Waterskippers mostly communicate through constellations. Here, they form the image of the Apollo command module detaching from the service module, as they ask about humanity’s recovery plans for after we destroy our habitat.
Category Archives: Insect
Caterpillar
Bee
Bee
Bullet Headed Ant
Jade Headed Buffalo Beetle
Dicrocoelium dendriticum is a parasite that lays eggs to infect snails. Once a snail becomes infected, it protects itself by forming cysts and expelling them. This is good for the snail and for the parasite because these cysts are the yummiest things an ant has ever tasted. Once the ant eats a cyst and gets infected, the parasite gets into the ant’s brain. The ant brain takeover forces the ant to climb tall blades of grass and hang out all night. When day comes, this hold is released, so the parasite doesn’t bake in the sun along with the ant. Eventually, the grass is eaten and the parasite infects a large animal which then expels the parasite’s eggs in its dung … which are eaten by snails.
The Jade Headed Buffalo Beetle, of course, knows nothing about this and just really really likes its blade of grass.
Giant Spiny Leaf Insect (Heteropteryx dilatata)
Suppose you’re in insect. Your eggs need to be kept under 25 C to hatch, but you don’t want to bother with actually moving them out of the sun or finding a good home for them. What do you?
If you’re a giant spiny lead insect, you’ll coat your eggs in lipids and fling them all over the forest to ants to eat. They’ll find the eggs, carry them to their nest, eat the outer layer and then ditch them in their trash pile … which is kept under 25 C. Then your babies will hatch out, think “WFT? Where am I?”, find their way out and scamper up the nearest tree.
You may not think she’s the greatest mother, but as you can see, she’s punk and doesn’t care about your opinion.
Giant Water Bug (Abedus herberti)
Giant Water Bug (Abedus herberti)
African Scarab Beetle / Sun Beetle
Atlas Beetle (Chalcosoma atlas)
Jade Headed Buffalo Beetle (Eudicella smithi)
Bee
Atlas Beetle (Chalcosoma atlas)
Atlas Beetle (Chalcosoma atlas)
Bee
Violin Mantid (Gongylus gongylodes)
According to Wikipedia, “This species are a communal species in that they live and breed in large groups without unnecessary cannibalism.” This means that someone, somewhere, has defined “necessary cannibalism”.