Notices by kho (kho@shitposter.club), page 8
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kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Thursday, 28-Sep-2023 04:24:06 JST 
kho
The aptly named Toxic Reef Crab (also referred to as the Devil Crab), Zosimus aeneus, can be so toxic as to kill within a few hours of consumption and has been reported to be used by Pacific Islanders as a means for suicide. This crab's muscles store two of the most lethal toxins— tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin.
These gorgeous crabs are easy on the eyes but be sure to avoid them on the dinner plate. Eating a crab will kill the diner in a matter of hours.
They have evolved excellent camouflage skills, allowing them to blend seamlessly with their rocky reef environments. This adaptation helps them avoid predation by blending into their surroundings.
These crabs are primarily nocturnal, displaying heightened activity during the night. They tend to retreat to their hiding places during the day to minimize exposure to potential predators. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Thursday, 28-Sep-2023 04:24:05 JST
kho
The blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) is known for its color and delicious flavor. The crab's scientific name means "savory beautiful swimmer." While blue crabs do have sapphire blue claws, their bodies are usually duller in color.
Like other decapods, blue crabs have 10 legs. However, their hind legs are paddle-shaped, making blue crabs excellent swimmers. Blue crabs have blue legs and claws and olive to grayish blue bodies. The color comes mainly from the blue pigment alpha-crustacyanin and the red pigment astaxanthin. When blue crabs are cooked, heat deactivates the blue pigment and turns the crab red.
Mating and spawning occur separately. Mating occurs in brackish water during warm months between May and October. Mature males molt and mate with multiple females over their lifespan, while each female undergoes a single molt into her mature form and only mates once. As she nears the molt, a male defends her against threats and other males. Insemination occurs after the female molts, providing her with spermatophores for a year of spawning. The male continues to guard her until her shell hardens. While mature males remain in brackish water, females migrate to high salinity water to spawn. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Thursday, 28-Sep-2023 04:24:05 JST
kho
🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨
Phymata fasciata
This type of assassin bug is a very potent predator. It’s one of the few types of bugs of this genus that can take on prey a few times larger than its 1-inch body.
Bugs of these species are tan or brown. They have a body that appears wrinkly, often confused with leaves or tree bark.
This allows these bugs to remain undetected on flowers or trees where many types of insects approach them unknowingly.
Bugs of the species have a very potent bite.
They often eat powerful large insects such as wasps, hornets, and bees such as bumblebees.
However, these bugs cannot be seen as truly beneficial to any type of habitat as they also eat honeybees. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Sunday, 17-Sep-2023 06:16:42 JST
kho
Common scorpionflies (Panorpidae) is the largest family of scorpionflies, and it is only this family that has the upturned scorpion-like genitalia or 'tail' that gives the order its name. They are brownish yellow and black insects with mottled wings and are found among shaded vegetation and in hedgerows.
They feed on dead or dying insects (including any they might spot in a spider's web) and are also partial to ripe fruit and, when it's available, human sweat.
The adults look somewhat scary but are in fact quite harmless. Common scorpionfly larvae mostly live in soil and look like caterpillars, having eight pairs of feet and sometimes spines.
Panorpid males attract females by vibrating their wings, and may let them feed on their saliva while mating. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Sunday, 17-Sep-2023 06:16:41 JST
kho
Duff millipedes are only rarely observed in natural settings because of their minute size and coloration that blends well with their background. However, periodically duff millipedes will migrate into buildings where they may attract considerable attention. Large numbers of them may show up, sometimes abruptly. Largest invasions of duff millipedes tend to occur most often during hot, dry periods of summer. However, they may be present in homes from the middle of spring into autumn.
They feed on algae, fungi and decaying organic matter. Tree bark is the most common location for most duff millipedes (Figure 3) but they also may occur among fallen leaves and needles and even have been associated with debris within ant nests. Egg fertilization is indirect with the male spinning a small silken mat upon which sperm is deposited. Silk strands guide females which then gather the sperm into their genital opening. The females then lay eggs in the form of a sticky mass that are covered with protective hairs of the body.
Unlike most millipedes the body of duff millipedes is not hardened (calcified) and they lack chemical defenses. Instead they protect themselves by means of the hairs that protrude from the tip of the abdomen. These are hooked and can readily detach when the duff millipede is attacked by an ant, pseudoscorpion or other predator. Attempts to remove the hairs only further entangle the predator and ants may die from an encounter with the hairs of the duff millipede. The hairs are replaced at the next molt and their loss may accelerate the onset of molting. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Sunday, 17-Sep-2023 06:16:41 JST
kho
According to Atlas Obscura, gooseneck barnacles got their name centuries ago when medieval naturalists stumbled upon these claw-like sea creatures and thought they were goose eggs. They witnessed the crustaceans fall into the water and believed baby geese emerged fully formed from the dislodged barnacles.
Barnacles are classified with shrimps, crabs, isopods and amphipods in the subphylum Crustacea. They are included in the class Maxillopoda, though this class does not appear to be a monophyletic grouping.[3] They are included in the infraclass Cirripedia, the barnacles, members of which are sessile suspension feeders with two active swimming larval stages, the nauplius and the cyprid. The order Pedunculata includes barnacles attached to the substrate by stalks, the goose barnacles. The attachment is made by the cementing of the antennules of the cyprid larvae to the substrate and the elongation of that region into a stalk. Pedunculata is not itself a single monophyletic group but forms a transitional series of lineages moving towards the sessile acorn barnacles.
This seafood is among the most expensive in the world and can go for as much as $125 a pound. Toronto Life reports that in Europe, a kilogram of gooseneck barnacles could yield $500. Their price is related to a limited supply and the risk a fisherman must face to obtain this delicacy. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Sunday, 17-Sep-2023 06:16:40 JST
kho
Paper wasps manufacture paper for their nests from tiny fibers exfoliated from exposed, weathered wood. Paper wasps use their mandibles to compress wood fibers into thin sheets, which they use as nest and covering cells. except for the paper wasp, where the cells are not enclosed. Nests built this way are structurally resilient and relatively weather resistant. Inside the nest, the cells along the perimeter are roughly circular, while the inner cells are more hexagonal. The number of cells within a nest depends on the colony size. Nests are usually arranged with the opening facing the bottom or bottom. Paper wasp and Polyvia nests typically contain only one layer of cells.
Once a dominance hierarchy is established within a new colony, the queen bee is responsible for most of the egg laying and subordinates are responsible for caring for the offspring. Worker bees take care of the chicks and are also responsible for growing the nest. The difference between workers and females is that females are produced only in the late stages and workers emerge throughout the reproductive period. In addition, hens are inactive in the nest. Ginkgoes mate before overwintering and, if successful, become spawners for the following season.
Most of the Polistes workers remain in their natal nests and work as helpers. In all but a few species of paper wasps, the female emerges mid-season and acts as a helper until the queen is gone. Significant differences in aid are found among casters of various species of paper wasps. Within Nest, we can see that co-founders are more than 50% related. The degree of relationship between the co-founders may explain the advantage of joining the Nest as a subordinate rather than developing another Nest that is less likely to succeed. Minions provide labor to care for the dominant Founder's descendants, reducing the Founder's mortality rate by taking over the more dangerous gathering work. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Sunday, 17-Sep-2023 06:16:40 JST
kho
🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨
The Brazilian Wandering Spider (Phoneutria fera) is an aggressive and highly venomous spider. It was first discovered in Brazil hence its name. However, this genus is known to exist elsewhere in South and Central America.
The Brazilian wandering spider can grow to have a leg span of up to 4 – 5 inches. They are large hairy spindly-looking spiders who have eight eyes, two of which are large. Brazilian wandering spiders are fast-moving spiders, their legs are strong and spiny and they have distinctive red jaws which they display when angered.
The Brazilian Wandering spider is so-called because it wanders the jungle floor, rather than residing in a lair or maintaining a web. This is another reason it is considered so dangerous. In densely populated areas, the Brazilian Wandering spider will usually search for cover and dark places to hide during daytime, leading it to hide within houses, clothes, cars, boots, boxes and log piles. This usually causes accidents when people disturb them.
The Brazilian Wandering spider is also called the ‘banana spider’ as it is occasionally found within shipments of bananas. As a result, any large spider appearing in a bunch of bananas should be treated with due care. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Sunday, 17-Sep-2023 06:16:39 JST
kho
Alipes grandidieri, most commonly known as the feather-tail centipede, is a species of centipede. It is a member of the genus Alipes and the family Scolopendridae. The genus, Alipes, means "wing-leg". It was first described from Zanzibar, as Eucorybas Grandidieri [sic] by Hippolyte Lucas in 1864.
It has distinctive, elongated ultimate legs with laterally-flattened pads on the distal portions, resembling feathers. When threatened they will shake these legs and make a hissing sound. The body is 10–15 cm long.
If you are bitten by a Feather-Tail Centipede, prepare for the following consequences (we warn you, they are not deadly). Stings can be extremely painful and take a long time (1-2 days) to heal. The main symptoms that can be revealed right after the sting are a sharp and persistent pain; it can be insignificant or be a 10 on a scale of the pain of 1 to 10. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Sunday, 17-Sep-2023 06:16:38 JST
kho
Athropod of today!!!!!!!
Water strider legs are covered in thousands of microscopic hairs scored with tiny groves. As reported in National Geographic, “These groves trap air, increasing water resistance of the water’s striders legs and overall buoyancy of the insect.”
The water skipper’s legs are so buoyant they can support fifteen times the insect’s weight without sinking. Even in a rainstorm, or in waves, the strider stays afloat.
If a water strider’s legs go underwater, it’s very difficult for them to push to the surface.
Their legs are more buoyant than even ducks’ feathers. The strider’s legs do more than repel water; they’re also configured to allow efficient and rapid movement across the surface.
As with all insects, the water strider has three pairs of legs. The front legs are much shorter, and allow the strider to quickly grab prey on the surface. The middle legs act as paddles. The back legs are the longest and provide additional power, and also enable the strider to steer and “brake.”
The buoyancy and paddling legs allows striders to be fast. Very, very fast. The National Geographic article reports striders are capable of “speeds of a hundred body lengths per second. To match them, a 6-foot-tall person would have to swim at over 400 miles an hour.” -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Sunday, 17-Sep-2023 06:16:38 JST
kho
Crap I forgot to post this here again --- Arthropod of yesterday!!
Fen Raft Spider -
Also known as the Great Raft spider, this European species is found mostly in the United Kingdom.
According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, this species is vulnerable because there are only three populations of the Fen spider known in Suffolk, East Sussex, and near Swansea.
Great Raft spiders are among Britain’s largest, colored in brown or black with creamy or yellow bands along the abdomen. They have hairy legs to help them move along the surface of the water and can use them to catch fish and tadpoles. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Sunday, 17-Sep-2023 06:16:37 JST
kho
Owlflies are one of the "ugly ducklings" of insects. The grotesque larvae are voracious predators in leaf litter and on trees. They sit and wait for prey to stray in between their oversize mandibles, seizing them and feeding on the body liquids within. The adults are elegant strong-flying insects which are sometimes confused with dragonflies.
Adult owlflies can be distinguished from other lacewings and similar insects by the long antennae (almost as long as the wing length) which have a large often bi-coloured club at the tip. As with most other lacewings the wing veins fork where they meet the margin of the wing.
Larvae are similar to antlion larvae, but are usually more flattened, and do not build pits to capture prey. The sides of the larval body have finger-like lateral processes on both thorax and abdomen. The mandibles have more than one large tooth on the inner margin.
Both adults and larvae are predators. Adults hawk flying insects in much the same way that dragonflies do. Larvae are sit and wait predators of many invertebrates, although they will move in response to nearby movement of potential prey to assist in prey capture. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Friday, 08-Sep-2023 00:46:35 JST
kho
@vriska this post has inspired my arthropod of the day 🏆 -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Friday, 08-Sep-2023 00:43:50 JST
kho
🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨
The Spiny Flower Mantis-
This species of flower mantis is white with green stripes on the legs. The eyes are purple, depending on the light conditions this can vary from lilac to deep purple. As nymphs these mantids have an orange spot on the upside of the abdomen which scares away predators by mimicking an eye. As adults they have wings with a black and yellow ‘swirl’ on them, also mimicking an eye. If you threaten a spiny flower mantis, it will put its wings upwards to show the two eyes. The thinner wings that are under the top wings are bright yellow. The spiny flower mantis is very beautiful and spectacular.
This species is cannibalistic, like most species of praying mantis. It will eat anything that moves and is the correct size, also members of its own species or family members. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Thursday, 07-Sep-2023 02:48:58 JST
kho
True velvet mites are small, velvety, usually bright red mites often seen creeping around on rocks, planters, tree trunks, or on the ground, especially after a rain. They are harmless to people.
Like most other arachnids, the adults of true velvet mites have eight legs, which readily distinguishes them from insects, which have six legs. However, in their tiny, larval stage, velvet mites have six legs — but you will probably only see them attached to an insect or other arthropod.
Also, true velvet mites, like other mites, have only one obvious body section; the mouthparts look like they’re stuck onto the overall egg-shaped body. In contrast, insects have three body parts (head, thorax, and abdomen) and spiders have two (cephalothorax and abdomen).
True velvet mites and their relatives begin as eggs, which hatch into a form called a prelarva, which molts into successive larval, nymphal (protonymph, deutonymph, tritonymph), and adult forms. Several of these stages are inactive: the egg, the prelarva, the protonymph, and the tritonymph, the latter two being something like the pupae of insects. The stages that are active are the larval stage, where the mite is an external parasite on insects or arachnids, and the deutonymph and adult stages, which are free-living. The adults eat the eggs of insects, or insects. The adults mate and produce eggs for the next generation. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Thursday, 07-Sep-2023 02:48:58 JST
kho
The pea aphid is a pest of legume crops including, peas, clovers, and alfalfa. Heavy populations may develop when insecticides used to kill other alfalfa pests and with little to no activity against aphids kill the predators and parasites of this aphid.
Pea aphid is about 1/6 inch (4 mm) long and ranges in color from light to dark green. Prolonged periods of cool temperatures [50°F to 60°F (10°C to 15.5°C)] and dry conditions are conducive to the development of pea aphid populations.
Up to twenty generations develop during the season. The entire life cycle takes about 12 days. Populations can increase rapidly since each female can produce 50 to 100 nymphs.
You might not think much about pea aphids, but it turns out they've got skills enough to get aerospace engineers excited. A report in the February 4th issue of Current Biology shows that the insects can free fall from the plants they feed on and—within a fraction of a second—land on their feet every time. Oftentimes, the falling aphids manage to cling to a lower part of the plant by their sticky feet on the way down, avoiding the dangerous ground altogether.
That's despite the fact that most aphids in a colony are wingless and have no special body surfaces to turn themselves right-side up. Rather, high-speed video analysis shows that they hold their bodies and limbs in a special posture, which allows them to passively rotate and then stay in a back-up, feet-down position. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Thursday, 07-Sep-2023 02:48:57 JST
kho
Pea crabs (Pinnotheres ostreum) or oyster crabs (Zaops ostreus) are small soft-bodied crabs that live in bivalves such as oysters and mussels. They are kleptoparasites, which means they steal food from their host to survive. Once they enter an oyster, they live inside the oyster's gills and feed on the food that filters in. Since both crabs behave similarly, we will refer to both generally as "pea crabs."
Pea crabs find their oyster hosts very early on when both are still larvae. The crabs spawn a month after the oysters, which allows them to find oyster spat settled out of the water column. Pea crabs are free-swimming in the early stages to seek out their oyster hosts, but males remain free-swimming for life to find mates from oyster to oyster. Once female larvae find their hosts, they remain there until maturity and lay their eggs inside. That's why you may find more than one pea crab in an oyster. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Thursday, 07-Sep-2023 02:48:56 JST
kho
The tongue-eating louse—Cymothoa exigua—is one of the most disgusting parasites known to man. The louse is found in the Gulf of California and enters its host (the spotted rose snapper) through the fins. Several male lice enter the fish at once and then one of these will develop into a female. The female will then travel to the host’s mouth where it attaches to the base of the tongue. The organ’s blood supply is cut off, causing it to die and detach.
Now the parasite acts as the fish’s tongue by binding to the remaining muscle. It feeds off the host’s blood and also algae and mucus that it collects in its mouth. And what about the other lice? Well, they remain in the fish’s gill chamber and may occasionally leave their new home to mate with the female. The host fish is able to live with the parasite for years and apart from the obvious damage to the tongue, it remains relatively unharmed. The tongue-eating louse is the only known parasite that replaces an organ of its host. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Sunday, 03-Sep-2023 00:42:24 JST
kho
Agrius convolvuli, the convolvulus hawk-moth, is a large hawk-moth. It is common throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, partly as a migrant.
Its favourite time is around sunset and during the twilight, when it is seen in gardens hovering over the flowers. This moth is very attracted to light, so it is often killed by cars on highways. Its caterpillars eat the leaves of the Convolvulus, hence its Latin name "convolvuli". Other recorded food plants include a wide range of plants in the families Araceae, Convolvulaceae, Leguminosae and Malvaceae. It can be a pest of cultivated Ipomoea batatas (sweet potato or kūmara) in New Zealand and the Pacific. It feeds on the wing and has a very long proboscis (longer than its body) that enables it to feed on long trumpet-like flowers such as Nicotiana sylvestris. -
kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Saturday, 02-Sep-2023 04:01:31 JST
kho
🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨
Camel spiders, which aren’t spiders at all, are creatures swirled in myth, legend, and viral fame. There are over 1,000 different species of camel spiders. These creatures are actually different members of the arachnid family, in the order Solifugae, but are neither spiders or scorpions. They are also known as “solifuges,” “sun spiders,” and “wind scorpions.”
The largest species of solifugae family can reach up to 6 in. long, including legs. They superficially resemble spiders, but appear to have five pairs of legs. In reality, the first “legs” are actually pedipalps, which are small extensions near the mouth that are used to aid in feeding. These creatures have incredibly long mouthparts, called chelicerae. Each chelicera has a crab-like pincer on the end, which is used for tearing hair and feathers from carrion.
Depending on the species, some camel spiders are carnivores and some are omnivores. The vast majority of species prey on termites, beetles, and other insects and arthropods. Larger species will feed on larger prey. As opportunistic feeders they will eat virtually anything they can capture. Some uncommon but recorded prey includes snakes, small rodents, lizards, and more.
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