#snout beetle

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Royal Ontario Museum - Insect Exhibits 2

Good news, I managed to squeeze in one more insect visit to the Royal Ontario Museum before the end of the year! As such the living denizens of the natural history section will be showcased one more time before 2024 is upon us. Before that, I'd like to take a moment to share new pictures from the insect displays within the natural history section. Compared to the pictures from 2019, these are a quantum leap forward in terms of clarity and use of lighting. The Peanut Bug - Fulgora laternaria (Picture 1) has always been a favorite of mine, so I always take the opportunity to go and visit it and marvel at the ridiculousness of the size of that head protuberance. Though a bit oversized, such a head fixature has an important function: knocking it against a tree is its mating call. If the attention they draw is unwelcome, they can startle their voyeurs with the eyeball spots on its wings. These markings are more prominent in live specimens; this pinned specimen's colors have faded away over time. You can even compare the images from 2019 and you'll see a difference in color saturation. Otherwise, when this Hemipteran is at rest, it looks similar to a helmeted Cicada with more opaque wings. In terms of relations however, the Peanut Bug is more closely related to the Spotted Lanternfly of Asia, as they are both part of the family Fulgoridae.

I'm also particularly fond of the texture of the Shining Leaf Beetle's (Picture 3 - Chrysophora chrysochlora) ornate emerald shell, and the tropical colors of the Weevils on display. Especially the blue Eupholus specimens (Picture 9 - right side specimens). Finally, I also noticed a new section (to me) in the animal gallery featuring Butterflies of the tropics and I'm still amazed at how large they are. Many of these iridescent, vibrantly-colored specimens have wingspan sizes that can be as large as a hand! They are more appropriately known as Birdwing Butterflies and they are all giants compared to the Butterflies that grow in the temperate climate of Toronto! The specimens focused on here are the Green Goliath Birdwing (Ornithoptera goliath - Pictures 2, 5 and 6), the black-and-white female Priam's birdwing (Ornithoptera priamus - Picture 8), the male Palawan Birdwing (Trogonoptera trojana - Picture 10 top), Wallace's Golden Birdwing (Ornithoptera croesus - Picture 10 middle) and the female Paradise Birdwing (Ornithoptera paradisea - Picture 10 bottom), but there are many more in the background. To glimpse these in person is wonderful, but seeing them flying around in their tropical environments would be a magical experience!

Pictures were taken on December 19, 2023 with a Google Pixel 4. Please come and see the bugs if you can, both the living insect specimens and the many displays. You may go to this link and view a post from earlier: ROM - Insect Exhibits 1.

Since these insect collections belong to the ROM, I’ve marked them with the Mantis icon. As well, Happy first day of Winter (tomorrow)!

[bytesizeambs]

Snout Beetle | Flower Weevil #shorts #weevil #snoutbeetle #bytesizeambs

This Flower Weevil is a rare/thought to be extinct genus, called Odontocorynus umbellae. This specific genus of Flower Weevil is most commonly seen munching on flowers such as daisies, sunflowers and the like.

More info on Odontocorynus umbellae will be in the description of this YouTube short. As always, the quality is better when viewed via YouTube.

[onenicebugperday]

Spined straight-snouted weevil, Pogonapion kuscheli, Brentidae

Found in New Caledonia

Photos by damienbr

[miyrumiyru]

Revolution...

Where's my love?💔

(F) 산길쭉바구미 (Lixus fasciculatus)

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

Aptly named, the New Zealand giraffe weevil is the longest beetle in Aotearoa. Males can reach a length of 90 mm (3.5 in), half of which is their elongated snout. These extraordinary appendages are used to battle for access to females, which have much shorter snouts.

(Image: A mating male (top) and female (bottom) New Zealand giraffe weevil () by Christina Painting)

If you like what I do, consider leaving a tip or buying me a ko-fi!  

[strwb-milk]

My son, Jansport Backpack

[floresenfermas]

EL GORGOJO QUE SE ESCURRIÓ POR LA RENDIJA DE MIS DEDOS

Anoche, antes de acostarme, me encontré un gorgojo entre la ropa recién lavada: apenas 5 mm, obscuro, una prominente trompa; bellísimo y delicado, como todo coleóptero, como lo son también las aves paseriformes, radicales antónimos del ser humano. Lo puse con ternura sobre la palma de mi mano y la cerré con suavidad.

De un estante saqué emocionado una de mis guías de coleópteros para su identificación, y abrí el libro y la mano, pero ni rastro del picudo: se había escurrido por la rendija de mis dedos y me quedé sin saber cuál era su nombre: 5489 géneros y 86100 especies en el mundo, un gorgojo, que por unos segundos me perteneció y leyó mi vida paseándose por las líneas de la palma de mi mano.

[8/II/2024]

[sucre-blue]

i show up at work an hour early and the doors are locked and its raining but the Blessed and Powerful facility staff let me in. i owe them my life

[the-ancient-dragons]

HiveWing. Overcomplicated. But also not?

Joy and Tui, y'all cooked, I just put my own spin on it.

Details and explanation below.

Otherwise, next week are LeafWings! See you then!

More overcomplicated dragons.

I thought I had fun with the RainWing.

I was wrong. This was FUN.

Of all the ones I've done this design is nearly identical to the original. I'm not saying that to toot my own horn, it just somehow came out like that because I found the perfect references (and avoided altering the skull too much lol). Let's talk about them!

First, an unlikely one: iguanas. I originally picked them for their spines, but when I saw their eyes and large jaw scale (or whatever it is) I knew I'd found the new reptile base for the HiveWings. I also included the little snout and under-the-chin spikes they have; it just fits perfectly for a beetle-and wasp inspired dragon.

Speaking of beetles and wasps: I took heavy inspiration for the HiveWing's 'beak' from wasp mandibles. I love the way the mouth looks originally and wanted to preserve and exaggerate it. So, when creating the beak, I combined the jagged jaws of wasps with the curved beak of an African fish eagle. To top it off I referenced the rhinoceros beetle (obviously) for the horn on the nasion.

(The nasion is a point where your nose meets your forehead between your eyes). The HiveWing's horn isn't directly on it but I couldn't think of another word.

I actually wanted the entire head to have an insect-like feel, that's why the snout and forehead are built from large plates (once again referenced from rhino beetles).

Lastly, besides the lion-inspired teeth, an incredible animal called the nyala was responsible for the back horns. Whoever photographed that bull in that exact angle: thank you.

Let's see how badly I mess up the LeafWings next week. If you've read this far, perhaps let me know if you would like to see all of my personal headcanons for the LeafWings? For Alate Atta's Ascension I use a design where they have four wings and extra frills to look like leaves. I can do one closer to canon where they're more like a Pyrrhian tribe and another where they visually fit in with the other Pantalan tribes. Let me know!

[chaotic-minds-think-alike]

Finally got around to finishing this houugh... it was a lot of work but I really like the end result!! Naturally, I'll try my best to list some of the thoughts I have in mind for these guys below. Long post ahead!

These lizards are intended to be ALMOST fully arthropod-like but due to my lack of understanding of bug anatomy and creative liberties, they are in that gray spec bio area so don't take any inconsistencies too seriously (or rather, fuck logic, and accept them how I describe them regardless)

Inspirations: - my lesser detailed lizard design - my friend's slugcats - wasps for the head contours, various insects for the exoskeleton guidelines, caterpillars, various stylistic slugcats across the #rainworld tag - the burning need for something more detailed and cool in my drawing vocabulary

The actual meat of the post; extra facts: - Lizards are related to slugcats (in my au, if you wanna call it that?) or at least the very early version of them. This idea is borrowed from this post and in my au, lizards evolve a similar tail to a slugcat's to aid in propelling themselves through tight spaces, acting as a 5th limb. - Similar to my old vulture post, lizards share a similar lifecycle. The majority of the larval stage is spent underground and in tight spots, far from their main predator. Lizard larva will undergo pupation similar to how beetles do, leaving behind broken cavities in pipes where carnivorous plants favor to take root. Additionally to the vulture's terrible parental drive, they often mistake their own larva for lizard hatchlings. - A lizard's skin is leathery and retains moisture for quite a while. Some lizards have a thicker layered mantle than others, allowing them to take punctures to the abdomen and still recover. - Not pictured, but will be described, are a few outliers to the standard lizard body plan. Caramels have muscular hind legs akin to a grasshopper but this means their legs cannot slot together and thus they have a wider leg splay than other species. Eels and salamanders are not lizards but lizard mimics. Yellow lizards' antennae attach to a hump on the snout rather than the rear of the head as seen here. Cyan lizards' mantles are more square shaped due to their leap drums on either side of their bodies and have a 3rd mantle that runs the length of their tail and caps the tailtip. - Cyan lizard's organs are called leap drums and act similarly to our lungs. They are a ring of muscle which contracts and acts as a spring loaded mechanism to propel the creature via combustion through a mysterious chemical process. Because the color of debris left behind during a leap share the same color as the lizard, perhaps they are discarded scales, formerly in place to protect the cavities housing the explosion. - They have similar organs to vertebrates within their abdomen, probably surrounded by cartilage. (not that important, I haven't thought that much about this) - (More may be added later as I remember)

[macadamia-shithead]

(cc blog for any future stuff @resi-sim-stuff)

some werewolf presets and sliders i made and thought I'd share :-) all of these should be disabled for random, but if i missed anything & some townies show up with em let me know!

Werestache

download (sfs)

presets in the mouth category to give your wewos some scruff! i recommend using these in conjunction with VecD0e's extended muzzle sliders for a more doglike look.

Werecat ears & snout

Cat ears (sfs) | Big cat ears (sfs) | Cat snout (sfs)

Cat snout preset can be found in the nose category, both of the sims above have it! The nose colors I have on them are a personal edit, but they're buggy so I haven't included them, if I get any working I'll add em.

Sliders

Forehead height (sfs) | Ear tilt (sfs) | Pupil size/shape (sfs)

The eye sliders aren't great but they get the job done, I wanted to give them a large range in size- they aren't really meant to be used at their extremes. Goat eyes option for the sillyguys...

Star ears

download (sfs)

was thinking about alien werewolves thats all... ears are too tall to get a good picture of in cas

____________________

I made a sheepdog guy using some accessory bangs from Atashi77, the ears here are another preset by me but there's something off with the shadows on it (the ears are not painted grey, they're the same color as the rest) that I can't figure out, I'm not great at blender so if anyone knows whats up I'd appreciate it! you can download them here, but they may look wonky so oops

also wanted to link the werewolf CC by other people I used in this post bc they're great

beetle eyes for werewolves by squea, converted by octetsica

bigger werewolf teeth & inner mouth color detail by sychik

natural werewolf skin override by eachuisge

this is my first time posting cc so let me know if anythings broken or wonky! thank youuu

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Alfalfa Weevil - Hypera postica

You may need to zoom in on these images to see the identification markers of this bulky little brown bean. The dark dorsal band is very prominent, but what might be missed is the thinner stripe along the thorax within that band. There can also be curved "m-shaped" markings where the wingcase meets the thorax and rest of the wingcase appears hairy, with some lines resembling stitching. Otherwise, this insect has all the features of a traditional Snout Beetles and it's a lovely snout at that! At the end of that snout sit the antennae, and while it might look like they could get it the way of feeding, they can fold backwards and give the snout more room to eat or to tunnel while still providing valuable sensory information. They must work well, as the bean let go and fell into the grass below when I tried to get a closer look. Hopefully the next Weevil found is less skittish, but I'm not sure when that will be as there was no alfalfa to be found in the surrounding area.

As the common name hints, the alfalfa crop is this Beetle's primary source of food, both as a larva and as an adult! This (combined with their ravenous feeding potential) gives this specie status as a significant pest in North America. Their numbers can be successfully managed via certain parasitic Ichneumon Wasps which target the Beetle larvae. Since the insect solution to control the pest population and maintain stability with alfalfa production was imported, this was likely a huge gamble at the time. Careful monitoring of the ecosystem is ongoing to determine if it was the right call in the long term. It's certainly practical to monitor your plants and see what insects are nibbling at the leaves and flowers. The larvae here grow large from skeletonizing alfalfa leaves! While reviewing the damage caused by the grubs and seeing images of captured specimens, Alfalfa Weevil grubs came to remind me of Sawfly larvae since they can be numerous on their host plants and the have ravenous appetites! They also have colorful, soft, cylindrical bodies with prominent (differently-colored) heads. If you find a green Caterpillar-like creature with a brown head rummaging around your plants, you've probably found a young Alfalfa Weevil. if there is also a white stripe running down the insect's "spine" and no legs, it's time for pest control.

Pictures were taken on April 11, 2022 with a Google Pixel 4.

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

What native Gallifreyan species are there?

Gallifrey has a diverse range of fauna, both native and introduced. Despite claims of minimal ecological impact, the installation of the Eye of Harmony and millions of years of Time Lord civilisation have significantly altered Gallifrey's original biosphere.

🦋 Invertebrates

Beatitude Flies: Begin as maggots and pupate into golden-winged nocturnal insects. They use nectar to create helium in their bellies and are attracted to light and decay.

Butterflies: Various species flutter across Gallifrey.

Bees: Essential for pollination.

Gullet Grubs: Likely to live in digestive tracts of larger mammals, or similar environments.

Blossom Thieves: Possibly insects that steal nectar or pollen.

Scrubblers: Likely small, cleaning insects.

Neversuch Beetles, Sandbeetles, Waspbeetles: Various beetles.

Dustworms: Likely live in dry, dusty environments.

Scissors Bugs: Possibly predatory insects with sharp mandibles.

Flutterwings: Gigantic insects (3 meters by 25 meters) that never land. Five races include Wild Endeavor, Mandrigal, Silver-Band, Blue Crystal, and Perdition.

Snails

Water-Sligs: Likely aquatic or semi-aquatic molluscs.

Web-Spinning Insects: Including spiders about an inch long.

Other dangerous invertebrates: There are also nasty creatures that live beneath big stones.

🐟 Marine Life

Singing Yaddlefish: Notable for their song, and they can be eaten.

Kittensharks: Hatch from eggs and presumably grow into Catsharks.

Axolotl Salamanders: Amphibious creatures with regenerative abilities.

🐍 Elapids

Taipan: A venomous snake, 10 metres long.

Venal Snakes: Possibly nest-stealers or highly venomous.

Bat-Snakes: Presumably flying snakes.

Dinosauria: 20-meter-long reptiles resembling brontosaurs with thick chitinous scales and serrated teeth.

🦅 Avians

Owls: Symbol of Rassilon.

Flurry Birds: Likely small, fast-moving birds.

Trunkikes: Game birds whose eggs are often eaten.

Air Diamonds: Fly in the upper atmosphere, possibly crystalline or bioluminescent.

Song Birds: Various species.

Gargantosaurs: Dinosaur-like creatures, twice the size of a hab-bloc, with two legs, vestigial wings (with purple and white feathers), and four eyes.

🦣 Mammals

Plungbolls: Thumbnail-sized furry creatures living in mountains, attach en masse to warm objects.

Taffelshrews: Edible rodent-like mammals.

Fledershrews: Bat-like, mushroom eaters, nearly extinct.

Cobblemice: Mice that sprout wings.

Rovie Mice: Field-dwelling, long-lived if kept safe, sometimes pets. They have short memories.

Moss-Rats: Possibly rodents that live in marshes with moss-like camouflage.

Vex: Burrowing animals.

Gallifreyan Womprats: 1-metre-long rats with fifteen legs.

Pig-Rats: Inhabit the Drylands, presumably combining porcine and rodent traits.

Rabbits

Flubbles: Small six-legged koalas.

Unnamed rounder rabbit-like creatures

Ounce-Apes: Might be tiny monkeys that are particularly agile.

Sealak: Perhaps a kind of seal, often eaten.

Bear-Ass: A donkey-like animal with bear-like qualities.

Horse-Cats: Probably a horse/cat hybrid-like species.

Sagittary: Horse-like creatures.

Elephants

Pig-Bears: Can be trained as pets.

Wolf-like Creatures: With long snouts and black-and-white striped fur, almost as big as adult humanoids.

Broakir: Live in foothills, often hunted for food.

Baanjxx: Arboreal browsers that like to eat hallucinogenic cerub nuts. As a child, the Doctor was kicked by one in the head, apparently.

Cows

Walrus

Gallifreyan Marlot: Purple and unique in all of time and space. Probably a bit cat-like.

House Cats: Revered as symbols of intelligence. Traditionally, Presidents kept them as pets.

🐱 Killer Cats (C.A.T.S)

Killer C.A.T.S: These sapient creatures possess instinctive precognitive powers and cat-like physiology. Known for their lethal gladiatorial contests, they despise Time Lord traditions and live in the Gin-Seng Sector of Southern Gallifrey. Their culture includes mercenaries and oracles; they are telepathic.

🏞️ Ecosystem Preservation

Though Gallifrey's outer ecology has suffered, the Time Lords have used technology to preserve many species. Extinct species have been collected, ensuring none become completely extinct. The more fearsome creatures are contained in the Death Zone, while xeno-zoos hold alien species from other worlds.

🏫 So ...

So there's your whistlestop tour of the species on Gallifrey. One day, I'll try to put these onto a species distribution map. Oh, by Rassilon's Beard, I just gave myself more work.

Related:

How is Gallifreyan geography different to Earth?: The landscape of Gallifrey.

Factoid: The Fruits of Gallifrey

What could be some biological traits of Gin-Seng cats?: Looking at who the Gin-Seng cats are, their biology, and their place on Gallifrey and in society.

Hope that helped! 😃

Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired😴

[onenicebugperday]

howdy!

saw this guy in my house earlier (and later let him out via the window after i was done taking pictures). i tried my hand at identifying him myself but couldnt get anything more specific than "some kinda beetle/weevil??" it can fly from what ive seen, if that helps.

heres the best picture i got which he very kindly stood still for! pleasant little guy, it was very nice to meet him :)

It's a straight-snouted weevil in the family Brentidae. Without a location best I can say is probably an oak timberworm beetle.

[teecupangel]

So I had the thought of Desmond becoming a MLP: fim changeling queen. Why a changeling? You may ask, because they are very cool.

If you don't know changelings are these horse-like bugs that can shape shift into pretty much anything even inanimate objects (or many that one is an illusion). They use this ability to collect love from other creatures since that's their main source of energy, seems like they need to eat normal stuff but in smaller quantities.

But for the sake of this Au let's say they can feed on the other emotions as well but the closer to love the emotion (example: happiness) the more energy they get. With love giving out the most energy.

So Desmond wakes up at Solomon's temple and sees he is some kind horse-bug and cause he is a queen changeling he is really big. Like draft horse big, even bigger than the Clydesdale. But still thin and spindly cause you know, bug. He wouldn't be like Chrysalis starved hive but also he wouldn't be rainbow colored like Thorax's. I see Desmond being desert colored for camouflage (dark red, brown, pale, black, sand) while having some white and red mixed in for the colours of the brotherhood.

Desmond curses his luck and wanders around trying to get used to his new body until Altaïr and company come for the apple. He discovers that he is completely armored and his carapace is really resistant and though, he is really strong capable of shatter stone with a kick, he is very flexible and can climb on surfaces like Spiderman, he can lift things with telekinesis through his horn (solves the issue of no hands), has this big bug mandibles that can come from his snout, his fleshy tail is very flexible and has a pair of stingers with a paralyzing venom, he has wings under his carapace like a beetle open it and fly, and he is pretty much an omnivore but absolutely loves flower nectar, honey, bee wax, and other insects.

One night while sneaking in a city he complains about not being at least a normal horse to not catch so much attention and then fiuussh he transforms into one of the smaller horses he saw in the stables he passed, smaller size and everything. He practices his new shape shifting ability and even figures out how to change color and become invisible. For now he can only shape shift into other quadrupeds, horses, dogs and even something as small as a cat. And that's how he discovers his new emotion based diet. Now that he can spend more time in the cities he doesn't feel as hungry and when some kids tried to pet him and play with him while disguised as a dog he felt an energy boost from feeding off the affection they were giving him.

So to kick off plot once the general date of the expedition to the temple comes Desmond comes back to the temple and waits. He turns invisible and when the fight for the apple comes he drops the invisibility and everyone sees his him in his big insect glory, they think Desmond is some Demon/guardian of the apple.

He manages to run off the templars, save Malik and Kadar and with his telekinesis gives Altaïr the apple.

From here I must clarify that Desmond can speak human languages perfectly he just chooses not to at the moment. And mainly uses this bug language of clicking, chittering, buzzing, crooning and hissing.

From here Desmond either goes back to being invisible and sneaks to Masyaf or just follows outright along with them outside the cave and transforms into a normal horse in front of them to travel back to Masyaf. With the second it allows for more interactions, Al Muslim gets to see Desmond at the beginning and they think the guardian of the apple is following them around and chose their faction as worthy of the treasure.

Al Muslim tries to order him around but Desmond just gives him the stink eye and follows Altaïr around. Using his shape shifting ability to help sneak around and get information, eventually learning how to transform into non-quadrupeds, humans and even inanimate objects. Every once in a while Desmond speaks like a human in public but everyone thinks he is just a very clever parrot except Altaïr who spends the more time with Desmond whose Desmond speaks more and more to everyday.

After Al Mualim is defeated Desmond makes Masyaf the place to put his hive without knowing, at this point everyone knows Desmond can speak and it's fully sapient.

When things calm down Desmond gets the surprise of his life when he lays his first clutch of eggs, he is not a Changeling Queen for nothing. And when the eggs hatch among the grubs is Clay (once Altaïr dies he will be reborn like this too).

The other changelings (changeling workers/soldiers) are also sapient and can do everything Desmond can but Clay becomes a sub-queen of sorts. Clay is a changeling whose function is to be the main Queen (Desmond) right hand, therefore Sub-Queen (princess). While the workers are regular horse sized Clay as Sub-Queen is somewhere in the middle is bigger than the workers but smaller than Desmond. Also Clay doesn't lay eggs (to Desmond's complains).

So now the brotherhood is composed of humans and changelings, who can infiltrate pretty much everywhere, their venom is widely used by the assassins and they make the templars incredibly paranoid of everything even their own pot plants.

If anyone in the brotherhood dares to even look at any of Desmond's hundred children wrong both Altaïr and Desmond will make their lives miserable.

(Now I see Altaïr with a handful of grubs who crawl all over him)

Masyaf becomes the main changeling hive and Clay goes on to make a second one in the nearest assassin headquarters (then he begins to lay eggs).

When Altaïr dies he is reborn as a grub that becomes another Sub-Queen. A lot of brotherhoods around now have a changeling hive with a Sub-Queen and all respond to Desmond (the main Queen).

Changelings feed on surrounding emotions and when they go infiltrate but they mostly feed on the affection of each other's and their fellow brotherhood members.

So when it's Ezio's turn he is just surrounded

By this three giant bug-horses and their million children/niblings.

There was a man who visits their home often. He would always be accompanied by a strange bunch. People in hoods and animals of various sizes…

All of them would call him ‘mother’.

Ezio swears the people with hoods and the animals would change at times, even when they had already entered their home.

It was strange.

Sometimes they would visit with one brown dog but leave with no dogs at all but the number of people would rise.

Other times, he would visit with butterflies on his hair and leave with no butterflies at all but cats walking behind him.

He never stays long, talking to Ezio’s father the longest then taking the time to talk to everyone else for a bit.

Ezio liked it when he visited.

He always gave them new toys they had never seen before. Sometimes, he would bring books that sounded interesting and would be read and borrowed between the siblings.

As Ezio grew older, the more he understood who the man he only knew as ‘Desmond’ was.

He was royalty.

The mother queen.

Ezio still didn’t know what that was supposed to mean and why he was called 'mother queen' instead of 'father king'. All he knew was that Desmond was the ruling matriarch of a kingdom they do not know about.

And House Auditore was part of that kingdom.

Ezio always thought they were nobles of Firenze.

But no.

They were spies.

He still remembered the conversation he had unintentionally eavesdropped on while Desmond was visiting them.

“I’ve warned you about being too close to Lorenzo de’ Medici, Giovanni.”

“I am loyal to the Brotherhood.”

“I do not doubt your loyalty. Just as I know that Clay is loyal to me, I also know Clay will do what he believes is right. The same can be said to you.”

“I am honored to be compared to the princess-”

“Clay would tell you that it’s meant to be an insult. But it’s not. I’m just telling you this to make you understand that just because you are loyal to the Brotherhood, it does not mean you are not compromised.”

“I can assure you-”

“If I order you to return to Monteriggioni with your family and to not return to Monteriggioni even if Lorenzo de’ Medici begged you to, would you do it?”

“Ezio Auditore.”

Ezio stepped back from the door and turned to face the unfamiliar voice who called out to him.

He looked a lot like Desmond but with golden eyes.

“I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine.” The golden-eyed man said, “You will hear what Desmond has ordered your father to do later anyway. Walk with me.”

“Uuuhh…” Ezio didn’t really have any reason to say no so he began to follow the strange man.

As they exited the hallway and made their way to the main room, a cat meowed and nuzzled the man’s legs before following after him, glancing at Ezio curiously only once.

By the time they reached the inner courtyard, five cats were following the man.

“Uuhhh…”

“Altaïr.”

It took a moment before Ezio realized that the man had introduced himself. He was unsure if he could just call ‘Altaïr’ or if he was a noble of higher standing than them so he just asked, “These cats…”

“My children.” Altaïr answered.

Oh.

He was one of those people.

“Sef.” Altaïr called out and a white cat with black fur on his legs and paws meowed as he sat in front of Altaïr, “Stay with Desmond and tell him that I’ll be training Ezio Auditore until he’s done with Giovanni Auditore.”

Ezio opened his mouth to speak but the cat’s meow was loud enough to stop him. Ezio watched the cat quietly make his way back inside before he turned to face Altaïr as he asked, “Training?”

A hooded man that Ezio swore was not there before handed Altaïr two blunt swords used for training and Altaïr threw the other sword to Ezio who caught it easily.

“Uh- merda!” Ezio shouted as Altaïr suddenly charged him, easily disarming him with enough force to stagger him off his feet.

“Get up faster. You’d be dead if I had followed up on my first attack. Again.” Altaïr ordered as he took a few steps back.

Ezio growled and stood. As soon as he grabbed the sword, Altaïr charged once more. Ezio managed to keep hold of his sword but fell on his ass when Altaïr smacked his cheek with the back of his hand.

“You’re too focused on my sword. If I had a hidden weapon on my left hand, you’d be dead. Again.”

Ezio growled once more.

This bastardo was asking for it.

.

.

Training only ended when a hooded man who looked too much like Desmond and Altaïr that Ezio had to take a doubletake, giving Altaïr an opening to hit him on the side with the pommel of his sword, announced that lunch was ready and Desmond would like Altaïr to eat with him and the rest of the Auditore.

As Ezio wheezed as he held his poor bruised side, Altaïr handed the sword to the hooded man who could have been mistaken as Altaïr and Desmond’s son as he said, “Very well. Check the perimeter before scheduling everyone’s meal time, Sef.”

“Darim is already on it, father.”

Wait.

Sef?

Did Altaïr named a cat after his son???

[getmotherd]

WIP foxies

The lighter one has been degreasing for a couple of weeks. Hes got some bone cancer on his snout, i cant wait to see him done!

The darker one is just done being cleaned by my beetles. Its a juvenile fox, but a little longer than the old boy. His shape is really interesting, i cant wait to properly compare him to some other individuals.