Latest Posts by anisomorpha - Page 6

the unfortunate thing abt life is sometimes you Do have to wait for the bus in the rain and if you were a specific brand of annoying in 2012/13 this is significant

Scanning electron microscopy is awesome and I personally think the images it produces are gorgeous but objectively speaking I feel like it doesn't do any favors at all for the "scary" cultural image of insects, because I mean, here's a closeup of a carpet beetle in its true colors:

And here's an SEM image that comes up for carpet beetles on google:

And the thing about SEM images is that they aren't "photographs;" they are computer scans. They're 3-d digital models generated by scanning an object at the molecular level. Color is not preserved by this process, and if it were all the specimens would look like metal anyway (I'll explain this is in a moment), so images like this had to be colored artificially. This isn't done to recreate the true colors, but to make different body parts more visible as study material, resulting in scientific images of wacky blueberry fleas:

The subtly varying transparency levels of living tissues are completely lost as well, which is why the fine hairs of insects stand out more like cactus thorns in SEM imagery, and tardigrades look like opaque leathery things with no eyes:

...Even though a tardigrade actually has eyes, they're just under the surface of a crystal clear exoskeleton:

Another thing that probably contributes to the uncanniness of SEM images is also the fact that they can only show us embalmed corpses encased in liquid metal.

It's not possible to do this fine level of scanning "instantaneously" enough for it to work on anything that's still moving, so even when you see scanning electron images of animals in various lifelike poses, it's because they're preserved specimens that were carefully positioned, or they were live specimens basically "flash frozen" by a sudden dehydration process, mummified so fast they never knew it. Many specimens are then "sputter coated," meaning they're sprayed with a thin (like microns thin) layer of liquid gold, platinum or other fine metal in order for the electrons to perfectly bounce off of every subatomic detail and produce that perfect scan. So this is a live fruit fly:

And this is a fruit fly mummy with probably some sort of chrome plating:

profoundly jealous of every solitary burrowing invertebrate that can just chill in a hole alone for its entire lifespan. I try my best to do the same but unfortunately belong to a highly social species

People who like mantises but aren't that into entomology are always "orchid mantises" this and "orchid mantises" that. Overrated. Can we talk about Toxodera integrifolia for a minute:

(Image links because as much as it pains me I've never seen one of these beauties irl: 1 2 3)

Like how are these things real. Girl what is that thorax shape. Why are you wearing eyeliner. And the colors? Absolutely fire. This is a 10/10 insect if you ask me.

herons would love middle aged man fishing culture i think

do you understand my vision

Something else abt cockroaches is that they can also hold ur hand

Eastern Hellbender, 2024

Found throughout the Eastern US, especially in western North Carolina and the Appalachian Mountains, these adorable big salamanders rely on large, flat rocks in streams for shelter and breeding. Hikers removing or stacking rocks from the streams pose a big problem for these guys, so if you see a man-made rock stack always take it down!

One thing that pisses me off is people seeing fish in aquariums (the establishments, not home aquariums) and being like “It’s so sad because the ocean is so big and the tank is so small and they’ll never know freedom blah blah blah-“ I’m not talking about sharks and marine mammals here but the majority of fish are not at all bothered by being in an aquarium instead of the open ocean. Like, I personally would love to be a little clown fish in one of those big reef tanks. Fed regularly. Whole team of people monitoring my health and well-being. No predators. Medicated if I show signs of illness. Aquarium fish have cushy gigs in comparison to their wild companions.

as a white person i can confirm that cheese is basically like god and life to me. i can be baited with cheese 100% of the time. i will tunnelvision a wedge of sharp cheddar from the other side of the room in any and every setting

Young fire bug eating stink bug eggs

It must be defeated immediately

Ok but like. What the fuck is there to do on the internet anymore?

Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.

Now, it's just... Social media. That's it. Social media and news sites. And I'm tired of social media and I'm tired of the news.

Am I just like completely inept at finding new things or has the internet just fallen apart that much with the problems of SEO and web 3.0 turning everything into a same-site prison?

whoever made the decision to make umpires wear cameras... you are a legend

this is genuinely the funniest thing i've ever seen

REBLOG if you have amazing talented artist friends!

i feel like i’m cursed forever but other than that i’m doing alright

stuck between "psychological horror statement" and "objectively the funniest thing you could say to your real flesh and blood dad" in the father's day card aisle

Eating slime mold by MaximumMoustache

s is for slug

Fun fact: The diabolical ironclad beetle traded away the ability to fly in order to become essentially unsquishable.

Driving a car over them would just push them down into the dirt, still whole. Trying to stick a pin through wouldn't be successful without a drill. These guys are tough.

Every part of the beetle's exoskeleton seems to enhance its armor. The flattened body shape distributes pressure to even the load, the multilayered material is strong yet flexible enough not to crack, and the unique interlocking seams between wing cases function better than most joins designed by humans:

It'll be exciting to see what new materials might be possible using these concepts!

Sources: Jesse Rorabaugh, Po-Yu Chen, & Jesus Rivera et al.

These are so fun to make

one of the most infuriating things about becoming an adult is when you realize that it actually is 10x easier to solve problems by making a phone call vs literally any other communication method

macarons are deeply fascinating to me. it’s such a precise science with so many highly sensitive variables. all to create a pastry that isnt that good