#polymoth

[onenicebugperday]

Found this excellent shirt, clearly designed by just some guy, at my local Goodwill. Thought you'd enjoy seeing it (it was half off, so I took that as a sign and bought it)

Heck yeah I also would have purchased this

[ask-a-vetblr]

Do bipedal animals build up muscle and get "buff" in the same way humans can? Obviously they can lose and gain muscle to some degree, but do any bipedal animals like dogs or cats get visibly super muscular?

gettingvetted here.

I'm thinking you mean quadripedal? Humans are the bipedals. But, the answer is definitely yes, whether due to pure athleticism, or genetic mutations resulting in human selection for muscle. These mutations (such as double muscling and HYPP) are not without their negative consequences.

Normal for the breed/species:

Strongly selected for genetic mutations to increase muscle:

[onenicebugperday]

I was curious if you happen to know--do wasps hibernate during the winter, typically? The cats alerted me to a wasp crawling around in our living room last night. She was covered in dust and walking around like she was impaired (dying, injured, or not fully awake or smth). I couldn't get a picture because the cats were showing too much interest and I was afraid they'd get stung, so I put her outside quickly, but she looked like a very large paper wasp or yellowjacket. This was in western Oregon, USA. Google results pretty much exclusively returned pest control websites, so I was wondering if you had more info. Thanks!

Without seeing the wasp I can't say for sure whether or not it's a species that hibernates, but usually with social species, a colony will die off in late fall/early winter and only new queens will hibernate through the winter, waking up in spring to start a new nest. So you maybe had a queen who was disturbed from her hibernation or just a worker that hadn't died yet.

[onenicebugperday]

For some reason I can't get tumblr to open your submission box, so it's going here instead--I went to Aotearoa New Zealand and saw a tree weta! I was so excited to see one, I was really hoping I would. This one has its back legs up in a defensive posture because one of my classmates startled it. They're such a neat example of island gigantism! I also saw a red admiral butterfly, but those pics are on my dslr so I'll have to upload them later.

Pictures taken in Waimangu Volcanic Valley.

Great find! And what scary legs she has! If I were a predator I'd flee so quickly. I don't think I've posted many weta in the past, maybe I'll find a nice one to share soon.

[onenicebugperday]

Google wasn't any help because all I could find were pest control sites, but are ants in any way unsanitary? Like having them get into your food is obviously annoying, and sometimes if they then die in whatever food they've gotten into it's kind of unpleasant, but besides the yuck factor is there any sanitary reason to get rid of them? The only other reason I can think of to get rid of them is just physical safety--when I was a kid, we had ants come through our electrical socket in the wall and there were so many that they blew the socket, which is obviously not super safe. In this case I'm just talking about your basic tiny black kitchen ants (I know them as "sugar ants")

Ants getting into stored food can definitely introduce moisture, bacteria or fungus and make it spoil! Could potentially be dangerous. I would never eat stored food that ants or any bugs have gotten into. I'd worry less about something just sitting out on the counter for a bit that an ant happened to have crawled across.

[iamjessemccartney]

5, 10, and 25 for spotify wrapped?

#5

#10

#25