Not Exactly Using The Ask Box Correctly Here But Shshshshshsh Just Wanted To Share With The Class Incase

cat riding sheep

Some demons and grotesque cuties and stuff in Köln part 2

Cloud shadows shot by @tspfeffer July 2021 🌞 via @odeandiefreude

I’ve heard people calling those grey calico/tortoiseshell cats “dilute calico” but I haven’t seen that anywhere that goes in-depth on phenotype. Is it usually called something else? Or is there another thing I’m missing?

Thank you for your time and all the information you make available! It’s really neat :)

Dilute tortoiseshell is a common way to refer to blue tortoiseshell cats, which may also be called blue and cream.

Blue is the dilute of black and thus blue tortoiseshell is the dilute of black tortoiseshell - which is the traditional black and red tortoiseshell that probably comes to mind when you hear the word.

Gray isn’t a genetic term or used in the cat fancy but is a colloquial way for the layperson to refer to the color more accurately called blue.

Lilac is dilute of chocolate and fawn is dilute of cinnamon so these may be called “dilute tortoiseshell” as well in their tortoiseshell varieties but I don’t see this as often likely because nearly all cats with those colors are purebred and will be referred to using the proper terminology.

Calico is another colloquial term used to refer to tortoiseshell’s with a notable amount of white.

So gray tortoiseshell/calico and dilute tortoiseshell/calico are often used interchangeably.

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.

[Image ID: two close-up photos of short green lawn grass. The photos appear to be taken in the evening right before sunset, where the shadows are really stark and the tips of the grass is lit up a brilliant bright green by the sunlight. /End ID]

got high and thought the grass looked so beautiful i couldn't believe it and proceeded to take some really mid grass pics

Uh oh fellas

[Image ID: a screenshot of my drafts, of which there are 108. /End ID]

happy pride month

brought to u by my most tolerant rat & some vegan food dye

enjoying the variation in these handsome Graphocephala versuta, including the last poor hopper who has a mite sucking on its head

Jewel longhorn beetle, Sternotomis bohemani, Cerambycidae

Found primarily in the southeastern region of Africa

Photo 1-2 by michelemenegon, 3 by ottob-c, 4 by martingrimm, 5-6 by m_d, 7-8 by bartwursten, 9 by joachim, and 10 by zarek