#other versions of her are herpetologists

[ultimate-snek]

where my Miguel autistics at 💔

commander. commander we have to invite snake spiderman into the spider society. for the good of the multiverse

[weirdbeancurd]

General Headcanons for Miguel and Michelle O'Hara

Michelle is my OC which is basically a more laidback female version of Miguel from another dimension. They have a sibling relationship and love bothering each other lol

Michelle plays dumb as a defense mechanism, but she’s just as smart as Miguel, she likes it when people underestimate her because it she can easily subvert their expectations and turn the tide

Idk who said this but there was a post that headcanoned that Miguel exercises obsessively when he’s stressed or can’t sleep, in turn Michelle does the same, they often wake up in the middle of the night and go to the gym only for the other to be there as well, they force each other to go back to bed, saying it’s not healthy (hypocrites)

They both adore Mayday, but Miguel tries to hide it (he ain’t slick)

Michelle likes to nap or spend the night sleeping on the couch in Miguel’s lair (Peter insisted on there being something for him to lounge on while he visited)

Both have clawed so many holes in their bedsheets (especially on the days they have nightmares), they constantly have to buy new ones

They bicker like children sometimes, it reminds Miguel of when Gabriel was still alive, he gets embarrassed if someone catches him and Michelle arguing over something stupid, sometimes Michelle doesn’t even feel strongly about the topic at hand, she just likes riling him up lol

They work on projects together, spending many days and nights overworking themselves until they eventually pass out in the middle of what they’re doing, they have many photos of the other asleep at their desk, couch, or whatever inconvenient place they conked out, Michelle immediately sends eepy Miguel pics to the group chat, while Miguel saves the embarrassing pics of Michelle for blackmail

Michelle once found Mig asleep with a live soldering iron in his hand, both she and Lyla were not happy, bro needs a little talk about fire safety

All spider people are nerds, even them, they love reptiles and would absolutely have one as a pet if not for them being to busy to take care of it, their favorite is the day gecko, pics of them always cheer the two up, yes, even Miguel, herpetologists rise up

Michelle is out on missions more than Miguel, who usually stays back and monitors everyone, she is great with stealth but goes on other types of missions too

Because she's on the field more often, she gets hurt more than Miguel, who scolds her for being careless, Michelle also got that self-sacrificing tendency that most spider people have, leading to even more injuries, on the bright side, if she's paired with the arachkids on a mission, she will guarantee they come out unscathed, she once took a hit meant for one of the kids and they took turns keeping her company in the medbay, Hobie doesn't have the best bedside manners but it's the thought that counts lol

Michelle is the "cool aunt" to Miguel's "grumpy uncle," the kids always go to her if they need to ask for something

Peter and Michelle like to gang up on Miguel, often to get him to take a break, sometimes even Mayday gets involved, he'll begrudgingly lie there if Mayday falls asleep on him, grumbling all the while, when they check back on Miguel, they find him dead asleep just minutes later

Both can purr but Michelle does it more often, Mig either has to be alone with people he really trusts or too tired to give a shit

They both also love head scritches, it makes them melt and purr, Miguel always tries to stop himself from purring but he can't help it, it's a surefire way to get them to actually relax for once

Since they're the same person, they agree on most things, but can never decide on a show to watch lol

Michelle is proud of the growing bond Miles and Miguel share, but the latter will always deny it, dude can't admit he's getting attached

Michelle sometimes steps in to introduce new recruits to the society when Miguel doesn't feel up to it, it gives him a much needed break from the 2 billion peter parkers that haunt his dreams

[sherwood-cabin]

OKAY!!! Here are. My super omega rants of doom about Little Shop!!! About the director’s cut ending, why there’s two endings, n also me goin way too bonkers over a tiny detail in the director’s cut

ALSO. Hallo Oak if you see this please do not read!!! I wanna rant about this in person once winter break ends. Cause I like talkin in person more than typing, but THE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW!!!

All under the cut, cause this is very long

The reason why there’s two different endings

The original Little Shop movie had an ending where Seymour n Audrey were both eaten by Audrey 2, n the plants took over the world wiv the added ‘Somewhere That’s Green’ reprise n ‘Don’t Feed the Plants.’ This version was only shown to a few audiences, n they apparently didn’t like it at all. In response, the “happy ending” I’ve only just watched was filmed n released

Warner Bros released a ‘special edition’ on DVD of the original ending in in 1998, *12 years* after the original movie came out. This version was black n white, for some reason???

Finally in October 2012, the in-color version was released wiv refined special effects, sound design, n songs. Alternate scenes/editions showed up online soon afterward 

This is so funny to me cause, according to imdb, the studio spent “…about $5 million on the sequence of Audrey II’s takeover…” which is insane

A detail from the original ending I care too much about

When Seymour feeds Audrey to Twoey, he lays her feet-first into his mouth. I know this was prolly to have him closer to her head to make the scene sadder, but I like to look way too much into details(Also, my dad’s a herpetologist, so I know a bit too much about certain animals lol).

Most animals that eat their prey whole(snakes, as an example), eat them head-first. This is usually because they go down easier; feet-first can make the tail(if there is one) go down wrong, along with the prey’s legs going in at a weird angle and scratching at the inside of the creature’s mouth/throat. In the movie, Twoey actually does this!!! He eats Mushnik n Seymour head-first, even holding Seymour’s arms at his sides with his vines to go down easier!!!

Abiding by these rules, Audrey’s high heels, fancy dress, and longer nails would undoubtedly damage the inside of Twoey. I know this is most likely making mountains outta molehills, but it’s interesting to think that Seymour purposefully set Audrey in that way to try and hurt him.

This also adds detail to when Twoey eats Seymour!!! He holds his branches around him weirdly long- up to the point where Seymour enters his throat. I like to think that due to the damage Audrey caused, Twoey is doing this to make it *absolutely sure* that eating Seymour won’t hurt. This is his victory, it should go perfectly!!! He learned his lesson by trusting Seymour to feed him a full body, so he’ll make sure he doesn’t fuck up again

The director’s cut n additional scenes, for anyone who wants to see

Full ending is here, it shows the director’s cut n the workprint version next to each other as a comparison. Both are pretty low quality(ESPECIALLY around Mean Green Mother), but it shows the differences between the two, from the moment Audrey gets called by Twoey until the end: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gyQpDCAWpbs

Here’s just the director’s cut from Mean Green Mother to the end. It’s still low-quality, but it takes up the full screen n shows everything in full color: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7RjFvcw6ToQ

Okay I’m so so sorry this is so long, I’m just insane about this,, I sent a bit more that I hadn’t pre-written to a groupchat wiv my friends, too, so. Sorry to them 😭😭😭

[kyoryu]

We have heard your gospel on the shitty finale. Now, dear prophet, I humbly ask for your fix-it ideas

OK SO

you said FIX IT... so how would i fix it. oh in so many ways. but to make what we had WORK, its simple. ive said it before and i will say it again. 3 simple things:

- having no way back to amphibia is treated by the characters as something unfair and theyre all very broken up about it, especially anne. she's inconsolable. shes not accepting just cuz omg i changed i will just take every bad thing life keeps throwing at me here throw some more

- we get to see anne reunite with her parents when shes back (sasha and marcy with theirs too would be nice but thats another can of worms to open)

- after the trio hug in the timeskip, have an actual open end where we see a light flash when they walk off screen. like they went... Somewhere 😳 thatd be cool, like have they opened it before? is this the first time? is it even a portal? dont know, actual open end ✌️

(people keep saying what we got was an open end and the more i think about it the more i call bs. it wasnt open ended they just didnt go back to amphibia and ur in denial. cry about it ig)

anyways id be so happy with an ending like that. im not even changing much its just adding 3 things.

(also id probably skip on the trio growing apart and shit. like i keep saying, i dont think them growing apart in the situation where amphibia is closed for good works out. its just weird. like yeah we close this chapter that totally didnt mark us for life and we move on 🤟 BUT AGAIN JUST LIKE SASHARCYS PARENTS, THATS ANOTHER CONVO)

AS FOR AN ACTUAL FIX IT... to make exactly what we got work we'd have to rewrite the whole thing. not make it about saving the world, not making it so much about family, changing everything. cuz that ending just shits on everything lmao if the ending we got actually worked then amphibia would have to be a completely different story

ANYWAY a fix it would be what i said. tbh i like it when u add those 3 things. its genuinely bittersweet like that. it makes me angry about how its only 3 simple little things that couldve been added and i wouldve been content. but whatever

HOWEVER, A DELUSIONAL ENDING THAT WOULD MAKE ME HAPPY WOULD BE: annes given 3 full stones, bc i dont see why tf not if she meets god. i mean if its gonna be nonsensical then lets be nonsensical all the way and have 3 stones. each of them get one, and they can use it to travel back and forth by themselves. each time they have to charge it.

this means they dont usually Go together. they go separately, and if theyre ever in amphibia at the same time they might not even know. sasha always warps at toad tower, anne in wartwood, marcy in newtopia. they go to amphibia for their own purposes and business. and thus the trio grows apart.

it makes more fucking sense, ofc i think the trio growing apart makes sense, it just Doesnt when you add it up with closing off amphibia forever lol. but with amphibia being accessible i totally see it. theyre all doing their own stuff and making their own friends (both human and amphibians). even like this, after what they went through, sasha anne and marcy are intertwined for life. no matter how much time passes, how different they become, theyre unique to each other. they always come back to each other at one point. other than that, amphibia is open, they get to grow up in a place they love with people they love without having to sacrifice choosing one or the other bc that Sucks Ass and they've been thru enough, and have enough mental scars that will keep haunting them even after if they get to thrive in both worlds

this version is kinda. unrealistic. i get it. but the realistic ending we got was bullshit and shitted on everything, its sad and not to mention Boring. i think this ver still gets the point across (point that was already made so many times in the show anyway), sprig and anne grow up together, anne still becomes a herpetologist but now instead of fucking tragic and sad its very fun and cute, sasha has a getaway from her chaotic homelife and can be with grime who never ever EVER left her side, marcy gets to become close to olivia like shes failed to do and hence gain an actual mother figure in her life, etc etc. hehe

(and as adults sasha and marcy choose to move to amphibia. or as teenagers they just straight up stay there. but thats another convo as well)

i actually do enjoy a version where they only go back after 10 years and they have to reconnect, its fun to explore, but it never stops being Sad. i think of it and make hcs about it and comics about it but it never stops being full on sad ending to me and when i remember its not just a fun concept im exploring, its the genuine ending we got that is supposed to be Good and Satisfying, i become enraged. i continue not to see the sweet in the bitter. i wish people would at least admit its full on a very sad ending instead of pretending it was something else (people who liked it say it makes them want to d1e or say "idk i just like sad endings" so u agree. u agree it is a sad ending where characters end up sad)

anyways. kind of a stupid ramble here. i love amphibia (kicks the ending on the throat)

[headcanonsandhijinx]

The Hardest Thing Amphibia

(Spoiler warning for the finale!)

I’m lying in bed sobbing.

It was a great episode and somehow I managed to hold it together until Anne ‘died’ and then lost it again at the flash forward.

ANNE BECOME A HERPETOLOGIST AND CALLED HER LITTLE SECTION OF THE AQUARIUM ‘AMPHIBIA’!

I liked the ending, but I just wish there was a way that the girls could travel back and forth between our world and Amphibia. I, like Marcy, am a huge fan of the ‘found family’ trope and just don’t like endings where the found family’s adventure finishes and then they just all go their own ways.

I understand that change is good and that message within the show, even with Anne’s speech about how as long as they think of each other then they’re still together, but I still can’t help but wish they could have stayed together or at least visited each other.

That being said, here’s some of my favourite details from the little flash forward.

Polly grew up and she’s an amazing little frog! Her little dungarees! (As a frequent wearer of dungarees, join us Polly!)

Yunan and Olivia are wives and nobody can convince me otherwise. Olivia was talking about settling down in Wartwood!

Sasha became a therapist/councillor to help other kids like her (can you hear me sobbing rn?)

Sasha also has a little ornament of her swords hanging on her rear view mirror.

Marcy is making a webcomic! I also gasped when she showed up, she looks pretty with the long hair

When you look at Amphibia in the final shot, there is a little Mother Olm figurine above the door and probably so many details that I can’t name them all. Edit: The frog enclosure looks like Wartwood, it even has a little version of the Plantar’s house, the toad enclosure looks like Toad Tower and the newt enclosure looks like Newtopia! I’m crying.

The fact Anne named one of the frogs she works with Sprig!

I also just wanted to say thank you to Matt Braly and the creative team behind Amphibia. You guys put your all into this show and it’s easy to see just how much work and passion you put into it. It’s an amazing show that I’m so happy I got to watch and be a part of the fandom.

So, for the last time, Spranne against the world! And thank you…

for everything.

Goodbye Amphibia.

[galaxy98]

Thoughts on the SERIES FINALE of Amphibia:

Man…. It’s hard to think that this show came out just a few years ago.

Even though I started watching the whole thing before season 3 premiered, it was nice having to be along for the ride.

It’s also funny that it started off as a story about a girl being transported to a quirky little frog world to a girl getting godlike powers to stop a moon from literally crashing into the planet.

The moments that I thought were bizarre (other than the moon of course), was the scene where Anne was in that dimensional realm. The fact that the guardian had to transform into a cat for Anne’s sake is very funny to me. It makes me think that they’re supposed to be the Amphibia equivalent to God.

As for the emotional moments, I’ll admit, I didn’t exactly cried at any of them. But I did get this weird feeling in my throat. It was a feeling of sadness, if that makes any sense. The part where Anne says her final goodbyes to Sprig is kind of heartbreaking when you think about it.

At the very beginning of the story, Anne was the only one (other than Ivy) who ever wanted to be around him. For as much as the citizens of Wartwood know his name, they aren’t really his friends. They’re just frogs that know him in passing. Not to mention the Plantar family name was tarnished for a while prior to Anne's arrival. Sprig had every reason to be torn up about it. But like everything else in life, even if certain things are left in the past, the memories remain for as long as they can.

Which brings me to the ending.

Like I said before in another post, even if they did had the choice to go back to Amphibia, there's a chance that they wouldn't be able to do so regardless. According to the time skip, they're about 23 years old and while Matt would go on to say that they still had a whole future ahead of them, the show made it very clear that they've done a lot since they left. Anne is now a herpetologist, Marcy pursued a career into web comics, and most importantly, Sasha is going all around the world to help kids with their problems.

Because they took what they learned from Amphibia and applied it to their life back on earth.

That's what makes the show so special.

Even if we can't change the things that happened in the past, we can still learn from it and try to be the best versions of ourselves.

On a related note, I decided to cancel the Anne, Sasha, Marcy, and Me essay that had i planned prior to the finale for two reasons.

I wanted to do my first multi-chapter story of Deltarune on AO3 that's been on my mind since January.

Amphibia is a show that I can't just describe with words alone on a computer. You have to see the show for yourself to fully understand what it's like to relate to the characters. Not everyone's experience is the same, me included. I don't exactly have to make a novel-length essay to tell you that I relate to the girls. Because I already know that I do. But while no one is a monolith, it is powerful enough to invoke this universal feeling. Either way, you shouldn't just to take my word for it. If you happen to be a newcomer or an experienced fan of the show, you should take the chance to watch/re-watch it for yourself.

HOWEVER

That is not to say that Amphibia is finished with me. I still have a few ideas in my head that I like to show off. But right now, I just want to keep myself focused without having to add any extra stuff to my agenda.

[moldygreenblue]

things from the asoue movie

(i personally think did better than netflix asoue, with “honorary mentions” that i can tolerate in ways.)

1. the movie soundtrack. thomas newman composes a lot of good scores, and everything in the asoue movie soundtrack is no exception (drive away is a real head banger). the fact it’s all on youtube, means one can jam to it whenever they go on youtube (i’m guilty of this). i love the netflix soundtrack a lot as well because shoot that is jim dooley’s music (i love his music ever since pushing daisies came out!). but netflix...where’s the official soundtrack? the fact jim dooley’s youtube channel has him uploading songs via request means he’s the only one to listen to the fans who want the show’s soundtrack is why the movie did better because of netflix’s poor treatment by not releasing it. it has to be jim dooley himself having to do it (and i appreciate him doing so because omg i can finally hear the tpp version ‘that’s not how the story goes’ without lemony talking over *tears up*)

2. the vfd group photo. everyone in the photo feels all organic and real. you got members sitting on the floor and steps. some members are standing. some members smiling happy to be there, or with neutral expressions because they don’t want to be there. some are in gestures of sorts (ike is flexing his arm like a goofball; that’s a nice touch to flesh out a dead minor character). it almost feels like the movie team decided ‘since we have the budget, we should get billy connolly, meryl streep, and others to take a photo and we’re telling them they can do whatever they want’. netflix’s vfd feels artificial and very, fake in ways. i don’t want to say it’s a bad photoshop, because group photos can have everyone stand in neat little row all smiles, but some heads feel...off. like, something feels really off with larry, ike, and uh, the guy i think is lemony who is clearly got the worst of it. is that a bad photoshop?

3. the littlest elf. the movie made that elf have a (minor) presence from beginning to end. there’s the fake out opening. the theme song from the fake out opening is heard three more times (twice in-verse, and it’s the final song in the credits) and it’s annoyingly catchy. olaf having a bobble head doll so shoot that means it’s popular franchise in the movie world. the movie made the littlest elf a thing, and netflix only makes it a word-of-mouth reference. what’s weirder for netflix is gustav despite having more of a character and kept his director status (unlike movie!gustav), never bring up this horrific masterpiece and the connection between the two (that i can recall). like, this is not cool, netflix!

4. movie!monty being able to carry snakes and having a personal snake.  the movie probably had the budget to do so unlike netflix, but monty in any continuity would carry a snake with him if possible, even for a short amount of time. movie!monty goes up a level by being a giddy herpetologist with his own personal pet snake he loves and adore (sidenote: movie!monty, that’s why petunia thinks you’re a tree you always carry her around. you spoil her rotten). netflix!monty with the winged lizard is not the same vibe, because it’s cgi. i think netflix!monty should have hold a real snake for at least a minute, as a treat.

5. two-thirds of the wide window section. it’s not that i think the netflix version is bad, for i do enjoy it. but there’s so many details in the movie version i enjoy: josephine and her poofy black mourning dress. klaus dissociating in the kitchen and josephine losing it. josephine casually telling the children ‘oh no he [ike] got eaten by leeches’ and the baudelaires are all (O_o) and sunny speaks for them all. the fact josephine is strong enough to pull the chain to show off the wide window all by herself and violet and klaus are still (O_o).  josephine screaming at the jane lynch cameo + “we got to get her out of the house.”. sunny accidentally dropping the apple basket. klaus tackling captain sham shamelessly. the baudelaires getting accuse of shoplifting. everything about hurricane herman, especially with josephine’s fears coming true. klaus assuming violet may kill them all with her plan to get off the platform.

the fact that the deleted/extended version of josephine’s death is so messed up (josephine realizing she can’t jump, josephine allowing herself to sit back on the boat, crying as she apologizes, the fog covering her and the boat), i truly think the wide window was the book the movie team attempted to do the series right in their own way, but meddling got involve.

and now, honorary mentions.

honorary mention 1: movie!powder face women ages. i don’t know what is up with their personalities (i’m including deleted scenes), but you know what? the movie team did cast two actresses who fit the age range of the sbg. had the movie continued in hypothetical sequels, i would have 100% believe their recruitment into vfd is connected to the loss of their sibling in a fire. netflix!powder face women are older than their movie counterparts (and maybe book counterparts, taking brett helquist’s illustrations of them as them being on the younger side), so when netflix decided to make ishmael the creator of vfd, they pretty much made a giant hole of a contradiction over their statement of losing a sibling to a fire (unless they aged very badly). netflix due to their major changes of vfd, made the movie look good in a weird way. honorary mention because movie series is dead in the water, and their characterization.

honorary mention 2: the baudelaire’s mansion. the exterior only shows up for one second in its glory before fernald stabs his hook into the photo, but given how the ruins are shown a lot, it’s easy to tell the mansion isn’t super huge, but still huge and noticeable. its location being in middle of the street holding a corner spot of sorts means looking from high above does give the illusion it’s in the ‘heart of a dirty and busy city’. the netflix mansion...it’s something. the netflix mansion looks like it’s borderline on a suburb neighborhood, and the mansion takes up six lots like this not what i thought in mind. it’s honorary mention because the exterior shows up for one second (and i’m not sure how to feel about the interior).

honorary mention 3: movie!lemony hiding his face 24/7. netflix!lemony showing his face is because he’s narrating the series from the future. whenever (past) netflix!lemony shows up, there’s is a sense (future) netflix!lemony is trying to avoid narrating himself because it screams, “oh hey that’s me! oh wait that’s me. i’m just...going to go.” and he leaves and only comes back after he’s certain past!lemony is gone. as much i as actually enjoy what netflix did, i do like the ‘i’m not going to show my face, suckers’ angle lemony has in the books. 

the movie carries this over. lemony’s face is always not in the shot because the movie is showing his body head down, obscure by shadows, or do show his face but partly. the whole ‘my ribbon just jam’ bit still has lemony still refusing to not show his face. in fact, it’s hard to find a shot where his face is ‘visible’ without editing the lighting and shadows and what not until the ending, when lemony gets his transcript out of the typewriter due to the lighting of the lamp:

it’s a honorary mention because excluding lemony having no shame on interrupting the fake out opening, no shame on telling the audience to jump out the airplane if they’re watching the movie there, the ‘ribbon just jammed’ moment (if only because movie!lemony blank out afterwards), and technically lemony being melancholic after looking out the spyglass (lemony would totally do that, but in a different context), movie!lemony doesn’t do a lot of things that make him be, well, lemony. that, and movie!lemony’s aesthetics still confuses me to this day.

[onenettvchannel]

THIS JUST IN: SJMS Student and Herpetologist wins after she was Bashed to Destroy the Core in Space

NEWTOPIA, AMPHIBIA ISLAND REGION -- The Core in Amphibia Island Region makes its last stand as it towards to control as a whole via the Red Moon by destroying a planet Saturday night (Newtopia local time). This was after a double defeat between the suspects of Darcy Wu (a Villain version of Marcy) & Andrias Leviathan (Main Captain of Newtopia City in A.I.R.).

Toads and Newts of Amphibia Island Region will destroy the entire lives and the whole civilization colliding on its surface in ashes as Capt. Leviathan warned. Bizarre Bazaar vendor and moderator-in-charge per Calamity Box named Valeriana and a prophecy specialist (Mother Olm) are instructing all the student groups of Saint James Middle School (SJMS) to destroy the Core at full power but, there is a catch. Calamity powers will be limited in one shot for SJMS students and only one of them will die altogether or even individual at once by using all the energetic music box with a Magical Calamity Stones.

Anne Savisa Boonchuy (Herpetologist individual and a Mass Communication Intern of Disney XD News), Marcy Wu and Sasha Waybright (Regular Students of Saint James Middle School in Los Angeles City) have all powered and armored up the said music box by taking down the Core once and for all as per effective immediately. On the other hand, Frobots are in defense mode to stop the impact to keep themselves busy for a fight. Capt. Leviathan crushes a crown and breaks his connection, who was originally controlled itself from a late father (Aldrich Leviathan).

Waybright and Wu didn't make the cut as both of them returned safely in Newtopia as a pre-caution. Boonchuy tells them that she has a plan as a last resort to defeat the Core by combining the power of all three stones; knowing she may die from its overwhelming power, it would be worth it to her with them and everyone in Amphibia Island Region are being safe in advance.

Boonchuy now fires a massive beam at the red moon, leaving the Core destroyed on her final battle. Shortly after the battle, she was nearly petrified and dies temporarily in the afterlife. Several minutes later, she was resurrected safely at the same location outside of Newtopia. It is a sure miracle to do so. The war officially declared a ceasefire in both countries for now.

All the SJMS students have returned home the next Sunday morning (Newtopia local time) using the last bits of a Calamity shards by opening a portal to Los Angeles, California, United States of America (U.S.A.). Having used the last of the stones' power, the Calamity Music Box fades its history for good. It's safe to say that the entire island of Amphibia has been rebuilt.

Wartwood calls for a ceremonial celebration by placing a historic statue of Anne Savisa Boonchuy in honor of her saving the world with this said region. The history will be preserved in the next generation for the another world like Boonchuy herself.

Today in the present in Los Angeles City, Boonchuy is now promoted as a herpetologist at the Aquarium of the Pacific late afternoon (Pacific local time). She will be working at "The Wonderful World of Frogs" to educate the kids and teens after the Amphibia's history was made. She was graduated both the middle and high school because of the said event.

Boonchuy told exclusively to Radyo Bandera & Disney XD News said in a personal statement, "I was honored to work here at the Aquarium of the Pacific (AotP), because of my best friend (Sprig Plantar) changed my life in Amphibia. The years passed since I have fully graduated between my middle and high school years in Saint James in our city of Los Angeles. We are here to educate you about the frogs that depends for studying about a biology of frogs. I was inspired for Sprig as I related to him as a toad. Feel free to come by with your parents to show the world about it".

In promoted from her role of a Herpetologist according to a management of AotP, Boonchuy will continue working to study about the frogs and some reunion plans of Wu & Waybright as her former students and close friends of SJMS. Her own life insurance costs have already covered from a private company in Los Angeles until her early retirement.

For now, Amphibia will remember the history that never to be forgotten for the next generations of success.

SCREENGRAB COURTESY: Disney Television Animation

HONEST DISCLAIMER: The readers and opinions expressed from this News Report are not necessarily those of Disney Television Animation. Furthermore, the assumptions of this News Report will NOT state, intervene, or reflect those of our Affiliated reporters. The show, the station, the management, interwebs, and the network. Thanks for reading and stay safe, mga ka-Bandera! Later!

-- OneNETnews Team

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Congolese giant toads might be giving predators the slip by taking on the look and sound of venomous vipers. The cheeseburger-sized African toads appear to be using this fakeout to avoid becoming another animals’ lunch.

Toads are actually a type of frog, explains Greenbaum, who works at the University of Texas at El Paso.  So this would be the first example of a frog imitating a venomous snake. As a herpetologist, he studies amphibians and reptiles.

The Gaboon viper (Bitis gabonica) is one of the largest in Africa. It sports roughly 5-centimeter (2-inch) fangs. They’re “the longest fangs of any snake in the world,” Greenbaum says. Their venom isn’t super toxic. But the snake can inject enough of its toxin to make it deadly, he says.

A member of his research team noticed an uncanny resemblance between her pet Gaboon viper and a photo of the top of a giant toad. That toad was known as Sclerophyrs channgi, Greenbaum recalls. So the scientists sized up and studied the color patterns of 10 vipers and 16 of these toads in museum collections.

A color pattern on the toad’s body resembles the viper’s head. The toad also is similar in size to the viper’s head. By raising its rump, this toad “shows off this color pattern and shape that looks kind of like the cocked head of a Gaboon viper that’s preparing to strike,” Greenbaum says. And when handled, the toad makes a noise like a balloon letting out air. This sounds like the viper’s wheezy hiss.

His team reported its observation October 20 in the Journal of Natural History.

Found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, these toads have so far shown up only in places where the viper also lives. Other scientists have analyzed the DNA of both the viper and toad. The ancestors of both species seem to have emerged between four million and five million years ago. They may have evolved together, notes Greenbaum, who is also an evolutionary geneticist. Such scientists look at DNA to understand how organisms evolved.  

So far, this makes “a pretty strong case that these toads are mimicking these vipers,” Greenbaum says. But proving it would require testing if would-be toad eaters are actually duped.

An imitation game?

That observation is “exciting because the frog really looks like the head [of the viper],” says Jindřich Brejcha. An evolutionary biologist, he studies how diverse lifeforms evolve over time. Brejcha, who did not take part in the new study, works at Charles University and the National Museum. Both are in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.

We can’t be sure predators see the toads as we do, Brejcha says. Some predators may be able to see light outside of the range of wavelengths that human eyes pick up. Birds, for instance, can see some ultraviolet light that people can’t. So the scientists might want to measure the color of both animals to see if they are actually the same. The researchers also could run experiments to see whether predators avoid the toads or fake versions in tests.

Since very little is known about the toad, it’s not clear what predators it might be trying to fool. “This is the most important piece in this puzzle,” says Johanna Mappes. She, too, is an evolutionary biologist and was not part of the study. Mappes works for the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. (She’s currently based in Berlin, Germany.) Because the toads seem to coopt the viper’s sound, Mappes is curious whether predators respond to the toad’s sound as they do to the viper’s hiss.

Humans and monkeys are really afraid of the snakes, Mappes says. But some birds of prey are superb snake killers. They may not fear the vipers. She says “that’s why many snakes, even if they are very venomous … they don’t advertise themselves.” So even if the toads are copycats, the vipers might be trying to blend in. Their colors look a lot like the leaf litter where they wait to ambush prey.

Such mimicry doesn’t have to be perfect for it to help a beefy toad stay out of snack territory. “The more venomous or scary the [imitated animal], the easier it is to mimic,” Mappes says. Even a vague resemblance might do the trick, because predators don’t want to take a risk.

[sigritandtheelves]

Hour of Lead - Part Three

(Part 1, Part 2)

2.8k wds | angst | s8: Alone through Existence; reference to s9: NIHT

A/N: Here’s the final part, only about a month late. 🤷‍♀️

—

Mulder seeks her out in the forensics lab, toting his visitor’s badge, and she is not entirely surprised to see him. He’d said he would come back to her apartment, and she can only imagine what he thought when he found the hasty note on her dining room table: Doggett missing; gone to forensics lab to help however I can.

He seems to want her to go home, but there is also that pride in his eyes when she tells him it’s an X-File, that the work still needs her. He tells her he’ll go look for Doggett in the morning, that she can check on the lab work later, and she wants to dig in her heels because how else will he know that she hasn’t given up? That she never once gave up?

“I’m okay,” she says. “Really, I’ve been sitting down every few minutes.”

“Come home,” he says.

His pleading eyes convince her, and the word home coming from his mouth, which makes her chest tighten. She gives her second swab to the lab tech and asks her to put away the body until tomorrow.

“I’ll come back to check the results first thing.”

“Hmm,” Mulder says. He touches the back of her shoulder to usher her toward the door.

“Scrubs.” Scully gestures to her clothes, and he nods and waits for her to change.

In the car she wonders if he is tense, but she has trouble reading him now. “I’m sorry about the note,” she says. “I couldn’t just sit there.”

“You need to just sit there.” His hand fidgets the steering wheel. “Scully, you need to rest. You’ve been out three times today already.”

“I feel fine,” she says, but it’s something of a lie. Her back hurts and it feels like the baby’s head is shoving her cervix down between her legs.

Mulder looks over at her, scrutinizing, and then back at the road. He is quiet for a minute, thinking, and then his voice is soft. “Were you like this the whole time? Did you put yourself in danger?”

The words take a moment to sink in, but then a spark of anger lights in her. Damn him, she thinks, for using his profiler’s mind on this and nothing else, for finding a way to make her feel guilty for both doing too much and too little. “I did what I had to do,” she says. “And it wasn’t always me... putting myself in danger.”

He seems to think about this for a moment. “But you were sometimes. In danger.”

She bites at the inside of her cheek. “Yes.”

She watches his fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “You could have… what if you’d been hurt and lost the baby?”

He is digging around inside her for the infected tissue, but his words are a blunt instrument. They bruise as they seek. It feels like a test, his question. It feels like he wants something from her. But she is too tired and she has only the truth to give him. “I’d have thought…” she closes her eyes. “I’d have thought it a just punishment, I think. What I deserved.”

“For what?”

“For failing you.”

She waits for some explosion, some reaction, but nothing follows. They are rounding the last corner before her street. Mulder is quiet as he parks, helps her out of the car, follows her inside.

“Sit,” he says, gesturing to the couch. She does, watching him pace awkwardly for a moment, scratch the back of his head, before sitting to face her on the coffee table. Their knees almost touch. “I meant what I said before.” He reaches out and takes one of her hands, searching her face. “I do still love you. And I need you to be more careful.”

She can feel the frown forming on her face, even as her heart beats faster. His fingers are warm and the electricity between them is strong as it ever was, but there is hesitation yet in his manner and his words: a hanging negation, a silent conditional. “What about you?” She asks. “Why don’t you need to be more careful?”

His jaw clenches, and then he tries to conjure a smile for her but does not succeed. “Rest,” he says. “I’ll make dinner.” He touches her shoulder on the way to the kitchen.

She listens, as he works, to the sound of a pan set on the counter, the refrigerator door opening and closing, the click click whoosh of her gas range coming to life. Then she is opening her eyes as he brushes her cheek and sets a plate in front of her: salad and chicken and crusty bread with butter. She’d fallen asleep.

“Thank you,” she says.

They sit together in silence. She feels him watching her eat. For a moment, she’s able to pretend that it is Before and they are just eating after work and things are normal.

“The Gila monster is venomous,” he says after a while. “It produces venom in the saliva and delivers it through chewing.”

She takes a sip of water. “Not native to the east coast, though. And there were no bites on the victim, so no chewing.”

Mulder shrugs. “Not native, but maybe someone brought some in to extract their venom and experiment with it. We should check with herpetologists in the West Seneca area.”

We, she thinks, and almost smiles. “Okay,” because she is still playing this game in which they are Agents Mulder and Scully of the X-Files division, continuing their shop-talk over dinner. When they finish, he’ll follow her toward the bedroom where they’ll change into pajamas and brush their teeth and wash their faces and climb under the cool sheets and find each other’s skin amidst the cotton. He’ll bury his face in that part of her neck that makes her shiver and she’ll whimper and press her body to his. It will be quiet and sweet, their lovemaking, because it is a work night and they are tired. They will fall asleep entwined, and she’ll wake with his arm heavy on her ribs and his erection pressed to her back. She can almost feel it now, and it makes her want. She puts down her plate and looks at him, the pull in her chest overwhelming.

“What?” He asks around a bite of salad.

“I miss you,” she says. Present tense.

He chews slowly and swallows. “I’m right here,” he says.

But she shakes her head. 

They finish in quiet, the spell broken.

—

Two o’clock in the morning and she needs to pee. She climbs from the bed, with no small effort, and to the bathroom. She emerges toward the blue flicker from the television: he’s awake on the couch.

“Mulder?”

He cranes his head over the pillows to see her. “Hey.”

“Why are you awake?”

A shrug. “Thinkin.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and takes a few steps closer. “About what?”

He shakes his head and pats the seat beside him. “Doesn’t matter.”

She hesitates, caught between returning to bed and his invitation. She’s afraid of her own neediness at this hour, but approaches anyway, lowers herself to sit. Now is the quiet time when they are fully alone. They know this dark lull, these easily forgotten hours. They have found respite here before. His arms come around her and she breathes deep, needing so badly the pressure of his body on hers. He pulls her against him, presses his face to the back of her shoulder.

“I need you to be okay,” he says into the fabric of her pajamas. “That’s all that matters to me right now.”

She cups his forearm in her palm, knowing so well the warm solidity of its muscle, the soft hairs. There is something he’s holding back, as always keeping his secret knowledge. “I’m okay,” she says. “We’re all okay.”

He’s quiet, stewing in whatever it is he won’t tell her.

“Mulder,” she says. “Is it… it’s that you don’t want this, isn’t it?” This baby. This family. This version of her. He’d told her, once, that he did. But that was when it seemed impossible, when it wasn’t real.

A sound against her back, like a whimper or a soft cry, and his arms tighten. His words are still muffled because he won’t lift his head. “I do,” he says. “I want it. I just wish…”

She tugs his arm, tries to get him to look at her. She keeps her voice low, as if a whisper won’t scare away his answer. “What?”

He shakes his head. “I wish I could know this baby was…” but he doesn’t finish. Can’t.

In the silence he leaves behind, she hears what he didn’t say: mine. Ice in her veins, then, she realizes why. She understands his distance, his reluctance. He thinks the baby isn’t his. He thinks, maybe, that it is a monster, and he doesn’t want to frighten her.

Though her limbs seem filled with lead, she stands, leaving him reaching for her.

“Scully,” he says: an apology.

“You might be afraid to get too close, Mulder, but I don’t have a choice.” She touches her belly, rubs it as if to reassure the child that it is wanted. “I’ve had to… I have to believe this child is yours. I have to.”

He looks ill; the pain carved onto his face is visceral and haunted. She goes back to her bed and does not invite him.

_+_

Even your mother isn’t safe, can’t be trusted. It isn’t her fault, you try to think.

Mulder is on fire. He’s pulled taught like the skin of a drum. He stays to see that you are not dying, have not been poisoned, and then he is off with Skinner and you are alone again, just your blubbering apologetic mother holding you tight in the sterile room. She is the only one left to bring you home. You try not to be angry.

You cannot trust your own mother.

You cannot trust yourself.

Mulder is gone, smashing things to find the truth.

You can’t do this. You can’t live like this.

You are shoved into cars and told your baby is from some experiment, or from God, but not from love. You are passed around like a thing, then shoved into another car to be taken away without him again.

Scully’s baby…

This child you’re carrying…

He’d put as much verbal distance as he could between himself and your child because he still refuses to acknowledge that it could be his.

Mulder lets you go. He puts you in a car with an almost-stranger to have “this baby” without him. He absolves himself of fatherhood again and again.

He doesn’t say goodbye.

He doesn’t say he loves you.

You could die, will probably die.

You are in the moving car, passing houses and families and people living lives with their children and their dogs, even now, and he is not even beside you anymore.

There is nothing else to be done, so you sleep.

—

Things happen in Georgia. Things happened. Bad things. You cannot touch them with your mind without breaking apart.

—

In the hospital he holds the baby by the window, bounces, kisses it, runs his finger down the tiny nose. He turns to you comfortable, smiling, like he has done this one-hundred times: held his child in the morning light, waiting for you to wake.

“There’s mom,” he says to the bundle.

You sit up carefully and reach for your baby without thinking. How did you get here? What has your memory blocked to allow you this consciousness at all?

The child you recognize with an instinctive pull. The child you must have, must hold against your breast in this still-unfamiliar act. Mulder watches, unashamed, while you check the infant’s latch and feel the strong tug of his mouth. The skin at his still-reddened temple, his wrinkled forehead, his cheek as he eats—they are beyond any softness you’ve ever known.

“The doctor said she wants to keep you one more full day, so we can leave tomorrow. Your mom is already on her way. I told her to wait, but she wouldn’t, wants to see him right away.”

You wonder what your mother will think. You wonder if she will be angry about the way this happened.

“The nurses showed me how to change him while you were sleeping. They said we have to cover him with a cloth while we do it, or he’ll pee on us.”

You smile some. Your insides warm at the thought of Mulder taking instruction from the nurse, listening carefully as she probably called him dad and showed him how to slide the new diaper under the old, how to fasten the tabs. For a moment, your heart feels full.

When you swap the baby to the other breast, Mulder slides in behind you on the bed and his arm comes around your shoulders. “Are you okay?” He asks.

“Yeah,” you say. “Yes. Just... a little dazed, I think.”

He presses his lips to your temple. “You did so well,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

You won’t let yourself think about that night, about the terror that has marked every single milestone of this pregnancy and birth, but your breathing changes anyway. Your heart speeds and you feel your fingers tremble under the warm weight of the baby.

“Mul—“ but you can’t even finish his name and suddenly the room is blurry through your tears and slipping vision. You are woozy with the speed that blood moves through your veins.

He brings both arms around you now, his face buried in your neck. “It’s okay,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You’re okay. We’re all okay.”

He doesn’t let you faint while holding the baby, and for that you are grateful.

You are three in the bed, you think, an entire newborn nuclear family. The baby drifts, and you drift, but you are held up by the third. Three, oh, it’s a magic number.

—

He stays for a week, and then two, but you are still bleeding when he leaves. You are milk-sore and tired and waking too often sweaty and this isn’t how you thought you’d have to say goodbye. Your apartment fills with his things, paradoxically, as he removes himself from your life. He holds William constantly and tells you he is sorry, so sorry.

You look for the pieces of your armor, but they are in tatters, crushed like egg shells under a heavy boot. You must mother alone, after all, and still raw. You are not even supposed to use stairs yet. Or drive. You feel all the time that someone is standing on your chest.

He holds you while the baby sleeps and whispers into your hair. “I don’t want to go.”

You are shaking with the terrible truth of it. “Don’t,” you say. “You can’t. I knew this would happen somehow, but you can’t. I’ll die, Mulder.” You shake. You can’t breathe. Your breasts hurt and your cunt hurts and your heart is so bruised you think it will soon give up all together.

“You said I had to,” he says. “You said What if they hurt him?”

You splinter. You crack. You cannot hold either of them apart from you, but neither can you hold them together, and the broken law of noncontradiction shatters the core of your rational self.

“What if…” but nothing follows. There is nothing else: no certainty, only a series of escalating, increasingly horrible what ifs. He kisses you again, a full kiss with both palms on your cheeks, but between his skin and yours there are tears.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I love you,” and then, “I’ll go tomorrow.”

It is like a blow that makes your ears ring, a car crash that rips your perception from the world, a numbing buffer between your senses and surroundings that will protect you from ripping crashing searing pain. You wait and wait and wait, but the numbness lingers. It stays for months.

Your greatest fear, and one that has borne out over and over, is that he would, and did, choose heroic martyrdom over you. In the end you are not enough to make him choose the subtler fight, the one of minor action and unremarkable bravery and holding the joy of small moments against the swallowing dark. In the end he chooses the blind, grand thrust of his sword against unseen forces and you are left, like the abandoned women of yore, with spit-up on your blouse, an empty heart, the weight of a thousand future days alone.

You think you should have known: he was never intended to father. That was never his verb.

— end —

Note: I apologize for the pain. I know a lot of folks wanted a happy ending for this, but the truth is that Scully did not get one, and neither did Mulder. At least not in this story arc. Canon is terrible and traumatic and cruel, and I guess I wanted to explore that a little more closely.

[kingbyakuya]

I don't really know much about any of your ocs, but I saw the recent post about one of them and now I'm curious about all of them? Like, as many as you're willing to talk about

Ooohoooohooo buckle up cuz I got a lot!! I'm going to go in order of their creation and keep it brief cuz I can go on forever lol I based all of my ocs in the Victorian-ish era but I have manipulated them to fit any universe.

Soleil Saint des Étoiles:

My sun priest! In all his forms he is a very religious man and follows the book to the letter. Vain and snooty, he sees a lot of people below him and won't be afraid to demean them. He's going through a redemption arc to become a better, actually good priest, so I'm very excited to see how that plays out.

Nira Santana:

Nira is an older woman and trained to be a soldier. Even though she was born female in the Victorian times, her father taught her all the 'male' teachings while her mother taught her the 'female' teachings. She is very ice cold and stoic, rarely ever showing emotion or interest, but she does have a care for humanity.

Catherine (Cathy) Davis:

She is the sunshine and bright smile everyone needs in their life. So full of life and giggles, she sees the best in everyone and always wants to make people smile. She's a famous dancer as well and wears her heart on her sleeve and she is not afraid to let her emotions be shown.

Ryan Frost

Ryan... is a complete bastard. An absolute asshole. He is my version of Jack the Ripper. Malicious, snarky, cocky, temperamental; he's my 'suave' villain. He's also leader of the Blue Snakes gang, so he's got a lot of tricks up his sleeve and knows the underground of London very well.

Jacque Chanteur

He is the most emotional man you will meet. He's 6'4, built like a brick building (I use Hugh Jackman as a reference), but a total softie. He's also Ryan's right hand man and Ryan's blood brother. (Did I mention that Ryan and Jacque are vampires? Cuz they are lmao). Please just give Jacque a hug.

Alistair Kraus

An old herpetologist, Alistair is Jacque's and Ryan's sire. He's a jovial old man and in love with humanity. He's the one that started the Blue Snake gang but it started out as a group of Robin Hood's before Ryan killed Alistair and took over. Full of life, even in death, Alistair loves everything cold and warm blooded.

Aeron Bishop

He's a huge nerd. Tall and lanky with super round, thick glasses, he's built like the stereotypical nerd. Full of curiosity, he studies witchcraft as well, under his mother and grandmother's teachings. He plays the cello, loves to read, and always seems to find trouble.

Dominic Moore

Dominic is a successful banker, practically rolling in dough for his outrageous interest rates and such. He was abused as a child by his father after his mother died during childbirth and that caused a lot of issues with Dominic's childhood. After being turned into a vampire, he killed his father by accident and took over the banking business, eventually finding the love of his life, @flowerquince's Grace McLoughlin.

William Kingsley

Coming from a wealthier family, he studies anatomy compared to his father who is actually a doctor. Serving in World War II as a medic, he's left with PTSD from loud sounds and another mishap that caused him to be honorably discharged. He grew up very religious but turned away out of fear due to his sexuality. He's a very soft and gentle man, wanting to help those who have been injured, but is very quiet and reserved, mostly watching from the sidelines.

Simon Orestella

His parents were killed and his house burned down when he was a young boy, leaving his little sister and him as orphans. He's a thief now, obsessed with knives and always carries one with him. While his sister goes to school, he manipulates those into paying him and steals as well to help pay for her classes and such. He means well, but goes about it in the absolute backwards way.

Abraham (Abe) Crowley

Having his wife murdered by a vampire has left Abe a broken man. Now alone with his young daughter, Penelope, he lives a double life. In the morning, he's a British solicitor, making money and such to support Penelope. At night, he hunts and kills vampires, hellbent on revenge for what happened to his wife. For him and the relationship with his daughter, I was inspired by Lee and Clementine from the Walking Dead video games. Abe teaches his young girl how to kill and fight vampires, even though she is only eight years old.

I can go into so much detail about all of them, how they're all connected in some way, and how they interact with each other, but as mentioned - for the sake of everyone's sanity - I just gave the bare bones.

[spider-xan]

I have really mixed feelings about that Web of Spider-Man issue as a Lizard fan bc on the one hand, I did like that it got Curt's characterization (when he's well-written) in terms of him being reckless and driven by a genuine compassion for helping people right, but I hated how it erased Martha as Curt's confidant about his research to replace her with Ted Sallis; actually, they completely erase her to the point where she doesn't exist, and she isn't present during the start of his transformation like she is in ASM #6, and it feels weirdly sexist in that way where women who aren't scientists are devalued next to male scientists, which is a really common attitude in fandom as well, but that's other discussion. There's no reason why Ted and Curt can't be Florida-based science friends without implying Martha doesn't exist.

Even worse, Curt's agency in his own origin story is erased bc they ret-conned his backstory so that instead of coming up with the idea of reptiles regenerating lost limbs himself, the new version is that Ted Sallis was the one who came up with the idea and told him to do it, which is fucking stupid when Curt is supposed to be a herpetologist who shouldn't need to be told basic information like that, and it's not like that ret con fixes the problem of how 'curing' disability is an ableist trope. (In fairness, ASM #6 also mentions using the tech for organ transplants, and the TASM film added a lot of extra ableism and eugenics that's not in the comics, but which colours public perception of the character.)

But yeah, the lack of agency in his own origin story and making Curt less intelligent, plus downplaying the importance and even existence of an important woman in his life, really bothers me, and recent comics seem to push this new ret-con of Ted being tied directly to the Lizard origin, and I hate it lol

[ezatluba]

Search for a Snakebite Drug Might Lead to a COVID Treatment, Too

By Jim Robbins  

NOVEMBER 9, 2020

Dr. Matthew Lewin, founder of the Center for Exploration and Travel Health at the California Academy of Sciences, was researching snakebite treatments in rural locations in preparation for an expedition to the Philippines in 2011.

The story of a renowned herpetologist from the academy, Joseph Slowinski, who was bitten by a highly venomous krait in Myanmar and couldn’t get to a hospital in time to save his life a decade earlier, weighed on the emergency room doctor.

“I concluded that I needed something small and compact and that doesn’t care what kind of snake,” Lewin said.

It didn’t exist. That set Lewin in pursuit of a modern snakebite drug, a journey that finds his Corte Madera, California, company, Ophirex, nearing a promising oral treatment that fits in a pocket; is stable, easy to use and affordable; and treats the venom from many species. “That’s the holy grail of snakebite treatment,” he said.

His work has gotten a boost with multimillion-dollar grants from a British charity and the U.S. Army. If it works — and it has been shown to work extremely well in mice and pigs — it could save tens of thousands of lives a year.

Lewin and Ophirex are not alone in their quest. Snakebites kill nearly 140,000 people a year, overwhelmingly in impoverished rural areas of Asia and Africa without adequate medical infrastructure and knowledge to administer anti-venom. Though just a few people die each year in the U.S. from snakebites, the problem has risen to the top of the list of global health concerns in recent years. Funding has soared, and other research groups have also done promising work on new treatments. Herpetologists say deforestation and climate change are increasing human-snake encounters by forcing snakes to move to new habitats.

Lewin’s research is centered on a drug called varespladib. The enzyme inhibitor has proven itself in in-vitro lab studies and has effectively saved mice and pigs dosed with venom.

Along the way, Lewin and his team have come across another potential use for the drug. Varespladib has a positive effect on acute respiratory distress syndrome, associated with COVID-19. Next year, Ophirex will conduct human trials for the possible treatment of the condition funded with $9.9 million from the Army.

The link to a snakebite? The inflammation of the lungs caused by the coronavirus produces the sPLA2 enzyme. A more deadly version of the same enzyme is produced by snake venom.

The other companies that have come up with promising approaches to snakebite aren’t as far along as Ophirex. At the University of California-Irvine, chemist Ken Shea and his team created a nanogel — a kind of polymer used in medical applications — that blocks key proteins in the venom that cause cell destruction. At the Technical University of Denmark, Andreas Laustsen is looking at engineering bacteria to manufacture anti-venom in fermentation tanks.

The days of incising a snakebite and sucking out the poison are long over, but the current treatment for venomous snakebites remains archaic.

A microscopic view of rattlesnake venom destroying cells. (Matthew Lewin)

Since the early 1900s, anti-venom has been made by injecting horses or other animals with venom milked from snakes and diluted. The animals’ immune systems generate antibodies over several months, and blood plasma is taken from the animals and antibodies extracted from it.

It’s extremely expensive. Hospitals in the U.S. can charge as much as $15,000 a vial — and a single snakebite might require anywhere from four to 50 vials. Moreover, anti-venom exists for little more than half the world’s species of venomous snakes.

A major problem is the roughly two hours it takes on average for a snakebite victim to reach a hospital and begin treatment. The chemical weapon that is venom starts immediately to destroy cells as it digests its next meal, making fast treatment essential to saving lives and preventing tissue loss.

“The two-hour window between fang and needle is where the most damage occurs,” said Leslie Boyer, director of the University of Arizona’s Venom Immunochemistry, Pharmacology and Emergency Response — VIPER — Institute. “We have a saying, ‘Time is tissue.’”

That’s why the search for a new snakebite drug has focused on an inexpensive treatment that can be taken into the field. Lewin’s drug wouldn’t replace anti-venom. Instead, he thinks of it as the first line of defense until the victim can reach a hospital for anti-venom treatment.

Lewin said he expects the drug to be inexpensive, so people in regions where snakebites are common can afford it.

Venom is extremely complicated chemically, and Lewin began his search by sussing out which of its myriad components to block. He zeroed in on the sPLA2 enzyme.

Surveying the literature about drugs that had been clinically tested for other conditions, he came across varespladib. It had been developed jointly by Eli Lilly and Shionogi, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, as a possible treatment for sepsis. They had never taken it to market.

If it worked, Lewin could license the right to produce the drug, which had already been thoroughly studied and was shown to be safe.

He placed venom in an array of test tubes. Varespladib and other drugs were added to the venom. He then added a reagent. If the venom was still active, the solution would turn yellow; if it was neutralized, it would remain clear.

The vials with varespladib “came up completely blank,” he said. “It was so stunning I said, ‘I must have made a mistake.’”

Dr. Matthew Lewin holds up a vial containing varespladib, a drug being tested for snakebite treatment. Varespladib may also help treat a respiratory condition caused by COVID-19. (Daniel Z. Lewin)

With a small grant, he sent the drug to the Yale Center for Molecular Discovery and found that varespladib effectively neutralized the venom of snakes found on six continents. The results were published in the journal Toxins and sent ripples through the small community of snakebite researchers.

Lewin then conducted tests on mice and pigs. Both were successful.

Human clinical trials are next, but they have been delayed by the pandemic. They are scheduled to get underway next spring.

Along the way, Lewin was fortunate enough to make some good connections that led to funding. In 2012, he attended a party at the Mill Valley, California, home of Jerry Harrison, the former guitarist and keyboardist for Talking Heads. Harrison had long been interested in business and startups — he said he was the most careful reader of the ’80s band’s contracts — and at the party he asked “if anyone had any ideas lying fallow,” Harrison said.

“And Matt pipes up and says, ‘I have this idea how to prevent people from dying from snakebites,’” Harrison said.

The musician said he was a bit taken aback by such an unusual and dire problem, but “I thought if it can save lives we have to do it,” he said. He became an investor and co-founder of Ophirex with Lewin.

Lewin met Lt. Col. Rebecca Carter, a biochemist who was assigned to lead the Medical Modernization Division of Air Force Special Operations Command, in 2016 when she attended a Venom Week conference in Greenville, North Carolina. He was presenting the results of his mouse studies. She told him about her first mission: to find a universal anti-venom for medics on special operations teams in Africa. She persuaded the Special Operations Command Biomedical Research Advisory Group, which specializes in getting critical projects to production, to grant Ophirex $148,000 in 2017. She later retired from the Air Force and now works for Ophirex as vice president.

More multimillion-dollar grants followed, including the Army’s COVID grant. Clinical trials are scheduled to begin this winter.

Despite the progress and the sudden cash flow, Lewin tamps down talk of a universal snakebite cure. “There’s enough evidence to say the drug deserves to have its day in clinical trials,” he said.

[kyanve]

“Oh, it’s just fantasy/sci fi” in writing.

Okay so.  I decided I wanted to write - like seriously, I wanted to make the novels I grew up reading, and I set my mind to that when I was like, eight.  Unlike a lot of other things I decided I wanted to do with myself when I was eight (”Herpetologist!  Paleontologist!  Fighter pilot!”), writing stuck.

I spend my childhood and teenage years collecting issues of Writer’s Digest and resources on how writing fiction worked, how to build stories.  I ended up with a sort of head start on a lot of my English classes because while I wasn’t always coming at it from the same direction, I already knew what things like theme and tone meant.  

And in college, I started taking writing classes.

I’ve gotten a ton of “Oh you can never make a living at that” re: writing fiction.  I haven’t, yet, but I’ve also basically chickened out and had life stress and anxiety knock me out of seriously working on publication.  Give me a year or two and I might be able to write something inspirational about that, right now it’s more “Okay seriously you can be realistic about the odds of making big money without treating it as a garbage job”.  

And when I got to college, well.

See I don’t have a lot of interest in writing any “respectable literary genre”.  I started out intent on writing fantasy and science fiction like what raised me, and damnitall, I’ve spent most of my life to some extent trying to do that, even when I didn’t necessarily manage to beat anxiety and self-consciousness to do anything anyone else could see.  I also used to write horror occasionally, but I don’t think I could sustain it for too long right now.

And I have been through so many teachers determined to convince me it was a Tragedy that I was Wasting My Time And Talent on Trashy Genre Fiction when I could be teaching literary criticism or writing Real Literature.  

(The “Wasting my obvious talent” is a little insulting now, because the teachers who did it always seemed to inevitably think my only source of instruction was them and other teachers, that any other ability I had came from some magical wellspring, and that I couldn’t possibly have been dedicating a shitload of time and effort to finding resources to teach myself.  It’s like art in that respect, you get better if you practice, use references, and look up guidelines on technique, but don’t get too hung up on stylistic instruction beyond “what you like or don’t like”.)  

One of the teachers never budged.  He was a particularly egregious asshole about it, too, and would insist things like “Don’t use death in your writing, or even reference death.  It’s overused and overdone and melodramatic.”  

He also told me I should write more like Flannery O’Connor, which is where I looked between the short story of hers he’d assigned us where a wandering hitchhiker murders a family that tries to help them for no other reason than to make some kind of Statement about the Futility of Life, and him, and just stared for a good ten minutes.  

He asked me to write something extra-credit “Like what I would normally write” instead of following his restrictive prompts.  I wrote a short story about one version of a high-fantasy character of mine who’s been through about twenty different versions and incarnations; this one was the magically talented son of a military leader in a border keep, caught facing a war against a magically-focused enemy.  The keep itself was a castle I’d walked through the ruins of in Germany.  I’d researched the appropriate battle tactics and equipment.  The mageling and his peers were twelve and thirteen, going through training to fight for the keep and weapons training, because I’d researched the equivalent time periods in Europe and it was setting-appropriate.  A lot of his interactions with his peers were based on my own experience as an army brat and how the rank of parents and inclinations of kids compared to their parents impact bullying and social stratification.  

I got back five pages of him being utterly horrified that I had written about CHILDREN with access to weapons.  Horrified that some of the stuff the bullies had done would be potentially life-threatening kinds of hazing/harassment, like that doesn’t happen in schools.  He ranted about how the entire setting was foreign and unrealistic, and that I should “Write what I knew”.

I had rants to my roommate for two hours about how I had damn well written what I knew, I HAD WALKED THE WALLS OF THAT CASTLE DAMNIT, the world might have been fantasy but that hill and keep exist in Germany.  

So for my final project, I got vindictive and decided to write something fueled by pure spite to see if he’d notice.  It was a relatively short “magical realism” slanted urban fantasy set on the college campus we were on.  The main character was not even subtly based on myself - a college student with a brass-shod staff to deal with the Fairbanks ice and a black lambskin trenchcoat bought with a summer job paycheck.  The protagonist could also see and talk to spirits and beings most of the others on campus couldn’t; I put a dragon in the story-world version of UAF, ravens that weren’t really ravens, and a handful of other things.  The whole story was basically a very sad meditation on how depressing it was that most people had so little imagination that they would reject, mock, and drive out anyone aware of “the REAL world around them”, so intent on being sure the world only existed as a tiny little puddle that even if they did see for a few minutes they would reject it.

Yeah.  It was pretty ham-handed of a call out.  If I ever find it again I’m not sure I could bring myself to publish it because I don’t even like writing like that. But it was me trying to mimick the writing styles of some of the “Great Literary Authors” he focused on, keeping the fantasy elements where someone REALLY stubborn could call them “ambiguous and maybe not actually real”, and centering everything on a theme and on a location that he knew.

He loved it.  Said I should write more things like that and less of the “Silly genre fiction that wasn’t real literature”, and “stick with what I knew like this” - ergo, modern, nothing too unusual, familiar locations by his standards.

Let me tell you, with one exception that’s going to its own post in a minute since this is pretty long, if my anxiety was more self-conscious about teachers not liking Non-Literary-Genre Fiction, if I hadn’t grown up on science fiction and fantasy, if I didn’t manage to be blisteringly angry enough to bull through the anxiety and self-consciousness out of sheer spite, I might have given up on it just for the amount of sheer “It’s not real, respectable writing, it’s just vapid escapist consumer pandering” I got in college.  I also mostly gave up on writing classes after his and stuck with grammar, communication, rhetoric, and finding subjects I thought I could use.  

(I am self conscious about it, but it’s more “will the actual intended audiences want this and like this?” and “As I start sending things to publishers do I have a chance of getting published?”  That last one is a killer and has gone full executive dysfunction a few times on just finishing pieces; that’s the real dragon I’m throttling down into its hole.)  

Holy shit, kids, fanfiction writers, people who want to word gud and tell stories, do not let the collegiate academics and people who call genre fiction “silly and pointless” or “childish” grind you down.  They’re going to tell you that it’s “commercial pandering” and “vapid escapism”, but you can pretty much look around you to see how much impact that “vapid escapism” has.  Even people who have never seen the movies have a clue what “May the Force be with you” means.

Don’t fall for it.  Don’t believe that writing about aliens and castles isn’t “writing what you know”, because if that’s what you’re interested in, that’s what you research and surround yourself with, you damn well do know it.  If you’re writing people like ones you know in your Impossible Worlds and writing about events that happen in the real world like wars and conflicts and trust and friendship and romances and fear and abuses, you are writing Things You Know, you are writing REALITY, and it is valuable, not fake or empty or “meaningless and with no bearing on Truth”.  

(And don’t think fanfiction is worthless either; fanfiction is a wonderful thing for writing just for the joy of it, for getting to stretch and practice and see what you can do as a writer.  Also, it’s honestly in some ways more of a challenge; if you’re writing your own characters and worlds, you’re the final arbiter of how it works and what’s in character for them.  Writing someone else’s?  You’re playing a game of seeing how well you can figure it out and portray it recognizably to other fans who are probably pretty detail obsessed themselves, and that’s a challenge in and of itself.  You may not earn a living off it, but it’s perfectly good work.)  

[fearducts-blog]

AN OPEN LETTER FROM EVERYONE I’VE EVER MET TO VULGAR / MORTEM.

I bet y’all thought my drama days were over, but surprise surprise, I have come “rinse crying” back to this fandom because, I understand, Vulgar. You found paradise in America, you had a good trade, you made a good living. The police protected you and there were courts of law. You didn’t need a friend like me. But, now you come to me, and you say: “kindly kiss my ass” But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friendship. You don’t even think to call me Godfather. Instead, you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married, and you make my friend cry in public because you follow bait her, publicly post about how much of a terrible person she and everyone else in this fandom is and then once again pinpoint the negative reputation you have built up for yourself on everyone but you.

I don’t know what her URLs are these days because frankly, in spite of what she will tell you, up until two days ago, I could not have given less of a shit if I tried, but going by the screenshots I’ve seen lately this post is going to concern: woshi-tuzi / twinblcdes / gelosiia / buside / baolii / puntirotti any other blogs run by Vulgar / Mortem. Not gonna lie, this is a long post, there’s a lot to go over here, and a lot of it’s going to seem like old, irrelevant, petty high school drama, because that’s exactly what it fucking is, but since Vulgar is still using drama from a year ago as her sword and shield to treat others badly, it’s long overdue that we did some good old fashioned air clearing.

I guess we’ll start with breaking down what tipped everything over the edge, this charming message that was sent to Elle; X. ( in reference to this hot vague, but we’ll get back to that later. )

“ WHAT MOMO AND IVY DID TO ME ”

We stopped talking to her, and blocked her after an argument that transpired in private — that’s it, that’s all we did. You can skip this section if you want to skip year old high school level drama, but if not...

It all happened because she guilt tripped me for taking over 10 minutes to reply... as it happens, I wasn’t replying to her because it was 3am where I was and I was fucking trying to sleep, not that the time difference matters because it was 10 minutes and not to be crude, but I could have been doing anything, I could have been taking a shit and that was apparently grounds for a guilt trip. And while I’ll admit, I could have handled it better, I’m really not here to be guilt tripped on account of not replying to someone because I’m asleep whenever they message me, because in spite of proclaiming me their “best friend”, after a month of me living in a UTC+8 timezone, they still haven’t clocked onto the fact that I’m working to a different schedule to them. So this exchange happened : X. ( call me a herpetologist bc I know you’re a snake, Vulgar, so before you say anything about the time stamps, these are your logs, not mine. ).

Anyway, you might think this has nothing to do with Ivy, and you’d be absolutely right, it doesn’t. But Vular went to her anyway and deliberately misrepresented the situation, now fortunately, not only am I a herpetologist, but I'm too, am a fucking snake, so knowing Vulgar was going to pull the same shit she did in the past where she came to me to bitch about close friends of mine following minor disputes, where whenever she had an argument with someone over skype she’d send me an MS Word version of the logs????? Before going back to bed, I straight up sent Ivy the chat logs in the immediate aftermath, I didn’t bitch about Vulgar, I just showed Ivy what happened, said I was a bit pissed off and that I wanted her to know what happened in case she was put in the middle.

Guess where she was put the very next day and who tried to put her there!! X, X, X, X. Ivy told Vulgar how things looked from an outsiders perspective and that she should apologize, she even told Vulgar how to go about doing it. And we’ve all done it, we’ve all had skype drama we’ve copy / pasted to a friend, but the thing is, Vulgar was deliberately twisting things here because by her own admission, she did not like that Ivy and I spoke to each other more than we did to her. What she likes to justify this with was “I just wanted a friend to lean on”, no you didn’t. Also, “the one time I needed it, she was so callous to me”, bullshit, you came to me every single day with a problem and I always helped you through it, I held your hand through the polycoria drama, like I cringe at the thought of this post but: X, you can’t say I was callous to you the one time you needed it, not when you posted this, not when every day in the run up to this, you came to me with a new issue about someones’ OC “cockblocking one of your ships” or someone not wanting to be mains with you.

Anyway!! Vulgar told Ivy she was going to apologize, and to the surprise of probably no one, did not. Sadly, I no longer have screenshots because I’ve since changed computers and honestly, I did not anticipate having to write this, I thought we had all agreed privately to just hate each other and move tf on, but... back to the point, in spite of her being walked through all this I still had to ask Vulgar to address how unfair she was. She might have counted finally doing so as an apology, I did not. Again, it had nothing to do with Ivy... but guess who got dragged into it anyway — again? So, we each wound up in arguments with her:

X, X, X

Vulgar apologized to me twice after this, I accepted neither apology, the first because I was hungover and I honestly and thankfully went to sleep forgot to reply. The second because, at that point it was so far in the past and her name had been kept out of both mine and Ivy’s mouths for so long, that I didn’t think it even begged addressing, I wanted to just avoid her tbh: X, X. “Look shady?” Yes. Because you sent this to me whilst still misrepresenting the entire situation to anyone who would listen, you were not sorry at all.

Ivy never got an apology in spite of being dragged into this petty bullshit against her will btw. And I think it’s pretty rich of Vulgar to claim we freely talked shit about her meanwhile sending out spicy skype messages like this about Ivy; X. Also post this vague; X, which just so happens to coincide with when Ivy refused to leave the fandom even after being stalked, harassed and having her art stolen; X

EDIT: Btw, that was really classy of you introducing me to Ivy and then privately messaging me to tell me “she’s nice but I’ll never forget she vagued about you”, then linking me to her supposed vague, like I want you guys to be friends but keep in mind not to get too close to her. Nice try Vulgar, what she posted were fucking Melanie Martinez lyrics, you played yourself. 

EDIT 2: Because wow, the shit just keeps coming out about you, doesn’t it?! I realize the irony of saying this in this post of all things, but it was really nice of you to go around telling people who were new to the fandom that I was the source of all the discomfort and drama, that I was such a horrible person who was only out to bully people and chase them away for no good reason while we were still, as you put it “best friends”, while at that stage the only drama I had been involved in was when you came to me and said you were scared and uncomfortable because of someone, you’re such a good friend Vulgar (: I really appreciate that thing you did where you tried to isolate me from everyone else in the fandom, to what fucking end?! 

“ WHAT HILAL DID TO ME ”

Imagine being 28 and so asshurt by what a teenager says about you on the internet ( ie. that you shipped underage incest at the age of 27, which you... you did, you literally did: X, X, X, X ) that you... lie to another teenager and get them to write a callout post in your stead so that you can personally avoid the backlash while still damaging the reputation of said person. If it sounds familiar, it’s because it’s exactly what Vulgar did: X , X , X , X, X.

Here’s an album of the exchange Hilal had with Mysteriia following that “call out”, note how they don’t deny who and what prompted them to make it, only dance around the topic: X.

Was Hilal in the wrong to name drop Vulgar in the first place? Yes, it shouldn’t have been brought into the public eye. However, he didn’t do it without reason and he told her that: X. He has since left her alone entirely.

So then there’s... the paedophilia drama, which we won’t go into too much detail about, but Vulgar, you participated in, you agreed with Hilal of your own volition, and then because it was no longer convenient for you to, you lied to Skitty about it to paint me and Hilal ( and for some reason Ivy who wasn’t even involved, nor even in the rp community at the time, as far as I’m aware? ) in a negative light to them: X,  X. Anyway, Hilal’s posts pertaining to this drama can be found here: X, X. It was pretty much all dash drama and it happened back in 2015, so a lot of it’s hard to dig up again, I know both Hilal and I spoke out of anger and there are a lot of things I’d do differently, so maybe I did inflame things, and if I did, I apologize. But Vulgar, I think that’s a pretty cheap thing of you to say considering I confided in you about being a CSA victim.

Also by the by, Hilal and Elle don’t even know each other, so Vulgar, you can drop the notion that we all meet up buck ass naked under every blood moon, rattling skulls and talking shit about you or whatever it is you claim is going on: X. Elle and Hilal have nothing to do with each other, funny how different people have different reasons to dislike you, almost as if you’ve done many things to hurt many people in this fandom...

Oh yeah, and:

[03:04:32] tumblr use pourir: can you say that i dropped all my fucking blogs bc of vulgar [03:04:52] tumblr use pourir: and that i had anxiety literally eating away at me for weeks because i felt i was off base

“ WHAT THEY ALL DID TO ME ”

Yeah, it sure is awful when people don’t buy into your pass agress posts and the fact that you blame all your problems on other people without taking a step back to look at how you’re treating people, isn’t it: X, X.

It’s really, truly terrible they ask you to tag something and you lose your fucking shit with them: X, X ( relevant links: 1, 2.). And again, it’s another situation where things could have been handled better from all sides, but Bellus apologized for what happened, you did not.

Heartbreaking, when you vague about them during their first week in the fandom because someone who isn’t you makes them a theme, and you passive aggressively throw ms paint quality graphics at them: X.

Completely and utterly devastating when another roleplayer blocks you and you then proceed to make them uncomfortable by repeatedly messaging them, following them on all your subsequent blogs, in spite of people literally telling you not to, and then when you’re ignored / blocked again, starting rumours that they have a crush on you and are blocking you to save their relationship until the point they get so uncomfortable they leave the fandom.

When you guilt trip someone on account of... not putting you in their follow forever??? Because they forgot??? They literally forgot??? Not like that happens with follow forevers is it??? X, X, X. Also when said person makes it publicly known that they’re feeling extremely low and would like to be left alone and you continue to pressure them into speaking to you: X, X.

Or when you do some good old fashioned general guilt tripping: X, X, X, X, X, X.

EDIT: let’s not forget, you’re notorious for pressuring people into ships, for getting asshurt and bitching about them when they don’t want to go exclusive with you or add you as a main. 

And you often fall back on telling people it’s because you have anxiety, that you can’t help but go off at people because of it. You know what, I have bpad and guess who and who alone is 100% accountable for my actions? That’s right, it’s me!! Just because you have anxiety does not mean it is a free pass to treat people badly, you are accountable for your own behaviour, you ought to apologize and do it sincerely, not because someone asks you to, not because you want to save your own skin.

“ REPEATEDLY. ”

At first I was just gonna say no to this and leave it at that. But I’m guessing this is in reference to people from the tg fandom following Vulgar on other blogs in other fandoms, so...

You can’t really argue that Hilal followed you to your bsd blog when you followed him first; X.

You can’t argue that Ivy followed you to the Naruto fandom either when you followed her; X.

And lastly, you can’t say Elle followed you to the fma fandom when again: X, you followed her first and then immediately posted this hot vague about her and everyone else in the tg fandom. And even at that, you followed her blog from your tg ones before; X. Which doesn’t exactly do anything to dispel the idea that you’re follow baiting, does it?

If this is in reference to how Ivy and I “freely talked shit about you”, we didn’t. A lot of people will vouch for the fact that they didn’t hear about anything that happened until your behaviour towards Elle catalyzed this post. 

“ HAD YOU BEEN UPFRONT WITH YOUR ALIAS ”

First and foremost, fam, change your container dimensions. Secondly, “you failed to read my rules”, okay cool, but again, you followed Elle first, she broke none of your rules by following you back, unaware of who you were, and if you wanted your rules read so desperately, it might’ve been a good shout to read idk... literally the first line of hers: X, like if rules are so important to you, you can’t claim ignorance here.

And for the record, Elle’s alias has never been hidden or changed, it’s in plain sight on all her other blogs, so as to how you pulled this argument out of your ass, idk: X, X, X, X. You knew exactly who you were following, she didn’t trick you. She made a simple mistake because, in fact, if anyone is deliberately hiding their alias, it’s you, isn’t it? Because you know: X, X, X, X.

These are the rules you claim she didn’t read / broke: X, X. Tell me how she broke them, I’ll tell you how you’re lying.

“ YOU WON’T DRIVE ME OUT OF ANOTHER FANDOM ”

Nobody was trying to do that. Nobody tried to drive you out of this fandom, we all left you alone. I don’t know how you leaped to this conclusion that this is what anyone was trying to do, based on the fact that somebody followed you by accident because you changed your alias to avoid the negative reputation which you created for yourself in this fandom.

But anyway, I said this to you when we had our dispute and I’ll say it again, you fly off the handle at the bat of an eyelash, without any consideration for anyone’s feelings but your own and you really, really hurt people because of it. If you want a clean slate, if you want to leave all of this behind you, then you owe a lot of people an apology. You’re not a blameless victim, you’re a sentient adult and it’s time to start behaving like one.

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Congolese giant toads might be giving predators the slip by taking on the look and sound of venomous vipers. The cheeseburger-sized African toads appear to be using this fakeout to avoid becoming another animals’ lunch.

Toads are actually a type of frog, explains Greenbaum, who works at the University of Texas at El Paso.  So this would be the first example of a frog imitating a venomous snake. As a herpetologist, he studies amphibians and reptiles.

The Gaboon viper (Bitis gabonica) is one of the largest in Africa. It sports roughly 5-centimeter (2-inch) fangs. They’re “the longest fangs of any snake in the world,” Greenbaum says. Their venom isn’t super toxic. But the snake can inject enough of its toxin to make it deadly, he says.

A member of his research team noticed an uncanny resemblance between her pet Gaboon viper and a photo of the top of a giant toad. That toad was known as Sclerophyrs channgi, Greenbaum recalls. So the scientists sized up and studied the color patterns of 10 vipers and 16 of these toads in museum collections.

A color pattern on the toad’s body resembles the viper’s head. The toad also is similar in size to the viper’s head. By raising its rump, this toad “shows off this color pattern and shape that looks kind of like the cocked head of a Gaboon viper that’s preparing to strike,” Greenbaum says. And when handled, the toad makes a noise like a balloon letting out air. This sounds like the viper’s wheezy hiss.

His team reported its observation October 20 in the Journal of Natural History.

Found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, these toads have so far shown up only in places where the viper also lives. Other scientists have analyzed the DNA of both the viper and toad. The ancestors of both species seem to have emerged between four million and five million years ago. They may have evolved together, notes Greenbaum, who is also an evolutionary geneticist. Such scientists look at DNA to understand how organisms evolved.  

So far, this makes “a pretty strong case that these toads are mimicking these vipers,” Greenbaum says. But proving it would require testing if would-be toad eaters are actually duped.

An imitation game?

That observation is “exciting because the frog really looks like the head [of the viper],” says Jindřich Brejcha. An evolutionary biologist, he studies how diverse lifeforms evolve over time. Brejcha, who did not take part in the new study, works at Charles University and the National Museum. Both are in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.

We can’t be sure predators see the toads as we do, Brejcha says. Some predators may be able to see light outside of the range of wavelengths that human eyes pick up. Birds, for instance, can see some ultraviolet light that people can’t. So the scientists might want to measure the color of both animals to see if they are actually the same. The researchers also could run experiments to see whether predators avoid the toads or fake versions in tests.

Since very little is known about the toad, it’s not clear what predators it might be trying to fool. “This is the most important piece in this puzzle,” says Johanna Mappes. She, too, is an evolutionary biologist and was not part of the study. Mappes works for the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. (She’s currently based in Berlin, Germany.) Because the toads seem to coopt the viper’s sound, Mappes is curious whether predators respond to the toad’s sound as they do to the viper’s hiss.

Humans and monkeys are really afraid of the snakes, Mappes says. But some birds of prey are superb snake killers. They may not fear the vipers. She says “that’s why many snakes, even if they are very venomous … they don’t advertise themselves.” So even if the toads are copycats, the vipers might be trying to blend in. Their colors look a lot like the leaf litter where they wait to ambush prey.

Such mimicry doesn’t have to be perfect for it to help a beefy toad stay out of snack territory. “The more venomous or scary the [imitated animal], the easier it is to mimic,” Mappes says. Even a vague resemblance might do the trick, because predators don’t want to take a risk.