Reminder That One Of The Og Moth Ocs Was Killer Moth, A Flamboyant Batman Villain Who Saw An Article

Reminder that one of the og moth ocs was killer moth, a flamboyant batman villain who saw an article about batman in prison and decided to become his nemesis (if that isn't a little fruity idk what is). Also he had a mothmobile with antennae on the front and a cocoon gun which he used to wrap up his enemies

Top tier character design tbh.

Image sources: wikipedia and DC database

Honourary non-moth post: the peanut-head lanternfly

Sometimes mistakenly called the peanut-head moth, these little fellas are part of the order Hemiptera (true bugs) family Fulgoridae (fulgorid planthoppers).

"But why," you may ask, "are they called peanut-heads?" Let me show you.

Goofy fella #1

Goofy fella #2

These ridiculous false heads are shared by both males and females, so it's not a result of sexual selection. It's theorized that it's to avoid them getting their actual heads bitten off, which if you look at a closeup, is behind the false one:

Oh and btw. Even though they're called lanternflies they don't actually glow in the dark. And Costa Ricans believe they're poisonous and if you get bitten by them you have to have sex at least within the next 24 hours, and by some accounts, immediately.

They are distributed across tropical Mexico, Central and South America. And yeah they're just really strange and cool.

Love love love these spaceship lookin silly guys

Image source: x

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Louis Needs Cancer Surgery, organized by Leonie Bunch

Louis is a 14 year old poodle x papillon x Jim Henson Creature Shop creation living with Leo … Leonie Bunch needs your support for Louis Ne

Miserably, our dog Louis collapsed and was found to have cancer last Monday, the same day there was an unexpected human death in my immediate family. Louis had a cutting edge new surgery to save his life but needs much more help, and we are out of money.

Please read our story and consider sharing, donating or even lending us some funds that we can return down the line. We really aren't able to deal with the fallout of this crisis in any way right now.

there's an end in friend.

there's an over in lover.

there's hell in hello.

there's a lie in believe.

but father and mother?

that's where you find fa(THE)r (MOTH)er.

Natural Selection and the Case of the Peppered Moth

If you're anything like me and you spend a lot of time talking about Interesting Facts and Things to anyone who will listen, you may have heard a slightly warped account of the story of the peppered moth. Maybe someone said something like: "Oh yeah and in England there was this moth that turned black during the industrial revolution due to all the coal dust in the air". Which is... not exactly true.

Let me start the story from the beginning. Before the industrial revolution, peppered moths (Biston betularia) were distributed across England, Europe and North America. They existed in 3 morphs: typica (mostly white), carbonaria (mostly black) and insularia (inbetween). Note: I'm mainly going to talk about the typica and the carbonaria morph here.

Before the industrial revolution, the typica morph was the predominant morph. Peppered moths lived in forests filled with light trees and lots of lichen, a good place for a typica morph to blend in. The carbonaria morphs were living life on hard mode, though. They did not blend in, and were more easily picked out by predators like birds. Below you can see how well a typica morph blends into lichen.

Then the fire nation attacked. Jk, then came the industrial revolution. Factories were pumping out coal fumes into the air, covering forests nearby with coal dust and killing the lichen that grew on them. In these forests, the carbonaria morph blended in better. Predators began to pick out typica morphs more often. And so, carbonaria morphs became the predominant morph in forests near industrialized areas.

Naturalists, noticing this, wanted an adequate answer on why this was happening. In the 1950s Bernard Davis Kettlewell used various methods to test the hypothesis that it was natural selection. And indeed it was. Typica morphs were 2x more likely to be eaten in a polluted forest than carbonaria morphs, and vice versa.

This phenomenon was so common, and observed in many other moth species across industrialized areas, that it was even given a name: industrial melanism.

So there you go. The full story of the peppered moth :)

Oh and I should add that in areas where the effects of industrialization were reversed, the typica morph once again becomes more common.

Sources:

Peppered moths: moth life cycle

Peppered moths: natural selection

Peppered moths: dr ketllewell