RavenLunatic

Birder, dreamer, music-lover || Joshua, 20 || All about Nature! You can see me share gay memes on my main, @spideymoth

[acecroft]

Rusty-spotted cat | World’s smallest cat

[storyhearts-journey]

Jo Brown: artist, illustrator, birder, wildlifer, mushroomer

(do not remove artist’s name)

[sosuperawesome]

Yuliya Kucherenko on Instagram / Etsy

[everythingfox]

“This little guy always bring dried seed to trade for some nuts”

(Source)

[probably-lucifer]

“How and Why did humans domesticate animals?”

[thewaithfuckingannoyme]

I think in this case it’s the other way around

[naturalpalettes]

Mt Rainier

[expressions-of-nature]

Annapurna, Narchyang, Nepal by Mike Blank

[thenatsdorf]

[tastefullyoffensive]

Same. (via matsuda98)

[jhameia]

the tilting of the manhole cover back into place is what makes this video

[maxiepoo-archive-deactivated202]

when people try to get me to socialize

[softwaring]

by @awendesigns

[tikkety-tok]

[everythingfox]

“This slug is called a Sea Angel, it lives under the ice of the White Sea in Russia“

(via)

[vermincelli]

@astraldemise

[babyanimalgifs]

[vrgnmry]

WHY DID THIS HAVE TO END

[saysomethingsurreal]

OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDD

[courtneyhellenphoto]

the best shot I’ve taken of blue pool to this day. it’s definitely cold, definitely worth getting in, and definitely one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.

[dawnblade]

i just learned from animal crossing that pondskaters stay on top of the water by secreting an oil from their feet

that seems kinda obvious in hindsight. i always figured they were just, like, light enough to not break surface tension

[undeadnecromancer]

They do it by using fucked up and evil magic and they hate god

[tomorroejones-deactivated202209]

[japaneseaesthetics]

Artist: Komori Soseki Title: Moorhens Date: 1929 Medium: Color woodblock print Credit Line: Bruce Goff Archive, gift of Shin'enkan, Inc.

[everythingfox]

protect them

[onenicebugperday]

Geometer moth, Omiza lycoraria Found in Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra

Photos 1-2 by leptonia, 3 by dhfischer, 4 by gancw1, 5 by matthewkwan, 6 by lesday, and 7 by Alexey Yakovlev

[bogleech]

THATS what theyre called? why does no one ever talk abt pseudoscorpions theyre so cool and i love them but know NOTHING abt them

Well then here is almost EVERYTHING about pseudoscorpions!!!!

Pseudoscorpions were among the first creatures to ever exist on land and are their own group of arachnids distinct from mites, spiders and true scorpions, but like scorpions a pseudoscorpion has eight legs plus a set of palps (manipulatory mouthparts) enlarged into giant lobster-like arms! Though they don’t have a stinging tail, the pincers are venomous, helping paralyze fast-moving prey such as springtails and mites! They’re found almost everywhere in the world, but we seldom see them because they’re small enough to live down between grains of soil and the cracks of tree bark. I think even the largest pseudoscorpions in the world are still barely larger than grains of rice.

It used to be that they were a little more familiar to people, though, under the name BOOK SCORPION. That’s because, before their materials were more chemically treated and synthetic, not to mention before indoor climate control caught on, it was more common for books to build up microscopic fungi and in turn support a whole community of fauna such as book lice, and the one predator that could most easily slip between the pages of a book to hunt book lice was a pseudoscorpion! They would have been apex predators of this completely unique man-made ecosystem! I’ve said this before but isn’t it wild to think of a whole biome that exists in nothing but a book? Things living out entire struggles having no idea their world is just a neglected piece of information storage for incomprehensible giants??? Is that us?? Is our universe something else’s cookbook it forgot to clean????????? I mean I hope it’s at least as dignified as a cookbook, I hope we aren’t one of the smutty magazine universes or something. Actually even that wouldn’t be so bad compared to the possibility that we’re some equivalent to “windows 95 for dummies” that nobody could ever possibly need again.

ANYWAY when a pseudoscorpion wants to travel, it engages in phoresy, meaning it grabs on to another animal strictly for transportation. It will wait around with its limbs outstretched, like a tick, until anything moving comes by and just hitch a ride with one of its pincers! This most often ends up being larger insects, so it rides around a while and then just drops off wherever. (thank you Tom Murray for this photo! Lots of other good ones if you just google “pseudoscorpion phoresy” )

Pseudoscorpions actually have a courtship ritual, which hasn’t been well documented due to their small size, but it seems that most species basically WALTZ! They “join hands” and slowly walk around together, until the female either lets go and shoos the male away or she’s comfortable dancing long enough for him to drop a tiny sperm packet on the ground and dance her over it.

Pseudoscorpions also produce silk, like some other arachnids, but they use it only defensively. Various species will spin a little cocoon-like shelter to wait out harsh seasons, protect their young, or even mate in. And that’s everything I know about pseudoscorpions off the top of my head!