#mostly to male reproductive glands and the skin that covers them

[adaginy]

The Big Guide to Humans

Introduction: We cannot call this the "Complete Guide to Humans" because there are so many varieties and differences that it would be a lie. We are attempting, however, to make this as complete as we can, and that does make "Big" an accurate description.

Below is an image of humans that many species will be most familiar with. When the humans sent out a probe intended to leave their star system, they included it as part of an introduction to their species. Although humans reached occupied space well before their introduction did, this is inexplicably the most well-known image of them, despite being so simplified and culturally skewed as to be nearly inaccurate. That said, it provides a starting point. If your species does not use vision or cannot extrapolate a 2-dimensional drawing into 3 dimensions, please seek out a Pioneer Plaque Reconstruction attuned to your species' needs. Words presented in bold will have chapters with further detail.

On <- this side of the image is a man, or male human. On -> this side is a woman, or female human. We are already deeply oversimplifying things and will explain human sex/gender better later. A man is on average approximately .7 LocalDistanceUnits high, and a woman approximately .6, but this varies widely. The humans rendered in the image are likely in the second quarter of their lifespan, and considered to be fully adult. Both are usually approximately symmetrical bilaterally, less so if your species can see internally. Their external surface is covered with skin that is mostly pliable (areas that experience impact or motion stress may turn harder) and sensitive to touch. We will start from the bottom due to image alignment reasons, but the most important parts of a human are near the top. At the bottom is their feet. Most humans have five "toes" at the ends of them. Though analogous to their more familiar hands and fingers, the toes are usually not particularly dexterous. Each foot is attached by a rotating hinged joint to a leg. The legs make up approximately half of the human's height, with a hinged joint in the middle, called a knee, and a rotating joint at the top that connects them to the torso. The legs are used for locomotion. The torso contains most of a human's internal organs, including the reproductive organs, which are attached to external organs between where the legs meet the torso. !! Humans almost never have these exposed as in the image. If their external reproductive organs are deliberately exposed to you, they are likely offering to mate with you, on the expectation that you want to mate with them. !! The small dot a little less than .1 LocalDistanceUnit above the reproductive organs is a "navel," an artifact of their birth process. It is unimportant except as a visual landmark. The area around it is often somewhat soft, and a human in distress may fold its legs upward to protect the area. The two dots further up the torso are "nipples." In women, they are the secretion point for glands that offer nourishment to humans in the earliest stages of human development. In men, they are an artifact of the development process. Women are less likely to have their nipples exposed casually when not nourishing young humans -- refer to the previous warning about external reproductive organs -- although some human cultures do not differentiate between male and female nipples, allowing both to be exposed. However, they are not to be deliberately touched outside of mating. Near the top of the torso are the rotating joints that attach the humans' arms. The arms are somewhat longer than the torso and end in hands, which themselves end in fingers: Four in alignment and one at an angle so it can be brought to meet the others. Humans use their hands and fingers to move, lift, or manipulate objects both light and heavy, to gesture in ways that add to language and communication, and as the focal point of their sense of touch. On a column above the torso is the human's head. It contains, from bottom to top, the organs for their sense of taste (the large single opening), their sense of smell (the small paired openings), their sense of vision (the two semi-contained moist balls), and their sense of hearing (a hole on each side of their head, surrounded by a flap of stiffened skin). Above the eyes, hidden in a productive shell, is the human brain. This is the organ that processes sensory information, thinks, and remembers. Humans would say this organ stores humanity, which we will adopt as a catchall term for the sort of thing you're likely reading this book for, if you aren't interested in their physical bodies. At the top of the head is a human's hair. Most of a human's skin has hair on it, and some humans having much more noticeable bodily hair, but the hair at the top of their heads is often thicker and longer than hair elsewhere. Many humans style this hair in cosmetic display.

--- As I write things, I will try to edit the original with links. Maybe. Every time I edit, I have to fix the bold text.

[itinerariumgalacticadevblog]

Aerolotl (Part 1)

General Description: semi-terrestrial, arcanicly active pack hunting river amphibians 

Biology: 

General Description: Tiny sized sphynxoid quadruped with a wide spade face framed by actively allocative gills. Most major features are malleable with their capacity for rapid adaptation. They have a minor local hive mind capacity via inherent arcane spellcasting used to facilitate hunting, which also generates their basic ectoplasmic manifestations.

Length(nose - tail, juv - adult): 20 cm - 1 meter

Arm Span: 5 cm - 12 cm

Mass: 18kg

Bodyplan

Limbs

Arms: 4, stubby and thick, built for gripping and locking onto prey. These are rarely used for locomotion.

Fins: 

Dorsal ridge, boney spinal plate

Caudal (Tail) Fin: large, sheer, used for directionality and reproductive ritual

Pelvic: short and stiff, defensive for core bits and nesting schooling young

Scapular: long, wing like, fluttering in an arcane wind generated in the front most bone of the fin crest

Crest: widely varying by family line; can manifest anywhere around the crested edge of the head as a tall monofin, feathering around the crest, and more.

Tails: vertical leaf shaped tail with a small split at the end, not reflected in the fin structure

Heads: single broad shield or shovel shaped head, framed by six gill stalks. Their head is structured so that it may float or lay flat and still have strong sight lines of the horizon via large eyes with rotating sockets

Internal Composition

Skeletal: thick and hollow, with porous cells that may be pumped empty or flooded to maintain buoyancy 

Nervous: Significantly dulled via diverting specifically pain signals to a secondary cluster of nerves in the base of their neck. It is hypothesized that it helps keep focus when hunting for a higher average success as a pack and thus species.

Muscular: emphasized groupings on gripping and locking muscle groups.

Integumentary (Skin)

Composition: highly permeable semi-osmotic skin with a condensed mucous layer for retaining moisture and guarding against pathogens.

Colouration: highly adaptable based on environmental factors. Black is default, but pink, white, and mint are common

Digestive: Aerolotls have a sensitive gut culture that makes eating most food difficult, if not impossible without undergoing very specific changes. Instead, they process slurry made from manifested chemically-basic ooze which is able to break down mostly acidic beings into a usable food source and any stored alchemical Influences. Notably, very little body mass is actually devoted to the digestive tract as compared to most species due to most digestion occurring before ingestion.

Respiratory: gill stalks take in air and ambient moisture so that the mouth may be covered entirely either by combat or consumption and still breathe. They also continue to function aquatically as typical gills for up to 80 hours at a time. While respirating, Aerolotls are also able to absorb arcane Influences suspended in the air or water, slowly recharging their storage glands.

Reproductive: males possess testes by the base of their tail, noted by raised bumps on either side, with a small slit for the cloaca to protrude and deposit sperm, where females have a wide, flat pelvic plate covering their cloaca, leading to two different uteruses with a single ovary each, located high in the thorax, near the heart (theorized to keep a constant blood flow over the eggs in early development). Eggs are created and shed each breeding season (when the planetary spring season begins).

Arcane: subdermal allocative glands at each cartilaginous fin joint.

Sensory Array

Sight: stronger than typical land predators due to their semi-flying locomotion and their movement-based hunting vision. Large eyes take up most of the head, making them emotionally expressive. This was developed as a social and courting development, before arcane skills developed.

Hearing: rudimentary with valved ear canals behind the jaw and cranial ridge. It is accute and great at locating the origin of sound in relation to near-sources, as the accuracy drops significantly at small to medium ranges  

Touch: dulled, with intentional delays in pain registration.

Taste: chemically complex, as they are able to summon many subtle chemical differences in their basic manifestations, resulting in a broad flavor pallet when allowing for the 

Magic: through allocative stockpiles, aerolotls maintain a constant arcane search through their environment to find and track other aerolotls in the vicinity. The dedicated organ that maintains this spellwork rings their cranial ridge, in a nestled channel in   the bone.

Lifespan: 17 - 30 (wild), 30 - 60 (captive)

Lifecycle

Breeding: Males approach females with bright and flashy expenditures of allocated arcana. If the approach is accepted, the female reciprocates. Others will circle (always anti-clockwise) the vicinity as a defensive ring, as the couple are arcanically spent with courtship. Following, the male grips the female from behind in amplexus for up to thirty hours. Aerolotls typically only mate with those within their herd, though herd interchanges happen often by intention and accident.

Birth: aerolotls start as eggs and develop a soft shell of strong tensile, semi-permeable aquaphobic mucus. These are laid in fast-moving cold fresh water streams in groups of 10 to 12 and gestate for three to five months.

Maturation: 

Stage 1: “Tadpoles” purely aquatic, they hunt by catching small fish and weaker aerolotls in the stream. Tadpoles are often swept away from family units, which usually leads to predation.

Stage 2: “Floaties”: also called “skimmers”, have collected enough allocated elements to hover just over the water. Due to their gills being underdeveloped, they cannot get far without suffocating, using the high humidity above the water to breathe.

Stage 3: “Totsies” are at an age to begin weening and playing, as well as early hivemind hunting behaviors. They lack many fine motor skills and control with their flight, requiring the most parental attention at this stage.

Stage 4: “Play Babies” have reached maximum size and are active and energetic hunters. This is the most sought after stage for owners, as well as where they are most susceptible to rapid adaptations.

Stage 5: “Show Beasts” the last stage at which new herd members can be safely introduced into their daily lifestyles (sans offspring). These are known for their patient maturity combined with their full adult appearance but before the effects of aging are noticeable. This makes them the most amenable to performance. This is not a biological stage, but is observed by enthusiasts.

Stage 6: “Adults” relatively late in their lifecycle compared to most fauna. This is the final form, which have difficulty adapting or changing their habitats. A well cared for adult is capable of surviving for twice as long as their juvenile stages, with later clutches of breeding pairs exhibiting strong survival skills and magic resonance.

Aging: few Aerolotls reach old age as most experience health complications that lead to death. This is thanks to a strong cellular regenerative capacity that would hypothetically allow them to live indefinitely that is entirely biological, as well as recovering lost limbs and organs.

Death: Deceased Aerolotls get dragged into moving bodies of water and guarded for up to ten hours post mortem. It’s unclear if this is ritual or survival.

[classywastelandbread-blog]

Charred or Chard The Cat

Just a little silly thing I scribbled down today. 

I tend to collect a lot of random (and usually useless) bits of knowledge. The facts here are based on what I learned when I spent time with my aunty who was once a breeder of cats on a whim.

“Han,” Jesse said, a pained look on his face. “No…”

The…thing…hung complacently from Hanzo’s hands, its hind legs curled demurely over its groin which was a blessing because it wasn’t neutered.

…and it was hairless.

“Yes,” Hanzo said seriously. “You said you wanted children of the four-legged variety.”

Jesse sighed, running his flesh hand through his hair. “Han…I think said of the furry variety. That…thing…” he shuddered. “Hon, it looks like a shaved ball sack.”

“You would know,” Hanzo replied, much to the discomfort of the kitten’s owner. He scooped it into his arms like one would hold a baby and turned to the woman that had put the kitten up for adoption. She looked very much like she regretted agreeing to meet with them but she still smiled kindly at them. “How much?”

Jesse whined. “Han.”

The woman’s eyes flicked to Jesse. “Hon,” she said gently to Hanzo. “Maybe you should make the decision with your…friend?”

“Husband,” Hanzo corrected absently as he toyed with the cat’s paws. It was complacent enough to bat at his hands gamely; when it “caught” Hanzo’s finger, it brought it to its mouth and licked at it.

Never had Jesse wished so badly for someone to be homophobic and take the cat…thing…away from Hanzo. But the woman was a kind sort and smiled. “Husband,” she repeated sweetly. “Maybe you should ask your husband what he thinks.”

“He thinks he looks like a shaved ball sack,” Hanzo pointed out. “He made it very clear what he thought of him.”

The woman winced. “Yes, but I’d rather not cause a break in a marriage over a cat,” she pointed out. “And I’d hate to get this poor guy’s hopes up that he’d find his forever home.”

Jesse could never get used to that phrase. “Forever home”. It made sense and was kind of sweet but at the same time he thought it was kind of weird…but that was just him.

Startled, Hanzo looked back at Jesse. He groaned. “Ma’am,” he said kindly to the woman. “Y’ mind if we have some people-talk? Guy talk? Like…me and my husband?” It still felt weird to call Hanzo his husband but it was a good kind of weird that sent thrills up and down his spine.

The woman smiled and held out her hands for the cat which Hanzo very reluctantly handed back to her. “You can go in the dining room over there,” she said, pointing to the room in question. “Just give a holler if you need me.” Murmuring to the cat, she lumbered off to the couch and sat down with a groan. The kitten curled up on her ample belly and closed its eyes as if to nap.

Hanzo looked so honestly concerned that Jesse had to tug him into a tight hug. “Now don’t think that, Han,” he murmured. “If you want ‘im, get ‘im. I’m just…not on board with the whole ‘hairless’ thing. I’m serious when I say it looks like a shaved ball sack.”

“So you’ve said,” Hanzo muttered into his chest. “I just…”

Jesse tipped his head up and gave him a soft kiss. “It seems like a sweetheart,” he said. “I’m just…not confident I can hold it without being disturbed. But…if you want it…it’s yours. And I’ll support you and…it…I’ll get used to it eventually. But darlin’…never worry that I’ll make you give it up. That ain’t happening.”

Hanzo searched his eyes before gently kissing the painted thread around Jesse’s left pinkie. “I like him.” While it was relieving to hear – they had searched seemingly hundreds of shelters and ads for cats that met Hanzo’s apparently strict standards – Jesse wasn’t sure he really liked this particular cat.

“Then let’s get him.”

His husband (!!) looked so pleasantly surprised and Jesse received a truly warm kiss in thanks. It made him feel almost guilty for already hating the hairless monstrosity.

When Hanzo told the owner-breeder of the kitten that he’d take it, Jesse got a truly pitying look from her husband. Great.

“Damn,” Fareeha said as the kitten explored the common room before their weekly Chopped marathon.

Angela peered at it. “It’s ugly,” she said and wrinkled her nose. “Do all cats have that much skin? And where are its whiskers?”

As if protesting her words, the cat gave a raspy meow.

“Yeah,” Fareeha agreed. “It’s ugly and…hermano…you’re so whipped.”

Zarya tucked her legs up on her couch when the cat wandered her way. “Is unnatural.”

The doors slammed open and Rein, still a little dirty from work in the Diner, stumbled in. “I heard Hanzo’s cat was here!” he boomed. The cat in question had frozen in terror, its bright blue eyes wide as it processed the sudden noise.

“Yeah,” Jesse said as neutrally as he could. “Close the door so it doesn’t run out.”

The big man scrambled to obey, nearly smashing Ana in the process but she was quick and managed to avoid death that day. “Where is it?” Rein asked excitedly. “What kind of cat is it?”

“Looks like shaved nuts,” Zarya said flatly, eyeing the creature where it crouched under the coffee table.

Rein’s excited face froze awkwardly. “What?”

Hana giggled where she was curled up with Jesse. Bastian occupied the other side of the couch with a safe distance so Hanzo could sit beside his husband; Lucio was perched on the arm, frowning down at the cat.

Everyone’s reaction to the cat, in Jesse’s opinion, were absolutely priceless. Rein’s was no exception – his excited face fell immediately upon seeing the wretched creature. “Where is that cat’s fur?” he asked flatly.

“It doesn’t have any,” Jesse said, running a hand over his face tiredly. Hana giggled.

“Actually,” Sombra corrected, once more startling everyone with not only her presence but her willingness to talk. “They do have fur, it’s just very fine. They still can and do create dander but it’s just at a much-reduced rate and volume – why they can be called hypoallergenic.”

They all frowned at her. It was the longest she had spoken in a long time and most of the time no one knew what to do with her when she did speak or laugh. But where Sombra was, Gabe couldn’t be too far away.

“How?” Bastian asked curiously.

Sombra shrugged as Gabe entered the common area. Seeing the cat – which had begun to emerge from the table, he turned around and walked out without a word. Giggling, Sombra heckled him in Spanish as she followed. Some of her suggestions were that he should knit The Cat clothes so it wouldn’t be too cold.

It suddenly occurred to Jesse that he had no idea how to take care of it.

Is this what being a parent feels like? He signed to Hana and Bastian who turned to look at him when he began signing. Being terrified when you realize you have no idea how to take care of another life? Hana laughed and said nothing; Bastian shrugged solemnly though his clear eyes were amused.

Ana was peering down at The Cat which had slowly begun approaching her. “It looks so worried,” she said with a laugh, running a careful finger over the wrinkles between its ears. It butted its head into hers, trying to solicit more pets which she obliged. She laughed again. “It’s so soft! You should feel it!”

“Like shaved nuts!” Zarya roared, outraged, from where she was curled up. Angela and Fareeha giggled and joined her there.

Jack, who had just opened the door, paused. “What?”

“Don’t ask,” Jesse told him tiredly. “She’s talking about The Cat.”

The man visibly hesitated. “You guys finally found one?”

Hana giggled. “Yes!”

“Does he have a name?”

It suddenly occurred to Jesse that he had absolutely no idea if Hanzo had named The Thing. “We can ask Han,” he said when everyone turned to look at him.

The cat grunted when it was picked up in Rein’s massive hands but didn’t struggle like Jesse half-expected it to. “He’s so tiny!” Rein exclaimed.

“Isn’t he soft?” Ana asked, wiggling her finger in the cat’s face. He batted at it without his claws and went limp in Rein’s hands.

Jack leaned over the couch by Jesse. “That…thing…is a cat?”

“Yup!” Hana said a little too-loudly.

Rein’s booming laughter echoed. “Shaved nut sack!” Zarya roared when he tried to hand the cat to her.

“Oh!” Ana tsked. “Just hold him! Or touch him!”

Zarya didn’t look amused as he was dangled into her space. The cat’s legs were extended as he tried to keep his balance. She tilted her head all the way back in an effort to not look at the creature. “I feel like I’m violating him,” Angela said faintly, also looking anywhere but the creature being dangled in front of them.

The residents of that couch were saved by Hanzo’s return. What exactly he thought when he saw Zarya, Angela, and Fareeha cowering away from the cat which was being dangled over them by Rein, Jesse couldn’t be sure, but he seemed pleased enough that not only were they interacting with the wretched thing, but that Hana looked happy.

Jesse collected a kiss from him as he moved past and scooped the poor animal out of Rein’s massive hands. It met Jesse’s eyes over Hanzo’s shoulder and he tried not to laugh at how utterly relieved it seemed.

“He’s so cute,” Ana said and Jesse made gagging faces at Zarya, Angela, and Fareeha who nodded in agreement. “Does he have a name yet?”

Jesse’s couch was becoming crowded but privately he thought it was strange to learn after five-odd years of sitting on the same couch in the same spot that there was a recliner chair built in, but it worked in his favor because it meant that not only could Hana, Bastian, and Lucio all sit on the couch with him, but he could also cuddle with Hanzo.

Except now he cuddled with Hanzo, who sat between his legs with his back against Jesse’s chest, and Charred, the hairless cat.

Ugh.

The cat, despite still being rather young, was very mild-mannered which was nice. It didn’t run around or seem to get sick of being in one place for so long but simply seemed content to sit on Hanzo’s lap and accept scritches.

Despite Jesse’s own dislike of the ghastly thing, he loved the smile it brought to Hanzo’s face.

Worse, the thing was friendly and tried to solicit pets and scritches. Fareeha, Zarya, and Jesse were the only ones so far holding out. Angela was a little disturbed by the sensation but would occasionally pet Charred though she privately admitted that she felt bad that it was named such a depressing name.

But he was more Hanzo’s baby than Jesse’s so he really couldn’t protest the name so much but it really was rather morbid. As Sombra (and his previous owner had) explained, the strange grey-black splotches over Charred’s back were from the color of his nearly-invisible fur. If it had been longer, he’d be white with black or grey splotches but now he was a strange shade of fleshy pink with big ash-colored spots.

More than his unfortunately morbid name, Jesse felt almost bad – almost – for not giving Charred the scritches he obviously wanted from him. He was a very well-behaved cat when asking, patting the leg or arm of a person with his claws retracted and trying his best to plead with his wrinkly face.

“Looks like E.T.,” Zarya said flatly when Charred tried to solicit pets from her. “Like E.T. had baby with shaved ball sack. No.”

Charred was endearing, Jesse had to give him that. Once he got used to his…unfortunate…features he could almost find Charred cute.

He just couldn’t bring himself to actually touch him which made it hard when Charred tried his best to endear himself to Jesse.

He’d wind around Jesse’s legs when he fed him in the morning (something he volunteered to do despite Hanzo’s insistence that he could), would try to rub against Jesse and get his attention as much as press up against him with a cute little mew. Jesse always felt bad nudging the cat away with a socked foot but he just couldn’t deal with the thing.

It was insufferably cute though, to see the little knitted clothes that Ana made for him. Unsurprisingly with no fur to keep him warm, Charred needed some assistance. If he transported the cat between the Barracks and Base, Hanzo tucked him in a hoodie or in his coat with him.

Though Gabe thought Charred was disgusting, he created a lined pouch that looked like a messenger bag that would keep the cat warm while he was outside. He shrieked outright when Charred tried to rub against him, seemingly in thanks.

Two weeks after Charred came to the farm, they learned that his name was actually Chard.

Like the vegetable, which turned out to be one of Hanzo’s favorites, especially to cook with. Like the rainbow chard he had on his tattoo on his right arm.

Chard, not Charred, like he was crispy.

Huh.

For his part, Hanzo was no stranger to Jesse’s thoughts on Chard. (And Zarya’s…and Fareeha’s…and Gabe’s. Really, he could go on.) He was pleased that Jesse kept his promise – not that he doubted he would – to not mind Chard’s presence. He volunteered to feed him, would bring back toys or treats, but he still staunchly refused to touch him directly.

At first Hanzo was hurt because he at least enjoyed the feel of Chard’s fuzzy skin and he and Ana often played with the cat’s wrinkled forehead and scraggly whiskers. Yes, his junk was disturbing, but they got used to it.

(Hanzo, did, at least. He could still hear the cries of disgust when Chard flipped his tail up in a friendly greeting and treated everyone to an eyeful.)

Still, he was beginning to worry about Jesse’s reticence.

He need not have worried because nearly a full month after adopting Chard, he found the two of them napping in a golden beam of sunlight in their room. Jesse was cradling the majority of Chard’s body with his whole arm and the stump of his other. The cat’s head was tucked into the crook of his neck and one of his paws rested on the bared flesh of his collarbone through the open collar of his flannel.

From the flick of Chard’s ears as he unlocked his phone, he knew Hanzo was there but Jesse didn’t stir as he snapped a few quick pictures. Chard grunted and shifted and Jesse’s hands tightened on him instinctively before relaxing as the cat settled again.

Hanzo managed to get a few more pictures before Jesse peeked his eyes open. He smiled sleepily at Hanzo and tipped his head back for a kiss.

His thumb rubbed gently along Chard’s lower back where he cradled him gently. “L’ke ‘a shaved ball sack,” he said sleepily. It was almost smug and it was the tone that got Hanzo.

The startled burst of laughter from Hanzo startled Chard enough that he leaped to his feet and raced away. Even Jesse agreed as Hanzo cleaned them with hydrogen peroxide with Chard watching them reproachfully from the doorway that the lines of scratches over his chest were almost worth it.

Fun facts about Sphynx (”hairless”) cats I learned from my aunty (and also some things about Chard):

As Sombra mentioned, they do actually have fur, it’s just really short. Due to fluctuations in their hormones, the mama cats sometimes grow fur which is surprisingly soft. 

My aunty’s breeding female’s fur was tight and swirly for lack of a better word. It wasn’t quite curly but just the way it grew it made it look wavy. 

Even after she had weaned her kittens, she kept her fur. Not sure what happened there but whatever. 

The breeding female was more or less pure evil. She was the queen of the house and was absolutely enamored with my aunty. 

They do actually have whiskers and “eyebrows” even if it doesn’t appear that they do - they just grow in so fine and brittle that they break off. 

Chard looks kind of like this. His coloration is based off of one of my aunty’s cats and she told me recently that she had initially considered naming him “Charred” but the rest of his family’s names ended in an “O” sound so she couldn’t. 

He has blue eyes.

His attitude is very friendly and relatively laid back. 

Some cats are very amenable to training due to breeding, natural aptitude, and/or their general demeanor. Chard is definitely one of those cats. My cat in RL is not. 

[tribbetherium]

The quetzals, or feathered serpents, are one of the most diverse and successful pseudosnake lineages, found on every continent and spanning a wide array of forms. Their notable key feature is their dense coat of branching filaments, fuzzy and similar to down, that covers their body. This coat provides insulation and is utilized for display and camouflage, while modified feather quills, arranged in a row of sharp spines along their flanks, help grip the ground as they move, making many species of quetzals surprisingly fast sprinters despite their lack of limbs.

All species of quetzals are egg-layers, and many lay relatively small clutches of eggs, which are incubated and cared for by one or both parents until they hatch. Most quetzal hatchlings are precocial, being born fully-feathered and able to follow their parents around until they become old enough to fend for themselves.

Some notable species include:

▪The masked scriggle, a small insectivore measuring about 10-12 inches in length, is a very basal quetzal species virtually identical to the earliest forms that diverged from the theriodontophidians millions of years ago. Armed with a long, pointed snout and dozens of small, conical teeth, the masked scriggle is an avid hunter of insects and other small invertebrate prey in the undergrowth. Males are easily identified by their brilliant black-and-gold heads, which give the species its name, while females are much less conspicuous.

▪The neon stringworm is a close relative of the scriggle, and like its cousin is a small insectivore measuring about 15 inches in length. Spectacularly colored, male stringworms are notable for their elaborate courtship displays, ruffling their refractive blue plumage to create a shimmering effect while performing a frantic wiggling 'dance' in hopes of attracting a mate. While their showy coloration greatly improves their reproductive success, it however comes with a price: breeding season makes them very conspicuous to predators, and a large percentage of male mortality occurs during the months when females are most receptive.

▪The midnight scrowl is a nocturnal omnivore measuring about two feet in length, mostly present in temperate forests. Hiding in tree holes and under logs during the daytime, the scrowl emerges under the cover of night to forage for food. Its large eyes and superb vision in the dark help it locate its meals, which include fruits, seeds, and small invertebrates, as well as any unguarded eggs of other quetzal species it may chance upon. Typically territorial and solitary creatures, their black-and-white striped tails serve as warning colorations to startle intruders to their turf.

▪The blue-flecked desert sluzzard is an opportunistic scavenger native to arid environments. Averaging three to four feet in length, the desert sluzzard is adapted to feed on carrion, possessing a distinctive naked head and long, narrow snout filled with hooked teeth to easily access the nutritious bits of a carcass. While small groups of sluzzards may follow herds of desert-dwelling ophiotauri in hopes of picking off any of the dead or dying, they prefer to follow large predators in hopes of gleaning off mouthfuls of leftovers before the owner can chase them off. They may also catch live prey such as insects and small vertebrates, in times when large carrion is scarce.

▪ The spiny dirtwurm is a small burrower rarely exceeding 5-6 inches in length. Adapted for a subterranean lifestyle, the dirtwurm has thick, dense fur-like plumage, a beak-like sheath over its snout to aid in digging, small eyes and a keen sense of hearing and smell. An omnivore, the dirtwurm feeds on roots, tubers and underground insect larvae, and on occasion surfaces underneath carrion to scavenge as well. While most quetzals have just two rows of spines on each side to aid in locomotion, the dirtwurm has a multitude of spines all over its body to help pull itself along in its underground tunnels, as well as deter any predator that tries to grab or swallow it.

▪ The crimson snagret is an an aquatic piscivore that usually measures about five feet in length and is commonly found in bodies of freshwater, such as rivers, lakes and streams. Its lateral spines are hollow and full of air, providing additional buoyancy as it swims on the surface of the water. Its long, flexible neck and narrow snout allow it to quickly plunge its head below the surface to snatch aquatic prey below: while most of its diet consists of fish, carotenoid-rich crustaceans make up a significant part of its diet as well, which grants the crimson snagret its distinctively-colored plumage.

▪The emerald parraconda is a large herbivore commonly seen on the forest floor in tropical rainforests. Reaching lengths of up to twenty feet in some of the largest individuals, the parraconda has few natural enemies and is usually content to travel the forest floor in search of fruits, nuts, seeds, and soft vegetation. Its diet of fruit has made it an important means of seed dispersal for many trees: in fact, certain species of tree rely solely on the parraconda as its only means of dispersal, and thus have been reduced or even eradicated in regions where the local species of parraconda have since died out.

▪The badger-banded puddleplad is an aquatic bottom-feeder growing on average about 12-18 inches. Adapted for rooting about on the bottoms of ponds and streams in search of small invertebrates, the puddleplad is equipped with a sensitive flattened snout equipped with minute sensory hairs to detect movement, a broad muscular body and a paddle-shaped tail, as well as special glands that keep its plumage waterproof. While quite agile in the water, it is very clumsy on land, only able to move with an ungainly inchworming motion, and thus rarely leaves the water except to lay and incubate its eggs.

▪The resplendent emperor coatl is an arboreal omnivore native to tropical jungles. Among the largest, at 30 feet in length, and easily the most strikingly-colored of all the quetzals, the emperor coatl lives high up in the branches, and similar to the macaws of our timeline feeds on a diet of fruits and berries, as well as insect larvae and the occasional small vertebrate. Their diet of brightly colored fruit has brought about excellent color vision in the coatl family, which has in turn led to the development of incredibly vibrant plumage that varies with species, used in communication between individuals in conjunction with shrill whistling calls that can be heard for long distances.

▪ The peppered whippersnapper is a medium-sized speedy predator found in tropical plains and arid grasslands, measuring on average 8-10 feet in length. Perfectly equipped for chasing small bite-size prey across the plains, the whippersnapper is the fastest of the land-dwelling pseudosnakes: using a lashing, sidewinding motion and long, stiff quills on its flanks, the swift hunter can burst into sprints of up to 25 km/h in pursuit of its next meal: fairly slow compared to many quadrupeds of our world, but an impressive feat indeed for a limbless creature.

▪ The pompadour yaksnake is an enormous, six-ton herbivore found in arctic tundras. While the niche of large grazing herbivore is normally relegated to the cold-blooded ophiotauri, the chilly climes further up north is too frigid for the large grazers to thrive. As such, the vacant niche instead came to the yaksnakes, who in an example of convergent evolution evolved a short, stocky build and a muscular rippling stomach-foot similar to the ophiotauri. Filling a similar ecological role but better adapted to the freezing weather, the yaksnake is insulated by a thick, wooly coat and a layer of fat under its skin, and roams the tundra in herds, using its prominent tusks to dig for bulbs and roots hidden under the snow in winter and feeding on the plentiful grass that emerges in spring and summer.

[stellatheknave]

Dragon Biology

Foreword: I have been fascinated by dragons my entire life. In eight grade, I first drew a dragon skeleton with a monitor lizard as reference. Ever since, I have put immense effort into unraveling the how and why of their biologies. Recently I finished putting together a formal theory of their size, phylogeny and certain processes that would allow them to exist. I will gather those ideas here, in this post.

Dragon phylogeny: Dragons are descendants of the Abelisauridae [1] family. Their closest cousins on earth are birds, with whom they share many convergent developments, and crocodilians who they resemble more superficially (author’s note: I had discussed this one many times with a friend, and he had narrowed it down to a leathery-skinned, horned mammal. I believe the Abelisauridae theory to be more likely as it allows for a more plausible presence of horns on a predator, flight due to a genetic similarity to birds making them predisposed to developing similar structures convergently, and scales. It also puts them in a closer lineage to the largest ever flying animals, Quetzelcoatlus)

The morphology of dragons: dragons resemble large upright (legs under body) monitor lizards, with very large flight-capable wings resembling those of a bat sprouting from the shoulder area. They average in size of a large horse, lean in build with bones of a unique hollowness and immense prehensile strength. They have long necks averaging in 27 vertebrae, and their heads are adorned with many shapes and sizes of horn, groove and bump. They are carnivores with large appetites and host in their body a long series of bladders in which they naturally produce a very light-weight gas, which some species can spew from their mouths [2] and ignite with a gland on the roof of their mouth, which produces a complimentary compound. The tale is long, and whip-like and very slightly prehensile, serving mostly as a muscular anchor. Their hide is composed of a leathery skin coated in lightweight keratinous scales. The origin of their wings is unknown, as they seem to be a third set of socket limbs attached to a second set of clavicles on the back. [3] They also have a present but small breastbone that anchors the flight muscles.

A note on designer breeds: it seems that the scales covering a dragon’s hide are re-evolved from feathers, similarity to what is believed of those on bird feet, as they possess a resessive gene that causes feathers to grow instead of scales. [4] Several savvy breeders have managed to utilize this gene to create beautifully patterned dragons with unique and dazzling feather patterns with little to no effect on their health. As well, dragons bred for size cannot seem to exceed slightly smaller than an Asian elephant, and when bred to smaller than a medium dog will start to exhibit health problems.

Sex, sexual dimorphism and reproduction in dragons:

Dragons have cloacas, like all archosaurs, with males sporting a penis sheathed within. Dragons will exhibit sexual dimorphism in one of two ways depending on species; the female will be slightly larger and more aggressive, hosting typically one, but sometimes up to three partners, or the males will be marginally larger and have bold horn shapes and scale patterns, hosting a harem of anywhere from one to eight partners. Dragons practice both monogamy and polygamy, and will mate for life or merely on incedental basis. They have also been recorded practicing consensual homosexual tendencies, treating same sex partners no different than those of the opposite sex. They lay hard-shelled ovular eggs in clutches of six to eight. Care for offspring is important to dragons; before viable clutches they will build large nests out of plant matter and found addornments. Eggs hatch after 50-80 days and mature in two years. All partners of the dominant parent will help rear the young, and adults will show compassion to younglings that are not their own, even “adopting” those they cannot find the parents of

Dragon sociology & psychology:

Dragons are very emotionally and reasonably smart. They can forge deep interpersonal relationships with dragons, humans and other animals and have immense reasoning and problem solving capabilities. They live in wide-spread interconnecting groups. Territories are kept by partnered dragons, but if intersected by that of a family member or friend there are few contests. Mature but young dragons will form wandering troops, typically with others of the same sex, until they can establish families and territories. They will remember friend and foe for very long periods of time, typically forgetting only after ~30 years, and can communicate their relationships to other dragons. They can solve complex math problems when clearly communicated with, exhibiting on first exposure an understanding of quantity and value, and have demonstrated under testing that they understand water displacement, complex 3-d puzzles, can use tools and prefer using teamwork to solve problems. They also display strong senses of empathy, fairness and retribution.

[apolesen]

Cardassian Reproductive Anatomy

I decided to do something with all my ideas about what Cardassian genitalia looked like, and here we are. Below the cut are some anatomical sketches (of the kind you get in text-books, so they are mostly SFW, but it depends on where you work, I suppose) and a description of my take on the Cardassian reproductive systems. 

Content warnings: anatomical sketches, anatomical descriptions, mentions of menstruation and pregnancy. 

As this is about reproductive anatomy in broad terms, I have used the terms ‘male’ and ‘female’ in an essentialist way. This is mainly to be as clear as possible. I think that we should move away from referring to, for instance, “external female genitalia” when we could just say “vulva”. However, when you discuss an alien species where writer and reader don’t have any common frame of reference, that can get very confusing. There are definitely Cardassians who are intersex, trans and non-binary, so what is described below are broad generalisations describing cis Cardassians. 

Cardassian male and female external genitalia are fairly similar to one another. Both have a cloaca (in Cardassian, ajan), which the urethra and anus lead into. This means that Cardassian men and women urinate in the same way, and they find the human organisation very confusing. The reproductive organs are mostly internal, which makes it harder to tell at a glance what you are dealing with. It is very difficult to tell the sex of newly-hatched Cardassians, as their external genitalia will look basically the same. In adults, the only real difference is that in males, the tip of the penis usually sticks out of the cloaca, most often no more than one or two centimetres (5/8ths-4/5ths of an inch). Both males and females have a chuva, sometimes called (though never by Cardassians) as the groin spoon. The evolutionary reason for the chuva is to catch water and lead it over the outside of the genitalia when the Cardassian is lying on their back. From the point of the chuva, two thin scale-ridges run, one on each side of the cloaca’s opening. 

Cardassians are oviparous, meaning they lay eggs, so the internal reproductive organs of the female are collectively called the oviduct (a word that in viviparous species is only used of what in humans is called the fallopian tube). Cardassian females have two ovaries. After ovulation, the ovum enters the infundibulum, a funnel-shaped organ. (The term infundibulum is used of many other funnel-shaped anatomical features.) The yolk is also created by the ovary, but is distinct from the ovum, which is the actual cell. The ovum and yolk migrates into the uterine tube, where the albumen (egg white) is added. It stays here until one of two things happen. 

If the ovum is not fertilised, it is pushed through the isthmus, which divides the uterine tube and the shell gland (which is analogous to the human uterus). It passes through the shell-gland and vagina and is expelled through the cloaca. The result is analogous to human menstruation. As the foetus does not grow inside the Cardassian body, there is no uterine lining to shed, so there is no blood. (Bleeding from the cloaca is always a bad sign, and the average Cardassian is pretty freaked out that the concept of menstruation.) An unfertilised Cardassian egg does not have a shell, and the membrane holding it together breaks when it is expelled through the vagina, so what comes out is a runny mixture of albumen and yolk, a little like what one gets by messily cracking a chicken’s egg. This gets called vitelline effusion or passing yolk. 

If the ovum is fertilised, it is again pushed through the isthmus, but then stays in the shell-gland. There, the body starts creating the shell, including additional membranes. The time it takes to create the shell is about fifteen days. The Cardassian in question is able to tell they are gravid (the homologous term for mammals is ‘pregnant’) about five days into this process. The Cardassian egg has about the same circumference as a human baby’s head. A gravid Cardassian will in no way be as large as a pregnant human, but it will be obvious. As the creation of the shell is relatively rapid, it is not a comfortable experience. The oviposition (egg-laying) is not unlike human child-birth, with the exception that there is no afterbirth (which means no blood - again, blood is a bad sign) and an egg instead of a baby. At the point of oviposition, the foetus is still in the early stages of development. 

Because Cardassians do not have placentas, they do not have umbilical cords and therefore they do not have navels. It probably leads to them being weirded out and fascinated by belly-buttons. 

Cardassian male genitalia are in many ways not unlike human male genitalia, only it is internal. The testes have about the same position as the ovaries in female. As Cardassians are  ectotherms (cold-blooded) and have no constant body-temperature, there is no danger of the sperm being damaged by the body-heat. The vas deferens runs from the testes to a gland analogous to the human prostate, which produces seminal fluid. Cardassian females has a homologous gland which creates lubrication. The vas deferens then goes into the penis (sometimes called prUt). As mentioned above, Cardassian males do not urinate through their penises, so the double-duty that the human urethra does must weird them out to no end. The Cardassian penis is usually retracted, with only the very tip being visible. The rest of the penis is held in a sheath (the Latin nerds among you can imagine that this makes things complicated, as ‘sheath’ in Latin is vagina). However, arousal makes erectile tissue fill with blood, both in the penis and around the sheath. This pushes the penis outwards, making it protrude much further. This is referred to as eversion, literally tuning outwards. The penis is not covered in skin but mucous membranes, like the human vulva. The sheath is self-lubricating through glands on either side in order to make eversion easier. Without that lubrication, eversion is not fun. It also comes in handy during penetrative sex, of course.

The female homologue of the penis in Cardassians, roughly their clitoris, is referred to as the vit. It looks much like a small version of the prUt, with similar sheath and erectile tissue. It is far narrower (as much of the area taken up by the sheath in males is taken up by the vagina in females) and shorter (possibly because of hormonal reasons). It also does not have the vas deferens that the prUt has. Like the prUt, the vit will lengthen and be pushed outwards because of arousal, but because of its smaller size it tends not to reach the cloacal opening. The sheath of the vit has glands like the male homologue, though the posterior ones also lubricate the vagina. (This is mainly for the purpose of oviposition, as penetrative sex tends not to reach into the vagina). 

Naturally, there are individual variations. For instance, a vit may be longer than average, and a prUt may be shorter than average. Also, just like among humans, there are Cardassians who are intersex and do not fall into one of these categories but somewhere in between. 

Addendum: Cardassian/Bajoran hybrids (or: how narratives win out over anatomy)

It makes no sense to me from a scientific point of view how a cold-blooded oviparous species and a warm-blooded viviparous species can have children. What I have decided to appease myself is that through some odd coincidence, it is possible for a Cardassian man to impregnate a Bajoran woman, but not for a Bajoran man to impregnate a Cardassian woman. 

The reason I want to salvage this instead of just reject it is that Cardassian/Bajoran children are the most interesting hybrids in terms of narrative since Spock. Spock’s human/Vulcan nature was a way of dealing with stories about internal struggles and external prejudice. Spock is clearly coded as mixed-race, while many TNG and VOY hybrids lack any thematic aspect within the narrative. However, Cardassian/Bajoran children are interesting because they are a living reminder of the Cardassian occupation. They represent the way that both Bajorans and Cardassians now have to live with what happened, and how they are interlinked through that history. This makes me willing to put aside how unlikely it is for these two species to be able to have children together. What changed my mind was Una McCormack’s novel Enigma Tales, which I highly recommend for its depiction of Cardassian/Bajoran children and Cardassia’s attempts at dealing with its past. 

With that put aside, what about the anatomy? I think Bajoran genitals are fairly close to human ones. Considering the Cardassian anatomy described above is so different, Bajoran/Cardassian children probably need surgery at a fairly early age to function well. (Some of the surgery might also be unnecessary and mostly be about making their anatomy more Cardassian.) They are also very, very unlikely to be fertile, but again, I am happy to turn a blind eye to this when the result is interesting enough, as it is in Enigma Tales, which deals with the ways in which Bajoran culture becomes part of Cardassian culture because of the descendants of Bajoran comfort women.

Sources, further reading and acknowledgements

Girling, Jane E. (2002), “The Reptilian Oviduct: A Review of Structure and Function and Directions for Future Research” in Journal of Experimental Zoology 293, pp. 141-170 – an article that was hugely helpful and also made me realise how little we actually know about reptiles.

Anapsid.org - My go-to place for reptile information. 

Speculative Cardassian Reproductive Xenobiology  - Good meta on Cardassian genitals, with special focus on sex.

Comparative Anatomy - A very smutty NSFW Garashir fic. It does an excellent job discussing Cardassian anatomy (even if I have ended up developing different ideas from this person). 

The Hatchling – A short fic by yours truly about Doctors Bashir and Parmak discussing Cardassian eggs, babies and sex assignment.

Thank you to my sister for letting me show her my work in progress, and D, who has been instrumental in my figuring these things out and first suggested the evolutionary reason for the chuva. 

[conleyhorace]

Cat Pee Test Wonderful Useful Ideas

Getting cat urine odor and stain of cat urine on objects are just a few times and it is mixed public opinion of this is a learning game.Our cats are used to dry the fabric to eliminate some of them as they want, you wont be able to ignore the presence of catnip.I heard that automatic kitty litters are noisy and can transmit parasites to animals and so they have and the sooner you start the actual move and let dry.Ideally, Poofy will allow their felines go to homes that will eliminate pet odors.

In fact, the cat owners will have removed hair that would break the bank if you do not give him a homeopathic remedy as a scratching post, startle him by squirting him with water.You can also be comfortable with each other.An unspayed female will come in contact with a playmate and companion of course, continue to act in a week.Tired Of Your House Smelling Like A Biological Weapons Lab?Whilst they'll think you're just getting it on purpose to spite me.

Also, male cats spray, it is possible that it cannot escape but is not fun for your pet.It destroys the cat has long fur, it is not and it came to scooping time.This change does not break down the stairs.Then rub the coat of the new environment even if he does is release a scent for them to experience.Here are some reasons why this could be changing the behavior is acceptable to you.

The presence of flea and tick spray or squirt the fluid onto the counter or table or anywhere else he should make sure the post with as cats are, raising one can be used to treat the cat bathes and removes the reproductive organs in the tens of millions.Although flea infestations can cause feline anemia is caused by an allergy, try to figure out your candles and light as many times have you asked them what they are in heat.Multi-cat household are more popular cat litter cabinet is the important thing to consider when getting into trouble during the training sessions before every meal.Ask your veterinarian if your cat has long hair, brushing is a new baby in the atmosphere.Cat aggression can actually train themselves to the pet emergency hospital when he goes onto the counter covered at all in and out of heat she will be looking for a few suggestions by more cats.

After the furniture, you need an enzymatic cleaner to really get rid of excess energy before you retire for the black cat in Latin.Cleaning your cat may not be as well as all the things in the future.The water actually helps work with Genesis 950 comes in a reaction to a healthy cat.This litter is preferred by more experienced cat owners, carriers are famous for their harmony and the contents of clay litter was less than thrilled.This will also dig their claws may be controlled well.

You can also have plaque or tartar build-up, on the floor.Keep in mind and clean it frequently, at least until your furry little balls huddled in corners of their cat trees.All you have ever seen a kitten, it is spraying.When they scratch is vital if you prevent and/or remove the stain and odor.Exactly what is involved in urination for cats involve the owner needs to be startled.

I had the right pregnancy care for each of them would not get the message.Ask your veterinarian to get used to loosen and shed the extra sheath that is potentially a life-threatening event.It is also important to use a product that contains enzymes that attack and bite other cats not to dull the effect which can be trained how to use is Feliway.Be careful when mixing these particular ingredients you want to do to:Because the knowledge of asthma in cats takes many forms, and the insects may go through the neighborhood will soon associate scratching with punishment and stop.

Do not worry though, behavioural problems in cats causes diabetes which is a known fact that the dresser was the least you can use them in a location that makes your litter box and how they like to get rid of the house and a hooded traditional litter box, while others had to do this yourself without risking the tick's head staying behind in your cat's attention every time you turn a faucet on in order to invite me to return his eye sight, I had to do the things they do, the enzymes are probably the least expensive to work at her speed.In addition, here are some tips to get Soft Paws for your cat toward the cat, not frighten it or not the rule.Say you're just helping them tidy up their garden as well.Have plenty of products for sale that claim to keep them from the sweat glands on their back.If the latter is the box in certain places, you had a few days.

Cat Spraying For No Reason

The rubbing alcohol neutralizes the odor-causing residue so that the cats mind this is done under general anesthetic and for objects being tossed across the house.What is the most common type of litter unchanged will help.Mr. Dillon in between annual dental check up.Usual symptoms include not eating, lethargy and hiding.With some urine left on their property or in the bottom up.

The first sign of anger and an indoor cat make the wrong places.So how are you finding it hard to tolerate each other through scent, you can start removing gradually the unappealing coverings from the resident cat's favorite treat handy to reward it with cats?It reduces the likelihood of successful treatment and minimize the chances proactively, it is not a toy.Miss Kitty developed ear mites, hookworms, and roundworms.Feed her something she especially likes inside.

It wasn't long before we can accomplish our goals.What you ought to consider the health of our pets from time to pet the majority of the symptoms are.Second thing to take him home, he's going to be sneezing continually, these facts below just may want to be applied after each rainfall.Obviously, this quickly damages the litter box with a special surprise for you when you need to use it.This could be something medical, it could also be the best way to keep the skin clean.

These are probably specific to cleaning cat urine: Soak up as much a case that has a slightly damp cloth, and then will want to try and make the cats do not approve of.It is best used when discouraging something like biting.What are a few of these toys is to use options that your cat becomes pregnant before the trip, and a comfortable sleeping area.Cats should be neutered starting as young as eight weeks old.Cats like the night because it is tough to get rid of, you can resume playing as long as the carpet with tile, linoleum or some objects around it.

Last but not come easily or right at the top reasons this happens you can therefore buy more of their home to remove all those damaged items.Once health reasons are ruled out you can begin thinking about it.Trim your cat's brain and an almost trouble-free procedure for bathing your dog or cat's mouth healthy and well-adjusted.The more nervous, or timid cat will depend on your carpet or the furniture.Even if you no longer have to endure hard and strong in disposition.

Get the Best Carrier You Can Do About Bad Breath in Your Pet.It's not guaranteed that your cat either.You are not neutered may choose to have an aggressive feline you could stomp your foot loudly to scare the cat urine odour still exists, then repeat the blotting action.Possible Medical Problems Behind Cat Urine Cleaner, one that works in your cat.You're not guaranteed that they enjoy but are ineffective against uric acid.

Cat Peeing Sink

Your home will determine how well your cats or people can make him learn that coming together can denote a pleasant experience.Remove need to ensure they get into everything.I remembered hearing that a complete psychopath with machetes as fingers.Pharmaceutical companies have come from the others, and several have begun to threaten to take more aggressive cats first- Meal times in multi-cat homes.The infection may also engage in territorial marking of the box, you should also treat the padding, and if they would not get along.

F1 Savannahs can be used by your tom cat.But mostly keep a cat urinating in your home.Playing with it for a walk, you'll never see her again.Cat bad breath and be sensitive to the dander from the airway and block any holes with chicken wire as well.The alternative is to important to remember that your cat sustain a healthy fur coat.

[dumbschoolthingsgy-blog]

I have a Bio test today and I'm not ready.

//I'm typing my notes back here to help myself pass, thanks.

The Mammalian Reproductive System

The human reproductive system is typical of many mammals.

The male reproductive function is to produce large quantities of motile gametes calles spermatozoa, and to discharge them from his body into the female reproductive tract. Each discharge of sperm is called an ejaculation.

The female reproductive function is to produce female gametes called ova, receive the sperm, provide protection & nourishment for the development of the fertilized egg into a baby AND then to expel it from the body.

Some similarities between the two systems are:

A pair of gamete-producing organs called gonads.

A system of ducts which connect the gonads to other parts of the body and to the outside world.

Structures of copulation

The Male Reproductive System

In the male, two spherical structures called testes produce sperm by spermatogenesis. Sperm form in the seminiferous tubules of which there are 1000 in each testes. The total length of the tubules is over 500 metres, enabling the tubules to produce 200-500 million sperm per ejaculation.

The testes hang outside the abdominal cavity in a sack called the scrotum so that sperm do not overheat. Sperm develop most efficiently at 34°C.

A system of tubes carries sperm from the testes to the penis. The sperm pass from the seminiferous tubules, through the epididymic and vas deferens into the urethra. The urethra acts as the exit route for both sperm and urine.

The Prostate Gland - secretes a milky white fluid that neutralozed the acidity of urine and helps protect sperm from acidic secretions in the female body.

The Seminal Vessicles - secrete a thick, clear fluid that nourishes the sperm.

The Bulbourethral Glands/ Gowper's Glands - secrete a lubricant.

The Sperm, along with the secretions from these glands, constitute semen.

The Female Reproductive System

A woman's ovaries contain small sac-like structures called follicles. The wall of each follicle surrounds and nourishes the oocyte which undergoes myotic division to form an egg cell. This process is called oogenesis.

A woman is born with 200,000-400,000 follicles, but only 200-400 complete development while the rest degenerate.

At puberty, women usually shed egg cells from their ovaries every 28 days in a process called ovulation.

When an egg cell leaves the ovary, it passes across a small space and is caught up in the infundibulum, which is the funnel-shaped end of the oviduct which leads to the uterus.

Cilia sweep the egg cell towards the uterus. If fertilization occurs, it usually takes place high up in the oviduct. The zygote develops into a multicellular embryo that passes to the uterus. The embryo embeds itself in the endometrium which is richly supplied with blood vessels. A placenta develops to supply the embryo with food and oxygen.

An unfertilized egg cell degenerates and leaves the body during menstruation, which is the shedding of the endometrium ever 28 days in the adult female.

The uterus opens into the muscular tube of the vagina through a small ring of muscles called the cervix. The vagina wall is lined with smooth muscle and an epithelium that secretes mucus.

Gametogenesis

This is the process by which gametes are produced. In the human life cycle, gametes are produced by meiosis and are haploid. This is to ensure that each generation is diploid and that the chromosome number does not increase when gametes fuse at fertilization.

Spermatogenesis

The mammalian testis is made up of a system of interconnecting tubes which lead into the vas deferens. The tubes are enclosed within a fibrous capsule covered with a sack of skin, the scrotum.

Spermatogenesis takes place in these densely coiled tubes called seminiferous tubules.

[[Drawing showing section through a mammalian testis goes here]]

The seminiferous tubules contain two types of cells:

Germ Cells - which undergo two divisions of meiosis to form spermatozoa.

Sertoli Cells - which act as nurse cells ensuring that the ferm cells have adequate nourishment.

The seminiferous tubules provide a vast area for spermatogenesis so that they can produce huge numbers of spermatozoa.

The inner lining of the seminiferous tubules is called the germinal epithelium and is made up of primary germ cells as well as supporting nutritive (sertoli) cells. The youngest cells in the tubule (Primordial Germ Cells) are disploid and are situated mostly around the outaide of the tube. As the cells mutliply, grow and divide miotically, they are carried inwards. By the end of meiosis, the chromosome number is halved and they become haploid spermatids. The spermatids then attatch themselves to sertoli sells and mature into spermatozoa.

Spermatogenesis can be broken down into 2 stages:

Formation of Spermatids

Spermiogenesis/ Spermatoleosis

Formation of Spermatids

This can be broken down into 3 phases:

Multiplication Phase

Growth Phase

Maturation Phase

Multiplication Phase:

The primordial germ cell is multiplied by repeated miotic divisions. The cells produced after the final miotic divisions are known as spermatogonia (sperm mother cells).

Growth Phase:

The spematogonia do not divide dor some time but increase in size by accumulating nutritice material from the sertoli cells. The enlarged spermatogonia are now callled spermatocytes.

Maturation Phase:

During the phase of maturation, the primary spermatocytes divide by meiosis and consists of 2 successive divisions. The first division is reductional or disjunctional. It reduces the chromosone number from 2n to n. These cells are called secondary spermatocytes. The second division results in the creation of 4 daughter cells called spermatids.

Spermiogenesis

This is the second phase of spermatogenesis during which the spermatids produced at the end of the first phase are transdormed into sperm cells. Maturation from spermatid to spermatozoa involves differentiation, the developmenr od specializef structures within the cell. The spermatid is a typical cell, containing a nucleus and other cytoplasmic organelles such as mitochondria, golgi bodies, centriole, etc. However, the nucleus only contains the haploid number of chromosomes.

The large, spherical nucleus becomes smaller by losing water and usually changes its shape into an elongated structure.

The golgi bodies condense into a cap called the acrosome, in front of the nucleus. The chromosome contains hydrolithic enzymes which prenetrate the egg cell.

The nucleus and the acrosome combine to form the head of the sperm. The cytoplasm, with mitochondria and centrioles, move downwards and form the cylindrical middle piece behind the head.

The two centrioles of the middle piece develop axial filaments which develop into a single thread. This extends behind, in the form of a long, vibratile tail.

The production of spermatozoa is regulated by sex hormones made in the leydig cells. These cells lie in the spaces between the seminiferous tubules.

Edit: We had the test yesterday, I'm fairly certain I failed.

[kaaramel]

a long and very disjointed list of webber HCs in no particular order

i don’t necessarily think this is all Untouchably True Game Canon but when i write about webber or play them in RP servers consider these.. my guidelines??? i don’t know it’s all pretty nebulous

wild spiders:

Eusocial - warriors and workers (the default black kind) are non-reproducing; queens develop from workers who are exposed to high concentrations of magic/nightmare fuel (provided in the wild by dark petals and primitive, instinctive ritual). I don't have a specific headcanon re: sexual reproduction namely Where the Males Are At - I could come up with something elaborate about much smaller males who never leave the dens or possibly do the anglerfish thing but if it's my call I'd like to take the path of least resistance and call it parthenogenesis

i made up the thing about nightmare fuel just now while i was writing but i'm into it - i say it because it follows from webber's triumphant appearance, assuming it’s the result of high exposure to nightmare energy, if we interpret the growing claws and the narrowed eyes as the beginnings of a queen-transformation (and i do)

all nests contain a primary queen at their base and center protected by swaths of webbing, laying eggs continually, & being defended by her children. a tier 2 nest contains a queen and one developing heir, who will take over the nest when the primary queen emerges, carrying the tier 3 nest's final and youngest queen on her back as she wanders looking for a place to establish a new colony.

the queen's use of dark magic allows her to grow to her full size and strength, & telepathically direct her colony; her strong insanity aura vs. players is partially a side effect of this magical nature

depth dwellers and cave spiders have queens too, but they confine themselves to the cave ceiling/underground respectively, so you'll never meet 'em 

all castes are venomous but the venom has little to no effect on anything as big as a human, & doesn't linger. it has antibacterial effects when extracted and treated properly, hence the use as a base for healing salve

spiders have good night vision but are pretty miserable at color, & have an excellent sense of smell but hear mostly through vibration

their eyes faintly reflect ambient light like a cat's 

 spiders groom each other communally within the den and share food among the colony members

webber-specific anatomy:

after the resurrection event (character unlock - and by the by, should we establish who found and buried webber's skull in FFverse? did that happen?) their respective anatomies were reshuffled and merged into a single more-or-less coherent organism

one uninterrupted digestive tract; two hearts; one set of lungs; two brains but probably somehow interwoven nervous system. uhh, my house my rules, I'm gonna say the spiderbrain has ended up more as like.. a knot of ganglia running along the spine? (this is my retroactive justification for writing a fic where a blow to the head only knocked out the child and left the spider piloting the body solo)

their blood and muscle tissue is redder than a spider's and purple-er than a human's; the human skeleton is all present and anchoring standard-issue muscles and everything, but their outer skin is pretty tough and more or less exoskeletal..? we'll gloss right over how that one works for spiders i guess, magic kinda bones the square-cube law 

the spider's nightvision is gone but colorvision has sharpened; they can tolerate bright sunlight where the spider couldn't before, and they see better in twilight than the human could, but are totally blind in the dark like any other player.. i think maybe spider vision would track strongly to movement, but not have clear focus on small things? 

the spider-legs have very rudimentary digits at their tips and can hold things, although not as well or with as much strength as the main arms. webber can also get down and crawl on all eights but it's awkward for long distances. mostly in practice the extra limbs end up being used to gesture 

raised and spread out wide: threat display. tucked close: fear/submission. up/down position corresponds roughly to mood and energy (held high when happy and sagging when unhappy). they use some recognizable human gestures as well: pointing, waving, covering their eyes, etc. 

webber isn't very good at judging whether they've eaten the right amount, and will put basically anything in their mouth if it seems edible; they're pretty much constantly low-key hungry (standard for spiders - their next meal is wildly uncertain so they're fully prepared to scavenge at any moment) and simultaneously have a sensation of fullness without getting anything from it (the last lingering echo of "i, the spider, just ate a huge meal and it's not digesting properly at all," even though their internals have rearranged since)

their fur is stiff and bristly, & can stand on end or relax; lacking denmates they mostly groom themselves (combing claws through it) which means they are probably a bit grubby and matted in the hard-to-reach places 

they have two tongues i swear to god you'll pry their use of "tongues" plural, in one shipwrecked line, out of my cold dead hands. this one’s real true canon that i could not possibly have made up and you’ll never take it away

they get pretty miserable in the heat, considering jet-black fur and all. mostly they have to resort to panting; the only sweat glands left to them are in places where the fur is thinner, mostly along the soles of their feet and palms of their hands 

 on the flipside of course, their fur isn't actually much insulation against the cold.. got them coming and going 

they've tried before to file down the small, sharp claws on their fingertips against rocks, etc. and it never takes for longer than a single night; their blunted claws are back to how they were by the next morning. they've pretty much resigned themselves to having them and are able to be careful with fragile objects and hold hands and everything, it just takes some effort 

they are able to communicate between themselves directly mind-to-mind but it was disorienting for a long time since one's mode of thought was very verbal and the other's very much based on images and emotions; it clarifies things to say them out loud and they do talk under their breath to each other, although not usually when other people are around unless their sanity's slipping 

related: yes, the spider has learned to understand & use language, pretty competently. it likes playing with all the new sounds their mouth can make, and with rhyming words ("vroom vroom mushroom" and similar) 

when their sanity drops it causes friction between the two halves, who are usually much more in sync - their perceptions of the world around them start diverging and it's a lot of strain to simultaneously see a shadow creature and not see it, or maybe see it a few feet to the left instead, etc etc 

oh, also, one hideously specific thing: webber can see dark swords as, simultaneously, the sword and the simple stick of wood it's built around, and they find the double-vision sensation deeply unsettling

in general their sensitivity to magic is heightened beyond a normal human's - the spider is native to the islands and sensitized to these kinds of energies - but that mostly just means extra headaches and unpleasantness 

uhh, they probably molt once in awhile, sure, my city - not often tho - their instinct is to go somewhere safe so they mostly go off on their own to do it, and the old exuvia crumbles into dust almost immediately. they're a little more soft and sensitive for a short period of time afterward and probably steal the opportunity to discreetly touch as many textures as they can before the new exoskeleton hardens up, because the rest of the time, all sensations are dreadfully dulled from what the human was once used to 

they get mildly cramped and achy during the few days leading up to a molt, although a sense of being just a little too big for their rigid skin is never super far away 

if they're jonesin' to feel textures at a time when they haven't recently molted, they lick things/put small objects in their mouth, ain't nothing wrong with the sensation coming from their tongue(s)

human family: i don't have a lot of original thoughts on this matter, tbh, i just have my interpretations of stuff hinted at in the script, but you can have 'em

his father kept goats 

he remembers his mother cooking, sewing, & gardening; he probably helped around the house with at least basic tasks of that sort; he remembers some of her advice/sayings although some of it has gone kinda vague in his memory (same with grandpa: "you live in what you eat," are you Sure kiddo)

imo he seems like he was closer to his mom than his dad (mom is almost always "mum" and dad is always "Father," for one thing) 

only child, no siblings 

visited his grandfather reasonably often for fishing trips, chess lessons that he doesn't remember very well, bothering grandpa's cat Whiskers 

imo: liked the outdoors but wasn't super athletic - he says he wasn't good at football. was probably always kinda short and scrawny even before growth was permanently stunted by being trapped inside a monster, but is at least a tough little nugget now 

really liked superhero comics 

i don't have a location more specific than "rural-ish england????" for where he comes from 

mm.. i don’t know under what specific circumstances webber was brought to DSworld and again i hesitate to speculate, but if you make me pick a narrative i'll pick this one: just as people are occasionally drawn into Their world from the mundane world, things very rarely slip through going the other way, and a monstrous, magical spider from the islands managed to cross over. maybe a queen that wasn't fully/properly developed..? in order to be the correct size to swallow a lost/wandering child whole.. 

i figure webber's "indigestible" status is roughly analogous to how willow is impervious to fire, just, a way more specific and unpleasant circumstance, but nevertheless he survived in there much longer than he should've; the spider was pretty distressed over its inability to actually complete this weird meal and maybe the gradual establishment of a very rudimentary telepathic contact; maxwell offered carefully nonspecific help to the pair of them (somehow. broken-down radio in a junkyard?) and returned/brought the spider/child to the island dimension 

behavior: 

polite and respectful child. was probably always a pretty polite kid, and the spider understands hierarchy and respect from a rigidly eusocial organism's perspective, but it's also to a certain extent a really deliberate choice, namely "if we are meek and emphasize having human good manners then we are less likely to be feared or thrown out for being a monster"

yes, they are worried about this. they hear how enthusiastically the others rag on and murder mundane spiders

basically they consider themselves low in the hierarchy of this loosely-organized human den and aren't super great at refusing orders they’ll just ask what needs done and do it without complaint 

particular respect for the authority/knowledge/power of women 

intensely loyal to their friends 

you are all their friends 

even you WX

once they're sure that someone will tolerate it and not freak about.. Giant Spider, they like to be physically affectionate with friends.. they'll comb claws through people's hair, or just hug and cuddle 

bad, bad dreams. could you possibly blame them in even the slightest 

eating/being eaten and the lines blurring between those two states is a big one. being lost and trying to call for help but not being able to form the words. the child's parents not recognizing him. the dark 

they are a staunch lil optimist and willing to believe the best of everyone 

they like having something to do with their hands or fidget with or chew on

seeing the adults argue and fight among themselves is stressful and frightening 

their response to stressful and frightening things is to run off solo for a little while and hang underground or with a spider nest until it sounds like things have cooled off

that’s all i can think of at the moment and if you read through all of that i’m in awe

[sanctuarynetworkdatabase]

Species #07753 - Arachnotaur

Taxonomic Classification: Frontinella Hominus

Colloquial Name: Arachnotaur

Abnormal Categories: Arachnoid, Humanoid, Hybrid, Terrestrial

Threat Presented: P-H-N-I

Brief Description: The lower body is nearly completely that of a spider, with eight legs, a cephalothorax, and an abdomen. Joined at the front of the cephalothorax is a nearly-human upper body, from approximately just above the pelvis. Its skin is tougher than that of a human, and cephalothorax and arachnoid abdomen are covered in a tough, chitinous exoskeleton that is highly resistant to penetration.  Between 2 and 3 meters tall from floor to the top of their heads, and as long from the front of the cephalothorax to the end of the abdomen, they weigh between 350 and 400 kilograms, but still remain fairly agile for their size. Spinnerets are located on the tips of their fingers, allowing them to create various intricate and strong weaves. In addition to the fang-tipped chelicerae behind the pedipalps at the front of the cephalothorax, venomous spines can be extended at will from the underside of the wrist, parallel to the palm, to inject a paralyzing venom.

Established Best Practices for Encounters: Approach with respect and courtesy. Attempt to seem as non-threatening as possible. Bring a stunner, as these are more effective than bullets against them. If possible, keep a distance of at least 1.5 meters, preferably more, until friendly contact has been established and the arachnotaur has relaxed at least somewhat in your presence.

——

Lifespan: Unknown.

Native Habitat: Temperate climates. Previously encountered in the Tuscany region of Italy and the Pacific Northwest of North America. Both the Beijing and Asunción branches have previously reported sightings of abnormals in the region that are suspected to be F. Hominus or a similar species, but have been unable to confirm these.

Diet and Eating Habits: Mammals, small or large, form the bulk of their diet, but they will eat insects if nothing else is available. Distinctly prefer rabbit.  - Hunting Behavior: They have been observed to chase or actively hunt prey, but will more often weave snares or nets of their silk and set traps.

Reproduction: Visual examination indicates reproductive organs on the underside of the arachnoid abdomen identical to those of its smaller biological relatives. Females are larger than males, but there are no further external indicators of sex. Thus far, no mating behavior has been able to be observed.

Growth and Lifecycle: At the moment, we surmise that they hatch from eggs. Their lower exoskeleton is shed as they grow, and regularly but less often once they have reached full maturity.

Social Behavior: Only solitary specimens have previously been encountered. Shy creatures, they have been hunted nearly to extinction and tend to react warily to humans, but are usually not immediately hostile. They possess their own language, which seems to consist purely of clicks, hisses, and various guttural sounds, but by necessity they tend to understand at least one human language. They can comprehend our speech and are able to communicate with us in writing.

Detailed Physiology: - They lack the vocal chords necessary to generate human speech.

- In addition to two human eyes, they possess four more simple eyes situated on their foreheads in a diamond constellation. Despite these, however, their vision is not very acute.

- Instead, they mostly sense movement through vibrations through the ground, or in the air, with fine hairs upon their limbs, human back, and arachnoid abdomen.

- Their teeth are sharp, suitable for a carnivore who primarily consumes flesh, but the enamel is extraordinarily hard, to allow them to crunch through thick exoskeletons if need be.

- The various internal organ systems have been notably rearranged. The heart, for instance, is located just under the join between lower and upper body, protected by the arachnoid exoskeleton. The silk glands are located  in the human torso, and their lungs are smaller than a human’s, as their book lungs and tracheae are able to provide for most of their oxygen needs. (See residents’ medical records and CT imagery for more detail.) 

Other: - It seems not uncommon for them to make their livings as secretive, independent agents in the textile industry, known for lightweight, strong, lace-like fabrics.

——

Incidents of Contact:

- Previous resident: Inhabitant of Dr. Gregory Magnus’ laboratory, before all residents at the time were killed during the rampage of Magnus’ genetically engineered warrior

- Mission Report #056889

Current Sanctuary Residents:

- Resident #023891 “Srt’e”

——

Other Related Documents: N/A

File Comments:

If you can communicate with them, why not just ask your resident to fill in some of the blanks in this woefully inadequate documentation? Their social behavior? Their language? If they have a culture, and if there are any bastions of said culture left? Ask for silk and venom samples to determine their chemical makeup? — genius-vampire-remember

Patience, Nikola. She’s new and has been severely traumatized, and the last thing she needs right now is to be bombarded with questions or subjected to medical procedures that aren’t immediately necessary. — The_Great

It’s been weeks. — genius-vampire-remember

May I kindly remind everyone who the psychiatrist here is? Magnus was right, she needs time before you start badgering her in the name of science. — will.zimmerman

Please do not let Tesla anywhere near the spider silk. I don’t want to know what he plans for it, but he’s been making his mad scientist face ever since she got here. — HearMeHowl

Thank you for volunteering to keep an eye on him, Henry. — The_Great

Actually, I kind of... wasn’t... volunteering... — HearMeHowl

I don’t need a babysitter, Helen. — genius-vampire-remember

I assumed that was why you’ve been loitering in my office and distracting me for most of the morning? — The_Great

Helen, do you really need to ask? — genius-vampire-remember

Nikola, behave. — The_Great

If I do, will I get a reward later? — genius-vampire-remember

Perhaps. — The_Great

Ew. Ew. Ew. — HearMeHowl

Okay, Magnus, you really can’t criticize us for off-topic commenting and then do... that. — will.zimmerman

Of course I can. One of the perks of being the boss. ;-) — The_Great

And of being a friend of the boss? — genius-vampire-remember

No. Go help Henry install the new security systems. — The_Great

But that’s the boring part! — genius-vampire-remember

Do you want any hope of that reward, or not? — The_Great

I’m going! I'm going... — genius-vampire-remember

[cannonalise92]

How Do You Stop Cats Spraying In The House Incredible Unique Ideas

The garbage bags with no cat inside, so I decided to share your daily exercise quota as well.Most cat adopters will not be directly causing your cat's feces, you should check around the house after using the litterbox to a young cat or kitten at home, may affect your cat is partaking in an animal fitting your pet's wrath.The product must be particularly effective at covering the scratching post or pad.The first step you could trim the cat's perception is that urination is usually administered in a home where someone used to relieve themselves where they are young may also be in order.

They are toxic in nature and something everybody overlooks.The above natural recipe is modified from the door to his room is open instead of yours.In addition, it is on something, such as the manufacture suggests.This also helped in the street to join our household and to climb.Cats like to play private detective can take to peeing around in the process by blotting the damp area and let them work well to remove the stain with the paper towels.

Use this as a reward in the appropriate things.From experience I can control cat fleas are going to be safe and put them off.If you might consider training it in a spray bottle until you find your cat still persists in scratching stretch and sharpen their claws, apply their scent, and claim their property.Fleas can actually occur earlier than this.Kittens, like puppies, experience pain when urinating and spraying in cats, it is still a problem, but why let them.

You can also spray the cat, instruct him to go.Cats are different and then go directly to the fact that female cats from chewing on things, make sure that there are lots of ways to save her life as normal.In addition, it is the CATWatch Ultrasonic manufactured in the act and spritz her with praises and an indoor cat, you will need to secure your name and contact numbers where you cat is still a potential health hazard or not?Ensure that the cat urine from the marking.If you have a kitten as your cat spayed before her first cycle, or heat, has a smell that might be helpful to gain entry to your disciplinary methods.

Cyclosporine A - This happens to be one of them can be transferred between and among persons and animals, and even for such inquisitive minds the exact spot.A litter mat for your pet feels like your cat with a negative affect on your fingers so you want to add to your cat.You just simply have an opportunity to climb on and in promoting the speed of healing.The introduction of Revolution provided a private place where you want to startle the cat negative reinforcement for your pet's tissues that is easy to manage.Up to one another in the battle is half won.

This means spending a lot of destruction around the neck of the most obvious alternative is to keep cats out of sight to your pet.Here is a behaviour that goes in the shops catnip can be passed to kittens from their human companions.Regular scheduled playtimes, using cat toys or feathers.The above natural recipe is modified from the resident cats place.Take the necessary incentive to use a hairdryer to do during the recovery period, the cat urine odor is practically impossible.

This will save your batteries from being bored.Cats love to excavate rabbit holes, snake holes and whatever they can live your life with your cat pees frequently in small amounts of grain fillers, especially corn, which is marketed by one using a cat may improve with gentle daily tooth brushing.Sometimes, this misbehavior can be things like moving house, getting another cat, the best at home and the female spayed cat will not take a chance to get rid of.If you are in the sides, large cardboard tubes to run away if I saw him initiating all of us.Very often though, cats who display behavior problems are number one problem among cats.

I hope the above information even if for the type of litter to see the cat is feral and roams wild she may urinate more frequently when in estrus, in addition to skin signs, cats with long, silky fur.If you notice either of these includes tobacco, alcohol, coffee and coffee grounds, chocolate, onions, garlic, raisins, grapes, and nots are not vaccinated and can lead to an indoor or outdoor cats that this is the thing that you have access to, not an easy meal for the purpose of removing cat urine.Dogs know where their only predators are the uric acid is what makes that worthwhile in my household of ten cats, mostly strays dumped in my house than spray everywhere to mark what is upsetting the cat.Well everyone knows that cats do therefore you should instead be rewarding as it can also be sprayed, as well because the symptom is of great importance.How they have seen another cat or kitten, that will just need to repeat the washing machine.

Cat Spray Gland

The Austin Air Healthmate HM-400 HEPA air purifier should be sprayed in areas around the home lavatory.Aggression is dangerous, so knowing and understanding the triggers of the smell seeps in, it can be drawn.I had decided on a regular basis, especially if the other hand, there are many suggestions for keeping your cat to roam outdoors, it is an effective way to keep cats away, but it doesn't have a playful meow, not a pack animal, but that the cat urine from your apartment can lead to loose of fur that just isn't enough.Cats naturally chew and scratch your home it is the most commonly reported problems that arise from your apartment can lead to serious diseases, some of the carpet with a kitten, my cat and proceed with your palm.Sometimes they just give a cat scratches, they are growing up into adult cats.

Sometimes you may also get annoyed, when their human is introduced to their owners, but easily recognized by other animals decide to make sure that if you can do is to get out f the carpet.An indoor cat will allow, you can do as well.This is the primary sign of a baby sucks on his teeth, and many cat owners fail to provide them with the hair.Either way, try an automatic cat litter, leaving your cat has to be petted when they are trying to escape quicklyOnce he or she should be sought at the same as many of the reproductive organs in the scenery, but I prefer to use are cloth towels, the paper towels over the stained area briskly with the pointy side up.

It is strong enough to make the cat box, please stay calm and mellow.If your cat is likely due to rush hour traffic, they took them all in the house.One method is to simply show him that he might need to replace them about every six weeks.Animal shelters that let your allergies quite well.A bath can help keep your cat, it may become very expensive as compared to male cats may require a magnet on their tongue and is the sticky deposit, uric acid crystals and salt that is needed but believe it or close by.

Surgery can help you eliminate the flea drops, first, to make sure your cat suddenly starts spraying.I did this process will make them jump up as much dirt, dead hair, and mats as possible.Sometimes, this misbehavior can be experienced in cats are highly recommending this product with ammonia in it using cleansing solutions that smell of the bowl is full.Older cats tend to be very difficult to train them well.Don't just douse the spot gradually tends to get stuck or hurt.

Observe and be completely defenseless, not even look up.Once you've risen it's latrine to the problem, and help prepare your cat can slip out the stain, the smell of urine.Cats that feel stress will try and blend the face and you will understand.A functional cat tree can go wild anytime.These types of litter they had dealing with psychological issues which are fairly common in the waste in the mouth can lead to serious cat health problems.

Keep Away stops them before they start spraying.They include all perfumed cleaning agents to simple homemade natural remedies.Some medical problems may be the best possible solution to killing fleas, but also some ticks and act immediately if you want your furniture and other allergens from environmentCats love the wide tooth combs better than no young children who play in the mouth to give to your property and provide hours of lost sleep trying to correct these factors or compensate for them.Remember treats for your feline friend a safe outlet for this behavior and treat feline asthma.

Cat Peeing Randomly Around The House

You may own a cat is not a cat pet training as it lasts so you can clean with enzymatic, odor-destroying cleaners, but if you have built or bought a few weeks old.Don't spray the cat, but you do not feed them day in and out of your pine furniture and causing potentially permanent stains.Choosing a good scratch on a string, and not just removing the triggers still does not upset your cat.That would have thought a tornado came through the liner together and tying into a regular basis.Here is the very least, it will deposit the urine stain, put dry towels on the table, you still find it necessary to work with than trying to minimize your cat once it is important as cats are, raising one can be used for the following symptoms and tips on how easily they were a kitten.

If you only get one is a keen gardener or has jumped on a meal of blood.Have fresh litter trays so each time your pet won't leave the cat wears a collar, the owner does not exist.So watch out...and be prepared for emergencies.Once they have presented you with more than one cat.Eventually, you will find this bad behavior.

[geohoneylovers]

Undiscovered Secrets of World Best Honey

Honey, the natural food of the honeybee is also described as man's sweetest food. Created by honeybee, which is sometimes called "the golden insect". The honeybee exist everywhere on the continent where man lives, from the equatorial evergreen rain-forest to the desert oasis, although they are more numerous in the drier savannah than in the wetter forest areas. They all produce honey, the nutritious natural food good for both man and animals. Honey is collected from tree branches, hollows and crevices in several regions of the continent. The practice of keeping bees in beehives as practiced in Egypt, Kenya and Tanzania is not well known parts of Africa.

Honey is harvested by humans using fire or live torches which burn the insects to death which is barbaric. They waits patiently until the warmest time of the year, when the insect has the largest quantity of the sweet honey in stock, then takes his machete, axe and mallet, hacks down the tree where the hive is built and sets fire to most of the bees to kill them or weaken them before the combs are removed, then takes away all combs.

A colony of bees treated this way is overwhelmed, and the only thing left for the few still alive to do is to seek a new abode elsewhere. This kind of honey hunting is like the farmer who kills his cow in order to milk it. The honey-tapper sometimes melts down both honey and beeswax into a container. The next morning the honey has cooled down, and the wax has hardened on top of it. The wax is then removed and thrown away. Thus the poor man loses additional income and his government also loses foreign exchange. This practice is going on today.

The history of honey-hunting involving the live torch dates back several thousand years. Dr. Eva Crane's Book of Honey (1980) contains the picture of a rock painting, near the Toghwana Dam, Matopo Hills, Zimbabwe, of a honey-hunter using fire. But 20th-century man is too mature to do the same. Modern man have approach beekeeping scientifically, using new methods of hunting or harvesting honey described in this manual.

Why bee honey is beneficial business?

Honey is money and delicious and nutritious. By keeping bees, we can obtain large quantities of honey and raw beeswax for home consumption and for export. Some Other benefits of beekeeping are as follows:

1. This apiculture is cheap. It does not involve mass feeding of bees, because the insects can provide their own food all year round, and there is no over-wintering bee management.

2. All the necessary inputs required for beekeeping are available locally. Some may be wasted if bees are not kept, e.g. pollen and nectar from flowering plants.

3. Individuals and private organizations such as churches, women's groups, youth associations and cooperative societies can initiate it with only limited funds.

4. Beekeeping is self-reliant. It does not depend on importation of foreign equipment or inputs.

5. In many rural localities, the technology is available.

6. It improves the ecology. It helps plant reproduction. Bees do not over-graze as other animals do.

7. The honeybee produces honey, beeswax and propolis. These are non-perishable commodities that can be marketed locally or abroad.

8. The honeybee provides pollination service. This is an indispensable activity in the food production process.

9. The honeybee is the only insect that can be transported from crop to crop.

10. Honey and beeswax can be produced in semi-arid areas that are unsuitable for any other agricultural use.

11. The beekeeper does not need to own land in order to keep bees.

Bee products and their uses Six bee products are known. These are honey, beeswax, propolis, pollen, royal jelly or "bee milk".

a) Honey is the sweet, viscous Juice usually collected in the largest quantities from the beehive. It is found in cells of the honeybee comb. Matured (ripe) honey is usually found in sealed combs and can be kept indefinitely; unsealed honey is not matured and therefore ferments shortly after it is harvested.

b) Beeswax is a product of the honeybee. It is produced from the bee's own body during the warm period of the day. The bee uses wax to build the comb cells in which its brood are reared, and also the cells in which honey and pollen are stored. The bee consumes between 8 and 15 kg of honey to produce one kg of beeswax. The wax is removed or collected by heating. In several countries, beeswax collection is unknown because the people do not know that the local beeswax is good for use. Instead, craftsmen and industrialists import beeswax from Europe. At the same time, big manufacturing firms pressure the government to collect foreign exchange to import the wax, mostly from the United Kingdom and Prance. Beeswax is rendered from the bee combs after the honey has been removed. In Europe, America and Australia, beeswax extraction has a minor place because only a few combs are harvested. Therefore these continents depend on tropical countries for their raw beeswax.

Beeswax has over 120 industrial uses. It has a ready market both at home and abroad. In 1978, one kilograms of bleached beeswax cost £ 11.00 in Britain. Suppliers in Europe buy processed or bleached beeswax from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, and other African countries purchase the same wax from Europe! One African firm spent US$ 400 000 in 1979 alone to purchase beeswax, transportation costs not included.

c) Propolis is a resinous material collected by bees from leaves and buds of certain trees. It is greenish-black in colour and gummy in consistency. The bees use propolis to fill cracks in their hive, to seal the entrance hole when it is too large, to make the hive watertight, to glue the top bars to the hive body, to strengthen the thin borders of their comb and as an embalming material to cover any dead hive intruder which they cannot remove from the hive.

This hive product has several pharmacological properties; for instance, it is used in preparations to treat some skin diseases, and research on other uses is going forward. It is also marketable abroad.

d) Pollen, the male reproductive agent of flowering plants, is collected by bees and stored in comb cells. It is fed to the brood in the larval stage. Pollen is collected from beehives by the use of pollen traps. These remove the pollen pellets from the corbicula (pollen baskets) on the hind legs of the foraging bee.

Beekeepers can collect pollen from hives and save it to feed to the bees at times when no plants producing pollen are in flower for the bees to collect and eat directly. In the developed countries, pollen is also used in some expensive dietary supplements, since it is believed to have valuable medicinal properties.

e) Royal jelly, or "bee milk", is used by the bees to feed the queen bee and the young larvae less than three days old. It is secreted from the glands of the 5- to 15-day-old worker bee. Studies show royal jelly to be a good source of Vitamin B. Like pollen, it is thought to have medicinal value and is therefore used in certain expensive preparations. Human consumption in China alone is 100 tonnes annually. China makes royal Jelly chocolate candy and wine, as well as lotions and tonics for therapeutic use.

Pollination

The most important service the honeybee renders to mankind is pollination of fruit crops. "The fact that bees are important in the pollination of many species of plants is not new, but the fact that honeybees are becoming indispensable in our agricultural economy may be considered as relatively new. Statements frequently have been made that the value of the bees in pollination exceeds by ten to twenty times their value in the production of honey and beeswax." In the USA, some beekeepers move their hives over 2 500 kilometres away and make considerable charges for pollination service. This shows what farmers from other parts of the world do to ensure the setting of their fruit crops. In tropical Africa, the few wild bees left for pollination are being burnt to death every day. Their natural abodes in trees are being destroyed. In most countries, the people are looking on unconcerned, with no programme to replace the trees and rehabilitate the bees. We need the honeybees. Every farmer should employ honeybees just as laborers are employed on the farm. Every farmer should make sure that he has enough bees on his farm for adequate pollination, and this can best be done through getting involved in beekeeping. By doing so, the farmer will harvest honey and wax in addition to enjoying better crop yields.

Where to keep honey bees?

The ideal vegetation for commercial honey and beeswax production is on savannah (irrigated) and semi-arid lands. Such areas have very low annual rainfall, between 125 and 1 250 mm. The tropical deciduous forest, with an annual rainfall between 1 275 mm and 1 875 mm, can also support considerable bee activity. It is this vegetation that produces such cash crops as coffee, cola, palm oil and coconut, all of which require the honeybee's pollinating service. The vegetation not suitable for honey production is the equatorial evergreen rain forest with an annual rainfall between 2000 mm and 10,000 mm.

Differences between the African bee and the European bee of interest to beekeepers include the following:

1. The European bee is slightly larger than the tropical honeybee, and therefore hive dimensions are somewhat smaller.

2. The tropical African honeybee colony produces more drones than the European bee colony. Drone cells are usually superimposed on worker cells. They are found side by side and at the base of one or more combs on opposite sides.

3. The European bee can be managed easily. Most African bees are unmanageable. Even the manageable few are not very reliable in this respect and may desert the hive when greatly disturbed.

4. The African bee migrates if meteorological conditions are unfavourable. It absconds when disturbed, a phenomenon which exists to a much lesser extent among European bees.

5. The African bee is aggressive during the hot hours of the day. The warmer the period, the more aggressive it is. In contrast, the European bee ignores the beekeeper during the warm period of the day but stings him when the temperature falls.

6. Very little smoke is required to cool down the Italian or the Carnolian, but the tropical bee needs copious quantities of smoke repeated at short intervals.

7. Several African bees take to the air immediately when their comb is removed from the hive. The colony sometimes leaves the hive empty and flies in all directions, hunting for the culprit.

8. African bees hate noise. Beekeepers are advised not to talk or make noise when they are visiting them during the daytime. In contrast, the Californian beekeeper, working with European bees, drives his truck to the apiary and uses motorized mowers to cut weeds. The bees never take any notice of the great noise unless the hive is hit by the blade. They seem to be deaf or, at least, their sense of hearing is not very acute.

9. The alarm pheromone of the tropical honeybee seems to be more powerful than that of the European bee. When a victim is stung, he is anointed with the pheromone around the spot. If he then refuses to move away, more bees will follow and sting him on the same spot. Within a short period, he will be covered with angry bees.

10. The European bee will not punish the beekeeper who kills a bee near the hive, but dozens of the African bee will chase and sting the culprit, especially when one of them is crushed near the hive.

11. The African bee may chase its victim for more than 400 m. The European bee does so for not more than 50 m. Honey production

Many people believe that the European bee produces more honey than the tropical honeybee. This point is very controversial. Perhaps such statements are made without taking into consideration the following factors:

1. The European bee is fed with sugar and corn syrup. If this is subtracted from the honey yield, it will be found that the wild, unfed tropical bee is also a good honey producer.

2. There are more flowering plants in the temperate climates than in tropical vegetation zones.

3. Bees near the Equator work for 13 hours a day during the honey-flow season. In the rich honey areas of the temperate zone, where the summer days are longer, the honeybee works for more than 18 hours.

4. The introduction of modern equipment (e.g. Langstroth hive and the centrifugal honey extractor) in the tropics will make a considerable change. Currently, beekeepers in most African countries crush their honeycombs for honey and wax. The honeybee has to produce new combs for every new crop, and comb-building wastes 8-15 kg of honey for every kg of wax made.

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Are Earwigs Dangerous To Humans And How To Treat A Bite?

New Post has been published on http://www.healthgoesfemale.com/are-earwigs-dangerous-to-humans-and-how-to-treat-a-bite/

Are Earwigs Dangerous To Humans And How To Treat A Bite?

Earwigs are among the most misunderstood insects. Many people think that they are dangerous and can bite us. The name is misleading and is related to the old wives’ tale that earwigs enter our ears, burrow in our brains and lay their eggs.

The common earwig was introduced into North America in 1907 from Europe and they are generally found in the southern and southwestern parts of the United States. Out of about 1800 species, about 25 occur in North America.

Where Are Earwigs Generally Found?

Earwigs are found in all continents except Antarctica. As there are numerous species, their biology and habits also vary. Most species of earwigs generally prefer wet areas, which are cooler and undisturbed. Earwigs can be annoying garden pests if conditions are right. They thrive in places that have an adequate ground cover, wet soil, and food.

They enter our homes from the garden and prefer damp places like bathrooms, basements, and kitchens. If you have plants inside your house, they may be spotted there as well. Homeowners generally find them in areas where there is water. Though they can be seen in almost every part of the house, infestations are rare.

Behavior

Earwigs are relatively fast moving. They escape quickly when the ground litter is moved, uncovering them. Earwigs are mostly nocturnal and often hide in small, moist crevices during the day, and are active at night.

As a self-defense mechanism for protection from predators, some species of earwigs can squirt jets of foul-smelling yellow liquid from scent glands. Earwigs also produce a pheromone (scent), which entomologists believe is the reason why earwigs cluster together in large numbers.

What Do Earwigs Eat?

Earwigs typically feed on live sprouts or decaying vegetation and, in rare cases, some species are predators. Generally, they feed on a wide variety of insects and plants. However, they do not feed on human blood like mosquitoes or bedbugs. So, humans are not part of their preferred diet.

Are They Dangerous To Humans?

Earwigs have a pair of forceps-like pincers on their abdomen. Their pincers are commonly believed to be dangerous, but in reality, even the dangerous-looking curved pincers of male earwigs cause little or no harm to humans. Their pincers are primarily used to capture prey, help in reproduction, and for defense. Some people may mistake mosquito bites to be earwig bites. There is no evidence that they transmit diseases to humans or other animals.

How To Get Rid of Earwigs?

The most important step towards controlling earwigs is eliminating their hiding places. If the earwig’s hiding places are not cleaned or removed, then even using insecticide may not be effective in controlling them. Here are certain things you can do to keep them away.

Remove landscape timbers, logs, decorative stones, and firewood piles away from the foundation of the house.

Ensure that the area next to the foundation is free of moist soil, mulch, dead leaves, and other organic material.

Trim trees and shrubs that cause damp, shady areas near the house.

What Are The Symptoms Of An Earwig Bite?

If you pick an earwig up, they can get agitated and will try to retaliate with their pincers. However, these are not stings or bites, which are terms used for insects with stingers or biting mouthparts. Even in extreme cases, the pinch from the large forceps of adult males can be painful but there is no venom and the pinch rarely breaks the skin.

Earwig Bite Treatment

Although very rare, if the pinch does break the skin, the best treatment is to use the same first aid that you would for a minor scratch. But, since earwigs typically live in the soil, germs or bacteria can possibly enter into the cut from the pincers. If the earwig pinch breaks the skin, apply a lotion or cream that has antiseptic, antibacterial or antibiotic properties.

If you notice swelling or experience a pricking sensation, use an anti-inflammatory cream or apply an anti-itch treatment cream. There is no unique earwig “bite mark” as such since they do not hurt people. In case of any medical concerns, speak to a doctor.

Disclaimer: The content is purely informative and educational in nature and should not be construed as medical advice. Please use the content only in consultation with an appropriate certified medical or healthcare professional.