[lithobatess]

url change heads up!

parkarts —> lithobatess

[lithobatess]

Update 3rd day!

Limiting interactions to once a day to make sure she’s low-stress, doing well, and to collect any more eggs laid. Thinking this may be my last time with her, maybe I’ll be lucky enough to have her tomorrow, who knows.

Her face is so cuuuute.

[seabeck]

Banana

[addicted2wasps]

This was initially a concept with some very old characters from 2018. It was a quartet of Polistes dominula featuring the dominant foundress RoadBlock, Mutt and Muss (the bullies), and Lepidolite (originally named Crystal) who has a blank face, which in theory, ranks her as a subordinate. One thing led to another, and thus, the "get back to work" cartoon was born. The original drawing didn't have coffee mugs, or a crown over the foundress' head, but I figured adding these items would in turn make the final product more humorous. 2018 is bittersweet for me, as I had a mental health crisis that year. I don't miss the mental turmoil, but I do have a few memories of some artwork that I created back then, this being one of them.

Over the years, I've come up with several characters, named them, but never actually incorporated them into an actual story, other than a couple of random scenarios.

A friend and I have been brainstorming for a few years about a story incorporating an erythristic grasshopper being bullied for her differing appearance. Along the way, she meets and bonds with other fellow hexapods with unique quirks/physical abnormalities, and develops a long-lasting friendship with them. There's the main character who is an erythristic grasshopper, an orange-belted bumblebee with deformed wing virus, a yellowjacket with a developmental anomaly, a stink bug with a mutated antenna (in the sketch, it's completely missing, but that will change), a ground beetle with a bifurcation on his front right leg, and last but not least, a gynandromorph black swallowtail. I'm struggling to come up with a deeper storyline and plot. A lot of adult insects don't live for very long, usually one season, so I feel like the topic of death would be too dark, especially if this story is also aimed at a younger audience. I welcome ideas if anyone can share some insight. I don't plan for this to be lengthy, it's a short story, so if published into a book, there'd be something like 20 pages max.

The very bottom image is a concept illustration of our main character getting bullied. Anyway, I'm rambling at this point. It's past 12 am here, and I should probably get to bed. I really want to make the grasshopper story come to fruition, I feel really inspired to illustrate the story, but I'm blocking when it comes to a complete storyline. I hope I will figure something out eventually.

[segmentedleg]

Pinto Spring (late morning, 10 June 2016) 3

[creditednature]

maxo1965 on Flickr

[lithobatess]

Pictures!!!

She’s in a quiet low-light setup. It’s important not to keep them in bright, direct sun. The eggs are very hard, similar to large poppy seeds.

Hopefully in 10-14 days, they’ll begin hatching. As for the moth, she’ll only live another 2-3 days (maybe 4) and until then I’ll make sure she’s happy and keep her free from stress.

[lithobatess]

Omg omg omg

An adult female polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus) laid eggs on the wall outside my home. Obviously this isn’t great because she should have laid them on a host plant, but I managed to carefully gather both her and the eggs. Females only live 1 to 3 days after laying, and because they cannot eat (they don’t have mouths) she will die soon.

I’m going to try raising her eggs to caterpillars :D

[lithobatess]

Update: she ended up having 52 more eggs overnight, which is way more than I can handle at once, so after they all hatch I’ll be releasing a lot of them into different host trees outside

This is not my photo, just an example of how massive the late instar caterpillars get ^^

[ambermaitrejean]

American robin. Jefferson County, Colorado. Photo by Amber Maitrejean

[michaelnordeman]

Downy Emerald/Cordulia aenea/guldtrollslända. Värmland, Sweden (12 June 2026).

[snototter]

A Bornean short-tailed python (Python breitensteini) in Sabah, Malaysia

by Rupert Grassby-Lewis

[deervsheadlights]

wish everyone could perceive the Vague Concepts in my head because i just know you would looove my Vague Concepts. you would think im so smart if you saw the misty clouds of Vague Concepts floating around in my head. #MyVagueConcepts

[lithobatess]

Omg omg omg

An adult female polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus) laid eggs on the wall outside my home. Obviously this isn’t great because she should have laid them on a host plant, but I managed to carefully gather both her and the eggs. Females only live 1 to 3 days after laying, and because they cannot eat (they don’t have mouths) she will die soon.

I’m going to try raising her eggs to caterpillars :D

[lepurcinus]

Decided to upload the story I wrote for the anthology on my Deviantart to download so you can read it alone.

It's the same version included in the final anthology even with the errors...yeah.

This goes for some of the dudes here that wanted at least crumbs of the ideas I had on my head. So enjoy

The Story of Clavel by Lepurcinus on DeviantArt

The Story of Clavel — artwork by Lepurcinus on DeviantArt. I found out that you can upload PDFs on DeviantArt, and since I can't find a more

[etcstims]

Dotted bee fly takeoff | source

[lithobatess]

it should not be 32°c / 90°f in my pacific northwest temperate forest ecosystem. I am melting

[fruitycasket]

There's so many interesting and cool creatures on this Earth, and not enough time to write xenofiction about them all. 💔