@lxvelyxxrock - Tumblr Blog

stickyfrogs

Trevor has had 4 Crickets for Dinner tonight and he is wearing his Stylish Dinner Crown to celebrate!

faecreatur

Teeny tiny grub

paper-wounds

“If I Am Killed For Simply Living” — Althea Davis

cleavagearbiter

i graduated college! off in June to work for the gov in cave and karst. kinda crazy to be 19 and off in the world now, but also rather nice!

cheeky little rappel. should've c-rigged

lxvelyxxrock

smartest silliest prettiest girl I know is free!! if you encounter her in the wild, be sure to let her smell your hand first before you pet

onenicebugperday

South African bont tick, Amblyomma hebraeum, Ixodidae

Photos 1-3 (males) by ryanvanhuyssteen, spidamn8, and jaheymans. Photos 4-5 (females) by henk_v_h and jaheymans, and photo 6 (engorged female) by alexanderr

Please note that negative comments on this post will get you blocked! This is a bug-positive space and that includes parasites.

lxvelyxxrock

my favorite thing about these guys is their metabolic efficiency! like many other parasites, the vast majority of consumed energy is put toward reproduction and very little is lost to heat. ticks can go years between meals!!! we see something similar to this in vertebrates like snakes but nothing nearly as crazy as the absurd ~97% efficiency of the tick. I like to think of these guys as little hibernating bears :) as much as they're not fun, like leeches, they're still super cool

ratbugs

hemirrhagus-deactivated20260505

they deserve all the love, such wonderful little beings

cleavagearbiter

Perimyotis subflavus (Tricolor Bat)

Eurycea lucifuga (Cave Salamander)

Something interesting, neither of these organisms are troglobionts. That is, neither are adapted to solely live their life cycle in caves. This is obvious for the Tricolor, but even cave salamanders are suited to life outside of caves just as well as in caves and lack many of the significant troglomorphic specific characters that you'd see in troglobionts. Though cave salamanders certainly have many preadaptations. Because cave salamanders can live outside of caves, we call them troglophiles. Bats as a whole are trogloxenes, they visit caves and use them as refugia, but they need to leave often and can certainly go an entire life without using caves, especially with modern cities.

Additional cave salamander facts, they are of the family plethodontidae (lungless salamanders) and represent one of the 7 transitions this family has had into caves

lxvelyxxrock

fantastic facts, thank you for sharing

lungless salamanders are like 2/3 of the way to being an invertebrate and I love them so much

itisthespacejam

lol remember how I said he wouldn't bite unless he was hungry? well guess who decided to chomp down right between my fingers during his water change today

ratbugs

plaguedocboi

GORGEOUS GIRLS IN MY AREA???

I followed this lil dude around for like ten minutes. Probably the most beautiful polychaete I’ve ever seen

earthworm dissection!!

worms in general, both annelid and flat, are underappreciated for their beauty and complexity. annelids have multiple hearts, a brain, and several digestive organs (crop, gizzard, and intestines). their reproductive cycle involves the entire body from clitellum (band if present) to front.

flatworms are even cooler! they are ubiquitous and have a massive range of sizes and life cycles. this group includes everything from fishtank 'pests' to tapeworms. non parasitic flatworms are typically small and see-through, allowing us to check out the pharynx! (seen below as a large green cavity with a slim black line running through the center)

those black dots toward the front are a type of eye (ocelli), and the gorgeous black pattern below it is a branching gut. this allows ingested materials to reach every cell via diffusion, no circulatory system required.

these guys fascinate me for no reason, and now I'm seriously considering pursuing a PhD in cave flatworms :) it's been such a joy to have fun learning new things, even if not everyone thinks it's cool or finds it profitable

#flatworms #annelidworms #worms #caveworms #gizzard(notthebirdkind)#crop(notthesexykind)

geologywonders

Amazing Madagascaran ammonites is this Phylloceras (Hypophylloceras) velledae. Notice the blue colors and the fractal pattern of the suture line

📷 juarezfossil

#minerals #geology

cleavagearbiter

Pseudoscorpion I found in VA. Unknown species. (closest match is Hesperochernes mirabilis but the coloration (and maybe thorax) is off). Need to go back and collect a specimen to send off.