Hey, Fedi.
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@ShaulaEvans @SteveJB okay, but it says "the sting is harmless to humans" and then claims it hurts so bad that if you don't immediately lie down and just scream you might hurt yourself trying to cope with the pain. What does harmless mean again?
@sillyCoelophysis Ah yes. The long disputed difference between hurt and harm.
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Hey, Fedi. I have a favour to ask you. Help me help a friend. (Not financial!)
I have a friend who is all about cool bug facts. They're going through an intense patch in their life, so I would like to send them some bug facts to cheer them up. But this is really their thing, so basic search engine results aren't going to new to them.
If there's a cool bug fact that you genuinely love, could you tell me? I'll save them to share with my friend over time. 1/n
Behold the life cycle of male fig wasps. They pupate inside the fig and then mate with an unhatched female. Their next order of business is to burrow a hole to the outside world, which the female wasps can use once they too hatch and pupate. The males of many species of have no wings, and quickly die outside the fig. Thus female fig wasps are hatched ready-fertilized, ready to find another fig to continue the cycle.
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Earwigs use their pincers for a variety of actions, among those: unfolding their wings. Yes, earwigs can fly.
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Hey, Fedi. I have a favour to ask you. Help me help a friend. (Not financial!)
I have a friend who is all about cool bug facts. They're going through an intense patch in their life, so I would like to send them some bug facts to cheer them up. But this is really their thing, so basic search engine results aren't going to new to them.
If there's a cool bug fact that you genuinely love, could you tell me? I'll save them to share with my friend over time. 1/n
@ShaulaEvans @futurebird is our ant fact champion
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@ShaulaEvans @futurebird is our ant fact champion
Whenever I hear the phrase "ant fact" or "bug fact" I have to share this music video:
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@stevegis_ssg
I know one thing about butterfly flight - their characteristic "all over the place" flight style, where they fly like they're drunk, is a protective measure against predators. They could fly straight if they wanted to.
@Akki @KaraLG84 @ShaulaEvans@Mux @Akki @KaraLG84 @ShaulaEvans
Ooh, neat!
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@jetlagjen @ShaulaEvans Do y'all have lawn crayfish in the UK? https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/crawfish-in-your-lawn-hope-youre-ok-with-that/
@epicdemiologist @ShaulaEvans I've been heard of them!
We have various crayfish (including blue ones) in our lakes and rivers, and shrimp, crabs, barnacles and lobsters around our shores. But I can't think of any other land crustaceans in the UK. -
Whenever I hear the phrase "ant fact" or "bug fact" I have to share this music video:
@futurebird @ShaulaEvans Thank you for continuing to enrich my day and timeline
Saving this one -
@futurebird @ShaulaEvans Thank you for continuing to enrich my day and timeline
Saving this one@camless @futurebird @ShaulaEvans LOL oops, I clicked on that, earworm 🤪
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Hey, Fedi. I have a favour to ask you. Help me help a friend. (Not financial!)
I have a friend who is all about cool bug facts. They're going through an intense patch in their life, so I would like to send them some bug facts to cheer them up. But this is really their thing, so basic search engine results aren't going to new to them.
If there's a cool bug fact that you genuinely love, could you tell me? I'll save them to share with my friend over time. 1/n
@ShaulaEvans The inflated coremata of the male Baphomet moth make it look like an alien.
(I recommend doing a separate image search to see ones that are far more impressive than the photo included in the Wikipedia article)
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@camless @futurebird @ShaulaEvans LOL oops, I clicked on that, earworm 🤪
... in the walls
... in the closet
... everywhere
oviposit
... in the stairs
... in the attic
... everywhere
systemic- Me creeping out everyone on the 4 train singing to myself.
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... in the walls
... in the closet
... everywhere
oviposit
... in the stairs
... in the attic
... everywhere
systemic- Me creeping out everyone on the 4 train singing to myself.
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Hey, Fedi. I have a favour to ask you. Help me help a friend. (Not financial!)
I have a friend who is all about cool bug facts. They're going through an intense patch in their life, so I would like to send them some bug facts to cheer them up. But this is really their thing, so basic search engine results aren't going to new to them.
If there's a cool bug fact that you genuinely love, could you tell me? I'll save them to share with my friend over time. 1/n
A fact about a particular bug. Like God, I have an inordinate fondness for beetles*. In particular, Dytiscus.
I dug a small garden pond and was filling it up when there was a whir by my head and a 'plop'.
You guessed it! The first inhabitant of the pond was a Dytiscus
* 'There is a story, possibly apocryphal, of the distinguished British biologist, J.B.S. Haldane, who found himself in the company of a group of theologians. On being asked what one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation, Haldane is said to have answered, “An inordinate fondness for beetles.”'
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Hey, Fedi. I have a favour to ask you. Help me help a friend. (Not financial!)
I have a friend who is all about cool bug facts. They're going through an intense patch in their life, so I would like to send them some bug facts to cheer them up. But this is really their thing, so basic search engine results aren't going to new to them.
If there's a cool bug fact that you genuinely love, could you tell me? I'll save them to share with my friend over time. 1/n
Aphids are born pregnant.
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@afewbugs
Aphids are born pregnant. They are some of the most rapidly multiplying animals. If lady bugs (their primary predator) were to go extinct, we'd be up to our literal asses in aphids in a few months.Also aphids are one of the only animals to have been domesticated by non-human animals, as far as we know. Leaf-cutter ants raise them for food. They don't eat them, but lick their butts, where they secrete a sugary nectar.
@ShaulaEvans -
@ShaulaEvans oh wait! I do have a fav fact. Cicadas are associated with the atua Rehua. His particular sphere of interest is kindness, enjoyment, entertainment. He is the star Antares, and he has two wives who are the stars Alniyat and Tau Scorpii. In the sky they are at the points of a v- shape. Antares rises in the morning during summer. Cicadas appear in summer. One of the cicadas has three dots on its head in the shape of Rehua and his wives.
Okay, so perhaps more indigenous knowledge than a bug fact.
@exlibrarykris @ShaulaEvans no, that's definitely a bug fact
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I don't really know much about butterfly flight, but I'm pretty sure fly flight is entirely based on the shedding of vortices from the wing edges. They make the air very chaotic and somehow (aeronautics is not my field!) get lift from that, and the pulsed vortices make the buzzing sound, as I understand it.
@stevegis_ssg @Akki @KaraLG84 @ShaulaEvans is that anything like why pigeons are so loud and owls are completely silent?
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@ShaulaEvans how about these:
- domestic honeybees have specialized roles at the hive entrance, easiest to see with a slow motion camera. The entrance operates a bit like an airport. There's a bee who frisks incoming bees to confirm that they belong, a bee who sniffs incoming bees like one of those drug dogs to verify pheramone signature, an air traffic control bee who watches inbound and outbound bees, a security bee who leaps into action upon signal from the other bees to kick out intruders and imposters.
- bees have also been shown in studies to possibly be able to: do math, recognize faces, experience ptsd, and play
- the spongy moth was introduced to the US by a guy who was hoping to corner a new silk market, but he lost control of the caterpillars and they became an extremely invasive species there, oops
- not bugs obviously but they might still find this cool: spiders have been found to communicate with each other via drumming
@growfediverse @ShaulaEvans How we learned that bees experience time like humans do:
- teach them that food will be available just outside the hive at the same time every day
- once they've figured that out, move an entire hive from Paris to New York
- bees come looking for the food when it would be available in Paris, not the same time of day in New YorkAnd that's how we learned bees get jet lag.
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@ShaulaEvans planthoppers at a certain stage in their life have gears, like legit mechanical gears, for trochanters (hip joints).
@EthanJMooney @ShaulaEvans wait what
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@stevegis_ssg @Akki @KaraLG84 @ShaulaEvans is that anything like why pigeons are so loud and owls are completely silent?
@WizardOfDocs @Akki @KaraLG84 @ShaulaEvans
Sort of, I think! Owls need to be silent so they evolved feather-shaping mechanisms that suppress vortex-shedding. Pigeons don't, especially, so with cost and no benefit they didn't get them.
