Creacher Feature Friday - Tumblr Posts

Footnote: Might recognize this? Feel like seeing more? This is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing both lil series!

Creacher feature friday 1: Let’s talk ladybug 🐞 STDS

That’s right! Oh, you thought the there was somehow an animal phylum that could get into risk-free unprotected hanky panky left and right as they pleased? Think again!

So, why focus on ladybugs? Turns out they’re one of the most promiscuous types of insect out there, like, insanely so, and in being.. that and also swarming our rosebushes every summer, they have notified me of a fun example to share.

Let’s kick off with the reveal of my third favorite parasitic fungus, and the only one I’ve actually been lucky enough to see a case of in person: Hesperomyces virescens

This species is one of quite a few actually that really likes to hang out on the exoskeletons of hard-bodied beetles. It mainly transmits between hosts during the shell-to-shell contact during mating. Predictably so, infected male ladybirds will often end up with a case in their underside, while females will usually catch it on their backs and heads. The success of this disease in their populations makes a lot of sense when you keep in mind that ladybirds go at it for anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 entire hours once they find a partner. Two-spot ladybirds have even been reported to be able to engage in copulation for up to around 8 hours on few occasions. And quantity is just as accounted for as quality. Many breeds of ladybug will mate multiple times in a single day, with the females laying eggs several times over the season. Makes you wonder how they have time for anything else, but yes, back to this fungus-

It’s actually not particularly harmful to them in most mild-moderate cases, but it can cause trouble if a really bad infestation damages their eyes or wings. It also technically lives inside the beetle’s own blood once contracted, but emerges on the outside into these contagious (thankfully not to us) yellow patches. Here’s some good photo examples I snatched off of the Google:

Yeesh, this little hardshell horndog seems to have gotten it pretty rough, my respects.

So yeah, just another thing that happens sometimes. My conclusion- awful as human STIs can be I’m just glad that yeast is about the only sort of fungus we gotta look out for in that respect, and not mushrooms in our blood and sprouting out where the sun won’t shine.

Tune in next week, and maybe we will have a chance for a part two where I can get into that OTHER sexually transmitted fungus that hijacks the brains of male cicadas and makes them bottom for other males. You know, neat stuff; Till next time!

Footnote: This is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing both lil series!

Creacher Feature Friday 2: Ode to the Opossum

Oh, you marvelous, misaligned, misunderstood marsupial, how I salute you~

Introducing a classic North American underdog and everyone’s favorite garbage gobbler, the Virginia Opossum! Not, of course, to be confused with the Australian common possum.

Ngl, the more I’ve come to learn about these funky lil fellas throughout my years, the more they solidify their spot as my favorite animal, but also the more their bad rep absolutely befuddles me.

Going by the pop culture representation of the poor things you would think they were just rat-tailed raccoons. But they’re so flipping unique and underrated.

Getting the obvious out of the way, not ratty at all! Not even remotely rodent. That’s all pouch-baring marsupial, baby, like kangaroos and bandicoots and mongooses. They’re also the ONLY marsupial native to the United States. And just like the cobra-eating mongoose, they also happen to share a high resistance to snake venom! We love them down in the south where they’re a fearless and very successful predator of copperheads, water moccasins, and rattlesnakes. They also help keep Lyme disease in check each year. They rarely catch it and/because they eat most ticks that latch onto them, making them not a key reservoir species for the pathogen.

You know what else they love eating? Slugs and snails the sorts that otherwise wreck gardens left unchecked. They call them rabid pests? Why, opossums are straight up free pest control! And the “rabid” thing is the most ridiculous part.

Like, can someone seriously, please tell me how on earth THIS little guy becoming the poster boy for rabies jokes makes any ounce of sense? I mean, other than for the hilarious irony when you realize a little known fact:

Virginia opossums have a natural resistance to contracting the rabies virus, too. No joke. They’re probably near the very bottom of the list of animals you’d have to fear the disease from. While any mammal certainly can become rabid, it’s phenomenally rare for opossums be reported as active carriers of rabies, and this comes down to the simple trait that is their curiously low body temperature.

Most mammals like to keep their innards in a cozy range of about 97°F to 104°F (~36 °C to 40°C), the Virginia Opossum enjoys a comfortable homeostasis all the way down to about 94°F (~ 34 °C). As luck would have it for them, rabies has a hard time being able to incubate at such a low temperature under normal circumstances.

Got a hunch, but maybe the “vicious/rabid” stereotype comes from the way they act when humans do happen to encounter them up close. They’re horribly near-sighted, slow moving little wanderers (big reason they get roadkilled so often), so they don’t really have fleeing in their set of options when facing down a threat. When an opossum gets frightened, the first thing they know to do is…. Bluff. Open up their mouths real wide and hiss and growl as convincingly scary as they can manage. I think it looks really goofy tbh, like

“:V”

The thing being, while this is pretty a intimidating act, it’s not much anything more than that. I’ve never actually learned about a wild mammal LESS willing to commit to defending itself. They’re complete cowards that seldom ever attack or bite people. There’s videos out there of professionals being able to handle wild females WITH babies on board and the things never actually go for a bite.

And this is mostly because their plan B after the bluff isn’t working out is, well… you know, playing possum. It’s not even something they choose to do. It’s actually an involuntary reflex due to shock. They curl up, keep that mouth wide open, and basically pass out on the spot. To make the corpse audition even more “convincing” they additionally secret a foul odor from their anal glands, so they can smell as dead as they look. The hope is that whatever was spooking them so badly just looses its appetite and moves on, leaving the opossum unscathed.

⚠️Important note that this is of course NOT an endorsement to try your luck for yourself by picking up or petting the first one you see. No wild animals are 100% predictable, especially when cornered, and even if these are relatively docile, dealing with them should be left to the licensed professionals (who do still wear gloves when they do, just in case) and any kind of unnecessary contact is going to be extremely stressful to them. We understood? Ok 👍🏻

Really, unless you’re a chicken farmer there’s really no reason to be so darn afraid of them. All they mostly do is just bumble along trying to mind their own business. Look at these super moms, mad respect.

This is seriously what they do for a while after the babies are too big to chill in here pouch, and it makes me smile very widely.

Not to mention the babies themselves are drop-dead adorable. Check out this lil punk and his fingerless gloves! This teeny silly billy and his prehensile tail?

Stupendous and gorgeous. Hats off to the common opossum, please keep being yourselves. We know you’re trying your best.

And that will be all until next Friday. I promise, pinky out and everything, I will definitely fill you in by then on the whole “mind-control fungus that turns cicadas into bisexual zombies” thing I mentioned last time. Just sit tight.

Footnote: Seen this before? Feel like seeing more? This is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing both lil series! Another reason to bring this back was because since I let this particular write-up one rip, one of y'all @poor-reconstruction off-handedly mentioned something in the tags and I haven't been able to go more than a week or two since without thinking about it. So I have no choice but to subject more people to the horrors of knowledge now.

Creacher Feature Friday 3: Mushrooms that Turn the Fricken’ BUGS Gay!!

Let’s have a bit of real talk for a second. The fungi kingdom is… weird. Really, really weird. Borderline alien weird, to me, least, relative to the rest of this planet. People kind of slot them in their minds somewhere next to plants as the default for the superficial resemblance, but in a lot of fundamental ways they’re actually way closer of a comparison to bacteria or animals.

I collect parasitoid wasps as a hobby, and the concept of fungi, especially the more microscopic sorts, still personally freaks me out, in that kind of “this feels like a far fetched sci-fi idea but somehow is just casually a part of the mundane world” way. And know, I’m glad it seems that modern writers and media seem are catching up and agreeing with that sentiment. Resident Evil 7 and Discover My Body both tapped into the horror potential of mycelium with amazing results, and cordyceps (the infamous “ant zombie” mushrooms) straight up inspired the entire premise of the Last of Us.

And as interesting as the cordyceps group is, i think by now enough people have given their own 2 cents and reaction to what they do and how they hijack host behavior in order to propagate; well, how’d you feel if I instead stepped in to tell you they actually aren’t quite so special, exotic, or even a fluke? What if there was another, even more stranger-than-fiction, parasitic spore potentially prowling temperate backyards, and you never even knew it?

Strap in, and get ready to get learnt all about the bane of periodical cicadas, and appropriately named Massospora cicadina!

Graphic sourced by Wikipedia

So in breaking some of this down, I need to let you know something neat about cicadas themselves first.

There’s thousands of individual species and they are broadly categorized into one of two groups: the annual cicadas, which emerge and reproduce along a unsynchronized yearly cycle, being spotted each spring-summer in parts of North America, and then there’s the periodical cicadas. This handful developmentally synchronizes within their own species and live a surprisingly long time, spending most of their lives as underground nymphs and then emerging only once in over a decade! 13/17 years about, depending on the variety. Now there’s a cool bug fact.

Since they line up their development to have effectively the entire population emerge and breed at the same time, it follows that they make massive swarms when the occasion arrives. It’s a reproductive strategy formally called Predator satiation and it works like this: “well they can’t eat all of us!” I.e. Safety in overwhelming numbers without giving their predators a large enough window to accommodate the boom by also reproducing and swelling their own population in turn. While this few and so far in between baby-boom strategy is fantastic at outpacing predation, you know what it’s vulnerable to?

Sexually transmitted fungus. Massospora cicadina happens to be a very picky pathogen, and so it specializes to only target these periodical cicadas rather than annual ones.

My mutuals might have already caught on that this is a bit of a sequel to my first Creacher Feature piece I wrote up, about promiscuous ladybugs and their own relationship with a similar, mostly cosmetic, but not that detrimental “STF”.

That benign organism doesn’t have shit on Massospora cicadina. This stuff almost makes cordyceps look tame by comparison.

Once a cicada contracts these spores, either through the act of mating or by contact with contaminated soil as unlucky nymph, it’s game set and match for that bug. Situated inside the abdomen of an adult specimen, the pathogen gets straight to work just underneath the surface, quietly hollowing out the insect’s abdomen and replacing once healthy organs and reproductive equipment with little more than a big, chalky mass of nothing but more fungus. The cicada’s own genitals and terminal body segments, useless to the infection’s goals, will fall off entirely, which means that the host is rendered completely sterile.

Though, this won’t stop them from still trying to mate with healthy cicadas, in fact, more than the opposite. Once pieces of the abdomen begin to fall away they will reveal the fungal “plug” to be able to spread spores in the cicada’s wake as it drags along the ground, looking something like this

^ As I call ‘em, Nature’s Forbidden salt shaker✨

To help encourage even further reach, Massospora cicadina will also crank up the host’s drive to breed even higher, with a creative twist that makes males particularly effective spore spreaders. In typical courtship, a male cicada uses his singing as a way of attracting females, who then signal their receptiveness by doing a flicking sort of gesture with their wings. Males infected with a parasitic fungus will actually mimic this behavior, actively inviting other male cicadas to mount them, even while they themselves are also still seeking to copulate with any available females. Eventually, this host is basically left a shambling husk, only serving to pass along the contagion to both members of either sex, all while its own innards are still sloughing and flaking out of its underside. Indeed, it will continue to be this up until it finally succumbs and dies. Cicadina’s evolution seriously decided “what if we did Syphilis, but also zombies?”

Now I’d like to see a screenwriter with some balls give a crack at getting a THAT concept greenlit for a large production, but also not really that sounds… EuGH, if you know what I’m saying. But also hilarious.

“Witness the terror of the living dead as you never have before! Horny Rabies, swarming into theaters this summer! Rated PG-13“

If there’s any further thoughts I have aside from the potential jokes, it’s that this is really another one of those fascinating things to rather be respected than only feared at the end of the day (unless you’re a cicada which, sucks for you I guess). Even for a strategy as crafty and potentially destructive as an insect’s 17-year periodic spawns, nature does find a way, no matter how bizarre, to keep its systems in check from being overwhelmed. But damn if I’m not glad there’s no equivalent pathogen specialized for our neck of the evolutionary tree.

Until next week, don’t be afraid to offer up some suggestions for future rambling!

Footnote: Recognize this? Feel like reading some more? Well, here is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing both series!

Creacher Feature Friday 4: Ligers, Tigons, and Mules, oh my! A Cursory Look at Sterile Hybrids

I’m supposing it’s safe to assume most of the human population knows what a mule is, pretty visible concept. Take a horse and a donkey, let ‘em have a tumble in the hay, and out comes something that’s a bit of both species, but still something pretty different, they can’t themselves reproduce. If you understand that much, then you’re already walking in with a little bit of baseline knowledge of a phenomenon known as hybrid incompatibility.

Now, animals can be incompatible to each other as hybrids in a whole list of ways because of the broadness of the term. It doesn’t exactly mean that two different species cannot produce offspring together, but it encompasses any case where two different species mate and produce an offspring that suffers from a reduced fitness as compared to its parents- Fitness in this context of course meaning the ability of an animal to thrive and reproduce in its environment, so that can include anything from a pure genetical problem to just the mixing of traits not being as well suited to a habitat as the parent’s more specialized adaptations. Very often, though, a downgrade will take the form of the offspring just outright having a reduced or eliminated fertility. Like the mule, like the liger, many hybrids simply dead-end their lines just by virtue of being unable to continue mating and reproducing. That’s what applies to the critters what I want to get into today. Without further ado, here’s a whacky little list I got of some worthy mentions I find MUCH cooler than mules.

*Side Note: the actual mechanics for how hybrid sterility happens is something that comes down to DNA and is to put it lightly, freaking complicated, and ultimately (like most boxes we try to apply to nature) is more of a messy spectrum than a strict is/is not binary. There are actual freak cases of mules that have managed to be the exception to the rule, believe it or not. But as a general it applies to broadly call them, and the following examples of sterile hybrids. Just a thing to keep in mind!

• Ligers and Tigons

Whether through word or mouth, actual articles, or some old animal planet shows, ligers are probably one of the most well-known “exotic” hybrids because of the attention they started getting in zoos that managed to breed them. And yeah, they’re pretty cool. For obvious reasons they only exist in captivity, and they’re the direct result of a male lion mating with a female tiger. Tigons, on the vise versa other hand, are a hybrid between a male tiger and a female lion. You wouldn’t think that would make such a huge difference, but it really does. For one, there’s some noticeable differences in the offspring’s mane (in males) and the pattern of their coat. Personally I find Tigons much more gorgeous than their counterpart on this front.

Second, ligers are absolute units. Not just compared to tigons, but compared to big cats in general. They very typically grow much larger than either of their parents, reaching lengths of about 10-12 feet and easily being able to clock in at weights of over 900 pounds on average. You wanna talk about “chonkers”?

Yeah. Yeah.

It’s not particularly a great thing either and it makes them especially controversial to create. Basically, they don’t inherit key growth-limiting genes from a lioness that a pure cub would, but they are carrying a now completely unrestrained growth-encouraging gene from the male lion parent. It essentially causes all ligers to be born with a form of gigantism, which can predispose them to a bunch of health complications. Tigons still have their own issues as well, which is a predictable enough fact considering this is more or less parallel to some of those “because we can” designer dog mutts.

Something tigons and ligers do share is that all males of either case are born completely sterile. Females, however, have been on some occasions able to produce second generation hybrids, which is a whole can of worms on itself once you start getting into Titagons, Tiligers, Litigons, Liligers… real things by the way. This is a problematic lasagna with many strange layers, indeed. Personally, I’d just steer clear of any institution that intentionally interbreeds big cats in ways like this, and leave it at that.

• Hybrid Iguanas

Hey look, an example that was actually found happening in the wild! There’s a rarity alright. So, there are a handful of iguana species native to the Galápagos Islands. Three of them are terrestrial, and one is the impressively unique marine iguana- the only modern seafaring lizard species, in fact. I’ll give them their own Friday feature one day but anyway. Typically, the land and sea iguanas don’t have much of an overlap in breeding season or territory, but there was a curious incident we discovered on the South Plaza island back in 80s-90s.

Marine Amblyrhynchus cristatus (top left), the land-dwelling Conolophus subcristatus (top right), and a hybrid offspring of the two species (bottom)

At the time, see, the Galapagos were going through a pretty intense round of warm tropical cycles that caused a substantial loss of seabed kelp surrounding the islands. Since this is what makes up almost the entirely of the marine iguana’s diet, it led to an epidemic of scarce pickings among their species. Many of them starved off, but others, including the more aggressive, explorative, in-season males, started encroaching inland out of desperation for food. And this, along with the south island’s generally small size, is the main posed explanation for the dozens of hybrid land-sea iguanas that have been spotted on the strip over the years. Genetic testing has shown them to be the result of male marine lizards and female land iguanas, specifically, and though our knowledge could still change in the future, these hybrids are also assumed to be sterile first gens, which would explain why we don’t see many of them at once when we do.

• Commercial Bananas

Come on, you know I Just had to throw a plant in with the lot. They’d feel left out otherwise after I dedicated two of the last 3 write ups to fungus. There’s a number of crops that could have gotten this mention, but nanners is a funny word, so here’s the spill. We royally fucked up banana genetics a long time ago in their domestication. Every, single, banana you have ever grabbed out of the produce section of your local grocery is an asexual clone unfit for wild survival. They’re hybrids, too. Specifically, nearly all domestic varieties can trace a lineage back to a crossing between Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana, originally two wild natives to South Asia. One of which just had some unappetizing flesh and the other was too chock flipping full of seeds for human preferences, real big seeds. It’s not really even recognizable as a “banana” to us now. See what I mean.

Well, the good news was that the offspring of the two, by some random miracle, produces fruit that was just culinarily superior in every single way to either of the parents’. It was effectively seedless, tastier, more vibrant, more nutrient packed, more “banana” if you will. The bad news was that these seedlings were completely sterile. Oops…unless👀?

The game changing good news 2.0 was that farmers realized they could still be easily propagated into genetically identical new plants off of cuttings from the original hybrids. And that’s how we got to the current state of commercial bananas. Personal confession, I still can’t freaking stand the smell, taste, or texture of them either way. Never have, never will, but maybe some of you can feel an appreciation for this happy little accident of agriculture that I cant.

I had some more examples to add onto the list that came up in my research, like Zebra-donkey/horse mixes, but I think I’m pretty comfortable with the length of this for the week. Perhaps I’ll give it a second part in the future. Until then, peace~

Footnote: Heya, Feel like seeing more ramblings like this? Here is my current blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing both lil series further on!

Creacher Feature Friday 5: I’m Utterly Terrified of Moose and You Should Be Too

I have noticed, on occasion that some people, even avid animal lovers, can still have that one critter that just gives them a passive comic dread. And I don’t mean the normal “spiders scary” or “rodents have gross vibes” gut reactions that society virtually conditions into anyone, I’m talking about the “I know way too much of this animal for my own good” kind of irrational, obscure fear. An organism that has a trivia card that makes you feel like you had some kind of innocence robbed from you ever since the knowledge was allowed to permeate into your prefrontal wrinkles, laying their dastardly seeds of hyper-specific heebies and jeebies.

I’m not gonna pretend you didn’t read the title, so I’ll cut to the chase for the tea I’m about to spill about these utter beasts of the North.

Everyone for years has always been “do X to avoid/survive grizzlies” this or “watch out for cougars” that but DON’T let the framing of Bambi or The Land Before Time Make you overlook the one thing that makes the largest wolves and even brown bears look almost harmless: the herbivore that must be ready to defend itself against them at the drop of a hat.

By the numbers alone, moose are responsible for more injuries and deaths annually than grizzlies and Timberwolves combined.

Despite being another (the largest) member of the deer family, these things are no freaking whitetail. Throw away everything you have come to understand about smaller deer if you find yourself in the presence of a moose. For one, they largely do not have a strong baseline fear of human beings like more common deer would. In the temperate US and beyond, deer are more known to just immediately flee the area if an ant farts 5 feet away. Moose give z e r o fucks about your presence until you give them a reason to. And this in part leads to some horrible accidents and danger, because less savvy people sometimes mistake their boldness to being “friendly” or open to further approach. While not quite so temperamental as a hippo, they can quickly turn from apathetic to downright deadly from provocation or harassment. This is doubly a jeopardizing position to remain in when dealing with rutting bulls or calving mothers, both of which more likely to decide against fleeing and choose ruining your entire day and then some.

Ideally, at such point, you would have scurried as soon as humanely possible for cover or anything sturdy you could weave around to have between you, and that angry moose. Let’s say you don’t manage that, or that you were the kind of idiot that tries to stand their ground against a provoked moose instead of taking the first few hints. The good news is that you don’t have to worry too much about those horns bearing down on you, they’re mostly just for flexing on other moose anyway. The bad news is, you’re free and open to receiving the business end of those front hooves, instead. Try to struggle back or get back up and you’ll basically recreate that bear attack scene from The Revenant, only with less slashing and more rib-breaking blunt trauma in its place. Probably the same amount of screaming. Moose attack to eliminate a threat, so the only thing you can viably do in a trampling is to assume the fetal position, pray, and more or less play dead until the moose has moved on. Not “stopped stomping”, but straight on wandered a safe enough distance away to allow you to make a proper retreat to safety and some much needed medical attention, if you’ve survived.

And if you still have no idea how much of a bad time you’re in for against a pissed moose, look. at. The. Size. Of. Them.

Seriously, not even counting the antlers or the head, these behemoth beefstacks can tick a 7 foot or more height just from hoof to shoulder. In fact, even forgetting their spicy behavior for a second, one reason their sheer size is such a public hazard on its own is because of what happens when a moose and a car meet on the road.

You know how any common wisdom or Driver’s Ed course will tell you up and down, “Whatever you do, don’t swerve for animals! Hit the brakes and hope that deer/dog/opossum makes it, but for all that’s good and holy don’t rocket off into the ditch for them!”

Moose turn this lesson ass over tea kettle. They’re probably the only animal I know of where the explicit expert advice is to take your chances with the ditch over hitting one of these head on. Note this additional size comparison with an compact car.

Notice how the front of this thing is uh… right on level with being able to leg sweep a moose rather than directly hit it? I’m not going to go into too graphic detail of what happens when gravity gifts a 1,200 pound deer straight into one’s windshield, but let’s just say it’s not pretty.

Here’s some other cursed facts about NA Moose, besides their size put into perspective:

• They can move each eye and ear independently of the other.

•Their stomach can hold around 100 pounds of food at once.

• They can sprint about 35 miles an hour (in case you thought running was a valid option).

• They can easily kick in a 360 degree radius around themselves.

• Another term for “The fear of moose” is apparently Alkiphobia

• That flappy bit of flesh that sags beneath their chin is known as a “bell”, or dewlap. Males and females both develop one, and no one knows for sure what their main purpose is.

• One of the warning signs they can give before an attack, is to pee fiercely, staring you down.

• Due to wolves being a natural predator of theirs, they really, really hate dogs. Having a dog or few in tow has in some cases caused moose to go out of their way to attack them along with their human owners.

• You’re not safe in the water either! They’re not just competent swimmers, but natural professionals, able to dive almost 20 feet deep and hold their breath for a full minute.

• The above ^ fact is why there have been reported occasions of killer whales feeding on moose, as a treat.

• We should probably be grateful their even larger cousins aren’t still around instead.

• And, something a little haunting for me above the rest: North America moose can sometimes fall dead-end host to an infection of actual, unironic brain worms, which can make them behave much more aggressively and confused in the later stages of the disease. Here’s a video, in fact, of an individual with brainworm charging a man minding his own business.

I’ve never seen a moose up close in my entire life, I don’t live remotely close to where I would have to to even be able to do that, and you know what? I think I’m extremely and comfortably ok with that, but I am cursed with the knowledge that they are out there, like some Monster-Hunter esque boss that found itself a cozy footing (hoofing?) in the real world. Pouring one out for you, moose, you rudely massive ruminants. You have earned my distant respect, by which I mean you intimidate me enormously.

Footnote: Feel like seeing more rambles n' stuff? This is my current blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as future write-ups!

Creacher Feature Friday 6: I Found a Tragedy and a Rarity in the Ferns 🪺

~Ah, brood parasitism, one of my favorite forms of symbiosis. Brilliant tactic, evolutionarily speaking. Why invest precious resources and time into raising your own offspring, when you can just entirely hijack the parental instincts of another species? The cuckoo bird is one of the most well known and famous examples of this reproductive strategy, never building their own nests, but happy to drop their eggs into the clutches of other birds to raise as their own.

*(fun fact: this is actually the origin of the slang words “cuckold” and “cuck”, from an old French term for the cuckoo bird.)

Today I would, however, love to talk to talk about the brown-headed cowbird, another parasitic avian species, common to the United States.

The reason why is because I found a lucky, incredible sight while watering my Aunt’s ferns once:

If you don’t immediately get why I was so excited when I realized what this was, this is a photo I took of an inactive house finch nest I had been keeping my eyes on last summer.

For some reason every year, they love to set up nests inside the hanging plants. A cowbird must have also decided it seemed like a lovely spot, and left behind one of its own eggs in the nest. Now I didn’t see the brood up close myself until the family had already moved on, and I snapped this picture when the time came to remove the nest, having no idea it had even been parasitized. And what was left behind is evidence of a little-known phenomenon called

Egg capping!

What makes parasitism like the This destructive to the original nest is that one cowbird hatchling usually dooms its adoptive siblings. They grow much faster than their host species and they immediately outcompete the other fledgelings in the nest due to their size for the host parents’ attention and feeding. I think you can see why they need all they can get. Exhibit A:

Another way they have of reducing competition in the nest, it’s been theorized, is to literally prevent their “clutchmates” from hatching at all- by “capping” one of the original eggs with its own eggshell. This is not something that the hatchling does on purpose, but with a little bit of luck, in the fact that they often hatch and develop faster than the hosts, this can happen by pure chance as the shell gets tossled around with the other eggs. And evidently, this is extremely rare to happen under normal circumstances, what with chicks synchronizing their hatching, the parents usually then removing the shells from the nest.

So, it’s a fortunate evolutionary bonus for these home-wrecker cowbirds that this is another way they manage to gum up the works.

An Extra note: though it is potentially upsetting news that Brown-headed cowbirds are detrimental to their host nests, they are still a native and federally protected species in their home range. It is illegal to remove or tamper with their eggs the same way it is illegal to disturb their hosts’, and upon finding a parasitized nest in your yard, remember that it is best to let nature take its course. Cowbirds are still part of this beautiful ecosystem, even if they are mooching free-loaders :)

But, there is a nasty little twist to the story in my nest photos. The cowbird chick probably didn’t find success either. You see… house finches were actually a really poor choice for the mother cowbird who decided to drop her offspring here.

While the majority of local songbirds here (brown headed cowbirds included) require insects in their diet to develop well and strong, house finches are a special exception- they are almost exclusively herbivores. The cowbird that capped this finch egg probably didn’t fare well under its unsuspecting parents, muscling out its competition in vein. I hope those finches have a better run next year, but I am very thankful I got to see some really neat ecology in action, and right outside the front door!

Footnote: Hiya! Liked this thing? Well, this is my new blog! Due to legit technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing both lil series!

Creacher Feature Friday 7: So, Wolverine Frogs Are a Thing…

And somehow, the fuzz ain't even close to the weirdest thing about them.

Today we look to the tropics of Central Africa to find the ever-unique Trichobatrachus robustus, or commonly known as the hairy frog, the "horror Frog" (rude) and/or the Wolverine frog. I think for our moment here, I'm gonna stick with Wolverine, because you're gonna agree with me soon that that's the empirically perfect name for these fellas, and let me tell you about some amphibious badasses.

First, this species is a genuine one of a kind, being the singular member of the Trichobatrachus genus.

Second, while they're a mainly terrestrial amphibian, they do return to water specifically to breed and spawn, and it's during that time where an interesting sexual dimorphism reveals itself.

On the left up there, spot the otherwise normal looking female. On the right, check out the male's dermal papillae, extending from the back legs to the flank.

You can guess this is how they earned the common name of "hairy" frog, but I'll have you know not a bit of that fuzz is actually hair at all, or even for looks. What's actually going on here is a super cool adaptation to help the male perform a very important task for the future generation: He remains at the spawning site after mating, so that he can guard the female's eggs until they've safely hatched. Unfortunately, the land dwellers have relatively small lungs not as suited for swimming for so long. While all amphibians can still breathe through their skin, the male wolverine frog grows out these blood-rich papillae to help increase the breathable surface area further for his extended stay in the water. Think of them as functionally very similar to the "feathery" gills of an axolotl.

But wait, it gets SO MUCH BETTER

Cause both sexes of this species have something wicked quite literally up their sleeve. THIS is why they're called the wolverine frog:

"Oh neat so it has claws." NOPE. WRONG. True claws are supposed to be made of keratin, that up there, is bones! Whenever the wolverine frog feels threatened, it can voluntarily break its own toes, disconnecting this spur of bone from the tips in order to force the points to traumatically erupt OUT of the skin. When not in use, these unsettling, dead-space sort of weapons just simply... retract, back into the toe-tips, where the wolverine frog's regenerative abilities can start working on repairing the cartilage and tissue damage. Effectively, though, these metal amphibians can do this as many times as they have to. Imagine instead of carrying blades or pepper spray, we responded to potential attacks by just casually snap-crackle-popping our hands open into a set of finger bone-knives. Hell yeah!

It's also possible this isn't even a dire last resort tactic, since it is theorized that these bone spurs also help assist the frogs in holding onto rock surfaces underwater or when climbing. Certainly a useful trait for the males, but this is universal to their population at large, even including the juvenile wolverine frogs.

IMO, definitely one of the frogs of all time, for sure.

Come back next week and I think I'll spill about a different amphibian I think would make a much better candidate for the name "horror frog" ;> until then, stay bewildered and don't eat any strange fungi.

Footnote: Ahoy there! Feel like seeing more crap like this? Here is my current handle! Due to technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing both series!

Creacher Feature Friday 8: So, Trypophobia Toads Are a Thing..

Last week, I recall, we took a glance on over at a frog so bizarre and special, it grew hairy gills on its back legs and broke its own bones to make basically Wolverine claws as a defense mechanism.

Guess what? I know of just the amphibian fit to top that weirdness👏

Full disclosure, though, there was a slight lie in the title of this. This feature does not actually center on a toad at all- it's another frog! A strictly aquatic dwelling one at that; nonetheless, it never stopped the unusual Pipa pipa (actual genus and species name, lol) from landing plenty of misnomer titles such as the Star-fingered toad, the common Surinam toad, and of course, the pipa toad.

P.pipa calls the jungles of the Amazon and much of upper South America as its home, where it lies in wait on the beds of flooded forests and low-flowing streams, ready to ambush the next meal that floats along. Interestingly, they also capture prey through a method known as suction feeding (i.e. slurping in a bunch of water along with the victim in one strong gulp), which is usually more associated with certain kinds of fish than most anurans. Guess when you don't have a tongue for gobbling your food up, you find your own way.

Something more quickly notable about them than their feeding habits is their.. interesting.. appearance.

I guess today also doubles as Flat Fuck Friday

In case you are worried, fear not, this is NOT the result of them being run over by a looney tunes steamroller. Just a natural way of camouflage, hoping you'd pass them by as a boring old brown leaf on the riverbed. And those little eyes are still functional, but for good measure this species also came packing a lateral line system (another fishy smelling trait, likely evolved to suit their lifestyle) down its back to help detect potential prey/predators while it lies flatly at the water's bottom like above.

If that's not enough "I'm not like the other frogs" for you yet, wait until you see them pregnant. I did not stutter. Pipa toads go about reproduction in a convoluted, literally skin crawling way.

To remember what "typical" frog spawning looks like, picture how the male piggybacks onto the female, they both release some gametes together in some pond, bippity-boppity-boop, tadpoles happen and are left to fend for themselves. Sometimes you get the odd parental species with males that might guard the eggs/young for a while, but frogs wholly are usually not the most invested caretakers, especially females.

Well, anything but usual, the pipa toad performs spawning with the twist of adding in a complicated series of acrobatics. As the released eggs are fertilized by the male, the he keeps his hold on his mate and brings the pair into a series of somersaults, where he uses his legs to push and stick the eggs onto her back. From courtship and on, the female's body reacts to this by growing a layer of skin over the developing embryos as they slowly meld into the outside of her body. This skin-covering eventually develops into something of a protective pouch that will shield the growing young all the way through their metaphosis from tadpole to miniature versions of the adult (one per each of those visible chamber holes). And after a long, 4 month gestation, the time finally comes for anywhere from 60-100 toadlets to be "born" and escape from their flesh cage for greener pastures and tasty eats of their own. Just as the beautiful circle of life intended.

Until further notice, this series crowns the PP toads as certainly, the frog of all time.

Uh,

so, the weekly media and creature brain dumps have been on a very unofficial hiatus lately. Kinda ironic and weird since I referred to them in my bio and I really did wanna continue both series no matter the engagement. Long story short, busy boring adult and job stuff, writer’s block, and some conflicted decisions about Media Mondays and Creacher Fridays.

But I think I came to a few ultimate changes I feel good about.

First off, I’m changing and being a bit more forward about the scheduling for the “weekly writes”. As much as I hate to break the alliteration, I think a bi-weekly posting quota would be a lot more sustainable and enjoyable in the long run. Maybe even with the goal of breaking both up into seasons if they get to a long enough point. If anyone cares to know they’re also rigidly scheduled to go up at 3:59 pm on their designated days, Eastern time.

I’m also set on changing the name of Media Marvel Mondays. The intention of “marvel” in the title was to give off a similar vibe as “pondering my orb”. Like, hey, here’s a thing that I’m rotating in my mind and I’d love to spit some exposure and praise to because it left a string impression on me once. Well, the search and tag things do something predictably different when you go looking for stuff with both the words “media” and “marvel” in them. I think my alternative has a better ring and distinction to it. From here on the Monday rambles are gonna be coined as

Media Musin’ Mondays

With the updated tag(s) to mention of course.

No change to Creacher Feature Friday, but I will continue the hiatus on that one for a little bit longer because it has gotten very out of sync with the media series. I’d like to catch its sibling up in the meanwhile and prepare to drop a more proper introduction for me self in the means while ;)

This is still a pretty fresh and moist page and I’m having good fun in watching some of its roots find something to sink into.

Edit: holy crap, happy 100th post, blog

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