A new article on my site about what is simultaneously the most underwhelming and incredible animal you will ever read about.

Gaze into its majestic lack of a face!

This actually gives me a lot to talk about!

The only bees that die when they sting are certain species of honeybee. They can afford to sacrifice themselves because they live in colonies with hundreds, even thousands of individuals. Their sting is barbed, and its poison gland, believe it or not, has its own nervous system - like a tiny brain. The sting gets torn out in the bee’s enemy, and then keeps on pumping venom all by itself, thus the bee only has to sting once for its foe to be stung many times!

Other bees and wasps have smooth, unbarbed stingers and can keep stinging again and again - if they sting at all, that is. The vast majority of bee species are actually completely stingless, and only a small fraction live in colonies or communal nests at all.

Now, when people think of wasps as aggressive, they’re probably thinking of yellow jackets, which are responsible for the majority of wasp stings. They form large colonies under the ground, and walking or mowing atop them can whip them into a frenzy. Individual yellow jackets out on patrol are a little less likely to attack, but still more trigger-happy than many of their cousins.

Paper wasps, like this one, are also very commonly encountered by humans and have a nasty reputation, but in this case it’s highly undeserved. These wasps form fairly small communities where they collectively care for completely helpless larvae, even chewing food for them like mother birds. They are fiercely protective of these babies, but they only “attack” as an absolute last resort. The last thing they want is to get swatted and leave their young to starve, so they’ll keep a close eye on you and start buzzing around you if you start to worry them, but it’s mostly for show.

People tend to kill nests of these wasps on sight and many products are marketed for doing so, but I - and many people I know - have always left them alone and never been stung, even when the nests were near doorways, patios or other active areas of a home. Like with spiders, you’ll usually only be stung if you corner them, step on them barefoot or otherwise force it.

Exceptions do happen, of course, especially since wasps are very scent-oriented, and can read certain odors as threats. I’ve heard some people swear that paper wasps have landed on and stung them for “no reason,” and they were always wearing some pungent cologne or perfume at the time.

As with bees, the majority of wasps are completely solitary, and these are especially non-aggressive, unless you’re another insect. Most of them are parasitoids, and use their stings exclusively to paralyze the caterpillars, cockroaches, spiders or other arthropods they use as living brood chambers for their parasitic larvae.

Wasps in general, parasitoid or otherwise, are some of the most important of all insect predators, providing quite possibly the largest natural service in regulating the populations of other insects. It’s unfortunate that people exterminate them on sight, when it’s really quite easy to live in peace with them, and they do a better job of controlling other insects than any man-made chemical.

Both parasitic and predatory wasps are actually of enormous benefit to the ecosystem, as they do more to regulate insect populations than any other natural process. It’s a shame that humans tend to exterminate them on sight, when most wasps are fairly easy to live in peace with and will keep other “pests” under control more effectively than any store bought chemicals.

On a final note, ants are actually just a highly specialized group of wasps, but are still a whole vast subject in themselves, so I’ll wait to get into ants if I’m asked about them specifically!

ASK ME A BUG QUESTION HERE!

I haven’t watched television in a few years now, and was reminded why when I caught an episode of Animal Planet’s “Call of the Wildman” yesterday.

The show - which follows a hillbilly wrangling problematic wildlife - was fair and accurate in its treatment of snakes, but immediately lost me when the protagonist identified a small spider in a web as a “brown recluse,” which the narrator went on to describe as one of the deadliest spiders in America, further referring to its sacs of eggs as “ticking time bombs” before the wildman killed the whole family with a napkin.

First off, recluse spiders do not construct or hang in webs, and aren’t even shaped like the spider we were shown. Second, as I’ve ranted about before, recluse spiders are not significantly dangerous at all. Nobody on record has ever died or come anywhere close to dying from recluse venom, and of thousands of confirmed bites actually studied, the very worst exhibited a tiny area of necrosis (dead tissue) which healed with little to no treatment.

It is a widely accepted *myth* that recluse bites cause any serious tissue damage. Most will even come and go with no discomfort at all, and recluses themselves only bite if trapped against human skin (in clothing or bedding, for example)…they’re called recluses for a reason. They take great pains to avoid us, as do most other spiders.

Here’s a thing I wrote about Chitons. I’m sorry if creeping rock slugs aren’t very exciting to anyone but me.

I’ve written whole long articles, blog posts, and even narrated a long winded video in defense of cockroaches! I think they’re beautiful, cute, cool looking and extremely interesting.

The pest control industry thrives off fear. The more people hate, fear and loathe insects, the more money they make. They exaggerate everything, from the dirtiness of roaches to the destructiveness of termites. There are around 5,000 cockroach species that have been named (more likely tens of thousands out there), around thirty of which survive well in human habitations, but only four species thrive well enough to create infestations and become “pests.” Of these four, only one is a very common problem (the German cockroach) and even these are more vilified than necessary.

There’s actually no solid, proven case of cockroaches passing diseases onto humans, whichthey’re only theoretically capable of by touching something germ-ridden and then touching your food. This is true of any animal loose in a home or restaurant, but a lot less likely to occur from a cockroach - bacteria don’t cling very easily to their body surface, and they fastidiously groom themselves whenever they feel contaminated.

As long as a home is kept fairly clean, roaches won’t pick up any germs to begin with - though they’ll still have no difficulty moving in. There’s a common misconception that roaches are connected to “filth,” but they can survive equally well in environments completely sanitary to us. They don’t especially care either way how rotten their food is, and can even go outside to forage on fungi, dead leaves or other insects.

In the wild, roaches serve many important purposes. They’re integral to forest health and cave ecosystems as decomposers, pollinators and sometimes even predators, keeping other insects under control.

Despite all this, though, I think their “dirty” and “scary” reputation also adds a lot of charming character to them, best demonstrated in the under-rated cinematic masterpiece, Joe’s Apartment.

This video has been making the rounds and with it a lot of anger over the possibility that the frog was “nailed” into place. At around 35 seconds you can see what people are pointing to.

What we’re much more likely to be seeing is simply the frog’s pelvis bone, which protrudes up the back in the very same location. You can see the “point” created by the pelvis in this dart frog:

Bench Frog’s sitting position is just pushing out the pelvis more than usual. Here’s a frog’s skeleton where the pelvis bones are conveniently highlighted:

In conclusion, it is okay to laugh at Bench Frog.

HERE’S A THING ABOUT COMB JELLIES

NNNNNNNOM

Even in scientific circles, it’s a common misconception that a spider feeds by “drinking” through its two fangs, like a vampire. In reality, the fangs can only inject venom and digestive enzymes into prey, not suck anything back in. The actual mouth is a small, jawless opening beneath the fang-bearing chelicerae.

It’s like a walrus with venomous tusks!

Wow, I’ve never noticed losing followers before. Just a couple, but still, weird. Did I offend somebody or just get boring?

Here’s a COLUGO. I think that’s what it’s called. Something like that.

officialnotebook:

Insect Camouflage 

This might be some of the most impressive camouflage I’ve ever seen. Looks like the caterpillar of Euthalia aconthea gurda, here it is in the open:

Seems these cool little things are bigger than I thought they were! I find waterbugs quite often, but I’ve never seen any octopus-face flatworms walking around on them!

Something cool I stumbled upon in an unrelated google search - this little cuttlefish-shaped blob is actually a flatworm which lives harmlessly on the bodies of certain water bugs!

From a kid’s book just called “BUGS” scanned by Nematode, this otherwise reasonably accurate mite of ambiguous species was given what appears to be dinosaur eyes.

HERE you can browse all ten pages of my “100 Organisms Begging to be Pokemon” feature, but most tumblr users don’t click links anyhow so I thought I’d post my picks for some of its most interesting entries right here!

SPONGE

The Porifera are one of the planet’s oldest forms of animal life, their porous bodies consisting mostly of collagen fibers and a nonliving jelly inhabited by several different cell types. With thousands of waving cilia, they continuously pump water through their myriad openings and feed on trapped bacteria.

Pokétential: I like my gimmicky creatures. What if a sponge pokémon could learn no attacks (besides possibly splash) but by being in your party at all, it took a portion of all damage meant for your active pokémon? You would sort of be devoting a whole slot to an extra health bar for the rest of the team.

PARASITOID WASP:

A parasitoid is any parasite which completes its life cycle by killing its host, a life style wasps have adapted to more than any other form of life, planting their eggs in the bodies of other insects. As gruesome as this is, it’s all a part of nature’s balance; many plants even deliberately attract these wasps to destroy leaf-eating insects!

Pokétential: please, oh please give us a parasitoid who randomly evolves from other bug pokémon. The look on a trainer’s face when a wasp hatches out of his Metapod would be priceless. Its design could even borrow from Alien.

ORCHID BEE-MIMIC:

Orchid flowers come in a wild diversity of beautiful forms, but many have evolved with a devious purpose: by closely resembling and even smelling like bees or wasps, the flowers fool these insects into trying to mate with them, spreading the plant’s pollen without the need to produce enticing nectar.

Pokétential: a pure grass type that looks remarkably like an insect (or even like a specific bug pokémon) - with an ability automatically infatuating any bug type.

DOLPHIN

Fans have long clamored for a simple bottlenose dolphin, but those overhyped rapists and murderers aren’t nearly as cool as the Amazon river’s eerie fresh-water species, with their nearly vestigial eyes, crocodilian looking jaws and dark mythological association.

Pokétential: water/dark would honestly suit a river dolphin or even a bottlenose, what with the latter’s often ruthless gang-bang hunting tactics. I might even like a bottlenose dolphin poke’ if it were some pugnacious brute with jutting teeth and battle scars.

OSEDAX WORM:

You have to love an animal biologists have called “zombie snot-flowers.” Feeding exclusively on bone, these bizarre worms grow like weeds on the skeletons of whales or even drowned land mammals, embedded in place by “roots” as they spew eggs into the water.

Pokétential: an old idea I had for hagfish would be better suited here - the skeleton of a whale (er, Wailord) animated by a snot-flower horde! This could also reference the legend of Bake-kujira. Otherwise, grass types controlling a terrestrial skeleton. Maybe a dinosaur. Maybe… human?

PLATYBELODON:

This prehistoric relative to the modern elephant seemingly used its extremely long, strangely shaped jaws to strip the bark from trees and even cut off whole branches, an adaptation which no doubt spelled trouble for its predators and rivals as well.

Pokétential: I look at this thing and I see a steel type with an angular, orange-yellow body and a chainsaw-like lower jaw, calling to mind the heavy machinery used to tear down great swathes of forest.

VINEGAROON:

These primordial arachnids scan for prey with a pair of legs and a long “tail” adapted into thin feelers, also lending them the name “whip-scorpion.” Vinegaroon comes from the acetic acid they can spray from their tails when sufficiently upset, the same acid that gives vinegar its distinct odor and flavor.

Pokétential: let’s upgrade that acid spray to gasoline, and put tiny flames on the ends of those “whips.” A sinister bug/fire arsonist!

VIRUS:

I guess I’m cheating a little; a virus isn’t an “organism” or even necessarily alive, consisting of only raw DNA in a complex delivery capsule that replicates itself in the cells of proper living beings.

Pokétential: how’s this for gimmicky - invisible or only a single pixel in size, no type, one hit point and doesn’t take damage, but its only possible move is suicidal, sacrificing itself to inflict some debilitating status on the whole enemy team! What effects could be worth such a strategy, without going too far? Comment below!

YETI CRAB:

Kiwa hirsuta has been dubbed the “yeti crab” for its milky white appearance and thickly hairy forelimbs, actually a breeding ground for the crab’s food source - bacteria it farms in the searing heat of toxic sea vents as it dances and dances.

Pokétential: we’ve got enough water types, so what if this pokémon farmed a bacterial coating from terrestrial volcanoes, making it fire/poison? Then again, there’s that whole “yeti” theme, and the arctic has volcanoes too…an excuse for an ice/poison or even ice/fire.

ORCHID MANTIS:

Camouflaged from head to toe, this elegant hunter so closely resembles a flower, bees and butterflies never know what hit them before it starts chewing their heads off.

Pokétential: Yes, I know, Scyther. He’s interesting, sure, but he doesn’t look a whole lot like an actual mantis (couldn’t it at least have had gigantic eyeballs?) and the flower-mimics feel more than distinct enough. Like Sudowoodo, it could resemble a plant without grass typing, perhaps merely having an ability to boost grass attacks.

Was that fun? No? Too bad, there’s 90 more of them here.

megajessness:

squeedge:

bogleech:

Run a search just about anywhere for the brown recluse or other recluse spiders, and you’ll find horrifically gruesome photographs and nightmarish anecdotes of their supposedly horrendous, even life-threatening bites.

Even some doctors are convinced that these spiders can cause severe skin lesions.

Doctors, however, are not interchangeable with trained arachnologists. Take a good look at this bite on someone’s hand:

This is what an “extreme” recluse bite looks like. Absolutely nobody has ever been killed by a recluse bite that we know of, and the vast majority aren’t even this serious, marked only by mild pain in the affected area. What even medical professionals sometimes mistake for severe spider bites are in fact bacterial infections - and any wound, a bug bite or a papercut, can lead to such infections in an unsanitary environment without proper attention to hygiene.

Not only are recluse bites generally minor, they’re also unlikely to happen in the first place. Recluses, like nearly all spiders, bite only as a last resort when completely cornered - bites generally occur when a spider is accidentally caught in someone’s clothing or bedsheets, for example - and even then, they often deliver a “dry” bite without injecting venom.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2002/08/05/hlsa0805.htm

“Doctors are horrible [about] misdiagnosing any kind of necrotic-looking wounds as brown recluse bites,” says Sean P. Bush, MD, a professor of emergency medicine at Loma Linda School of Medicine.”

http://spiders.ucr.edu/myth.html

“Almost all brown recluse spider bites heal nicely in two to three months without medical treatment at all. Also the long-term medical outcome is excellent without treatment.”

“We estimate that we have seen or reviewed about 1,000 credible recluse spider bites, and we have seen about a dozen cases of impressive, sustained hemolysis.”

http://www.light-science.com/spiderskin.html

A family four lived with thousands of recluses and was never bitten. Once.

Added emphasis to a bit there.

PLEASE read this, especially if you live in the Midwest/South where these spiders reside. The cause of a necrotic wound is usually infection or a completely unrelated condition that the patient was unaware of and the doctor did not recognize. It is estimated that around %80 of spider bites are misdiagnosed. 

I’d also like to add to this, as Hobo spiders are we we got up here and our often compared to brown recluse, but they aren’t as dangerous as people make them out to be, either. In fact, the evidence supporting that they are a danger to humans is quite flimsy, and the toxicity of its bite is widely disputed. 

If you are a relatively healthy person with decent hygiene and access to the most basic of medical supplies, you should not be too worried about a brown recluse or hobo spider bite. 

Above all, I just want people to get it through their thick skulls that, even if you fear spiders and worry about getting bitten, they are not out to get you. They don’t want to hurt you. If anything, they want to hide away from the scary giant noise-monster who could easily crush it in one blow.

Yeah, this is helpful, considering I grew up being told that Brown Recluse spider bites were sometimes worse than Black Widow bites because if left alone the bite could rot the skin away.

It may come as an even bigger surprise to many people that Black Widow bites are even more exaggerated!

A widow bite can sometimes be excruciatingly painful, but oftentimes you won’t ever know you were bitten…the odds of death? Significantly lower than 1%, usually only possible if the venom interacts with another serious condition such as heart disease. A healthy person, even an infant, has very little to fear.

Widow bites are also just highly unlikely to happen in the first place; as with other spiders bites only happen when a person accidentally presses up against the spider, and as widows are web-builders, they are very rarely wandering about. Once a web is built the female will never leave unless forced to do so, and even then won’t travel far before she tries to build a new one.

There are honestly almost no spiders worth fearing. The Sydney Funnelweb is often agreed upon as the most dangerous, and said to be one of the only spiders said to go out of its way to aggressively bite. It still hasn’t caused a death in decades, and the aggression is purely anecdotal, not scientifically proven.