#but that spaghetti proboscis is Just

[bestanimal]

Round 1 - Phylum Nemertea

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Animals in the Phylum Nemertea, commonly known as “Ribbon Worms” or “Proboscis Worms,” are small and mostly slim with a venomous proboscis that everts just above to mouth to capture prey.

There are about 1,300 known species of nermertean. Most nemerteans are carnivores, feeding on annelids, clams, and crustaceans. Some species are scarvengers. Some species are filter feeders that utilize a sucker at the front and back ends of their bodies to attach to a host. Most nemerteans detect the world through the use of chemoreceptors, but some species have simple eyes that allow them to distinguish light from dark. They move slowly, using cilia to walk on a trail of slime. Some larger species can “slither.” Many are brightly colored and patterned. Most nemerteans are marine, living in either the open ocean or on the sea floor, but some species are freshwater, and some are even terrestrial.

Propaganda under the cut:

Previously, nemerteans were split into two groups by whether they had a “little dagger” on their proboscis or not. (This classification no longer applies as one of the “unarmed” orders was closer related to the “armed” group than the rest of the “unarmed” group. It’s still fun to imagine worms with little daggers tho.)

The Bootlace Worm (Lineus longissimus) (seen in the first image) is one of the longest known animals, with specimens up to 55 m (180 ft) long being reported. This is longer than the Lion’s Mane Jellyfish, the sauropod dinosaurs Argentinosaurus and Patagotitan, and the record-holding longest Blue Whale. Like other nemerteans, the Bootlace Worm can also stretch up to 10 times its resting length. They’re not considered the largest animals though, because they’re only 5 to 10 mm (0.20 to 0.39 in) wide!

As a defense against predators, the Bootlace Worm produces a toxic mucus which contains a strong neurotoxin and smells faintly of “iron or sewage.” The mucus has been shown to kill arthropods, and is being studied for its use as a natural pesticide.

Some larger species can regenerate, breaking into pieces when disturbed, after which the fragments can grow into full individuals!

Some nemerteans have a branched proboscis that comes out as a “mass of sticky spaghetti” that can then be used to pull prey into its mouth. If you love horror movies, this is the animal for you! I’m not easily grossed out, but I genuinely can’t stomach this video, so viewer discretion is advised! (Thankfully, this one didn’t have a “little dagger.”

[dreamerwitches]

Okay I’m going to infodump an AU focusing on the witches.

On Homura’s time travelling journey she comes upon a normal timeline.

Until she sees Hitomi with Oktavia and Gretchen

This is an au where witches are just people who look like that.

Homura now has to deal with these new characters and their shenanigans.

Gretchen is just like Madoka: Sweet, Kind, and timid, contrasting with her being 8 foot tall and being comprised of liquid despair.

Oktavia is still as energetic amd lovestruck as ever, but actively tries to jump start a relationship with Kyousuke, but chickens out at the last second. She travels in a fish bowl wheel chair.

Gertrud is the leader of the gardening club and is considered one of the most beautiful girls in school. Homura doesn’t get it because she has a proboscis, small insect legs on her torso, and even more human legs. One time someone stepped in her rose bed and they were found pinned to a wall with garden shears.

Charlotte is Mami’s roommate and is a grade schooler. Her hobbies include baking, cheese tasting, blowing bubbles, watching cheese videos, eating cheese, making cheese, bugging Mami, and cheese. Her worm form feels like a Plushie filled with pudding.

No one knows what Elly looks like. Heck, no one has ever seen her. She is a Hikkikomori that attends class through a laptop on a computer on her desk. Has a Vtuber side job and is in contrast quite snarky and witty.

Elsa Maria is incredibly religious and likes dark areas. Homura went to get cleaning supplies and saw Elsa in the corner of the room just sitting there. She is scared of Oktavia for some odd reason.

Patricia is the class representative and she is incredibly clumsy and unlucky. She once slipped on a paper, tumbled down the stairs, fell into a mop bucket, and was then pooped on by a pigeon. Homura feels awkward around her considering she threw a bomb in her skirt in several timelines.

Izabel claims to be made out of marble. She’s made of concrete. Part of the art club and is incredibly vain. Several of her art pieces are self portraits. Albertine is her annoying little sister.

Gisela is considered a delinquent as she is part of a biker gang and is generally really scary. She is actually quite soft spoken and aloof. She’s Italian and will snap your neck if you put ketchup on spaghetti.

So cute!!!!!! I love anything that puts the witches in school with the other girls. The idea of hitomi being around two enormous witches like it’s nothing is amazing

[cordycepsbian]

we're basically designing a whole species but one of them also happens to be us. it will have these features and potentially more

long slinky noodle animal

six limbs (can use any as both legs and arms, switches between crawling/taur/bipedal posture depending on situation)

covered in "feathers" that are actually sensory structures, like antennae covering your whole body

has no bones or exoskeleton, is just spaghetti

omnivorous, has both a proboscis for drinking nectar/juice and a regular throat for eating meat

four compound eyes that may or may not have pseudopupils depending on individual and their eye color

has longer feathers on the back that may be big enough to look like wings but it can't actually fly

very small and likes to lay on flowers

overall looks like if you crossbred a moth with a worm on a string

making an advanced alien fursona that isnt confined by the limits of how earth animals work

[normal-horoscopes]

Normal Horoscope:

Aries: Anything worth saying is worth saying in person. The hunt begins.

Taurus: Good done is good done, for whatever the reason. The situations around the work can be dealt with later.

Gemini: Today, an out of body experience will yet again find you covered in spaghetti, holding the spaghetti knife.

Cancer: An abandoned supermarket will contain the wayward ghosts that can point you towards your desires.

Leo: They’re breeding furbies for war.

Virgo: As you pass through the parking lot on your errands you will find a ring of salt. Do not cross it.

Libra: There is a picture of you carved into the stone of the Parthenon. You will never confirm this for yourself so you’ll just have to take our word for it.

Scorpio: You’re wearing yourself like a suit, driving yourself like a car. Wear yourself with pride.

Ophiuchus: Today you will contract the sexiest form of rabies.

Sagittarius: Practice with focus, then practice without focus. It gets easier, but you have to practice.

Capricorn: Knowing is half the battle, but that's the easy bit.

Aquarius: Its a marathon not a sprint, and its not a tongue its a proboscis.

Pisces: Composite plate makes for excellent defense against blunt and bladed strikes. It does not make for good legal defense, the divorce is still happening.

[liliannorman]

Pesticides can have long-term impact on bumblebee learning

The soft sound of bees buzzing among flowers signals warm weather throughout the world. But in many places, those sounds are fading. And it’s not just honeybees that are struggling. Native bees, including bumblebees, are also becoming scarce. Factors such as climate change and habitat loss may be partly to blame. But a new study points to the threat posed by a common pesticide. Bumblebees exposed to this chemical had a harder time learning. And it was true even when bees ate pesticide-laced food only as larvae.

That’s a concern because affected bees could have a harder time finding food.

Bumblebees make up about 250 of the world’s 20,000 bee species. Most native bees go it alone. But the bumbles are social. They live in colonies of 50 to several hundred bees, depending on the species. Like honeybee workers, bumblebee workers collect pollen and nectar. Then they bring it back to the nest to feed the young. Anything interfering with this process could pose threats to the colony.

Scientists Say: Nectar

And threatened they are. Nearly one in three species of bumblebee is becoming harder to find. That’s a big concern — for everyone. Bumblebees are important pollinators for all types of plants. They vibrate their bodies against flowers. This releases pollen that most other bees can’t access. That makes them essential for a variety of flowering plants, including tomatoes. If you like pizza or spaghetti, you need bumblebees!

The problem with pesticides

People use pesticides to control insects, including ones that damage plants. But such chemicals can harm animals other than their intended targets. Research has found that insect pollinators, such as bees, are especially vulnerable. Because these insects travel from flower to flower, they are exposed to pesticides again and again. Bees often take pesticide-laced nectar and pollen back to their nests. This can expose every bee in the nest, even larvae.

How to limit the need for pesticides

Bee colonies grow over time, as new bees hatch. Researchers have tested the effects of pesticides on colony size. Such studies found that colony growth slows after pesticide exposure. But curiously, those effects did not show up for several weeks.

These findings got Richard Gill wondering what, exactly, was going on. Gill is an insect ecologist in England at Imperial College London. Was the pesticide affecting larvae? If so, any impacts might have had to wait until those larvae grew into adults.

To find out, Gill and his team studied 22 bumblebee colonies. This included a total of 413 bees. The researchers assigned each colony to one of four treatments. Five colonies served as controls. They received pollen and a sugar water solution, but no pesticide. The other three groups received sugar water laced with imidacloprid (Ih-mid-uh-CLOH-prid). This pesticide is used around the world to control sucking and chewing pests. (These include aphids, thrips, whiteflies and some beetles.) The researchers added only a tiny amount to the sugar water. This was roughly equal to what the bees encounter when foraging on plants treated with this chemical.

Six colonies received the pesticide only during the study’s first three weeks. That’s how long it takes for a larva to become a pupa and then emerge as an adult. Another six colonies received the pesticide from day 22 to the end of the study, around day 45. The bees here were exposed only as adults. The remaining five colonies received the pesticide-laced water throughout the study.

Gill and his team then tested the ability of three- and 12-day-old bees to learn. They harnessed each one and placed it in front of a gently blowing fan. The fan blew lemon-scented air at the bee for 10 seconds. Halfway through this time, the researchers touched the bee’s antenna with a drop of sugar water. This caused the bee to stick out its tongue-like proboscis (Pro-BAA-sis). They then let the bee drink the sweet treat.

Healthy bees use scent to help them find flowers. The lemon scent mimicked a bee’s natural process of detecting an odor and getting a nectar reward. After 10 minutes, the researchers gave each bee the same lemony scent followed by sugar water. They repeated their process 10 times for each bee.

After the learning experiment, the team scanned each bee with a micro-CT scanner. This tool created a 3-D image of structures in its brain. The team focused on structures called mushroom bodies. (When viewed from the side, they look like mushrooms.) These regions are where insects process information and form memories.

This micro-CT scan from Gill’s study shows the mushroom body (purple) inside a bumblebee brain.Dylan Smith/Imperial College London

Damaged brains

Gill’s team found that bees not exposed to the pesticide learned quickly. Some needed just two or three tries before sticking out their proboscis when they smelled lemon. (Much like you might salivate at the smell of baking cookies.) Bees exposed to the pesticide — in all three treatment groups — struggled to link that scent with the reward. They took longer to respond to the lemony odor. Some never did.

Older bees (12 days old) learned faster than younger bees. Critically, exposure to pesticide during the first three days of adult life seemed to cause the most problems. “Bee brains are still undergoing a lot of change, making it a vulnerable period in their life,” Gill explains.

On average, bees exposed to pesticide had smaller mushroom bodies than did those in the control group. There was variation in size, though. Among control bees, those with larger mushroom bodies learned faster. That wasn’t true among the pesticide groups. Having bigger mushroom bodies didn’t make it easier for those bees to learn.

“Mushroom bodies are mostly responsible for learning and cognition,” Gill explains. Pesticide exposure during early life “may have affected the development of the neurons inside the mushroom body,” he says. This results in a kind of brain damage. “The bee did not have the nerve network it needed to perform the simple task.”

The team published its findings online March 4 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The study highlights the risk of imidacloprid and other, similar pesticides to all stages of bumblebee colonies, says Elaine Evans. She is a bumblebee researcher at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul. That risk extends from “solitary queens founding nests, to fully developed colonies with workers, males and queens,” she notes. However, she cautions, not all bees exposed to pesticide get a dose as large as the ones in this study. And that makes it difficult to know the real-world impacts of these pesticides on bumblebees, she says.

It’s essential to consider the broader effects of pesticides before using them, Gill says. “If colonies are exposed to [toxic chemicals], then the baby bees developing inside can be at risk.” That can have a serious impact on the entire colony. If a colony is producing impaired workers, it can’t function well. And that puts it at risk of collapsing, he says.

How, then, can growers prevent insect damage to their gardens and crops? One solution: Plant a variety of native plants. These attract pests’ natural predators. That can keep pests in check and limit damage, without unintended harm to pollinators.

Pesticides can have long-term impact on bumblebee learning published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[jshoulson]

Today’s Poem

Letters to America (An Abecedary) --Fred D'Aguiar

For Yogita and Anish�

“Ah neva seen this before in all ma years.” Testify, Sis. How we grew accustomed, Spoiled almost, by decorum, now try Mosquito larvae cultivating at speed In standing bodies of water. Pigeons Flock rooftops, twist, launch, shout As one, spin sky, turn skulls porous.

Car repair shop drills sing industry. Tires feel out parking, meters freed. First horn blare triggers this chorus. Step up pistons, fire motor mouths, Say our only worry is our worst fears Come true. Mosquito straw proboscis Drinks from my arm, bam! Adios asterisk.

•

But, really, am I eyeballing an armored truck? Says one dung beetle to half earthworm, Who replies, as Gloucester, I see it feelingly.

Who gave those uniforms permission to storm School car parks, automatics drawn? Finches ask Robins, who, channeling Auden, whistle —

Bang! WTF!

Bang, bang, Lulu, Lulu gone ...

The calypso worked its juju On my digital radio.

Flags at half-mast for this Union. Taps on trumpets dawn till dusk. Guides, Scouts, look out for rainbows

Projected on a disused warehouse in LA County. Clocks throughout the land tell one contiguous time. Rain and shine stop dead in tracks on borderlines.

•

Cat asks me if dogs can ever be cool. After two of my kind pin down one of his On a front porch until chased off by our rulers.

I open my mouth to spit some piety about Lions lying down with lambs but only bark What my genes say I should, ears pulled back.

Do you remember Judas Iscariot? Thirty silver Pieces and a certain last supper just for this. A taser for every problem warns the bee

With an empty bonnet, sting for emphasis, About why one plus one never makes two, After voting from sea to oil-slicked sea.

Look at her, look at him, hold, kiss babies In photo ops, all gaga, minus bathtub Never mind water, in this national soap,

This wait for the next sentence whose weight “Illegals” carry on shoulders they look over Nonstop, even in sleep, one eye open,

Breath held when police cruise by, Car backfire skin jump heartbeat skip, Day in, day out, glory hallelujah, do I have

A witness as empire zips into bonfire. For what? To dip wrists in fresh water From an inverted fountain in a square.

•

Black lives matter but blue lives matter more. Duh. Veins, blue, blood, plus or minus, B this or A that. Epicurus, I find your coin staring up at me From the bottom of my beer mug, too late For Troy, for Trayvon. I need a flotation device, A buoy, Woolf’s lighthouse and single room Garvey’s Star Line to beam me up Scotty.

Where is yesteryear’s full moon that silvered Towers and made a midnight lake of the city Where lovers strolled, hand in hand, one black, One white, with no mind for anyone and no two Minds in their business? Gone the way of drones Whose shadows crossed the moon without trace On GPS to sow grief in the name of cod, liver, oil.

Spell it out or risk talk stuck in ecofriendly caves. Black and blue, both, why can’t we, intoned, Rodney (not Walter), get along? Because, Because, because (fill in the dots) with your Trotsky (or Brodsky) and your Marx (Groucho). Laugh therapy narrows eyes, blocks ears, Hurts jaws, ribs, merrily, merrily, cha-cha. Cha.

•

Eek-A-Mouse blasts my buds, as I read The instruction manual, which says One thing but leads to another When I piece it together, finally. It being the thing I refuse to name.

My nerves, porous as that strainer I hold over a tilted pot full of spaghetti In hot water. Pavarotti in the shower, Malcolm before a cracked mirror, Gaga at each news item competing

For part Fool. Ornate, abandoned nest Left in place, in my suburban rafter, Squirreled from without a note, Unless feathers could ever be a sign Of things to come, of what once was.

•

Face Beckett’s door, imperceptibly ajar.

His stage direction, for how things Turn out here if this show goes on.

Sir Ian, why reserve your last check For your flies, before you take the stage?

Because all eyes alight there first.

Mr. Spock, where is the logic in this?

I marvel at comics from my youth In 4K, LED. Captain, put me ashore.

By which I mean at sea with sirens, Ears unwaxed, sternum lashed to bow.

What is your name? Kunta. Whip.

Am I not a ... asked Sizwe in Fugard.

You are trans, on loan from genes, Dust, waves, particles, here, today.

•

Go-go in la-la land whines craft for art’s saké. See that chrysalis hanging like a mural. Should it stop unfolding, hold back Dues, suspend when wings peel gloves, Snake free, take flight, remind the greed In our chi, Che, cha, what turns without Turning? If you must know, but first,

Shush, write milk in lemon juice on foolscap, Read by passing over Bunsen. Mercurial Chemists, we were all Curie. Cooked crack Ready to pay any price, to find out if love Could ever be a portion, all you would need, To spin Mercator a tad faster on whiteout Poles, match our heart, tap, rat-a-tat burst.

•

1. Hummingbird feeder needs refill 2. Peel sticker, off window, that says glass 3. Buy T-shirt with directive, mind the gap 4. Sip tea from mug, of civil rights dead 5. Breathe in, sure, but really exhale 6. Note how breeze lifts a whole branch 7. Whose green skirt shows white undies

•

I mean certain legends about flight that grow up with right minds to help them come to terms with change that may be out of their control.

Lone branch ranges from a curved palm 90 feet over LA’s 1914 craftsman in historic Adams. How flayed branch cruises broadcasts a specific gravity geared to flight of the right kind, slow, bracing, reluctant, noncommittal, inevitable, and resigned to its fate.

Through double-glazing I hear, so I believe, that swoosh of storied capital decline, swish perhaps, almost a whistle, as you wish, much like us as kids with a clasped blade of grass held to our pursed lips for that didgeridoo that was elevator music to us atonal types.

But how can a branch sing if made to move on by wind and rain from where it began, and thought it would end, even if a philosophy spread among shoots of a final sail set for another dimension?

As word of government raids spread through town and university we forwarded emails, Instagrams, and stopped with neighbors in streets to exchange the latest.

Is this time for emergency measures or are we too blind to know what we can feel coming a mile away, where someone who knows someone we know stops for bread, milk, eggs and is grabbed, handcuffed, and carted off to detention? Imagine us as branches dislodged in a sea change helped by soft water. We cling, not to give up on all we know. What for? That fall, we must accept as fate.

•

Juggernaut ancestors shape-shift cumulus, March across dull blue grass to bagpipes.

Change bandages on Grandmother. Amputated right hand she says she feels

Rainy days in Georgetown as a firm handshake That rattles all 27 phantom bones, makes her shiver.

Grandfather never averts his bifurcated lens From his Golden Treasury, unless his hanky readies

To catch eyewater at the blurred sight of her. In a time of airships, of toothpicks operated

Behind hand cover. Whoever you vote for, (Runs the calypso) the government gets in,

Ting-a-ling-a-ling. Doan tek serious thing Mek joke, bannoh. WTF. Twin towers got us

Here. Nah, Reagan. Nope, slavery. Try again. Irony, that republic of deferred action.

Hummingbird smashes into that glass door, My mother walks absently into it too.

I glance just in time, brake and catch a face That I look through to my final destination.

•

K Street in South London? Now? How? One morning at 6:30 I crossed Blackheath Hill.

On my paper round Met a scrawny fox halfway Uphill, down, not sure.

We paused, inhaled each Other, fox-trotted away, In a slight panic,

Me thinking tabloid Headlines, rabid animal Chases paper kid

On delivery route. Follow as I buzz myself Into a tower,

Board elevator, a man In a suit exits, With the merest nod.

Climb 8 floors, carry That fox, and just as I plunge The folded Mirror

Into letter box, Door, ajar, flies open, wham!

A very pregnant Woman, naked, swollen breasts Blazing redhead, small

Burning bush at crotch, Fills doorframe, scrambles my head. She takes one moment

To compute I am Not her partner, slams door, smack, In my wide-eyed face.

That moment, as she Processes me and I her, Stretches out enough

For me to see her Shoulder-length, red, flaming curls And inverted red

Triangle tuft at her crotch, Bright stretched skin at her Distended navel,

An outie, as though I crashed at high speed and could Recall the lead up

Frame by stark frame for Posterity, mine and hers, Her child near its term.

The rest of my round I peer left, right, near distance, Round bends, for said fox.

I conjure woman, Pregnant, framed by her threshold, Here, now, with only

Me, you, these measures, This emergency, all three, To foster, connect all.

•

Lap up 70s Airy Hall, Guyana. One road in and one road out, One of everything village, Caiman, donkey, peacock, And mad expat Englishman Footloose and fancy-free Who we stone with red sand That crumbles on contact Grabbed from the roadside That acts as giant bow, Strung with two-story house, Whose Greenheart frame, Tensed, held all this time. English pelted for saying, Down his big burnt nose, That he was sent here To rule us half-clad children That he in his better days Seeing better times before Guyana’s famous red rum Got the better of him, Helped sow high and low, And everything between Our town and country.

•

Maestro, we played shoots Planted in one place Sprouts in disorderly rows, Up whole feet if you look away For a spell, all loaded In one hammock strung Between rafters in a back room Empty until harvest Stuffed paddy from roof To pillar to post. Rice husk smell for days. Rocking chair song and dance On full moons, donkey-bray At midday, peacock-scream Various most afternoons.

•

Now help bring barefoot Pale instep, cracked heel, stamping Englishman back, not to curse, Stone or ridicule, but to hear How he would remedy this now So out of sync with then.

•

Once more help us

•

Parse wheat from chaff,

•

Quantify this voting

•

Result that tests our gall.

•

Stepped-on alligator, Uncle

•

Takes for a log bridge

•

Until it lifts, shakes, yawns.

•

Velocity of legs cycling air, Caiman, not alligator, Lassoed between two poles, Fetched back to the house, Cut loose in a fenced field For sport for that day, Lost to me every day since. I bring it back, steady Its shine, against this time,

•

Where I am told one past Counts most, all others Must be put down to what That alligator, jaws open, Head reared, presents, Ready to lash with tail, Charge at anyone Who takes it for a log.

•

X marks the spot where Englishman walks in half Circles, pumps his bent Arms as if to fly, cackles Like a peacock, only to get The real thing started, The two in a quarrel thrice Removed from that magic Flower duet from Lakmé By Léo Delibes. Peacock, Donkey, caiman, village fool, Be my ally, bring it all, Cow, moon, dish, spoon.

•

Yo-Yo Ma follows Eek On democracy’s Shuffle Play.

•

Zebra asks me in Queen’s English peppered with Esperanto If he be black whiff white stripes Or white wid black stripes. I wake with this atonal pair On the edge of my edginess:

“I do not care, I do not care, If the Don has on underwear.”

“But don’t you think or worry some, That his nudity is zero sum?”

“I cannot see for the life of me, Why that should concern anybody.”

“I fret when all’s said and done, We leave him be, he has his fun.”