#foraging insects

[crunchingtiger]

I've been trying to find a practical guide to foraging and eating insects and wow there are really none available. At best there's sensationalized apocalypse prepper stuff but idk if I should trust those for just incorporating wild insects into my diet....

Anyone got any decent recs?

I live in the southeast USA.

[lake-lady]

Creatures of the forest 🌲☘️🐌🦎🍄🍁

[mothmonarch]

WIP from last year I keep meaning to get back to. I want to do the final version traditionally in black & sepia inks with some watercolor… keep changing my mind on what size.

[andulkaphoto]

[mycoblogg]

reblog for reach.. this is science, people !!

[bio-stims]

a stimboard for our headmate aurora 🩷

credits: x x x | x x x | x x x

[fandom-hoarder]

Sometimes you're a monsterfucker but you don't want to actually fuck the monster. Sometimes you can't actually fuck the monster, but that's okay because whether or not you fuck doesn't matter to your love.

[blujayonthewing]

'lemme just do a little preliminary research before bed for that trip I wanna do, nothing too deep I don't wanna stay up too late' but the research involves SEVERAL OVERLAPPING AND LONG-DORMANT SPECIAL INTERESTS AT THE SAME TIME

[grey-wardens]

fields of mistria is so fun, i'm going to be sad when i run out of early access content for now

i really want to romance juniper but i also don't want to get between whatever is going on with her and valen 💀

[southcarolinawoman]

Honeybee on Lavender

[neige-leblanche]

also i just found out cultivated cordyceps are actually vegetarian!! even though they grow in insects in the wild, they're farmed using rice as a substitute :0

[victorluvsalice]

-->While that was going on, I decided that while Alice was outside indulging her werewolf instincts, she could spread a little feed for the chickens -- while most of them were asleep, there was one hen up and hungry, and Cockadoodle the rooster was getting ready to wake everyone else up, so yeah -- might as well be prepared! She then wandered off to make a clay bunny on the back porch (fortunately avoiding the specter) before I directed her back upstairs to work on her book. THIS time, she was actually able to sit down and concentrate for a while, hooray. May all us writers be so blessed. :p

-->Smiler, for their part, got sent to check in on a yowling Kelly when she appeared on the back porch! Seems mama cat was feeling a little neglected with all the attention being showered on her kittens, so I had Smiler give her lots of calming pets to make sure she knew she was still loved too. :) Smiler then joined Victor in the greenhouse to unleash Bugs and Elmer on the plants, before hitting the cauldron grill to do a bit more herbalism! After all, they'd just gotten a bunch more locusts from Victor earlier this morning to use in their concoctions. :p They made a Soothing Skin Balm, which got them all the way up to Herbalism level 7, meaning they can make Natural Herbicide Oil! :D ...Theoretically, as it once again requires ingredients I don't have. >( I need to get them back to Granite Falls at some point to gather more plants and insects... Anyway, with that sorted, they then moved onto making a lovely yellow-and-orange flower arrangement, which got them to Flower Arranging level 6! Seriously, they were just BANGING out the skills today, let me tell you...

-->Around this time, Moory wandered out of their shed looking a little worse for wear, so I had Alice take a break from her writing to go give the cow a nice brush off. She then headed into the bathroom to give herself a pep talk (she was still feeling Gloomy from earlier), before being put on chicken coop cleaning duty. Smiler, for their part, tried offering the specter the Fizzy Fruity Drink from earlier -- unfortunately, this did not go well either, so I had them just harvest all their herbalism stuff and plasma fruit before going to clean out the cow shed (because, for some reason, the game wouldn't let me clean it magically anymore >( ). Victor, of course, was kept busy tending and harvesting the rest of the garden, because that's what he does around the house these days. XD What can I say, he is the Plant Guy!

[mothmonarch]

Lots of new little things in progress! 🐜🍃

[alcnfr]

Little Black Ants (Monomorium minimum) marching out to disassemble a grub into it's component molecules, on the Chickens' Coop...

[mycoblogg]

freaky fungi fact : entomopathogenic fungi !!

entomopathogenic fungi are fungi that can kill or seriously disable insects.

this group of fungi lives in the soil & infects insects by penetrating their bodies to feed on them, & eventually kill them. they are sorted into five divisions (ascomycota, zygomycota, deuteromycota, oomycota & chytridiomycota), each with their own properties.

they have a big impact on insect population dynamics in soil.

there are currently over 800 different entomopathogenic fungi that have been identified.

below the cut are some images of insects that have been infected. CW for animal death + bugs / other critters + just general disturbing imagery.

a beetle parasitised by an unnamed entomopathogenic fungus. [source]

a cicada parasitised by the massospora cicadina fungus. [source]

a spider parasitised by an unnamed entomopathogenic fungus. [source]

[the lovely user who asked me to talk about this : source<3]

[ephemeral-serenity]

stumbled upon my first wild blackberry bush and that was oh so exciting