Goblin-in-the-rain - Meta

a couple extremely handsome carpet beeltes, Anthrenus lepidus and Anthrenus scrophulariae

Unusual cat gene that seems to occur naturally in Poland and Romania. This gene is called Karpati. More can be read here 

Me: oh yeah, if you think school photography is hard now, try imagining doing this with film.

The new girl: what’s film?

Me: … film. Like… film that goes in a film camera.

New girl: what’s that mean?

Me: … before cameras were digital.

New girl: how did you do it before digital?

Me:… with film? I haven’t had enough coffee for this conversation

㋡🥀

dried flowers..

I'm currently doing an online art school program and I thought I'd share some notes on clothing pieces for anyone else whose like me and for some reason can't understand objects with free from lol I hope you find some of these observations/ notes useful for any of your art journeys!

I'd love to hear more about what makes the wings of the stylops so unique! Wings are always fascinating to me

Almost all insects with wings normally have four of them, except that in beetles, the front wings became the shields we call Elytra:

And in the true flies (diptera), the HIND wings became little vibrating knobs we call halteres, which are organic gyroscopes for collecting information about air pressure, direction and elevation, easiest to see on larger flies like this crane fly:

So, the male Strepsiptera is actually the only insect other than flies to have evolved halteres, but the Strepsiptera's halteres are evolved from the FRONT wings:

Their hind wings are odd enough too; simple "fans" unlike the intricately veined wings of other insects, but still not as unusual as forewing halteres. It's thought to be convergent evolution, and that they may have once been elytra like the beetles have. A connection to beetles is also suggested by the fact that a few beetle groups have larvae very similar to those of the strepsipterans, which look like this:

Lovably nasty larvae! They jump, and they're all spiny, and they actually use an acid secretion to melt their way into their first host.

There's one other insect group that incidentally evolved elytra shields, earwigs!

But earwigs can't be ancestral to either beetles or strepsiptera, because earwigs don't go through a larval stage, which the big evolutionary divide for insects; all the insects with larvae are thought to have just one common ancestor, splitting off from the other insects fairly early.

I've found this nifty reference website for artists called www.dimensions.com that has a database of exact measurements for various objects, plants, and animals

They have a premium version with 3D models that I haven't tried yet, but it's definitely very informative if you're trying to get the anatomy and proportions for different species of animals right!

Claude Rains ~ 1930 Broadway Portrait ~

The Common Green Lacewing: these tiny insects pupate within loosely-woven cocoons that measure just 3-6mm (about 1/8 to 1/4 inch) in diameter

The lacewing will spend about 5 days maturing within its cacoon, before it cuts an opening in the top and emerges as a fully-developed adult.

The larvae of the green lacewing (family Chrysopidae) are also known as "aphid lions," due to their skill/appetite when it comes to hunting aphids. They're widely used in agricultural contexts to help eradicate pests, because they are voracious predators that also commonly prey upon caterpillars, leafhoppers, planthoppers, thrips, spiders, mites, and insect eggs.

As it nears the end of its larval stage, a lacewing will spin a small cacoon out of silk and then tuck itself inside, allowing the pupal phase to begin; its tiny green body is often partially visible through the thin, loosely-woven walls of the cacoon.

These breathtaking photos of a lacewing climbing out of its cacoon were taken by a Danish photographer named Frederik Leck Fischer.

When a lacewing first emerges from a cacoon, its wings are still compactly folded down against its body; the wings then gradually begin to expand until they have reached their full size, which usually takes about an hour or two.

Fischer's photographs provide an excellent account of this entire process.

Here are just a few other images of the common green lacewing:

Sources & More Info

University of California's Integrated Pest Management Program: The Green Lacewing

Texas A&M's Field Guide to the Insects of Texas: Green Lacewings

Washington State University: Lacewings

Tennessee State University: Fact Sheet on the Green Lacewing (PDF download)

Pacific Pests & Pathogens: Green Lacewings/Biocontrol