Apr 1, 2024
you dont need to smell the camera
Editing: This is Tonic! He is a carpet python!
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you dont need to smell the camera
Editing: This is Tonic! He is a carpet python!
It's been years and this is still uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh AÄ
Veined fucking slaps
My parents were unbelievably determined to shape me into a little academic as a child, and one of the things they were weirdly strict about was the word "bug."
I wasn't allowed to call things bugs. If I called something (ESPECIALLY an insect) a bug, I was rapidly corrected with increasing frustration. Bees aren't bugs, they're insects. Spiders aren't bugs, they're arachnids. Snails aren't bugs, they're mollusks.
This started to become an actual source of friction as BUGS were kind of my Whole Thing as a kid, and it didn't take me long to learn a lot more about them than my parents knew. The Hemiptera argument? Legendary.
I'm a die-hard bug generalist as an adult. "Bug" is a good word to notate "any little crawly dude." Wasps is bugs. Spiders is bugs. Snails is bugs. It isn't helpful to nitpick and correct people over bug vernacular when you're trying to get them to stop squishing things. "Bug" has a fairly universal meaning, and there isn't another good word to indicate "little dudes who live outside and don't have skeletons." No one wants to hear "terrestrial arthropods," and that leaves out slugs, snails, and worms.
I don't think being "academic" for the sake of pedantry helps anyone, especially not when you're speaking to someone who isn't already relatively comfortable with "icky" animals. I don't care WHAT you call a wasp if you're interested in learning about them. Get out of the ivory tower. If you really care about educating people, you're of no use to anyone when your only goal is to be correct.
There's no bugs up there, anyway.
An eight year old boy completely blew me away today when I crouched down to show him the ratsnake I was holding, as he immediately correctly identified it and then proceeded to hit me with a FLOOD of information about their species, behavior, and exact geographical range (WHAT) that I could barely keep up with.
And then he just kept going. Without stopping. Just an unfaltering stream of information about native snakes that completely and totally waylaid my years of carefully prepared, child digestible snake information. And then all of my more advanced, sometimes adult digestible snake information.
Then he was off about the rediscovery of crested geckos in New Caledonia in the 90's. From there I didn't even have much to say about the rest of his information--he wasn't talking about animals I had much knowledge of or experience with. It SOUNDED correct, but I wouldn't have known.
I've been doing this my whole life and I genuinely think that 8 year old knew more than me. He cared about it SO much. He showed me on his tiny arm where he'd been bitten by a milk snake days before. He still wanted to hold the ratsnake.
I don't have a point or moral or anything here, it was just a weirdly impactful experience I wanted to share. I think weird little kids like that are going to save the world.
paid for a malinois, got some kind of fruit bat
you gotta grow into that collar
nnnnYYYYOOOOmmmmmm