etoriffic

You could travel the world, But nothing comes close to the Andricus[2], Once you’re forming a gall, you’ll be falling in love. Ooh oh ooh, ooh oh ooh.

Visitation: Buttercup Festival 3-383

I never really realised how much difference it makes until I went to England and realised that here the change of seasons is an obvious, visible, physical change in the world. Like, everything REALLY IS orange and foggy in autumn! In spring there are flowers EVERYWHERE, so much more than any other season, and the trees really do have all blossom and no leaves. Even if it doesn't snow, in winter there's frost all the time and the trees are bare and the sky is visibly greyer all the time. You don't need to be told "this date is the first day of spring", you can SEE IT (although this is getting way messier and less precise due to climate change).

By contrast, most places in Australia the seasons we're taught feel like arbitrary categories - and is it any surprise considering they're colonial constructs? Orange-leaved autumn and blossom-covered spring is a cartoon stereotype with no relevance on a continent where ALL NATIVE TREES ARE EVERGREEN!! Snowy winters are a joke in the desert, and even sunny summers don't ring particularly true considering that much of the country is in the tropics, where summer means monsoons - not that I've ever seen the concept that WE HAVE A MONSOON SEASON taught at an Australian school.

the 4 season model as you and i know it is a european invention, though 4 season models aren't unique to europe! most notably china has the same type of season subdivision.

I'm needing to save up for some "for-me" items, and so I'm opening a new commission type!

For 25USD, you can send me an organism (plant, animal, fungus, even mythological creatures, etc), and I draw it in this textured, painterly style. They can be labeled or unlabeled to your preference, and will have a flat background.

I'm not accepting OCs or fanworks at this time, just non-IP things!

Cicada Killer with Cicada

Instagram

His greed sickens me 🍒 Having fun with water soluable pastels! Might be my new favourite medium, they're very fun :)

Ceratodoris rosacea, commonly known as Hopkin’s Rose Nudibranch.

Wasps of the genus Baeus are sometimes described as "micro-flea wasps," because the females of this genus have tiny, rounded bodies that measure just 0.8mm long.

Above: a female Baeus wasp compared to the tip of a pencil

As this article describes:

Baeus represents one of the most unusual genera of parasitic wasps in that females are apparently wingless, highly compact and flea-like in appearance. They are endoparasitoids of spider eggs of host families associated with above-ground vegetation and crytobiotic niches such as leaf-litter.

Above: female Baeus wasps

The wasps often ride around on the backs of female spiders, simply waiting to parasitize the spiders' eggs:

They have a hypodermic-like ovipositor that is used to pierce the chorion of a host egg, in which they lay their own egg. The [wasp] larva then consumes the contents of the host egg, pupates within it, and emerges as a fully developed adult.

Above: a female Baeus wasp clinging to the underside of a cellar spider's eggsac

This genus remains poorly studied, with only 25 species currently described world-wide:

Even though the highly unusual nature of Baeus has been known for over 170 years, only 25 species have been described to date, three from Australia, seven from the Nearctic, six each from the Neotropics and the Palaearctic, one each from the Oriental and Afrotropical (Seychelles) regions, and one from Hawaii. However, significant numbers of species occur in many regions, particularly in the wet tropics, subtropics and southern hemisphere temperate forests.

Above: a Baeus wasp depicted next to a 0.7mm mechanical pencil lead

These may be the world's most adorable wasps.

Above: a female Baeus wasp grooming herself

Sources & More Info:

Zootaxa: Systematics, Distribution and Biology of the Australian "Micro-Flea" Wasps

iNaturalist: Genus Baeus

Impact Journals: Incidence of Egg Parasitism in Argiopepulchella

Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences: The Black Widow Spider and its Parasites