#giant wasp spider

[gaildaley]

WELCOME TO 2023!

I see it’s about time to post last year’s blogs to catch you up on what I’ve been doing this past year. Some months have very little in them, due to a series of fall I took in May and June.  I started going back to the Chiropractor again, and I’m doing much better, but I basically lost control of my ring and pinkie fingers on both hands, which makes me a slower typist. On a good note I am able…

[wwprice1]

Avengers art by the late John Cassaday.

[smol-lucy]

This happened today (⁠•⁠ ⁠▽⁠ ⁠•⁠;⁠)

[guairescp]

Why do all the cutest and coolest insects have the most dangerous bites or stings? It's so unfair

You all cannot tell me in good faith you don't want to be near these animals.

[sandymybeloved]

its really funny to me (and by funny i mean infuriating), how vastly different the acceptable levels of silly nonsense are between different eras of specifically the revival

its like, RTD era: incredibly dumb moment (affectionate), Moffat era: that's silly (derogatory), Chibnall era: I have to suspend my disbelief??? (borderline homocidal)

[hellomystraightlacedfriend]

Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #16

Paul Tobin/Denis Medri

[browsethestacks]

Comics (Sept1964)

[unreadpoppy]

stopping da2 for now because the amount of spider jumpscares i'm getting is making me very triggered

[holy-shit-comics]

[itsadragonaesthetic]

I'm starting to realize my fear of insects etc is kind of a detriment and it's annoying. I thought I was all good cuz I don't HATE insects and I'm better than uh... some people! But the fact that I'm so easily undone by things is kind of a problem and I kind of want to look to mending it.

[wwprice1]

The heroes of Marvel unite by Sanford Greene.

[smashpages]

Groot #2 (Marvel, June 2023) Stormbreakers variant cover by Martin Coccolo

[venustheplan3t]

I love them. I love them I love them I love them I love them I love them I love them I love them I love them I love them I lo-

glimpse into my beautiful imaginary world where arthropods are really big and we domesticated them

edit: people are starting to say some "my worst nightmare" or "eeeww no that one is yucky and scary" comments on this like they do on any bug post and id like to say. it's fine if you don't like bugs it's fine if you're scared of bugs but don't put that on MY post clearly talking about how much i like them and how cute i think they are. you can make your own damn post about how much you hate wasps or spiders or whatever. i'm blocking people who make these kinds of comments.

[buriedpentacles]

When I say "connect with nature" I don't just mean the aesthetic forests with deer and beautiful flowers.

I mean the weeds growing through concrete, the fungus that grows on the rotten shed, the nettles that always seem to return and the scary, spindly cellar spider in the corner of the bathroom.

Nature is not always pretty or magical - the pigeons and seagulls you swat at are nature too, the wasps and flies that hover by your meals are animals too, store-bought strawberries and the leaves that fall from your neighbour's tree are not all that different from the Giant Sequoias and it's seeds.

If you want to connect and understand nature, I mean *really* connect to it, in it's entirety, you have to seek out and learn about the ugly, scary and mundane things as well. You don't have to like it, just don't forget that it's there.

[bogleech]

Anyway while we're on the subject of public misconception towards living things (which is completely understandable because have you SEEN living things? There's like dozens of them!) here's a fresh rundown of some common mistakes about bugs!

Arachnids aren't just spiders! They're also scorpions, mites, ticks and some real weirdos out there

Insects with wings are always finished growing! Wings are the last new thing they ever develop! There can never be a "baby bee" that's just a smaller bee flying around.

That said, not all insects have larvae! Many older insect groups do look like little versions of adults....but the wings rule still applies.

Insects do have brains! Lobes and everything!

Only the Hymenoptera (bees, ants and wasps) have stingers like that.

Not all bees and wasps live in colonies with queens

The only non-hymenoptera with queens are termites, which is convergent evolution, because termites are a type of cockroach!

There are still other insects with colonial lifestyles to various degrees which can include special reproductive castes, just not the whole "queen" setup.

Even ants still deviate from that; there are multi-queen ant species, some species where the whole colony is just females who clone themselves and other outliers

There is no "hive mind;" social insects coordinate no differently from schools of fish, flocks of birds, or for that matter crowds of humans! They're just following the same signals together and communicating to each other!

Not all mosquito species carry disease, and not all of them bite people

Mosquitoes ARE ecologically very important and nobody in science ever actually said otherwise

The bite of a black widow is so rarely deadly that the United States doesn't bother stocking antivenin despite hundreds of reported bites per year. It just feels really really bad and they give you painkillers.

Recluse venom does damage skin, but only in the tiny area surrounding the bite. More serious cases are due to this dead skin inviting bacterial infection, and in fact our hospitals don't carry recluse antivenin either; they just prescribe powerful antibiotics, which has been fully effective at treating confirmed bites.

Bed bugs are real actual specific insects

"Cooties" basically are, too; it's old slang for lice

Crane flies aren't "mosquito hawks;" they actually don't eat at all!

Hobo spiders aren't really found to have a dangerous bite, leaving only widows and recluses as North America's "medically significant" spiders

Domestic honeybees actually kill far more people than hornets, including everywhere the giant "murder" hornet naturally occurs.

Wasps are only "less efficient" pollinators in that less pollen sticks to them per wasp. They are still absolutely critical pollinators and many flowers are pollinated by wasps exclusively.

Flies are also as important or more important to pollination than bees.

For "per insect" pollination efficiency it's now believed that moths also beat bees

Honeybees are non-native to most of the world and not great for the local ecosystem, they're just essential to us and our food industry

Getting a botfly is unpleasant and can become painful, but they aren't actually dangerous and they don't eat your flesh; they essentially push the flesh out of the way to create a chamber and they feed on fluids your immune system keeps making in response to the intrusion. They also keep this chamber free of bacterial infection because that would harm them too!

Botflies also exist in most parts of the world, but only one species specializes partially in humans (and primates in general, but can make do with a few other hosts)

"Kissing bugs" are a group of a couple unusual species of assassin bug. Only the kissing bugs evolved to feed on blood; other assassin bugs just eat other insects.

[girlballs]

you have to hype up your girlmutuals or god will send beetles and snakes and bees and wasps and spiders and giant crabs to kill you