[VIDEO TAKEN: SEPTEMBER 15TH, 2023 | Video ID: A video of a black, yellow, white, and red lubber grasshopper on a piece of paper, wriggling its abdomen and opening and closing the dorsal and ventral valves of its ovipositor in a way that makes it look as if the back half of the animal is its own snapping creature /End IDs.]
Encountered this grasshopper and scooped it up with a letter! Which is about when I noticed it exhibiting this fascinating behavior! It's freaky but very interesting!
The avian homeplanet's plants, and worms pretending to be plants.
Plantworms tend to out-compete the true plants in wet climates with nutrient poor soil or unstable substrate (such as wetlands and rainforests) because of their opportunistic carnivory and mobility. The true plants out-compete them in arid climates (such as tundra and deserts) because they have more robust water gathering and anti-freezing mechanisms. While both can form mycorrhizal associations to aid in water and nutrient deliver through the soil, true plants have extensive root systems and are not completely reliant on rainwater and condensation in the absence of mycorrhizal partners.
Both plantworms and true plants have clades that partner with pollinator animals to reproduce, but some plantworm "flowers" are honey traps. They use their colorful genitals as a lure to snare and eat potential pollinators, and reproduce "the old fashioned way," as in, reaching over to their same species neighbors to exchange gametes.
I've posted a little about avian flora before, though this is more up-to-date.
Had my TOH swap au on my mind a lot lately!!! I like finding creative ways to fit the swaps in their roles while keeping their original personalities…. Many thoughts head full
(Cawsley is literally just hooty but in a different skin like overwatch don’t get it twisted)