I will expand on all of this when/if I find the time and motivation.

[beesmygod]

old hunters DLC also highlights some themes of colonial violence and exploitation too, imo. what’s been done to the fishing village and kos ties the beast thing up with this idea that like, the impulse to Conquer and Dominate another leads directly to the Curse. It’s not enough to understand the old ones and the blood and all that, they needed to control it, to take it for themselves, and exploit it however they can. And now there’s wolfmans everywhere.

And this is in the core gameplay loop itself, we extract all the vials and blood echos and blood gems that we can in order to become strong enough to conquer more and more powerful prey. When we’re hit, we hit back harder and take back the life that was taken for us. Sure it’s ostensibly to Break the Curse and seek Paleblood and all that, but we know why we’re really doing it. Because it’s sick as hell, and feels awesome to best these monsters. The old hunters knew that too, and it turns them into giant horse creatures unable to do anything besides violence. That thirst for violence and power makes hunters turn into beasts, now only functioning as a cog in a perpetual violence machine. They lose their humanity not through repeated death like in Dark Souls, but through taking life. It turns the characters into monsters, and the players into wiki editors and lore theorists (aka monsters) bc we also can’t let go of the feeling Bloodborne gives us.

Tl;dr: Bloodborne is like if Spec Ops had any subtlety or desire to leave itself up to interpretation (probably helped by the fact that very little of what I’m talking about is likely intentional and I’m just insane)

OKAY im back from my appointment and finished my little treat. anon ("anon" @chicknparm who should get credit for these good thoughts) i could not agree more. i mentioned this in a previous post but finding a strand of commentary about the evils of colonialism made me worried i was becoming dangerously online, but it's a relief to see someone else mention this idea. i think you are absolutely right that one of the overt messages in bloodborne is that spilling blood for your own benefit leads to ruin. its actually kind of shocking how, in spite of the combat being the draw to these games, the message of most fromsoft games is a message of anti-violence. like, how many times do we end up fighting something that, in hindsight, needed to be put out of its misery. oh. shit. thinking about it, our player character is explicitly an outsider. the role of hunter of hunter is filled by outsiders...

also lol you are so right about the wiki based insanity but i think that's the consequences of insight poisoning. literally every once in a while while trying to edit this stupid bloodborne doc i think to myself "oooeergg too many eyes" and take a break for a few days

anyway, turning this back around to the colonialism theme, hear us out ok: watching/reading the sekiro lore videos/posts by shetani of shetani's lair helped introduce a lot of esoteric buddhist and shinto concepts that were totally novel and unknown to be as a baka gaijin. now these ideas are impossible not to see in all of from's other works.

i did a few days of research on "shinshi" (mostly a lot of stuff that turned out to not be relevant, but interesting) after becoming aware of them and found they shared a lot of qualities with the augurs (or "phantasms", invertebrates that act as intermediaries to the great ones) of bloodborne. realizing this, i thought about the great ones not in the context of a christian god, as the MODERN yharnam does, but as kami. kami are numerous, everywhere, hidden, and are thought of as actively controlling or influencing the terrestrial world. the re-translation reveals that the "great pthumeru chalice" had some nuance lost in translation: "祀る - Means to enshrine or worship, but has connotations of doing it to appease spirits so they may reach nirvana or Buddhahood and avoid becoming evil"; this is simply translated to "deify" which is technically correct but the original feels like it's much more pointed about finally revealing to the player that the "gods" as we've been lead to believe them to be are not what they seem.

the healing church, a product of georgian to victorian era western beliefs, razed pthumeru, loran, isz, and the fishing village (and probably yahar'gul too) in the quest to become like their newly discovered gods. the framework by which they related to pthumerian culture was completely wrong and misunderstood the nature of "gods" as all knowing or all powerful and, thus, something aspirational. the reality was more that they are just another type of creature in the world with different limitations than a human. and they're still mortal.

[alphynix]

(I will probably do more with these pipe-necked weirdos at a later date.)

Transcript for the text on the image under the cut:

PAGE 1

Spectember 2020 #14 | nixillustration.com | alphynix.tumblr.com Concept suggested by: Jesse Sosa & anonymous

Land Sharks

(Selachipoda)

[Image: an early shark with a tapering eel-like body plan and four flipper-like fins. Its dorsal fin is ribbonlike, forming a continuous low fin along its back and tail. There's a long pointed spine on the back of its head.] Xenacanthus-like ancestral form

In a different version of the Late Devonian, sarcopterygians never made their way onto land – but instead at the dawn of the Carboniferous a lineage of early sharks took that evolutionary leap.

The xenacanthids were a group of small freshwater sharks with eel-like bodies and distinctive spines on the back of their heads. Some of them developed the ability to “walk” with their fins in a similar manner to modern epaulette sharks, and were able to survive brief crawls onto land to disperse to isolated bodies of water.

Soon this became a more mudskipper-like lifestyle, spending more time on land with stronger jointed fins. Their gill slits became enclosed in an inflatable “balloon” of skin with a single opening at the back, with the gills themselves stiffened against collapsing and able to absorb oxygen from the air as long as they were occasionally re-moistened with gulps of water – the start of something convergent to lungs. The head-spine shifted from a defensive function to a display structure, mobile enough to be raised and lowered to flash brightly-colored fins at each other.

Some descendants of these early land sharks went on to become the caecilian-like SNAPWYRMS, burrowing limbless creatures specialized to hunt small soil invertebrates – but others developed along a more tetrapod-like path.

Already using internal fertilization and giving live birth to fully-developed young, SHARKAPODS weren’t reproductively tied to the water like early tetrapods were in our timeline. Their neck-lungs became larger and more sophisticated, able to function in the increasingly drying climate of the Late Carboniferous. Now housed in rigid bulbous horn-like structures, their breathing used a unidirectional airflow system, pumping air in from the spiracles behind their eyes and exhaling it from the vents at the back.

While superficially lizard-like in shape, their leg joints didn’t bend in quite the same way, giving them a somewhat awkward gait resembling that of a tortoise.

But their cartilaginous skeletons couldn’t support much weight on land, and so they weren’t able to grow particularly large at first, generally remaining similarly-sized to their ancestors at only about 1m long (3’3”). The most successful Paleozoic lineage of sharkapods, the SHELLSHARKS, solved this problem by instead developing an exoskeleton-like carapace from fused dermal denticles, forming stronger stiffer supports for their bodies and allowing them to grow several times bigger.

[Image: a descendant of the eel-like shark. It's a mudskipper-like or amphibian-like animal, with four proto-legs, bulging gill pouches, and a colorful display fin supported by the spine on its head.] The transitional stem-sharkapod Vexillispinus ambulopterygius

PAGE 2

[Image: a descendant of the mudskipper-like shark, a worm-like animal with a long limbless body. A close-up view shows it head, with tiny vestigial eyes and its toothy jaws extended out like a goblin shark.] Snapwyrms like Harpavermis gaphilus had long snake-like bodies and only vestigial eyes, detecting subterranean invertebrates with electroreceptors in their snouts. Their gills were reduced and most of their respiration took place through their moist naked skin. Extending jaws with a slingshot-like motion allowed snapwyrms to rapidly snag their prey.

[Image: an armored sharkapod, a vaguely lizard-shaped animal covered in in armadillo-like carapace, with its limbs supported by an exoskeleton and serrated edges to its stumpy "feet". Its head is still shark-like, and it has a small colorful "flag" fin on its head and bulbous "lunghorns" on the sides of its neck.] Edaphoselachus sosai, a basal shellshark Large pointed denticles on the ends of shellsharks' limbs act like claws for traction.

Early shellsharks were still small carnivores or insectivores, and were not apex predators. Although their extensive carapaces proved useful to bear more weight and grow larger, the solid structure initially evolved as protection against the main predators in their ecosystems – huge arthropods such as griffinflies.

Later members of the group began to experiment with omnivorous and herbivorous niches, and by the Permian had become the largest terrestrial vertebrates of the Paleozoic. One of the very biggest species was Testudosquama avignatha, a 3m long (9'10") herbivore with a voluminous plant-fermenting digestive system.

Sharkapods' nostrils were blind holes and weren't involved in breathing at all, instead using a bellows-like mechanism to actively pull in air for their sense of smell. In some species their snouts became quite bulbous, housing increasingly complex and sensitive nasal systems.

While both their lunghorns and nasal chambers were sometimes used to produce loud resonating sounds, most Paleozoic sharkapods' hearing was poor, only able to hear low-frequency sounds in air and detecting them as much through ground-based vibration as with their under-developed internal ears. Visual communication was still prevalent, with the ancestral mobile flag-fins being retained on most species.

Extendable jaws remained a characteristic feature of sharkapods, swinging forwards to grab at food and then pulling it back into their mouths – although they were unable to chew and each bite had to be swallowed whole. Some of the herbivorous forms even fused their teeth into hard beaks to snip up tough vegetation.

[Image: a large armored shellshark with a vaguely tortoise-like body plan and a vivid black-and-orange color scheme. It has a bulbous snout, large lunghorns, a small flag-fin and a spiny tail. A close-up view of its head shows its beaked jaws extending.] The giant shellshark Testudosquama avignatha

[fangsandforests]

Is a Crested Gecko the Right Pet for You?

A while back I did a post like this for tarantulas, where I went over some of the pros and cons of keeping tarantulas as pets. This time, the spotlight is on crested geckos. (I’ll do one for leopard geckos and cave geckos at a later date.) 

If you’ve ever seen these cute little guys sleeping on a fake plant in a pet store and wondered what it’s like to have one as a pet, I can honestly say they are one of the absolute best pet reptiles you can get. But in my usual fashion, I’m going to deliver the bad news first.

They are messy

If you’re used to something like a leopard gecko, which pretty much chooses one spot to go to the bathroom and makes cleaning super easy for you, then you might not like having a crested gecko. 

Crested geckos are great candidates for bioactive setups, and it has a lot to do with how much they “food” they provide for the cleanup crew (springtails, isopods, etc.). But even with a bioactive enclosure, you’ll need to regularly clean the tank walls and water dishes. 

That’s because when they poop, it’s typically down the sides of the walls, in a water dish, on the leaves of plants, or other places that are sure to leave an ugly blemish on your lovely setup. And that’s not all. Don’t be surprised if your gecko religiously steps in its food and tracks it all over the walls and decor. 

But wait, it gets better. . . . If you love handling your reptiles, you’ll be delighted to know that crested geckos are notorious for pooping on your hand when you first pick them up. (Your hand is warm, and that warmth always seems to prompt them to clear out their bowels.)

But, hey, if you can’t deal with poop and food messes and don’t know the procedures for preventing Salmonella, I hear some invertebrates make great pets. :)

They jump

This is another one for those of you who want a pet that’s easy to handle. While crested geckos are some of the most docile reptiles, they can (and will) jump. They’re arboreal creatures, and that’s just what they do. So the hand-walking technique is really more of a hand-jumping technique with these guys. 

Considering how calm these guys tend to be as adults, I don’t necessarily consider the jumping a big con here. Once your get used to their body language, you can tell when a crested gecko is about to take a leap of faith. And you have a split second to make sure they’re going to land on your hand and not the floor, wall, or furniture. 

However, if you’re used to terrestrial animals, the jumping thing may be outside your comfort zone. 

They’re clumsy 

While we’re on the subject of jumping, let me just say that a crested gecko jump isn’t a very graceful one. They don’t always hit their mark, and even when they do, it looks quite comical. 

They aren’t exactly the best hunters either, even when you’re tong-feeding them or putting insects in a bowl. They might miss a few times before they grab the grub. I’ve had a few instances where my geckos have just dropped food right after catching it. Then they have this moment of wondering why they’re no longer eating anything. 

So if you’re going to feed your crested gecko insects (which I recommend you do at least once every one or two weeks), do not just unleash them into the enclosure. They may never find them, especially if it’s something like dubia roaches, which excel at hiding. They also may accidentally ingest loose substrate while trying to catch them. So always feed by hand/tongs or use an escape-proof feeding dish. (My geckos have learned to associate the feeding dish with insect feedings and will eagerly come to the door when they see me holding it.) 

Let’s just say it’s a good thing these guys aren’t pure insectivores or I’m not sure they’d make it out in the world! 

So now that I’ve covered the negatives, we’ll move into what makes these guys excellent pets. 

They’re not terribly expensive to setup

The standard enclosure size for an adult crested gecko is 12x12x18, with 18 inches being the height. (I prefer to upgrade adults, especially females, to an 18x18x24.) Babies do best in small/medium Kritter Keepers. So this isn’t an animal that’s going to take up a lot of space. (Unless, of course, you fall in love with them and get more than one. That can add up!) 

And unless you’re going the bioactive route, it shouldn’t be too pricey to complete the enclosure either. I always suggest going beyond the basics if you can, though, and definitely do not pick up one of those “crested gecko kits”. Those kits often include things that are unsuitable for crested geckos, or are missing things you should have. 

Since I already have a crested gecko setup guide on this site, which I update frequently, I won’t go into more detail on that here. But, essentially, the enclosure itself is probably going to be the most expensive part of the setup. 

No light or heat needed

This is going to depend on where you live and how hot/cold your room temperatures are, but crested geckos generally don’t need supplemental heat. An ideal temperature is around 75, so if you’re regularly dipping into the 60s, you might want to add some form of heat. 

If you do choose to add heat, make sure it’s connected to a thermostat! Crested geckos can overheat and dehydrate very quickly, so do not let your temperatures get too hot (80+) for lengthy periods of time. And be sure to mist down the enclosure regularly to make up for the drying effect of the heater. 

And because crested geckos are nocturnal, many keepers choose not to supply them with UV lighting. Most crested gecko diets include D3, which is an important vitamin otherwise supplied by UV lights. So they should be getting everything they need from their food. 

However, I’m an advocate for UV-B, and I find that a lot of nocturnal animals will actually use it when it’s available. The key is to give them options: places to hide completely from the UV and places to bask should they choose to do so. 

I use Arcadia’s Shadedweller lighting for all my geckos. However, since the food for my crested geckos has D3 in it, I don’t want to cause them to overdose. So I only leave the light on for a few hours in the morning. I do plan to find a diet without D3 added so that I can give them more light. 

If you’re curious about UV light and its benefits for different types of reptiles, Arcadia has a great resource. 

(Above photo is Trico sleeping. Fun fact: Crested geckos don’t close their eyelids when they sleep. Instead, they have a transparent scale called a spectacle that protects the eye. You can tell when they’re sleeping, because their eyes sink in a bit. Their color will also be less vibrant, or “fired down.”)

They’re some of the most docile reptiles out there

There are some crazy cresties out there, don’t get me wrong. But, for the most part, they are calm yet active creatures. Behavior varies between individuals, so you’ll want to spend some time with a few different geckos before you find the personality type you want. 

For example, my girl Wander is super relaxed yet curious. She always wants to see what I’m doing, but not because she’s afraid of me. She has willingly jumped into my hand on a few occasions, and she’ll mostly just sit in my hand rather than jumping around. Trico, on the other hand, is very skittish. I don’t know if this was shaped by her previous owner, but she will run and hide if she thinks I might be reaching in to pick her up. She’s gotten better with time, but she’s still wary of me. 

The key to a calm gecko is to provide plenty of hiding places. For my geckos, I’ve added plenty of silk plants they can hide in. They also have cork bark tubes and some of these elevated hides. This helps them feel safe during the day while they’re sleeping. Generally, these geckos will choose a favorite place to sleep and come back to it day after day. 

And that brings me to another point. I recommend not bothering your geckos during the day, or at least not doing it regularly. If you prefer to clean during the day, find out where they’re sleeping and quietly clean around them. My geckos are typically in their elevated hides during the day, so I can clean without them ever knowing I was there. 

The best time to handle them is during the evening hours. (Mine generally start waking up around 7 or 8 PM.) Yes, they’ll have more energy then, so they might keep you on your toes. But these are normal waking hours for them, and you want them to feel comfortable sleeping during the day. If they’re stressed, they might not get the sleep they need.

If you put the time, money, and effort into caring for them properly, crested geckos are some of the best pet reptiles out there, especially for beginners. But this is probably not a good pet for you if you’re looking for an animal that will just “chill” with you. A bearded dragon, ball python, or leopard gecko may be a better choice if that’s what you’re looking for! 

[inaturalist]

Feather Stars and the Wonderful Weirdness of Marine Invertebrates - Observation of the Week, 6/8/19

Our Observation of the Week is this feather star, seen in Indonesia by maridom!

“When I began diving some 25 years ago, I marveled at the beauty of sea life and was astonished to discover so many colors and forms, so many animals never seen on land,” says Maridom. “Then I became interested to learn more about the ecosystem and biology.”

And while she says most new divers think mainly about seeing fish, she likes to emphasize the beauty and diversity of marine invertebrates in when teaches marine biology courses. “I mostly am interested in phyla which seem weird to us terrestrial beings, such as Cnidaria and Echinodermata,” she says. “And during my last trip to The Philippines, I jokingly became known as ‘Queen of Ascidiacea’!

As soon as I see something beautiful under the sea, I point my camera to it and sometimes I come away with a successful photo! The photo of this Comatula this one of those: the colors are nicely contrasted and the shape of its arms are so delicately drawn.”

While sea stars and sea urchins are more familiar members of the Phylum Echinodermata, feather stars like the one Maridom photographed belong to a totally different subphylum called Crinozoa, which are also called sea lilies. They often have ten or more arms surrounding the mouth, and capture planktonic organisms with tube feet on the arms, moving the food down the arm in a blob of mucus.

Maridom (above, in Egypt) has been taking photographs on her dives for the last decade, and she tells me “it changed my way of diving and looking at living beings, even the small and weird ones, and I could not do without it now. Then, at home, trying to identify the species in my photographs brings back happy memories of the trip. I like to call things by their name while diving, as if I was part of their world.”

She discovered iNaturalist about three months ago, and has been uploading photos from her archive. “Each morning when I open my computer, the first thing I do is see if my unidentified strange things have now received an ID. Many thanks to all identifiers!

I love the way iNaturalist works, where all over the world, people keep connected and give from their personal time to help identify observations from others. I think, probably, when I was in The Philippines  last month, it changed my way of taking pictures and looking at unknown things.”

- by Tony Iwane. Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and flow.

- Feather stars can swim and crawl, both of which look really cool and strange.

[dragonthunders01]

The terraformed worlds are probably the best places to challenge the adaptive capacities of any organisms because introduce unique conditions that could not exist in a common planet with a complex ecosystem. One of the biggest advantages is that being inhabited by a small group of species; they can expand without problems into niches in their original environments never could have taken. For elephants, this is a promising outlook for his lineage and all its possible descendants. In a terraformed planet very similar to Earth in size and climate, a very interesting ecological experiment with elephants started with the detail that is the only tetrapod inhabitant. They with a diverse set of invertebrates and a considerable amount of fish groups were abandoned to its path, and being study to look its adaptive capacities in an environment free of others animal groups, this to see their evolving abilities to such and unique conditions.

About 25 million years after colonization, elephants simply expanded across the globe and adopted different ecological niches. Many grew smaller to sizes of cows and deer, other became semiaquatic creatures similar to hippos with short legs and long bodies, and some even develop gigantic sizes, big as its extinct earth relatives. Something that began to be felt and outstand from these groups was a change in their diet from plants to other types of materials, being insectivorous or omnivorous, but these diets were not prominent enough to become carnivores. Those who took the first big leap to become specialized carnivores were a group of unique swamps dwellers that initially began to catch the small and numerous fish that were available to supplement its diet, to become piscivores. About 55 to 60 million years after the colonization of the planet, it has been enormous progress, a new mammalian lineage appeared that are entirely carnivorous, the first tetrapod predators on the planet, most descendants of the swamp piscivores, these are the Sarcoloxids.

The Sarcoloxids (Sarcoloxidae) are a weird family of proboscideans evolved from specialized forms in fisheries and exploited the different varieties of niches available, being the apex predators of most of the ecosystems. The most outstanding features is its modified trunk, which is composed by a group of specialized keratinous structures that depending on the species, they vary in shape and size. The most primitive species have a very gracile morphology compared to their herbivorous relatives, being slender, long-legged animals with compact bodies.

a) Fisherphant (Genoichtyelephas)

This is the basal form and the oldest genus of the Sarcoloxids. It have a maximum height of 2 meters, are specialized piscivores that hunt similarly to herons (more information up in the images). Like its ancestors, these are still quite social, gathering in small groups of several individuals between territories of several kilometers, mainly communicate with infrasound.

b) Terror elephant (Phoboloxida) This is one of the first land carnivores, being gracile and fast runners, has modified the shape of the trunk scutes from short and pointed to large and rounded. This is due to the method of attack that the terror elephant use to catch any prey, beating them with its big trunk in the possible key points to knock it down. In some cases it can catch its victims with the trunk itself and try to impale or make serious lacerations with the tusks.

c) Baleenorhinchid This is maybe one of the most unusual terrestrial forms, not only for the diet but for how it gets the food. Unlike all other species, these ones are specialized filter feeders that have atrophied the keratin scutes to the point of losing them. It feed mainly the little crustaceans, but for this, it does not use a specialized jaw as many filter feeders, instead, it used the trunk, able to keep a large volume of water, keep reaching between 15 to 25 gallons; inside have different nasal hairs which are modified to capture the small animals. After take out the water, it introduces the long tongue into the trunk to take all the small crustaceans (I know, disgusting, but food is food)

d) Spinoloxodon This is the biggest terrestrial predator of its time, is a monstrous animal which preys giant fishes that reach lengths of 2 to 4 meters. Unlike the graceful fishers, this has a more specialized body for a semi-aquatic life with an elongated body, short and stout legs. Strangely the huge ears remained, and these modified to the point to have the function of a sail.

Orden Terapterida

Looking for the other side of thig clade, the lineages that adapted to life in water in the last 15 million years are as far the most derived clade of this group, the fully aquatic forms know as Terapterids have come to evolve in a convergent way to Pliosaurs, some even atrophied their trunks to have instead a jaw with a different shapes of teeth. Many of these develop other senses apart to perceive their environment, including some echolocation and electroreception.

e) Lipociclonus This marine species still have a developed trunk, which is specialized to capture huge crustaceans or fishes. It belongs to the most primitive and basic groups, which have become extinct by competition. These are not great swimmers, are mainly ambush predators that are always near the seabed to be unnoticed.

f) Deinofronts This species is one of many curious swimmers characterized by the development of strange and quite elaborate tusks which have different functions depending on the niche they occupy; in this case, the Deinofronts have developed two long lower incisors, which used both for hunting benthonic animals like molluscs and to fight with other animals. The teeth of this species are rounded and short, specialized in crushing the hard shells.

g) Saurosthanus The nightmare of the oceans, has become the first and fiercest marine carnivores of this planet of elephant, with around 10 meters long, and with jaw as long as that of a human, it can tears apart a prey altogether with its long, pointed teeth. It is able to attack prey as big as them, using speed to attack in a precise manner; it is capable of speeds up to 60 km/h.

[dramallamadingdang]

Question Meme: The Run-on Sentence Edition

Hi! I hurt myself again yesterday. No, not in an "self-harm" kind of way but more in the usual (for me) "mountain-climbing incident" sort of way (I hate scree; I was so close to that summit) and got lots of deep bruises and lacerations for my troubles and was in a world of hurt by the time I saw a doctor, and I cracked something that isn't supposed to be cracked and it all hurts enough that I got prescribed narcotics again for a week and I really, really hate narcotics but I really, really like to be able to breathe without feeling like my lungs are being ripped to shreds, so...narcotics it is. 

It might make the answers to this latest iteration of Ye Olde Question Meme rather entertaining, though. Maybe. Maybe just incoherent. Well, whatever, @nekosayuri tagged me, so it's her fault, and I'm bored and my sleep schedule's all outta whack and I haven't even turned on my Simming computer in like three days and am posting this from a non-Simming laptop, so I have nothing else to post and....yeah. So, I'm like high as a kite right now. I mean, it's not totally unusual because I live in Colorado and weed's legal here, but narcotics is a totally different and much less coherent high for me. So, like, fair warning.

I'm not tagging anyone, though. I've no idea who's done this lately...

Name: Katrina

Zodiac Sign: I don't know why I answer this because astrology is a huge crock of BS, but everyone always wants to know so...Taurus. Barely. (Birthday is April 23.)

Height: Still ~6'0"/~182cm. Yay, not shrinking yet!

Languages Spoken: Fluently? At this point, only English. I used to be pretty fluent in Italian and German, but, you know, the saying "use it or lose it" applies, and since I've not had occasion to use those languages much....Well, there we are. I could speak quite a bit of Russian at one time because I spent a chunk of years there, in the late 80s when it was the Soviet Union and shortly thereafter when things were sorta nuts there. But, again, I have lost much of what I once knew. And there are smatterings of other languages that I can speak mostly-useless bits of. I can ask where the restroom is in many languages because I've traveled a lot. :) I do speak fluent bullshit, though...

Nationality: 'Murican. And since 'Muricans are really, really into their "ancestry" for some bizarre-o reason because ‘Murican apparently isn’t good enough...Like, 95% dirty Welsh peasantry (plus some Irish and Scottish thrown in for flavor) on the paternal side and on the maternal side....Well, one of my great-grandfathers was a first cousin of the English Queen Victoria. So basically, my maternal ancestry is the very confused inbred multinational mutt that is European Aristocracy. God only knows what’s in their genes, though my particular bit of it has lots o’ German. 

Favorite Fruit: Okra. It is a fruit. Look it up. Then again, much of what people call "vegetables" is, in fact, fruits, so there's that.

Favorite Scent: I've never really thought about this except when this was a question on a previous iteration of this meme that I did, and I don't remember what answer I came up with then. So I'm just gonna say...Vanilla-scented candles. Not cheap ones that just smell sickly-sweet sort-of-vanilla-y, but these ones that I buy online that smell...well...NOT sickly-sweet and like how vanilla really smells. Alternatively...snickerdoodles when they're baking. Hubby is baking me some snickerdoodles as I speak. Type. Whatever. The house smells really good. Baking bread is good, too. Before the snickerdoodles, hubby was baking the twice-weekly loaf of sourdough.

Favorite Color: Green. And/or orange. I go back and forth about which is really my favorite.

Favorite Animal: Elephants. Or hyenas. Or cats of all shapes/sizes. Or alpacas. Or llamas. Or snakes. Or spiders of all kinds. Or dragonflies. Or...Um, yeah,  I'm pretty much a fan of all vertebrates and terrestrial invertebrates and some aquatic/oceanic invertebrates, too, so...take your pick.

Coffee, Tea, or Hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate all the way. I don't drink coffee because A) I think it tastes and smells disgusting, but even if that wasn't the case B) I can't have caffeine. Tea is OK. Hubby's way into herbal tea, grows/collects and dries herbs and makes his own blends and shit, and I'll drink it mostly to make him happy, but I'm not into it. I do like hot chocolate, though it's hard to find premade mixes that don’t have powdered milk in them (because I’m vegan), so I generally have to make it from scratch, so to speak, and when I do I use cashew milk as the base and I usually add either peppermint or vanilla extract for zing.

Favorite Fictional Character: Can't really pick a fave. So, have a list, probably but perhaps not really in preference order. Spock from Star Trek, who's been a fave of mine since I was 3 and was watching the original Trek in its initial run, and I announced I'd marry Spock one day. Rodney McKay from Stargate: Atlantis and Vala Mal Doran from Stargate SG-1. (Basically, if you cut up those two and glue various bits of their characters together -- and not necessarily their good bits -- you have...me. So I relate really well to both of them, so I like 'em.) Also Jack O'Neill from Stargate SG-1, but he's mostly for reasons of estrogen. (Especially if you stick 'im in dress blues. HUBBA!) Garak from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine because Cardassians Are Love. Jayne from Firefly, also for reasons of estrogen. Big, hairy, dark hair, blue eyes, solid but not too muscle-y...Yep, that's how I likes my men. And Zoe from Firefly, 'cuz OMG she's how I likes my women. HUBBA!

Dream Trip: *sigh* Still Antarctica. It's the only continent I've not been to, and I will get there before I croak, but...not yet.

When was your blog created? IIRC, it was, like, the middle of December 2013. So, I'll have had this thing 5 years soon.

Last Movie You’ve Seen: I couldn't sleep one day like a week ago, so I put on Miss Congeniality, which is one of my favorite movies because Michael Caine. When I can't sleep, I'll usually put on a really familiar movie or TV show and it lulls me to sleep, but it didn't work that time. :(

Song You’ve Had on Repeat: Englishman in New York, by Sting. I have no idea why, but it's been on repeat in my head, though I haven't actually played it lately or anything.

Favorite Candy: Not much of a sweets kind of person. I prefer salty-crunchy. I can eat a whole big bag of crisps (Like, the British ones, which are way better than American potato chips, but American ones will do) easily, but I can't even get through a whole candy bar because, ew, too sweet. That said, I do like Flake bars, but I have to go up to Canada to get 'em. Or else buy 'em online but then usually by the time I get them they're kinda smashed. Or melted. Or both. Better to go up to Canada. Where they have real chocolate and not this sickly-sweet Hershey's crap. *shudder*

Favorite Holiday: When in Canada, Canada Day is quite fun. It's like July 4th only not so...well...chest-beatingly, yahoo-y, "patriotic" 'Murican. (I really, really dislike nationalism and "patriotism" in general but especially the obnoxious 'Murican brand of it.) When in the UK, I have a fondness for Guy Fawkes Night. I guess I like fire and fireworks and things that go boom and shit, only without the "YAY AMERICA!" yelling of America's own "things that go boom" holiday. Other than that...Can't really say I'm into 'em much. They're not even "days off from work" since...Well, I've never had a "real job," and I'm pretty much retired from my unreal job these days.

Last Book You’ve Read: *cough* Does a really long and smutty and slashy Stargate: Atlantis fanfic count? I'm sad to say that, though I was a voracious reader of books when I was younger, I'm really not so much these days. Haven't been for the last decade or so, really. Not of actual books, at least. I do subscribe to and read a number of academic journals, some having to do with science and medicine and some having to do with history, but they're not books. 

Favorite TV Show: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, mostly because it has Cardassians, who are all uniformly awesome, plus all the gritty political and religious goodness and stuff. Except that its last season kinda sucked and did totally WTF things with my second-favorite Cardassian. Close runner-up would be Stargate: Atlantis. Except that its last kinda season sucked, too, and did totally WTF things with McKay, so hmmm. Stargate SG-1 is good, too, except that half its team annoys the piss outta me...although this is largely made up for by the hotness that is Jack O'Neill so there's that. I like Firefly a lot but it was so short-lived that it's hard to really be a favorite because I can watch the whole thing, including the movie, in less than a day. (And believe me. I have.) I like the other Star Treks, too, especially if I'm in the mood for the "goofy soap opera in space" that is Voyager. TNG's shiny-happy Roddenberryness kinda bores the piss outta me, though it does have a few really good episodes, and the original show...Hmmm...Well, I both love and hate it. I love Spock, as I said, and I also love McCoy and all of its secondary characters. The problem is that I hate Kirk. Like, viscerally hate him. Like, I want to punch his face in every time it's on-screen. If he'd just, y'know, been eaten by a salt vampire and Spock and everyone else was OK and went off and had cool space adventures battling giant space-going amoebas and shit, I'd be totally happy and that's what fanfic's for *cough*, but since Kirk doesn't get eaten by a salt vampire...well...

Who’d You Most Like to Have Lunch With? @holleyberry :) Dude, we should totally hook up (No, not THAT way!) when I'm in SoCal next. Which won't be soon if I have my way, but when I am there....

[engineeringecosystems]

Of Mussels and Men

I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why. -John Steinbeck

When you think of conservation what comes to mind?

Probably any one of the charismatic critters like polar bears, whales, sharks and sea turtles, the list goes on. These fellas are definitely worth saving not only because humans are to blame for their decline, but I'm afraid to tell you that (*whispers off to the side*) single-species conservation is not always the most beneficial to a community or ecosystem. A professor of mine likes use the term “bauble conservation” because as humans we have a tendency to conserve iconic species that are special to us in someway, like baubles on a Christmas tree; but without the tree...oi, I think you know where this is going.

The Yale School of the Environment published an article discussing the need for and efficacy of the conservation of umbrella species, like the sage grouse of the American West (photographed above by Dave Showalter). *Holding back my laughter* I recommend watching “the dance of the sage grouse” on YouTube because I can’t in good conscience link it here. To highlight the article, though,

it’s the idea routinely advocated by conservationists that establishing and managing protected areas for the benefit of one surrogate species — from gorillas to grizzly bears — will also indirectly benefit a host of other, less charismatic species sharing the same habitat. 

and that, 

the species that stand out to human eyes don’t always turn out to be the best umbrella species for their habitat.

I’m not claiming that the above mentioned ‘charismatic critters’ were intended as umbrella species. Nor are umbrella species the cure-all to conservation. As mentioned in the Yale article, the umbrella species-conservation approach can sometimes leave holes in terms of ecosystem protection by unintentionally excluding a particular group of organisms. Nonetheless, I believe that the umbrella approach to conservation should always be considered, especially when drafting governmental legislation. It isn't just the polar bears and whales that need our help - it’s the trees and the bees and all manner of creepy crawly things on this planet. 

And it’s the shellfish. 

Before we dive in to mussel conservation, let’s have a quick brief about shellfish. 

Mussel is a common name for members of several families of bivalve molluscs. 

Molluscs make up the second-largest phylum of the Kingdom Animalia. This phylum consists of invertebrate animals (they ain't got no spine) including snails and slugs, cephalopods (squids, octopuses, and cuttlefish) and bivalves.

Bivalves are molluscs enclosed by two hinged shells (pictured below). While all bivalves are shellfish not all shellfish are bivalves - just know that for this blog I will use them interchangeably. 

Mussel is frequently used to refer to marine bivalves in the family Mytilidae. 

I will be referring to various types of mussels by their scientific names next week. For example, Mytilus edulis is the scientific name for the common blue mussel. 

Using binomial nomenclature (the use of two terms, usually in Latin, to denote the genus and species of an organism) is good practice for identification as (1) common names can be used for a variety of species (even from different genera!) and (2) the same species can have different colloquial names. I will continue to refer to scientific names throughout this blog, so keep track of them - we’ll play bivalve bingo later! 

*Classifying organisms can get a bit confusing. You may be able to list some examples of species but there are also families and classes and other levels of classification which can group seemingly unrelated organisms together. Don’t get too wrapped up in the terminology right now, we will go over it in detail next week.

Like oysters, mussels are incredibly effective at filtering water (check out the video below). Although filtration rate can vary depending on factors like mussel size and water quality, estimates suggest that in good conditions a single adult mussel can filter upwards of 50 liters of water a day! This powerful filtration system helps keep estuaries and coasts healthy by filtering out suspended particles (like plankton) and trapping nutrients from terrestrial runoff, inlcuding chemical contaminants. Together they can transform a muddy bay into a thriving community, simply by being there. Mussels also act as ecosystem engineers by creating reefs that serve as nurseries for fish larvae, refuge for juvenile fish, invertebrates and other creepy crawlies, and increase the presence of additional bivalves and fish. These attributes make them an excellent example of an umbrella species (photographed below by donieve). 

If you just learned something new about mussels - great! 

But, we (yes even the scientists) have much much more to learn about these splendid shellfish. Next week we will explore the diversity of mussels around the world (even in the harshest spots in the ocean!). Because we still have so much to learn about mussels (wishin’ we had done that global review earlier, haha) we will also be discussing the history, cultivation, destruction and restoration of other shellfish reefs over the next few weeks (we’re going to visit old mate, Ostrea angasi).

[the-awkward-turt]

what's your opinion on handling tarantulas?

Oh man, you’re gonna make me open this can of worms?

It depends.

For Old World species (or Psalmopoeus or Tapinauchenius species) the answer is no, no, no, absolutely not, why would you even want to do that? That’s a great way to needlessly land yourself in a lot of pain (or the hospital) and the hobby in a lot of legal trouble. For quick, flighty, jumping-prone species (probably most arboreals) the answer is also mostly no, simply because you could so easily drop or lose your tarantula.

If you want to even consider handling your tarantula get a species that is good for handling (a slow, calm, terrestrial New World species). Even then you should take precautions, such as carefully observing the tarantula’s mood, gradually getting it used to handling/human contact, not handling too often, and only holding it over a solid surface.

Now, there are people that think even this kind of handling is needlessly risky and without benefits. Those people are absolutely welcome to their opinion (I think this is a decision each keeper must make for themselves), but I would like to address some misinformation that often gets thrown around in this debate.

1) “Tarantulas cannot learn or become accustomed to handling”

As someone with a degree in both psychology and biology this is simply not true. Pretty much any organism that is capable of registering pleasant/unpleasant stimuli and remembering it can learn. There are even studies suggesting that plants can remember and become desensitized to recurring stimuli. Scientists repeated the famous “Pavlov’s dog” experiment with cockroaches and the results were pretty much identical. Although they have very different nervous systems from ours invertebrates can absolutely learn.

Firing up the body’s flight/flight systems takes a lot of energy so if something frightening occurs repeatedly without anything actually bad happening it is in an organism’s best interest to stop reacting fearfully to that stimulus (or at least to dampen the reaction).

When socializing future education tarantulas I’ve watched them go from standing on as few legs as possible the first time they walk on your hand (what I call “tiptoes”) because they don’t like the texture of human skin to crawling over a hand as if it were just another familiar part of their environment. Some tarantulas also seem to show a marked preference for familiar human hands over unfamiliar ones; it’s been proven that hissing roaches can recognize individual humans and will not hiss when someone familiar picks them up (I would love to see a study like this done with tarantulas). 

2) “A tarantula always perceives being picked up the same way it perceives being attacked/grabbed by a predator”

If you handle your tarantula correctly (using what I call the “be the ground” technique) then picking it up should not resemble a predator’s attack. There is no tarantula predator on earth that gently scoops the spider up from below. Spiders hate being breathed on and generally dislike being grabbed from above because those stimuli resemble something they would experience when being attacked by a predator (and so trigger their fight/flight alarm systems very strongly).

However scooping from below does not resemble a predator attack (assuming you’re not looming over the tarantula and breathing on them) and once they are in your hands most tarantulas will treat the hand as an inanimate surface not as a predator or even part of a larger animal. They don’t really have the senses or cognitive abilities to think “a giant animal is holding me”. More like “the ground moved and now I am standing on a weird new surface in a different place”.

The reality is that the handling of appropriate species is an enormously useful tool in educating people about tarantulas and dispelling fear. Can you educate people about tarantulas without handling them? Yes. But as someone whose full time job is to care for and educate people about arthropods I can tell you with 100% certainty that it does not have even close to the same effect.

Where I work we have dozens of beautiful, naturalistic enclosures displaying gorgeous rare tarantulas from all over the world. But the thing that gets people excited, wide-eyed, and asking questions is the highly-trained docent handling one of our well-socialized education tarantulas. There is something about seeing a person interact with the tarantula outside of a cage that makes it real for people. They ooh and aww and adults that were shrieking about how much they hate spiders while walking through the facility will say things like “I never realized how pretty they are up close” or “her feet look so dainty and gentle”.

So, while I respect every keeper’s right to decide what their comfort level and policies are when managing their own animals, I work at a facility where we handle some calm, well-socialized tarantulas and I (gently, occasionally, and with lots of precautions) handle one of mine. But it is certainly not something that people should do willy-nilly with any tarantula and without putting a lot of thought into doing it properly.

[starlit-scifi]

Chapter 11

First•Previous•Next

When you wake up, you almost wish you hadn't, you're so sore. Lori’s up already, and she stretches, groaning softly. You blink as she pulls up the shades, filling your tent with natural light, illuminating the outline of her body draped in her baggy pajamas.

Not that you’re really looking. Really.

You roll over and stretch, mindful of your sore muscles, and it feels like every one of your vertebrae cracks back into place. She looks over at you and chuckles.

“That sounds like it felt good,” she says, her voice husky from sleep. You feel your cheeks go pink and quickly rub your eyes in an attempt to hide it.

“It was okay… I’m really sore,” you admit.

“Same,” she replies, plopping down on her sleeping bag to sit beside you. Her hip pops as she crosses her legs, and she winces and readjusts herself. “Stupid real gravity… I definitely wasn't prepared for this part. But once we start moving around, it'll get better.”

“That requires moving, though,” you say with a pout. She rolls her eyes.

“You're reminding me of Manda too much right now.” She grins, mischief in her eyes, and grabs her pillow and smacks you gently with it. “Now get up, or I will drag you out of bed. Don't think I've never done it to her.”

“Okay, okay!” You laugh, wiggling out of range to go find your clothes.

You get dressed, distinctly aware that she's doing the same just a few feet away. But it's normal, or at least it's going to have to be if you want to survive this without something stupid happening.

And nothing stupid is going to happen, you tell yourself firmly, pulling your ponytail a bit tighter before you twist it up into as much of a bun as you can get it in with this humidity.

“Almost ready?” She asks, looking over at you as she double checks the closures on her backpack.

“Yeah, just need my shoes.” You fumble with the laces for long enough that you start to feel self-conscious, and when you finally look up, she's smiling at you.

“Sorry,” you mumble.

“It's fine. No rush. We're taking things at your pace today anyway.”

“Y-yeah.”

You step out into the bright jungle morning, colorful foliage and chattering creatures all around, the sweet scent of flowers and the hum of life dancing in the air.

The thickly, horribly humid air.

You're already drenched in sweat when you make it to your first sampling site about ten minutes later. Lori's definitely suffering too; she gulps down water as you set your bag on a convenient rock and get your tools out. She undoes her jacket and sighs in relief.

“Okay,” you say as you look away and try to pull yourself together. “Here we're collecting small invertebrates, and sampling soil microbes for culturing and sequencing. Bug trap or digging?”

“Digging, definitely digging.” She takes the small digging tool when you hand it to her, and you run over how to use it again: Clear the area of debris, press the tip to the soil, and push the button. Eject the sample into a tube, close the tube, move somewhere else and repeat. She watches intently as you demonstrate, and you send her off to do her thing as you do yours.

You've just set up your third trap when she shrieks. You turn to see her surrounded by a cloud of flying insects. Thinking fast, you open your water bottle and slosh the contents at the swarm. “Run!” You shout, heading back the way you think your campsite is. Lori stumbles after you, and as soon as you're sure the insects didn't follow, you stop. She leans heavily against a tree, panting.

“Did they bite you?” You don't see any obvious marks or swelling, but you can’t be too sure.

“No, I don't think so? They were everywhere though, I…” Her eyes widen in horror. “Something's in my shirt--” She struggles her way out of her jacket and her undershirt, and you run to help her as she tries to swat at the insect that's crawling around her mid-back. You manage to catch it in your cupped hands, and it tickles you as it scuttles around. You drop it on the ground and watch as it scurries away into the undergrowth.

“It looked like some kind of beetle… you probably just disturbed a nest.”

She shudders. “Well they can keep their nest, and stay far, far away from me.” She hugs her arms to her chest, and a moment later you realize you're staring at her, so you pick up her jacket instead and try to shake the dust off. There's another bug crawling on it, and you casually pick it off rather than mention it to her. You wait until she's done wrestling her shirt back on before handing the jacket over.

"Thanks."

"No problem. Ready to head back?"

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Yeah."

"Sorry for being such a baby about bugs," she says quietly after a minute.

"Don't be. We're all scared of things. And it pays to be cautious-- even though in theory nothing on this planet can really hurt us, it's better to be careful anyway."

"I know, I know. I was actually awake for that lecture," she adds with a chuckle.

"Yeah, gotta love paradise planets."

She smiles, then yelps and ducks as another beetle flies past her head. "Why does paradise have to involve so many bugs?"

You shrug. "The beetle-like shape is generally an advantageous bauplan in terrestrial environments. Earth had massive diversity in insects, especially beetles, before the ecosystem started to collapse. In fact, if any macroscopic animals survived, it's probably the insects."

"That's impressive."

"They're pretty resilient."

She smirks. "That's probably why the Denilian nickname for us is their equivalent of 'insect', right?"

You laugh. "Let's keep telling ourselves that."

By the time evening comes, you're both exhausted, dirty, and beyond sore. You eat in silence and clean yourselves up the best you can before retreating to the tent. You change into pajamas, but she just undresses and flops down on her sleeping bag with a tired groan.

“What's up?” you ask, settling down beside her.

“I'm just… gross. We've done field training before, just never somewhere so sweaty.”

“The closest I've been to being in this kind of climate was a sauna at a spa resort. It was on a planet where you couldn’t breathe the air outside, but you could see the rainforest through the window…”

She laughs. “That is a completely foreign concept to me.”

“Well, you see,” you say in your absolute snobbiest voice, “A window is a piece of transparent material integrated into the structure of--” You dodge the balled-up sock she throws at you, and then the other one, laughing the whole time. She just shakes her head, still smiling.

“I mean the whole spa resort thing. Was that really normal for you growing up?”

You shrug. “My parents travel a lot, and most colonial governments try to treat them pretty well. As soon as I was old enough, they decided to bring me along too, since I'd presumably be doing the same eventually. And I know that kind of thing is a big waste of money and resources… but it can be pretty nice. It just feels good to get pampered like that.”

“Must be nice… Back home I don't even go places to get my hair cut, I have a cousin who does it for me.”

“That's nice. We just have bots for that kind of stuff. It's a bit ridiculous.”

She shakes her head, smiling. “Tusies,” she mutters, and you throw her socks right back at her. You're both too exhausted to do much else, so you lie there side by side.

“Tell me you don't have bots that give massages, too,” she grumbles.

You laugh. “We do, and I'd kill to have one here right now.”

“Same.” She turns to look at you pleadingly. "I'll give you a massage if you give me one. Just… rub my shoulders. Or my calves. Real gravity sucks and I'd like to be able to walk tomorrow,” she mutters.

“Um. Sure. I can try, at least, I don't know if I'd be any good…”

“At this point,” she says dryly, rolling over, “I'm willing to take that chance.”

You scoot over towards her and gingerly press your palms against her back.

“I've… never really done this before…”

“For starters, you can get on top of me, that way you can press harder. Use the bottom of your hand, or your thumb-- ah…” You back off quickly. “No, no, that was good,” she says. “Keep going.”

You do, mostly just guessing based on the noises she makes and that one lecture on human musculoskeletal structure you vaguely remember from your first year. By the time she asks you to move on to her legs, you're grateful, since straddling her was getting a bit uncomfortable-- your legs are sore, too.

She cries out when you press your thumbs into her right calf, and you snatch your hands away.

“I'm okay, I'm okay,” she gasps. “Just… stars. Be gentle.”

You do your best. She whimpers softly when you give it another try, but tells you to keep going. When she's had enough, she rolls over.

“Alright. Your turn.”

“More like your turn for revenge,” you mutter. She grins.

“Now you get it. Come on.”

You didn't realize how much tension you had been carrying in your shoulders, or how much of the soreness in your feet was coming from your calves.

You also didn't realize what it would do to you, to have those strong hands tease every bit of tightness from your poor muscles.

After she's done, you lay there a while in tingling bliss, until she gently puts a hand on your shoulder.

“Hey, Aurie,” she whispers, “You awake?”

“Yeah,” you mumble. “What’s up?”

She chuckles softly. “You're just halfway on my sleeping bag.”

“Oh. Sorry.” You scoot over to your own, and she settles down in hers. You're almost asleep when you hear her say something.

“Hm?”

“Just wanted to say thanks,” she murmurs. “It helped a lot.”

“No problem.” But there is a problem, you add silently, with how good it feels…

First•Previous•Next

[archivesofcreation]

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC WILLING TO LIE TO ADVANCE EVOLUTION

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SCIENCE - IN A FIRST, FOSSIL DINOSAUR FEATHERS FOUND NEAR THE SOUTH POLE Separating fact from fiction in a farcical story! Were fossil dinosaur feathers really found near the South Pole?

Dino-bird evolution frequently causes excitement on social media platforms so my attention was grabbed by a picture of a fully feathered dinosaur with a sensationalist National Geographic headline that read, “In a first, fossil dinosaur feathers found near the South Pole”.1 However, what had actually been found differed so significantly from the headline that words such as overreaching speculation and grandiose story-telling immediately came to mind. In what follows, I have broken down the article’s salient points to highlight the highly misleading nature of National Geographic’s claims.

What was actually found?

Fact – The research team described ten exquisitely preserved 10–30 mm long fossil feathers, found from 1962 onwards over multiple digs in the Koonwarra Fossil Bed, south-eastern Australia.2 The feathers include downy feathers, contour body feathers, a complex juvenile flight feather “like those on the wings of modern birds”, and one that they refer to as a ‘protofeather’. Speculation – They allege that the feathers are 118 million years old, some of which belonged to ground-dwelling carnivorous dinosaurs. Conventionally, this ‘dates’ from the early Cretaceous period when they believe that the landmass of Australia was joined with Antarctica, before drifting north to its current location. This is why they have fossil feathers coming from near the ‘South Pole’ in their article title, rather than Australia, to make the story even more sensational. Although they think Antarctica would not have been as cold as it is today, they speculate that, “feathers may have been important for insulation, allowing small carnivorous dinosaurs to survive the difficult winter months.” “None of the feathers are currently associated with distinct dinosaur or bird bones”—National Geographic.With what type of dinosaur did they find the feathers? – “None of the feathers are currently associated with distinct dinosaur or bird bones. Instead, they were probably lost during molting or preening and drifted on the wind onto the surface of an ancient lake, where they sank to the bottom and were preserved in the fine mud.” What they would like to find in the future? – “To actually find the skeleton of a feathered dinosaur here in Australia would be amazing,” said Dr Stephen Poropat, a paleontologist at Swinburne University, Melbourne. It appears that we can agree on something: amazing it would be! Imposed Ideology – The National Geographic article tries to reinforce the current evolutionary idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs. This is done by use of a spurious picture of a fully-feathered dinosaur (which is simply made up) and the misleading headline. The details in the actual article do not begin to support the idea that dinosaurs evolved into birds, nor even that dinosaurs had feathers (although the creation model does not necessarily rule this out). This kind of blatant propaganda occurs on an all too regular basis; for another example, see: Sorry, how many feathers did you find? The reality is this is simply one more case of paying homage to the altar of naturalistic evolution. Geological context – The research team presented no direct evidence whatsoever that the feathers did not belong to birds. And they must have been rapidly covered in sediment to preserve them. They have been found in a sedimentary rock layer laid down by water in Australia. The fossil bed also contained numerous other animals: freshwater ray-finned fish, lungfish, various insects, arachnids and other terrestrial invertebrates, aquatic insect larvae, hydrophilid beetles, and horseshoe crabs. Plant fossils were found as well: mosses, liverworts, fern-like plants, Ginkgo, and conifers. A better explanation – The reality is that these fossil feathers and their geological context fit much better with biblical history. The fossilised feathers provide yet another example of swiftly-lithified fossils. These, along the range of other creatures and plants mentioned above would have been fossilised during the conditions provided by the Noahic Flood some 4,500 years ago, itself a successive burial of pre-Flood ecosystems. Finding feathers at an alleged 118 million years old adds nothing to the evolutionary story anyway; there are ‘older’ birds with feathers in the fossil record, such as Confuciusornis, an alleged 153 million years old. Genesis 1 clearly teaches that animals were created to reproduce within their own kinds. This is exactly what the fossil record shows, and we observe today. Gondwana Research, 2019.

The 10 feathers described by the research team.

Lessons to learn that should have been learnt

Social media is used to share news stories quickly and widely. In doing so, organisations often use unique punchy headlines to get people’s attention, hoping that they visit their websites, and read their material. Creation Ministries International also use social media (why not give us a like if you have not already?). However, we are very careful to ensure that our article headlines images and captionsare factually accurate and not misleading. Unfortunately, organisations that zealously promote big-picture evolution, such as National Geographic in this bold and fanciful instance, frequently do not take the same care when titling their articles or matching the content to real facts and verifiable history. This is not the first time that National Geographic has blatantly promoted the false idea of dinosaur to bird evolution.This is not the first time that National Geographic has blatantly promoted the false idea of dinosaur to bird evolution. After the notable Archaeoraptor hoax scandal, a phony dino-feathered fossil that they published and promoted, but then had to recant, one might hope they had learnt their lesson. Leading paleornithologist Alan Feduccia was scathing in denouncing the debacle over Archaeoraptor: In his open letter to Peter Raven, Storrs Olson asserted that National Geographic had “reached an all-time low for engaging in sensationalistic, unsubstantiated, tabloid journalism,” and “The idea of feathered dinosaurs . . . is being actively promulgated by a cadre of zealous scientists acting in concert with certain editors at Nature and National Geographic who themselves have become outspoken and highly biased proselytizers of the faith.” Although the scandal was resolved through the self-corrective process of science, it is worth noting that it would not have occurred had a more critical attitude toward dinosaurs and the origin of birds prevailed in the scientific and popular literature. In illustrating the degeneration of scientific discourse with respect to this issue, Olson’s letter clearly illustrated that the highly respected magazine National Geographic and a major scientific journal, Nature, were incapable or unwilling to consider critically the question of the origin of birds.3 Jonathan Chen, Wikipedia.org

The fraudulent archaeoraptor fossil Christians should always adhere to a higher standard of truth, being careful in the information they present to others. In the National Geographic article the intention of the headline is clear, as well as the implications: another ‘helpful’ example of evolution has now been discovered, which adds to the enormous body of evidence that evolution is a fact. Yet many readers likely never clicked on the story, and actually read the details, so this is the message that they would have taken away. However, had they read carefully, with an inquisitive mind, then they should have been left with a very different understanding altogether. In view of the unwarranted imagination promoted to an unsuspecting public as fact (compared to the factual data about these fossil feathers), the whole story is farcical. Our prayer at CMI is that people will come to embrace the alternative and true understanding of the world around them: Humanity was created in the image of God (the day after the birds, and on the same day as dinosaurs; Genesis 1:20–31), but we are separated from Him due to our fallen nature (Romans 3:23). This, we have inherited from Adam, and our own personal sin further condemns us (Romans 5:12; 1 John 1:8, 10). This is bad news: each of us is totally helpless because we cannot make up for our sin towards God (Romans 6:23; Hebrews 9:27). But God, being gracious, sent His son Jesus to live a perfect life, to shed his blood on the cross in payment for sin, and that all those who repent and believe on Him can be saved: This is good news to all people. Amen!   ORIGINAL ARTICLE FROM CREATION.COM Read the full article

[harpsicalbiobug]

Science ask! 1, 2, 11, 21, 38 I... tried to narrow down my curiosity as best as I could :D

Aw, thanks for asking! 

1. What’s your major/field?

I have a bachelor’s in biology, and I’m getting my PhD in biology as well. I suppose my focus is animal behavior and physiology, but I fit the stereotype of being in an integrative biology department and loving/using a lot different fields and techniques. My current research is on the impact of monoamine disrupting contaminants (like antihistamines, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, illicit drugs, some pesticides) on insect development, behavior and physiology. My research interests include ecotoxicology, neuropharmacology and neuroscience, entomology, environmental policy (esp. wastewater treatment plant systems), animal behavior (esp. monoamine mediated behaviors which is pretty much everything), and the use of insects as bioindicators. I used to work on seminal fluid proteins, courtship, and endocrine disruptors in flies, and I was a tech in a circadian rythms neuroscience lab for a while and a pancreatic cancer lab for a hot second, still fond of both.

Short answer: Biology forever. I give drugs to bugs.

2. What made you choose your major/field?

I just always loved animals. That’s the simple answer. I liked animals and I’ve been fucking lucky to turn that into a career (so far, we’ll see how finding a postdoc position goes).

I was the dinosaur kid, the cat kid. I did well in science classes, and I loved nature, bird watching, cat shows, animal documentaries. I taught myself mendelian genetics in middle school so I could understand the inheritance of cat coat colors. I read about (and edited wikipedia articles about, yikes) extinct cats. I read falconry books. I volunteered at a zoo, a vet clinic, a humane society. I fostered cats with my family. I wrote stories about wolves and cats and birds.

So, I loved animals. But as a kid, I was exposed to the TV Careers- mostly lawyers, doctors, cops, generic office workers- and apart from “guy who narrates nature documentaries + Steve Irwin” none of those people worked with animals. And the people I met in real life who worked with animals were veterinarians, vet techs, zookeepers. I didn’t know about research careers, or how much behind the scenes stuff happens at museums and zoos, or that animal scientists work at government agencies and in industry. I had the weird experience where lots of my friends parents had doctorates, and one even worked as a bat taxonomist/curator at a museum, but I had no idea what graduate school was until halfway through college.So I went to college and thought I’d be a vet. Maaaaybe a paleontologist (but then I learned that most paleontologists get their undergraduate degrees in geology). And then I sucked freshman year and learned the getting into vet school is harder than getting into med school. I learned about graduate school and research careers from my professors. Literally I wrote a biology paper and the professor asked if I was considering graduate school, because, you know, if you can write like this it might be a good place for you. I did research as an undergraduate, and I loved it. I worked as a tech in a R01 lab and loved it, but wanted to do more research. So, grad school!

11. Who’s your favorite scientist?

Rachel Carson. Silent Spring is a fucking gift that anyone in the sciences should read. She was a brilliant science communicator, and was beloved for her writings on marine life before Silent Spring. She wrote wrote broadly, was published in academic journals and popular magazines, wrote for conservation causes and also wrote lovely descriptions of fisheries and wildlife refuges (like this one about Chincoteague pdf warning) for the government. Oh and she was in love with Dorothy Freeman and there’s a lot of obnoxious hand waving about how it was just a close friendship but y’all they burned a lot of their correspondence, and what we have left is like, guys, Carson was maybe an ace lady and definitely romantically entwined and in love with another lady. She was gay. “Never forget, dear one, how deeply I have loved you all these years.” Fuck off hand waver people. Oh yeah, and she kickstarted the grassroots environmental movement in the United States and was such an important figure that the press were asking Kennedy questions about DDT and he refered to “Miss Carson’s book” because everyone just knew about it. And when the men in government and the chemical industry dismissed her extensive research and her understanding of the impact of pesticides and herbicides on the environment and twisted her message (she never wanted to get rid of all pesticides or human made chemicals, she just wanted any amount of monitoring and regulation and intelligence behind their use) and called her hysterical and a “Priestess of Nature,” well, she testified to before Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee while dealing with radiation treatments for breast cancer, and the committee basically said “yep, she’s right.” Oh and she’s part of why we even have the Environmental Protection Agency. So yeah, the original ecotox and environmentalism goddess is my favorite.There are others of course. Caroline Herschel the astronomer. Tyrone Hayes is important to me. Jane Goodall of course. Patricia Brennan (duck penises, yes), Corrie Moreau, John Wingfield, Peter and Rosemary Grant, May Britt Moser. Like, pretty much any scientist I meet? Beloved college professors. My current advisor. My friends in my cohort. Science is a group activity, so even admiring Rachel Carson is admiring her mentors, editors, collaborators, sources.

21. If you had infinite funding, what would your research be about?

I mean, if I had infinite funding I’d set up a new funding agency and probably emphasize basic research + science communication + cross discipline research. But I get that that’s not the real question.I want to know what pharmaceuticals and other contaminants are in the bodies of invertebrates in human impacted waterways, and how the changes according to the gradient of landscape usage and also how the life history (diet, lifespan, place in water column, respiration style) affects the accumulation and excretion of those contaminants. We just do not have that data. I mean step one, we don’t even have data for “is there X pesticide or X personal care product found in X insect” so doing a whole battery of assays across a lot sites and species is a whoooole lot to ask. I’d also follow it up with comparing some behaviors and anatomical traits and development and trying to see if there’s any connection between contaminants and those traits. Also do some gene expression measurements, because toxic response pathways/neurotransmitters/all sorts of stuff may be sensitive to exposure to lots of the fun bioactive stuff in the water. Also do lab based experiments with exposure to single compounds and then combinations. Probably throw in some mobile lab stuff too, why not? Oh, and look to see if any contaminants are moving up the food chain and getting into birds, fish, whatever. Also see if emergent insects like mayflies, dragonflies, etc are carrying aquatic contaminants into the terrestrial environment. Oh and see how different wastewater treatment plant types and the geology/hydrology of the water impacts all this stuff. And hire a giant team of people, because I could not do this all on my own, and good science is collaborative, and there are smart people out there who would have great new ideas, aaaaand I think I might be describing my dream lab.

38. Is math a little bit too mathy for you?

Yep. But I kind of love that too? A lot of science is feeling dumb and then figuring something out. So I wish I were better at math, but it’s taken until fucking graduate school for me to both love it and accept that I don’t need to “get” a math thing immediately. So, I’m real slow at math. I’m not sure if I believe that anyone intrinsically has a “math brain” or “is just good/bad at math” because that’s such a dumb yes/no binary but there are definitely people who probably have a low aptitude to start with who are not well served by how math is taught to them and ooooh boy, that was me. I don’t think I ever laid down a solid foundation of math skills; I did not learn either the practical tools for doing math or actual concepts that underpin it. I struggled my ass through upper level classes in middle and high school, but nothing really stuck for me. Even when I learned to perform something, I didn’t get the concepts. I was horrible in college and only took one physics course. And it honestly felt like, why does this matter for biology?Turns out, it matters a lot. Physiology and statistics were what opened me up to caring about math. Learning the equations that can describe exchange of gases, or the flow of blood, or ion exchange made me care. But that was still pretty much plug and chug type math. Graduate level statistics made me care about the math itself. Understanding probability, understanding the concepts behind why this mathematical tool is used in this situation, or that there are different philosophies about the use of statistics (like, woah, Bayesian, hello abuse of p-values)- that was all very delicious. And hard. I love hated that class. Intuitive Biostatistics is a good good book.Loooong post sorry.EDIT: Also seriously thank you for asking. Articulating this stuff is honestly so good for me, even if I get long winded. It reminds me how much I and others care about science.

[windycityparrot]

Do birds really need that mysterious but pervasive cuttlebone in their bird cage?

Like hard working catchers of the MLB we get questions tossed to us day in and day out. Questions are my favorite part of words. The answers to questions enlighten us and make it better regardless of our endeavor. What size cuttlebone should I put my bird’s cage? How effective is cuttlebone at reducing the length of my bird’s beak? “What a long strange trip it’s been” lyrics that you may know as part of a Grateful Dead song and a tribute to Jerry Garcia but the title of the compilation comes from the lyrics of one of Robert Hunter's most famous songs, the line from "Truckin": Lately it occurs to me: What a long, strange trip it's been. Robert Hunter was probably the Grateful Dead’s most prolific lyricist - There’s never a right place to digress, is there? Have you ever gone out for a drive on a motor scooter or a four wheeled terrestrial vehicle and ended up in another state? That’s the feeling I got while researching cuttlefish. Cuttlefish is a subject that got complicated really fast because it’s far more fascinating than I ever thought. As caged bird keepers we think of cuttlebone as this oblong piece of white brittle thing that belongs in every bird’s cage. Turns out this mundane piece of brittle bone comes from a mollusk who is one of the most intelligent invertebrates we’ve come to find. It's part of the family known as Cephalopods like squids and octopuses (that is actually grammatically correct thank you) Would an octopus be a ringer on the Bachelorette having 3 hearts to be broken?  

your cuttlebone started out looking something like this The first human to look at a cuttle fish and said "that would make a great bird cage accessory" mimicking the first human who looked at a silkworm and said "that would make a great shirt," got their inspiration from.......? More elusive insights - sigh. Anyone who has ever held a cuttlebone in their hand probably didn’t give it much thought behind “this must be some sort of fish bone.” Before it went crispy white it was part of a cuttlefish’s skeletal anatomy. Where nature gave birds hollow bones reducing the animal's weight enabling flight, nature filled cuttlefish bones with gas. Modern-day submarines mimic cuttlefish. By releasing or filling the chambers in their own bones they are able to control their buoyancy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDwOi7HpHtQ From Wikipedia: A cuttlefish possesses an internal structure called the cuttlebone, which is porous and is made of aragonite. The pores provide it with buoyancy, which it regulates by changing the gas-to-liquid ratio in the chambered cuttlebone via the ventralsiphuncle. Each species of cuttlebone has a distinct shape, size, and pattern of ridges or texture. The cuttlebone is unique to cuttlefish, and is one of the features that distinguish them from their squid relatives. Jewelers and silversmiths traditionally use cuttlebones as molds for casting small objects but they are probably better known as the tough material given to parakeets and other caged birds as a source of dietary calcium. End Wikipedia Fun factoid: at the turn of the 20th century cuttlebone was used as an ingredient in toothpaste. Here’s the thing. We stick a cuttlebone into our bird's cage because “that’s the way it’s always been done.” Some caged bird keepers do dig a little deeper and realize that cuttlebone is considered a calcium supplement given to small birds to provide them with additional calcium. This product is produced from the skeleton of cuttlefish and is composed primarily of calcium carbonate. Although cuttlebone has prevented a lot of birds from developing calcium deficiencies, this form of calcium supplementation is not the ideal way to provide calcium because calcium carbonate is difficult to absorb and big birds are often too destructive to use this form of calcium supplementation efficiently. The only birds that really need cuttlebone are gestating females as the production of eggs depletes the calcium in the birds body. Calcium supplements are highly recommended, more so than cuttlebones for larger gestating birds. if you're not familiar with cuttlebone, here's two budgies enjoying themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1ocY-AGuzE Large parrots like Macaws and Cockatoos are so destructive that a piece of cuttlebone is like Ulysses S Grant leading the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War.   Cuttlebone should also not be considered as a beak conditioner. It is too fragile and though it might help slightly with smaller bird beaks you should seek out an actual beak conditioning product to achieve that goal. (he's weaving again) Anyone remember Billy Pilgrim in the Kurt Vonnegut novel Slaughter House Five? Billy got unstuck in time while watching an old war movie American planes full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation. Read more here. Do I get  unstuck in time? I’m not saying. But I think about that when I talk about the reversal of a timeline. Starting with a cuttlebone in a cage being returned to us. We then send it back to the the distributor who sends it back to the processor who returns it to the fishing vessel where it ends up crawling around on the bottom of the deep blue sea. Although the cuttlefish still dies at the end of my new movie, it’s because it happily ended up on our dinner plates. It would be a great center of the plate start of a healthy nutritious meal. Grilled cuttlebone - Would you ever have imagined something you feed your bird is far more nutritious for you, just in a different form? I’m a type II diabetic and this would make an ideal diabetic friendly dinner (has anyone ever eaten cooked cuttlefish?) with less than 10 carbohydrates in a 6 oz portion yet providing 55 g of protein. Who’d a thunk it? written by mitch rezman approved by catherine tobsing turtles love cuttlebone too! your zygodactyl footnote   Read the full article

[ntrending]

So you’ve been bitten by a leech. What’s the worst that could happen?

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/so-youve-been-bitten-by-a-leech-whats-the-worst-that-could-happen/

So you’ve been bitten by a leech. What’s the worst that could happen?

Several years ago, emergency physician Jeremy Joslin found himself overseeing an ultramarathon in the backcountry of Cambodia. Once they’d finished the event, many of the athletes wanted to cool off and noticed an inviting stream nearby.

“After a few minutes, the screams started,” says Joslin, who is based at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. It was not long before people began hurrying back to camp—along with the multiple leeches that had become attached to their bodies. The next few days were filled with bandage changes and mild bleeding.

Most leech encounters play out similarly. Finding one of these bloodthirsty worms on your body can be a disturbing experience, but it’s usually not a medical emergency.

Usually. Every once in awhile, leeches can cause some serious and gruesome complications. Here’s what can happen when one of these little suckers bites you, and what you can do about it.

How did it find me?

There are actually plenty of leech species out there that don’t drink blood. However, those that do dine on people dwell both in water and on land. Aquatic leeches are found around the world, while land leeches are common in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, the Indian subcontinent, and South America.

Leeches sense their prey in a few ways. They are attracted to shadows and disturbances in the water, body heat, and secretions like oil and sweat. Terrestrial leeches, which often perch on foliage while awaiting a meal, also respond to the carbon dioxide you exhale, says Sebastian Kvist, associate curator of invertebrates at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

“Anyone that has performed fieldwork in the tropics of Southeast Asia can attest to the aggressiveness of these leeches,” Kvist said in an email. “They need to be able to feed on anything that crosses their path, and they are very active hunters.”

Leeches come equipped with two suckers, one of which surrounds their three-jawed mouths. Once a leech fastens onto you, it encourages your blood to keep flowing using anticoagulants in its saliva. Some common aquatic leeches can guzzle nearly 10 times their weight in blood during a single feeding, filling their bellies for a year or more.

There are a few situations where leeches might be attached to your body because your doctor put them there. The infamous medicinal leech (Hirudo medicinalis) was once a popular tool for bloodletting. “Europeans were so enamored with the use of medicinal leeches in the 17th and 18th centuries that they depleted the supply,” Joslin and his colleagues wrote October 10 in the journal Wilderness & Environmental Medicine in a paper on the history and perils of leech attachment.

Today, there are very few illnesses for which bloodletting is considered a good treatment. However, leeches have made a name for themselves in reconstructive surgery by improving blood flow in damaged veins.

How dangerous are leeches?

That depends on how many leeches are feasting on you, where they are located, and how much you’ve pissed them off.

Leeches typically feed for about 20 or 30 minutes before dropping off your body. Bleeding from a leech bite lasts 10 hours on average, but sometimes continues for days. “It can range anywhere from inconvenient all the way to medically severe,” Joslin says.

In most cases, if you are healthy and get a single leech bite you’ll probably just have some bleeding. But if you are beset by many leeches at once, the consequences can be more serious. A man in Turkey once showed up in the emergency room with anemia and excessive bleeding from 130 leech bites. The anticoagulants in the leeches’ saliva had impaired his blood’s ability to clot enough to be life threatening.

Leeches can also spread disease. “Leeches don’t have an immune system that sterilizes their gut contents like we do,” Joslin says. “So if a leech has bacteria in its gut and it attaches to you and there’s any regurgitation of blood from their gut onto your wound, that can transmit infection.”

A leech might puke up germ-filled blood if you try to remove it by squeezing, burning, or other violent means. Medicinal leeches may pass on ailments like syphilis and erysipelas, a bacterial infection of the skin.

“If you get wild-caught leeches, you don’t know what other animal or human that leech has attached to in the past and may have picked up some bacteria, virus, or parasites from,” Joslin says.

Scientists have found HIV and hepatitis B viruses in wild leeches in Africa. “It wasn’t a confirmed case of transmission, but if they have these viruses in their gut then it stands to reason that they could be transmitted,” Joslin says.

And these bloodsuckers have another nefarious habit. Most of the time, leeches will fasten onto your exposed skin. But occasionally, a leech will pass through one of the body’s orifices and attach internally. Leeches have made their way into people’s eyes, ears, noses, throats, urethras, bladders, rectums, vaginas, and stomachs.

And according to Kvist, this is no accident. When a leech does invade a person’s body, it usually belongs to the Praobdellidae family. These leeches are known for feeding through mucous membranes. In other words: they want to be inside you. “The rest of the skin is much more unappealing to them,” Kvist says, “although they probably would feed on your leg, if they were starved.”

A leech can stay in your body for days or weeks. There are a few clues that a leech might be inside you, depending on where it’s ended up. Unusual bleeding from the orifice in question is one. Leeches can also cause fever, vomiting, trouble urinating, and “a sensation of foreign body movement,” Joslin and his team write. If the leech is nestled in your throat, it can cause difficulty breathing, hoarseness, or voice changes.

“If you get a leech in a body cavity or on your eyeball or something like that, even one leech can cause a pretty big problem,” Joslin says.

GET IT OFF!

If you find a leech attached to your body, you should check to make sure there are no others.

You’ll want to remove the leech gently to avoid regurgitation. Joslin recommends using your fingernail or the edge of a knife or credit card to get under the mouthpiece and break its suction. If you can’t reach the leech because it’s in your mouth or esophagus, you can try gargling saltwater. “Saltwater is able to sufficiently irritate the leech and cause it to remove itself without being so noxious as to cause regurgitation,” Joslin says.

Then wash the area with soap and water and bandage it. You probably won’t need to take antibiotics to prevent an infection, Joslin says.

In very rare cases, though, leech bites can be lethal. A person could bleed to death if they sustained a massive number of leech bites, or die from a blood infection, Joslin says. In 1799, soldiers in Napoleon’s army accidentally drank water with leeches in it on their march across Egypt. Some of these men suffocated to death as the bloated leeches blocked their airways.

How can I keep leeches from biting me?

There’s not a lot you can do to keep leeches at bay, especially those that live on land. “They get into your clothing easily and it’s difficult to fully keep them from attaching to your skin,” Kvist says.

If you are traveling over leech-infested terrain, you can try wearing long, tucked-in clothing. There’s also some evidence that insect repellents containing the ingredients DEET or DEPA can discourage leeches.

Unfortunately, some of the most tempting spots to swim and explore the outdoors are also prime leech habitat. That doesn’t mean you should never set food in a pond again, though.

“Having an understanding of how to remove them, what to watch out for, and how to treat it when it does happen is even better than trying to simply avoid places where leeches might live,” Joslin says.

Written By Kate Baggaley