#hadrobunus grandis

[saltycharacters]

[ID: Digital artwork featuring a collection of ocs with arthropod familiars. The 1st image is a lineup of 4 adults, including (left to right): A ducky isopod man named Tito Chen with a pompadour, sunglasses, and flashy suit, a shorter man named Dante-Enriquez Rivera with a toadbug familiar, curly hair in a bun, facial hair, and suspenders, a person named Blizzard Dunkley with a buzz-cut, agrias butterfly familiar, long blue coat, red-and-blue glasses, and large earrings, and finally a woman named Yolanda Sali with a harvestman familiar, in a nurses coat, stethoscope around her neck. Next drawing features 2 new adults, the first of which is named Maikel Miguel Patagara, who has multi-colored hair, prominent freckles, overalls and a prosthetic on their right foot, alongside a cayenne tick familiar. The second iteration of vim has eye shadows and an unhappier expression, and two prosthetic for each foot, seemingly home-made unlike the previous one. Zi is also wearing a necklace with a giant cat-eye type jewel, alongside a coat that’s on the 2nd person in the drawing - a little note mentions that this is xyr look “after Ireneo died”. Ireneo (Maria) Ressa, the 2nd person, has short grey hair, a long, fluffy coat, black cloth gloves, and some vitiligo, alongside a sowbug familiar. He's holding a notebook, pen tucked behind eir ear, and the 2nd iteration shows them without the coat. The final drawing is a doodle dump of Ireneo and Maikel mostly, showing such things as: them at a bar, Ireneo’s arm around Maikel’s shoulders as she says, “Hey me & my partner saw you from across the bar and we think your vibe sucks ass. Can we beat you up”, them kissing, Maikel at a pottery wheel while Ireneo watches, their familiars with hearts around them, and finally Maikel holding a phone up to their ear and saying, “Hey could you come pick me up they’re pelting me with rotten fruit in the town square again”. End ID]

Been thinking about my bug familiar story again

[sparkmender]

🦋

Red harvestman (I thiiiink specifically a Hadrobunus grandis??)

Opiliones are arachnids, but not spiders! They’re also not medically significant to humans in the slightest, despite the myth that they’re “the most venomous spiders in America, they just can’t pierce your skin”. They do not carry any venom whatsoever.

They earned the name harvestmen for often being seen among the harvested crops in the fall, and a Southern US folktale claims harvestmen are the grim reaper of bees for the curious mutualism they have with domestic beehives: bees leave their dead at the entrance to their hive, and harvestmen carry them away with no aggression from the bees.

[cool-critters]

Hadrobunus grandis

Hadrobunus grandis is a species of harvestman that occurs in the United States (Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Virginia). Adults can be found in early summer.

photo credits: Bruce Marlin