oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

Super weird to have innocuously added a silly personal anecdote to a post you didn't realize was super popular...

Only to have it cross your dash a week later and find out that like 12,000 people think you're lying.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

heartbreaking:

girl has sooooooo many ambitions and ideas for projects but can only get 1.5 basic tasks done per day

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

From the blog: The Indisputable Joy of Things Arranged in Rainbow Order (featuring the book Encyclopedia of Rainbows)

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

I always struggled drawing hands before anyone told me what to do. So here is a HANDy dandy drawing reference to see the steps on an actual hand. There are three big muscles in the palm. The thumb lump is most important because without it you’ll never even get the shape right. Circle up the knuckles and draw bendy lines (red) to connect them. Make sure the fingers go from medium-tall-short-shortest just slightly (index=>pinky finger). Notice the big red squareish shape around the palm-that’s the first thing I do. Note: every infer has 2 knuckles don’t forget the thumb does too…just in a weird way.

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

ykno the thing about poetry is that 99% of it is bullshit and the other 1% will cut you like a material knife, and for every person that 1% is a different section of the whole. this is probably true about all art.

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

20 examples of periodic solutions to the three-body problem

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Today’s fish thing are these fish ties!

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[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

it's really embarrassing how much self control i have to exert when you put me in front of a tray of convenient and tender meat like if you put meatballs in front if me the fuckers are gone in milliseconds. same true of roadted brussels sprouts or basically anything that's a nice little dense and textured morsel. i am the hors that d'ouvres

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

superhero who used to work shitty customer service jobs and it shows, specifically in their interactions with The Public

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

Meat-Eating Caterpillars: less than 1% of all known lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) are carnivorous, and even fewer are known to hunt and kill their prey; these are just a few of the exceptions

Above: a carnivorous pug moth caterpillar, Eupithecia orichloris, ambushing a fly

Lepidopteran predators are extremely rare, but they do exist. Some of the most interesting examples include the carnivorous pug moth caterpillars of the genus Eupithecia, the ant-eating casebearer, the Hawaiian snail-eating moth, and the bone-collector caterpillars of the genus Hyposmocoma. Curiously, almost all of the species on this list are endemic to Hawaii.

Above: Eupithecia orichloris

The carnivorous pug moth, Eupithecia orichloris, is probably the most famous predatory caterpillar in the world, thanks to the striking and unusual method by which it captures its prey -- this species is an ambush predator that often disguises itself as a twig and then pops up out of nowhere, violently plucking its prey from the foliage. Eupithecia is the only lepidopteran genus that is known to contain ambush predators, which makes this behavior seem even more striking.

The ant-eating casebearer, Ippa conspersa, is another carnivorous caterpillar that feeds on ants and other insects (both as a predator and as a scavenger). This species uses silk, sand, and other fine debris to build a flat, peanut-shaped "shell" around its body, and the "shell" acts as a kind of camouflage, allowing the caterpillar to sneak into ant nests and hunt.

Above: the ant-eating casebearer and its unique "shell"

As its name implies, the ant-eating casebearer often feeds on ants, but it has also been known to eat cockroaches and other insects.

Above: an ant-eating casebearer feeding on a cockroach

Hyposmocoma molluscivora, commonly known as the Hawaiian snail-eating moth, is a casebearing caterpillar that feeds on live snails. It uses strands of silk to immobilize its prey, tethering the snail in place so that it can climb into the victim's shell and feed on the soft flesh within. The caterpillars of this genus are the only lepidopterans that are known to feed on molluscs; all of the other predatory caterpillars feed on arthropods (insects and arachnids).

Above: this photo shows a Hawaiian snail-eating moth using strands of silk to hold its prey in place

The genus Hyposmocoma also contains the predatory "bone-collector" caterpillars, which cover themselves with the body parts of other insects and arachnids, often scavenging the leftover pieces from spiderwebs. They carefully trim each piece of exoskeleton and then arrange them all together onto a portable silk mesh.

The caterpillars often live side-by-side with spiders, as they opportunistically feed on the insects that they find trapped in spiderwebs, and their macabre body ornaments likely serve as camouflage; they allow the caterpillar to avoid being detected or attacked by spiders.

Above: a bone-collector caterpillar covered in the body parts of other insects, including a large weevil head that is clearly visible near the center, several ant heads, a fly's leg, the abdomen of a bark beetle, a wing, and several pieces of antennae, among other things

Sources & More Info:

Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society: Predatory and Parasitic Lepidoptera

GeoJournal: Behavior, Biogeography, and Conservation of Eupithecia in the Hawaiian Islands

Korean Journal of Applied Entomology: The First Record of the Myrmecophilous Tineid Moths of Genus Ippa in Korea

Nature: Caterpillars Eat Snails Out of House and Home

Science: Web-Spinning Caterpillar Stalks Snails

NBC: Hawaiian Caterpillars Hunt like Spiders

National Geographic: This Camouflaged Critter Wears Severed Insect Body Parts like a Coat

Scientific American: Carnivorous "Bone Collector" Caterpillars Wear Corpses as Camouflage

Science: Hawaiian Caterpillar Patrols Spiderwebs Camouflaged in Insect Prey's Body Parts

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Download this easy DIY clothing repair guide (only 10 pages) from Uni of Kentucky

link to PDF

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

Always a good time to burn down yet another village!

Patreon

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

I am a huge fan of retiring to my quarters

[oohshiny-atrashdragonhoard]

Two days in a row and still nothing! And a couple weeks ago, AND again a few days before that. give me my thunderstorm!!!