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Pill Scarab Beetles: these beetles are covered in plates that perfectly interlock when the beetle folds its limbs, lowers its head, and curls itself into a ball

Above: Eusphaeropeltis sp. (top/bottom left) and Ceratocanthus aeneus (bottom right), two different species of pill scarab beetle

Beetles of the Ceratocanthinae subfamily (also known as pill scarab beetles) rely on a unique form of conglobation to conceal themselves. As the beetle tucks its head down and folds its legs up against its belly, the plates on its head, thorax, abdomen, and legs all come together to form a solid shield; the plates on its legs even have grooves and corresponding ridges that allow them to neatly interlock.

As this blog post explains:

Adult Ceratocanthinae are best known for their ability to conglobate: rolling into a nearly perfect ball. The elytra, pronotum, head, and all six tibiae interlock with each other by means of grooves and corresponding ridges, forming a tightly connected external surface. Many beetles take the form of a tight compact structure when threatened, however in Ceratocanthinae the tibiae of all six legs participate in forming the external hard surface of the sphere, unlike in other beetles.

Above: Ceratocanthus sp.

The Ceratocanthinae subfamily contains many different genera/species, and they are all collectively known as pill scarabs. Many of them have a colorful, metallic appearance; they may be green, red, blue, brown, black, or multicolor.

Above: Germarostes globosus

Sources & More Info:

Gil Wizen: Transformers (Ceratocanthinae Beetles)

Communications Biology: The Evolution of Conglobation in Ceratocanthinae

Arthropod Systematics and Phylogeny: Rolling into a Ball: phylogeny of the Ceratocanthinae

ZooKeys: The Ceratocanthinae of Ulu Gombak

Pavel Krásenský Photography: Scarabaeidae (this site is written in Czech)

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Might be the best DM I have ever received as a tattooer

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i had a dream i worked in an underwater restaurant and people kept ordering ice in their drinks and then getting mad at me when it would float away. and i’d tell them beforehand that the ice would float away & they’d be like lol no that’s not how it works just give me the ice. I’m fighting customer service battles never seen before

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Being really into Frankenstein while at the same time being Chinese is so funny because every time Lord Byron gets brought up, the way his name is pronounced always makes me think of the word 白人 (bái rén), which translates into “white guy”. Lord White Guy.

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Cats (2019) is worse than Doctor Who (2006) even though the show was made with the budget of a crisp packet

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some of my favorite occupations on what’s my line

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Why WOULD I pay for tumblr premium when I get quality ads like this???

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STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION (1987-1994) “Haven” (1.11)

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wmata you may want to rethink your phrasing

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Winter has arrived on Poob.

Start your 7 day free trial of Poob today, and watch smash hit Martin Scorcese's Goncharov.

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Just in time for Valentine’s Day... 💔 

Ready to break up with Google?

So are we!

We’ve rounded up a bunch of privacy-centric alternatives for everything Google.

Check out the full list over on the blog!

- The Ellipsus Team xo

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Introducing your new favorite animal of the deep—the wonderful whalefish.

Whalefish live in the inky depths below 3,000 feet called the midnight zone. Their eyes are poorly developed and small—in fact, they lack lenses and are not even capable of forming images. Instead, they rely on a network of sensory pores to feel vibrations in the water and allow the whalefish to detect when predators or prey are near.

Like many deep-sea animals, whalefishes have a brilliant reddish coloration. Red light doesn’t travel far in seawater and can’t penetrate into the deep sea, so anything red appears black. This intense red color helps a whalefish disappear into the darkness to ambush unsuspecting prey or avoid a hungry predator.

Most research on these fishes has been based on specimens collected by deep-water trawl nets. MBARI’s remotely operated vehicles very rarely encounter these obscure fishes. In the more than 30,000 hours of video MBARI’s ROVs have recorded, we’ve logged just 16 observations. But each time we see one, we get a chance to learn more about this remarkable resident of the ocean’s midnight zone.

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Every actor should be this loud about their characters' homoerotic relationships with other men. Rip to the only real ally.

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Something to watch for, which I learned from stage magic but which is extremely relevant to detecting scams as well:

The magician or scammer will *tell you* how he is going to prove his honesty.

The magician rifles through the deck until you say "stop", then he says, "Are you sure? I'll keep going if you want." and asks "Now, you agree that you could have stopped anywhere you wanted, so there's absolutely no way I could know which card you got" and because it's a magic show and you aren't paying close attention you didn't notice he didn't deal a card from where you stopped, he dealt the bottom card of the deck.

The magician doesn't ask you, "What would it take for you to believe this" because you might say, "I'd need you to use a sealed deck" or "I'd have to personally shuffle the deck" or some other proof that would make the trick impossible.

Magicians say "You agree that if I did *this*, it would mean *that*, right?" and you say yes, and it feels like you are the one who got to verify things, but of course the magician is lying and the proof is nothing of the kind.

Scammers do the same thing. A really concrete example is phone scammers pretending to be working for the government will say, "Look, I see you're skeptical if I'm who I say I am, I'm going to hang up and call back, and you'll see on the caller ID it says, 'FBI' and that tells you that I'm really working for the government."

Now, caller ID can be spoofed pretty easily, so it doesn't prove anything at all.

But it *feels* to you like you demanded proof and the scammer was willing to give you the proof.

But you didn't tell the scammer what out would take to prove it to you, the scammer told you what the proof would be.

This is actually like a really basic thing to look for if you want to start decoding magic tricks and scams.

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While making dinner tonight, I very very fleetingly, but very seriously and legitimately thought “I should watch Goncharov tonight”

And then I Remembered.

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common misconception! Thomas Crapper didn't invent the flush toilet. it was actually patented by Alexander Cumming. what Crapper invented was the floating ballcock.