Eternal Flame Falls Sounds Like The Coolest Concept For A Fantasy Book. A Path You Follow Down Into A

Ethiopian Wolf (Canis simensis) at Bale Mountains, Ethiopia. Barbara Evans, 2017.

[Image ID: a photo of a fluffy snow leopard cub, old enough that it’s not helpless but young enough that it’s still reliant on its mother. It’s laying on its back in a pile of rocks, it’s tail laying next to it and its hind legs flopped over its belly. It’s front legs are stretched up over its head in a comic manner. Despite the ridiculous, kind of uncomfortable-looking position its eyes are closed and it is clearly snoozing. /End ID]

A snow leopard cub that fell asleep during playtime by Cloudtail the Snow Leopard

source

The Grackles

are also still around, and some are still feeding babies, but molting has also begun, giving some of them the best and most dramatic looks. As if they couldn’t already do that with their plumage fully intact!

citheronia sepulcralis

pine-devil moth

location: north america

Do you have a favorite threat display pose from a bug? I know its bad if the animal is stressed but also so many mantis ones are just so pretty and silly (up go the arms!), it makes me wonder what other bugs have got goin on

I do love mantid threat displays! My favorite species (Idolomantis diabolica) has a beautiful threat display:

Ahhh I’m scared! Photo by also_sprach_susscrofa

But there are a lot that are super fun, especially the ones with false eyes on the wings. The katydid Pterochroza ocellata comes to mind:

Neat :) Photo by paulcools

Honorable mention to the ilia underwing moth caterpillar who, when threatened, flips onto its back to reveal a startlingly purple/pink belly!

Very “don’t eat me.” Photo by hannahwojo

Eyed Elaters (Alaus)

eyed elater click beetles, like this Alaus oculatus from Florida, are the biggest click beetles (Elateridae) found in temperate North America.

Click beetles are best known for their eponymous clicking ability- a sort of elastic locking mechanism on their thorax can snap open with a loud clicking sound, which helps them startle or escape the grasp of predators and allows them to launch themselves into the air when overturned (you can see that in slow motion at the end of the video)

(more elating click beetle trivia below!)

They live around decaying trees and logs, the adults feeding on sap flows and other sugary liquids while the predatory grubs use their powerful jaws to tunnel in search of other wood-dwelling insect larvae to devour (by contrast many smaller click beetle larvae, often called wireworms, feed on rotting wood itself or other plant matter). To rear these beetles in captivity it’s necessary to keep the larvae in containers made of a hard material like glass, as they’ll chew through plastic and escape (I learned this the hard way the first time I found and attempted to raise a grub).

There are 6 Alaus species in the US, the largest of which can be over 5 cm long. Two are found in forests along the east coast- A. oculatus, the eastern eyed elater (below, left) and its smaller relative A. myops, the blind elater (right).

Even though the larvae don't feed directly on decaying wood, different Alaus species prefer different trees- oculatus breeds in dead oaks and other hardwoods, while myops found in the same habitats only use well-rotted pines.

[Image IDs: All the images are photos of clouds at sunset/rise, with beautiful high-contrast orange and dark blue color palettes. In all of them the moon is visible and there are airplanes with long, lit up contrails.

ID1: In this one the clouds are huge thunderheads clustered mostly in the bottom half of the image and to the left. The moon is a waning crescent in the close to the center of the image. The contrails of the airplane cut through the higher clouds on the left, moving diagonally up and to the right, ending just under the moon. There are stars in the sky.

ID2: Just the top of a large thunderhead is pictured in this one, with a very bright waxing crescent moon just above it. The airplane is this one is a bit bigger and more visible than the others, its contrails cutting across the image to the right/top diagonally, disappearing behind the cloud. The sky is a slightly lighter blue in this one, but there are still stars in the sky.

ID3: This is the only image that shows the ground, which is hard to see because of the low light, but appears to be an parking lot overlook on the top of a mountain with a city below and to the right. The clouds in this one are more scattered and wispy, but are still huge and cover most of the sky. The sky is bright yellow near the horizon, turning to a rich, starless blue at the top of the image. The contrails strikingly travel straight up from the horizon, behind the clouds and up to the moon; which is a thin waxing crescent.

ID4: Dark clouds billow up and to the left, a dimmer contrail cutting through the peak of them diagonally up and left. The moon is a bright waxing crescent. It’s so bright the shadowed side is still visible, and it’s also off-center, resting just above the highest point of the clouds. The 3 stars of Orion’s Belt are the only ones visible.

/End IDs]

Clearwing tussock moth, Carriola ecnomoda, Lymantriinae

Found in Southeast Asia

Photo 1 by leptonia, 2 by rejoicegassah, 3 by dhfischer, 4 by antoniogiudici, 5 by mark027, 6-8 by ivijayanand, and 9 for scale by soooonchye

Dialogue tips that actually work:

You are not writing a movie (ignore this if you are). The reader doesn't need to know every word the characters say for the duration of the story. Less is more.

Dialogue can happen within the prose. "And they awkwardky discussed the weather for five minutes" is way better than actually writing five pages of dialogue about the weather.

Balance your dialogues. Surprise yourself with a monosyllabic answe to a dialogue that's ten sentences long. Don't be afraid of letting your character use half a page for a reply or nothing at all!

Don't write accents phonetically, use slang and colloquialisms if needed.

Comma before "said" and no caps after "!?" unless it's an action tag. Study dialogue punctuation.

Learn the difference between action tags and dialogue tags. Then, use them interchangeably (or none at all).

Don't be afraid to use said. Use said if characters are just saying things, use another word if not. Simple. There's no need to use fancy synonyms unless absolutely necessary.

Not everyone talks the same way so it makes sense for your characters to use certain words more often than others. Think of someone who says "like" to start every sentence or someone who talks really slow. Be creative.

Use prose to slow down the pace during a conversation.

Skip prose to speed up the pace during a conversation.