#polyneoptera

[urbannature]

Ohrwurm

[wizardraziw]

Hello, students!

Are you ready for another mini lesson? Today in class we will learn about something that doesn't exactly pertain to magic, but something that may help you understand yourselves better. It can also somewhat explain your wild magic to an extent. We shall learn about the origin and making of Souls. Not many know how souls are born, but I do!

Souls are made most often through powerful events, be it calm or calamity. I have cast a powerful spell on you all so you may determine where your soul had come from and-

Well...I believe these aren't permanent. The last batch of mishaps have mostly passed. Moving on,

There are many ways to tell how your soul was made, and sometimes even exactly where it was made! I am going to use a personal favorite of mine, though. I have cast a spell over every student here! Sometime in the future a bug will be attracted to you. If you see a certain bug nearby, go to the guide below, for they know your origin.

-----

Apterygota - Your soul was made from something powerful in the Between. The Between is the realm of Monsters. Magic from these realms are wild and unpredictable. Your wild magic may reflect that.

Palaeoptera - Your soul was made from a catastrophic weather event. Magic from storms are overwhelming and strong.

Polyneoptera - Your soul was slowly made over time in the deep wilderness. Magic from nature is scary and beautiful.

Paraneoptera - Your soul was made from someone else's death. Magic from impactful deaths are elusive and perplexing.

Endopterygota - Your soul was made from deep space. Magic from the outer planes are unbounded.

-----

So keep a close eye out for any insect! It just might tell you something about yourself...

[im-an-anthusiast]

Rant about your favorite insects and why you like them

Tag someone so I can invade their ask box

@strwbrryluvsick might like an ask!

I typed out. Paragraphs unto paragraphs unto paragraps. And it got deleted. Hsisbsjdbs so much pain

For the sake of my mental health I'll keep to a handful of bullet points, if that's fine!!

Ants

Dracula ants

- often nearly or completely blind

- endemic to Madagascar

- fastest recorded movement in the animal kingdom!! At 90 meters per second/200mph, which they reach in just 0.00015 seconds!

- they don't eat any food! They hunt and feed their larvae and pupae, whose blood (haemolymph) they then drink

Trapjaw ants (my absolute favs)

- they look like they have a beartrap on their face!! :3

- this jaw, when triggered by a super sensitive hair on their face, snaps shut at 63 meters per second, 170-ish mph - second fastest movement in the animal kingdom

- they can use their jaw against heavier objects/surfaces as to launch themselves!! Leap large distances and such!!

- in the same way, their jaws also act as catapults! They can shoot intruders out of their nests!!

- their larvae are spiked, stick to walls, and are very active and agressive

Wasps

Mud dauber

- they're very pretty! Look at em!! So dainty

- build their nests out of mud and dirt

- and since they are parasitic wasps... they paralyse their prey and drag it into their nest. Where they then lay their eggs inside of the nest or inside of the paralysed but still alive prey, and then sealing the nest closed

- reported/speculated to have caused mutliple deadly airplane accidents

Tarantula hawks

- look at that colour scheme! Beautiful!!

- also a parasitic wasp. But their prey are tarantulas.

- in Fallout New Vegas. One of the multiple reasons I got into insects. They're traumatising in that game, though.

- one of the most painful stings of any insect, descibed as "Blinding, fierce and shockingly electric"

Velvet ant (aka cowkiller)

- doesn't have the venom to kill a cow. Obviously. (venom less toxic than that of honeybees.) But the sting is so painful that people thought that it was. Which is super cool and funny

- also dubbed 'the indestructible insect' due to their plethora of defense mechanisms (venomous sting, aposematic colouring (<- warning bright colours), stridulatory organ (<-making sounds (squeaks)), alarm secretion, tough and durable exoskeleton)

- most of simulated conflicts with natural predators resulted in survival of the ant and avoidance by predator (while some are stated to allegedly have killed their natural predator)

- mate in the air. Aren't winged. The males just kinda... taxi them up there

Polyneoptera

Angel insects

- even just the name???

- translucent, cute, small little things

- usually completely blind and flightless, when faced with an unfavourable environment or situation, they produce offspring with fully functioning eyes and wings as to disperse and produce new colonies, where future generations will be also wingless

- (similar to ants a little) (in that point above) (but the spontaneity of if is so cool and unique)

Webspinners

- so cute

- they spin the finest/thinnest silk of any animal! At around 65 nanometers in diameter, if is also waterproof! And, while insects have only 1 silk gland (,if they even have one), they have 300 of em!!

- their nests are called Galleries. Need I say more?

- also their males can't consume food can fly and die quickly. Kinda cool

Ice crawlers

- extremophile.

- like. Extremely.

- preferred temperature of 1 to 4 degrees celsius. More than 5 degrees higher? Death. Too much lower? Death (by ice forming inside their bodies)

- they live on glaciers and stuff!!!

I had an honourable mentions section typed out but it got deleted (again) so much pain. At least the rest of the answer stayed tho

Anyway! Thanks for the ask!!!

[dungeons-and-tetrapods]

Intro and Sophont List

This is a DnD rehaul inspired by @danbensen's Fellow Tetrapod story.

All races and classes available to DnD 5e will be reinterpreted as a sophont according to his guide for making FT sophonts. (Skill trees will be available for each sophont species).

Sophonts currently in FT will not be added until the current workload is complete. Sophont list below, although it's a heavy WIP.

Humans (Human, Hominid)

Noxissum (Aaracrocka, Pelagornis) -> thrill-seeking sophonts that live on cliffsides

Volutor (Aasimar, Polyneoptera)

Fixers [of Flesh] (Autognome, Canis) -> climbing oophagous sophonts with a focus on hunger

? (Bugbear, Barbourofelidae)

Harvau (Centaur, Mesohippus)

? (Changeling, Coleoidea)

Hemadele (Dhampir, Geospiza) -> blood-drinking sophonts that trade themselves for food

Deager (Dragonborn, Toxicofera) -> artistic sophonts with sprayed venom that dyes

Korrines (Dwarf, Herpestoidea) -> burrowing sophonts with deep familial bonds

Helbosi (Elf, Acariformes)

? (Fairy, Microraptoria)

? (Firbolg/Giant/Goliath, Pecora)

? (Genasi, Spiralia)

Breakers [They that Break the Waves] (Gnome, Otariidae)

? (Goblin, Holocephali)

? (Halfling, Callitrichidae)

? (Kenku, Corvides)

? (Kobold, Isoptera)

[arachaoticnid]

fauna tags

- mammals -

canid, felid, mustelid, ursid, hyaenid, procyonid, pinniped

leporid, rodent, chiroptera

equid, cervid, bovid, suid, camelid, cetacea

- reptiles -

squamata, testudine, crocodilia, ave, prehistoric

- fish -

chondrichthyes, osteichthyes

- inverterbrate -

lepidoptera, coleoptera, polyneoptera, arachnid

gastropod

cnidaria, cephalopod, crustacean

[animalids]

Snake mantis (Kongobatha diademata)

Photo by Steve & Alison1

[animalids]

Photo by Craig

[wtf-triassic]

Gigatitan

By Ripley Cook 

Etymology: Large titan

First Described By: Sharov, 1968

Classification: Biota, Archaea, Proteoarchaeota, Asgardarchaeota, Eukaryota, Neokaryota, Scotokaryota Opimoda, Podiata, Amorphea, Obazoa, Opisthokonta, Holozoa, Filozoa, Choanozoa, Animalia, Eumetazoa, Parahoxozoa, Bilateria, Nephrozoa, Protostomia, Arthropoda, Mandibulata, Pancrustacea, Hexapoda, Insecta, Dicondylia, Pterygota, Metapterygota, Neoptera, Polyneoptera, Anartioptera, Polyorthoptera, Orthopterida, Panorthoptera, Titanoptera, Gigatitanidae

Referred Species: G. extensus, G. magnificus, G. vulgaris

Status: Extinct

Time and Place: 242 to 227 million years ago, from the Ladinian of the Middle Triassic to the Carnian of the Late Triassic. 

Gigatitan is known from Kyrgyzstan. 

Physical Description: Gigatitan was a very large insect, with a wingspan of 33 centimeters (13 inches). It’s one of the better-known members of Titanoptera, an extinct clade of large predatory insects. It would have looked a little like a giant mayfly, but with a katydid-lke head and much lnger antennae. The forelegs were large and bore sharp spines, similar to those of praying mantises. The wings were large and had distinct fluting. The ovipositor of Gigatitan has sharp ridges, similar to the earlier Carboniferous insect Gerarus.

Diet: Gigatitan was a predator, and its diet potentially included other insects and even small reptiles.

Behavior: It is likely titanopterans had similar lifestyles to modern praying mantises, living as arboreal predators. Their large wings would have allowed them to fly, but their relatively small hindlimbs wouldn’t have allowed them to leap very far. The fluting on the wings could be rubbed by the hindlimbs to produce sound, similar to the chirping of crickets, but if I had to wager, it’d be even more abrasive to the ear. The cutting ridges on the ovipositor were likely used to cut holes in plant material, so that it could lay eggs inside.

Ecosystem: Gigatitan’s fossils were found in the Madygen Formation, which is probably more famous for harboring the bizarre reptiles Longisquama and Sharovipteryx. The Madygen Formation environment was a forested submontane region, with rivers leading out to a large lake. The lowland forests were composed of lycophytes, seed ferns, cycads, gingkos, conifers,  and horsetails, with many aquatic plants by the swampy coast. Titanopterans such as Gigatitan preferred the upland regions, which were also home to the cynodont Madysaurus. The environment was flourishing with insects; other insects known include other species of titanopteran, mayflies, cockroaches, hymenopterans, flies, beetles, notopterans, caddisflies, orthopterans, cicadas, and true bugs. The rivers and lakes harbored the amphibian Triassaurus, mollusks, worms, crustaceans, and many fish such as Oshia, Saurichthys, the lungfish Asiatoceratodus, and hybodont and xenacanthid sharks.

Other: Gigatitan is one of the largest insects to have evolved beyond the Carboniferous.

~ By Henry Thomas

Sources under the Cut 

Bethoux, O., Galtier, J., Nel, A. (2004). “Earliest Evidence of Insect Endophytic Oviposition”. Palaios 19: 408-413.

Carlton, R.L. (2018). A Concise Dictionary of Paleontology. Springer International Publishing.

Grimaldi, D. (2009). “Fossil Record”. IN: Resh, V.H., Carde, R.T. eds. Encyclopida of Insects. Cambridge Academic Press.

Voigt, S., Spindler, F., FIscher, J., Kogan, I., Buchwitz, M. (2007) “An extraordinary lake basin - the Madygen fossil lagerstaette (Middle to Upper Triassic, Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia)”. Palaontologische Gesellschaft 2007, Freiberg.

[thezunglee-blog]

A Termites sit on a branch and indicate a winner pose. IN FRAME - Termites CAMERA SETTING - CAMERA MODEL - canon eos 700d f-stop - f/6.3 ISO - 100 FOCAL LENGTH - 250mm EXPOSURE TIME - 1/200 CLASSIFICATION - Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Cohort: Polyneoptera Superorder: Dictyoptera Order: Blattodea Infraorder: Isoptera Brullé, 1832 Families † Cratomastotermitidae[1] Mastotermitidae † Termopsidae[2] Archotermopsidae Hodotermitidae Stolotermitidae Kalotermitidae † Archeorhinotermitidae Stylotermitidae Rhinotermitidae Serritermitidae Termitidae #wildlifephotography #animal_captures #splendid_animals #animalelite #earthfocus #wildlife #nature #naturephotography #macrophotography #macroworld #wildlifeplant #wildlifeonearth #netgeowild #natgeohub #discovery #bbcearth #animalplanet #indianwild #wildanimals #wild #theZunglee #netgeo #termites #insect #insectagram #wildlife #explorepage #photography #photographer #instagramers (at Nim Ka Thana, Rajasthan, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/CAU2PL_pKy2/?igshid=nzlfjbgelvwz

[ambroisecharron]

Mante Religieuse (Mantis religiosa- #ambroisecharron #apo #apochrom #apochromat #nikon #nikond810 #nikon105 #nikon105mm #nikon105mmf25 #nikon105macro #nikon105macrovr #nikon105macrolens #nikon105mackro #mantereligieuse #mante #mantisreligiosa #mantisreligiosas #mantisreligioza #mantisreligioso #arthropod #arthropode #hexapoda #pterygota #neoptera #polyneoptera #mantodea #mantidae #mantisgram #fontainedaniel https://www.instagram.com/p/B0NhxdFjs1e/?igshid=bmolybw88ss9

[animalids]

Bush katydid (Poecilopsyra octoseriata)

Photo by Kurt (Orionmystery) G

[animalids]

Thistle mantis (Blepharopsis mendica)

Photo by Igor Siwanowicz

[animalids]

Monkey hopper (Eumastax sp.)

Photo by Geoff Gallice

[animalids]

Pill roach (Perisphaerus sp.)

Photo by Budak

[animalids]

Madagascan marbled mantis (Polyspilota aeruginosa)

Photo by Igor Siwanowicz

[animalids]

Leaf insect (Microphyllium pusillulum)

Photo by Thierry Heitzmann