Heres A Gnat Ogre (Holocephala), A Small Robber Fly That Is Indeed The Bane Of Smaller Flies Like Gnats

here’s a gnat ogre (Holocephala), a small robber fly that is indeed the bane of smaller flies like gnats and midges. not much escapes the detection of those big round eyes

I had a careful read of the full text (without spoiling myself of any other entries) from the Aberdeen Bestiary... All I'll say is at least the author calls out 'ill-humoured' husbands too, but phrases like 'You emit a foul venom in the midst of your wifely embrace' are not making me massively positively inclined towards them...

Also, OMG the portholes...! 🤣

Bestiaryposting Results: Rabyeang

This one's posting a few hours later than usual, because due to various circumstances, we ended up recording an episode of the podcast this evening, so I didn't have time to get to it until now.

Anyway, odd and somewhat uncomfortable entry, some parts of it seem clear though. Genuinely interested to see what comes up because I haven't gotten around to checking in on it until right this moment.

Anyone who isn't sure what I'm talking about can find out at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting.

The entry our artists are working from can be found here:

If you want to join in on drawing the next one, that entry can be found here:

Art is below the cut in the order in which it was posted.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) decided to go with an aquatic creature to make it easier for it to interact with lampreys, specifically a shark because they give live birth. I think the post here is pretty great, and including a lamprey is quite nice actually. Extremely cool-looking all around -- I encourage anyone reading this to check the linked post for a more detailed description of what's going on here and how the artist reached this design.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has drawn two snakes in the act of twining around each other as the female bites the male's head off. Kind of like a caduceus that's gone wrong somehow. Going in a snake direction makes sense, and the entwined pose I think makes it work. They have also included a rather cute bonus sketch in the linked post along with the explanation of their design, which I encourage y'all to check out. (Also thank you for providing alt text.)

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has made a very eye-catching but also somewhat... worrying creature by taking inspiration from Surinam toads and orchid mantises. The way those two inspirations are merged is really clever, I think, and as usual I love the medieval-inspired style. This is a creature I appreciate in drawing form but would probably find quite off-putting in real life, which I think is a sign of good design. (Also, thank you for providing alt text.)

That's it this time around, I'm afraid -- this particular entry doesn't seem to have sparked inspiration in many people. (Understandable.) So let's check in with the Aberdeen Bestiary.

So, as I'm sure you've all guessed from the highly accurate illustration, this is the viper.

(I'm getting increasingly curious about what the deal is with this very specific head design you see on so many medieval creatures.)

So yeah, the bit with the lamprey is presumably complicated by the fact that one is an aquatic creature and the other terrestrial -- breath is going to be a concern, at the very least.

I think knowing it's a viper explains a lot of the entry: in the medieval metaphorical space, a viper is of course Very Wicked, so they really run with that here.

I wasn't aware vipers gave live birth, so I Googled it (apparently they do), and interestingly one of the top results was this Quora post:

Quora

Do vipers eat their way out of the mother?

Answer (1 of 5): No, they don't. While matriphagy (eating the mother) does exist as a survival strategy in nature, it is confined to certai

So apparently elements of this are still hanging around, if someone is asking on the Internet whether vipers really eat their way out of the mother. Also interestingly, the answer makes note of other medieval myths about vipers, including both the head-biting and the lamprey thing. (And also one that female vipers look human above the waist, which is a new one by me.) Instructional.

[ Argentinosaurus, a giant sauropod, illustrated by Chase Stone. ]

"Of all the animals ever to have roamed the planet, the iconic long-necked, long-tailed dinosaurs known as sauropods stand unrivaled. No other terrestrial creatures have come close to attaining their colossal sizes. They overshadowed all other dinosaurs, from the duck-billed hadrosaurs and the horned ceratopsians to the armored ankylosaurs and predatory tyrannosaurs. Even the mightiest land mammals—mammoths and rhinoceroslike beasts that were up to twice as heavy as the largest elephants alive today—were featherweights compared with the biggest sauropods. From an evolutionary perspective, this singularity makes sauropods an intriguing anomaly. Evolution is rampant with examples of convergence, in which the same feature evolves more than once independently in different groups of organisms. A classic example of convergence is powered flight—flapping wings evolved in birds, bats, pterosaurs and insects, but the particular bones or other structures making up the wings differ among the groups, attesting to their independent evolutionary origins. Convergence in evolution is very common even when it comes to complicated features: warm-bloodedness, eyes that can move and focus, bipedal locomotion, the loss of limbs, the use of tools, and live birth all evolved multiple times in different animal groups. Convergence is widespread in the plant kingdom as well: carnivorous plants evolved at least a dozen times, roots evolved more than once, and even arborescence—plants taking the form of trees—evolved more than once. With convergence so common in nature, sauropods' uniqueness in size is special in itself. No other land animal has approached even a third of the largest sauropods' weight. What makes sauropods stand out from the crowd, both literally and figuratively?"

Read more: "How Sauropod Dinosaurs Became the Biggest Land Animals Again and Again" by Michael D. D'Emic.

“ACES BELONG AT PRIDE”

a PSA for the naysayers and encouragement for those who need it. mostly the latter rather than the former, but for those who needed the PSA:

you’re welcome.

※ photos taken May 2018 at Tokyo Rainbow Pride. see more at queerascat.com.

Stop idolizing the grind and start idolizing Hügelkultur

BIG LOVE! BIG CHALLENGES!