#critters

Expositpurr Beauregard Lionett of the Cobalt Soul

Our lil Pickle.

bogleech:

today I learned one of the approved methods field researchers use to “muzzle” dangerous snapping turtles while weighing them:

#Super Mario Bros IRL

saturniidays:

My gift to you: An Atlas of Insect Morphology free pdf

sharped0:

saturniidays:

saturniidays:

saturniidays:

saturniidays:

saturniidays:

i used to work at a used bookstore and there was an insect anatomy book for sale that was over $8000 im not even kidding. and i just found it at my school library. its mine for the month.

It’s page after page of the most detailed illustration on insect morphology I’ve ever seen

External anatomy only I’m afraid, but an absolutely invaluable resource nonetheless

It’s called An Atlas of Insect Morphology by Steinmann and Zombori. Looks like there are some much cheaper options now than when I last looked. When I saw it in the bookstore’s system I thought it was a pricing error but I remember looking it up and seeing one for sale that was over $10,000 so I was like okay then. I could only find pdfs from university libraries I don’t have access too. So I’m glad my school has a physical copy.

Idk if I can describe how useful this book is. It’s all illustration. The only text is the labels. I have a really nice book on insect anatomy but it’s like your classic textbook

Like very useful but it is still a pain to flip through a thousand page book looking for images but it’s mostly text. There aren’t nearly as many diagrams. It doesn’t show you nearly as many angles. It doesn’t show or label even close to level of detail the one above does.

In case anyone hasn’t read my tags: I’m going to scan this whole book and make it into a pdf. You all can have it for free. It will take a while. Bear with me.

@bogleech

bogleech:

little-apocalypse-kitten:

bogleech:

This will hopefully never be a problem for most of you but after seeing a viral post in which someone picks up a tapeworm and photographs it in their bathroom I really need everyone to understand that tapeworm eggs are microscopic and the adult tapeworm constantly, constantly exudes millions of them from pores over its entire body. Is that not well known information?? That they just basically sweat infectious babies? It’s pretty critical information, including to all cat and dog owners. Tapeworms outside a host will even leave what looks like a white slime trail everywhere they go. That trail is 100% eggs. The eggs are the dangerous stage, too, because the first larval stage is the one that burrows into your muscle tissue or your brain or your kidneys. If that guy didn’t adequately sanitize his hands, his phone camera, every surface touched by the worm or his wormy from fingers he is going to be lacey swiss cheese

Okay, this brings up a history question:   I remember reading somewhere / seeing old timey advertisements for capsuled tapeworm eggs sold as a diet-fad.  Like, it was 1900s advertisements for women to “eat as much as you want without getting fat, here’s how!”  Mail away to get a parasite to infect yourself with!  The intention, of course, for the swallowed eggs to hatch in the gut and to keep you skinny by sharing your food.  

Did this… have the muscle and brain effect on people?  Obviously, this hokum isn’t sold today for dire health-risk reasons of… you know, INFECTING YOURSELF WITH A PARASITE to stay skinny, but… I never heard anything about people doing the fad diet and getting their brains eaten. Was it a different subspecies of wormy or did this totally happen?  If so, how many died early from this bull or got crippled for life? 

Or were the old ads I saw online just a history-trivia hoax?  

Those actually weren’t eggs, but dormant larvae ready to become the more harmless adults!

I do exaggerate the danger a little bit, fresh hatched larvae are tiny enough that the tunneling itself does no real damage, and you may never even notice if you have a few in your muscle tissues but they CAN accidentally end up in your vital organs, causing all sorts of problems.

An egg exposed to stomach acid becomes the larva, tunnels a while, then goes dormant. Its goal is to some day be eaten by a carnivore.

When this dormant larva touches stomach acid a second time, it starts to grow into the adult, which can reach several yards in length but does not burrow or do any physical harm!

Anyone with an adult tapeworm, however, is eventually passing those eggs out with their waste. Tapeworm eggs from human wastewater are still a serious health hazard in poorer parts of the world : (

I think this is the biology thing I end up explaining the most often because it’s such overlooked health information crossing over with my invertebrate fixation. News articles never differentiate these life cycle stages or explain why some people get different types of infestation.