Dances With Wasps

Hue V

11/10/23. N. Florida (if anyone can ID it)

Below the post is a comment by Fork_Master reading: "Those are the patients you dumb fuck"

There was also, I think, a scene with swordfighting where it was “the fight scene, but everyone’s using pool noodles” and some other similarly bizarre changes, but the MAIN thing I remember

was Hamlet’s soliloquy

Ascaulocardium armatum

Fossil clams that built a case around their body, with bizarre pipe-like protrusions sprouting all over the place like a human heart that grew too many arteries.

Hawai'i 'akepa & Elfin-Woods Warbler for #avianaugust!

Honestly, I think my favorite method of insect (and arachnid) locomotion is "falling."

Big mammals (and especially us big bipedal mammals with heads that split like melons) think of falling very differently from the smaller, lighter animals that are closer to the ground. Most insects are too lightweight to have to worry about silly things like terminal velocity, so falling is just another way of moving to them.

And why not? Gravity is already doing most of the work pulling you down, so you don't even have to exert any energy. If you don't have to worry about taking fall damage, there's no reason not to take the quickest route to the ground--or the quickest way to go any direction, if you need to escape.

In some cases, their shapes are very adapted for it. I have shed skins from baby praying mantises that have kept their shape. If you blow on them, they don't fall over--they land perfectly right side up, or latch onto a nearby surface! They evolved exactly right to catch themselves when dropping down from higher foliage. (Though, adult mantises are significantly less nimble.)

I haven't posted on this blog in years (I stopped making monsters for sale though I'm still on Tumblr with my personal blog!), but I just suddenly got a bunch of notes so I figured I would share some more recent work.

These guys were a personal project when I realized I never kept any of the original bugs for myself. My original monsters were made with Sculpey faces, these are cast resin. These also have posable spines (the originals had bean bags to just weight the ends) The yellow one is mine and the pink one is one I made for my wife!