Endless Swarm

The grandeur of 1950s giant invertebrate science fiction cinema.

Omg.  What is cuter and weirder than this Darth Vader Jumping Spider???   It looks like an evil minion.  I love it.

Cow Killer.  

This is the common name of this group of mutillids or Velvet Ants.  Named for their extremely painful sting.  Going along with the pain is the fact that it can extend its sting such that it can reach over its back.  This is why this species is bright red.  It is telling the world that there are consequences to picking it up.

This bad boy, is actually not an ant, rather it is a type of wasp.   The males have wings and no sting, the females have no wing, but have the sting.  Not sure of the species.  This one came from Arkansas from our correspondent FT.

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Evan’s Sea Spider (Anoplodactylus evansi) has the blues!

This is rickety, wobbly-kneed beast is the scourge of east Australia’s sea slugs.

The sea slugs try to defend themselves. They eat corals, sponges and bryozoans, they take over the poisons and stinging cells, incorporating them into their tissues for use against their own predators.

But it doesn’t work. Not against Evan’s Sea Spider. It may only be a couple centimetres long, but this sea spider has guts of steel. And, of course, it’s a sea spider so its body is so tiny that half of those guts are in its legs.

Also there’s a whole lot of blue on those legs! They’re very important legs.

The Blue Leg Centipede (Ethmostigmus trigonopodus) has the blues!

Ahhhhh! You can always rely on centipede legs for something special. Red legs, purple legs, yellow legs, stripy legs and now, in this east African species, blue legs.

The search is finally over.

For two weeks each year, the termite mounds on the Brazillian Cerrado light up the night. The source of these lights are not the termites, but headlight beetle larvae. The larvae live inside the outer part of mound, only emerging during the few weeks each year when male and female termites take flight. The glowing bodies of the larvae draws the termites like moths to a flame, allowing the larvae to grab and devour them. The larvae collects as many termites as they can and place them in their larder within the mound, which needs to last until the next flying season. This very limited availability of food means that it takes two years for the larvae to turn into adult beetles.

Happy Holidays! Here’s a peek of the painting I’m working on. Thank you nature for sharing your salamanders with me 🌎🌲🍃🦎