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As someone who used to have a beard…[FIXED] via imgur *(*´∀｀*)☆ more…](http://24.media.tumblr.com/56f4535e58237a42a936ef096d35e0de/tumblr_mlid4hF9w91rb1njro1_500.png)
It’s time for a 2000 AD giveaway!! Reblog this image for the chance to win this cute Judge Death plush or one of THREE sets of Manga-size Judge Dredd classics!
Cent-A-Fear
One of my personal favorite creations! In spite of the hard work on the details, I had a lot of fun drawing and designing this transformer. I even drew out the manner in which he transformed from centipede to robot and back. I used Theatops californiensis (The Cryptopid Centipede) as the template for the beast form.
Here is the link if you want to see more junk I wrote about this one.
It has been a while since I seriously wanted to draw stuff and post them online. I did such on deviantart.com in the past, but things have changed somewhat.
After talking to my friend Vince (vws007 on Tumblr) during lunch, I decided to start posting artwork of mine here on Tumblr. I’ll probably…
So let me tell you about some of the most adorable research about beetles going on right now.
Done by Marie Dacke and Jochen Smolka (and many others) this work has led to many interesting insights, all of which are overshadowed by the research methods of the group.
Namely, these guys love to put clothes on beetles.
The picture on the right of the dung beetle (Scarabaeus lamarcki) wearing some stylish green silicon boots comes from the much-publicized paper in late 2012 by Smolka et al entitled “Dung Beetles use their dung ball as a thermal refuge”. Published in Current Biology, this paper found out that the balls of dung constructed and rolled around by the intrepid little dung beetles provided the beetles with a place to escape the scorching desert sand. Not only that, the dung balls also acted as a heat sink!
Since the balls are cooler than the surrounding sand, they absorb heat from it. Dung beetles push their balls in front of them as they move through the desert, and this can actually lower the temperature of the surrounding sand by 1.5 degrees C. (This is about 34 degrees Fahrenheit, for all those unfamiliar with metric).
Back to the boots- Smolka et al coated the beetle’s legs with heat-resistant silicon in order to gauge which legs the beetles use to sense heat. It turns out they seem to sense the hot sand with the protibia of their front legs.
The picture on the left shows a beetle with a rather dashing hat. This hat was used in the 2013 paper by Dacke et al titled “Dung Beetles use Milky Way for orientation”, also published in Current Biology.
In this paper, the authors determined that a different species of dung beetle (Scarabaeus satyrus) used not only stars in the night sky, but specifically the Milky Way galaxy to keep themselves rolling their dung ball in a straight line.
When the beetle’s vision was obscured with these stylish hats, they took significantly longer to push their dung ball out of a predetermined arena because they couldn’t seem to push it in a straight line.
A further battery of tests confirmed that these beetles actually use the Milky way galaxy specifically to orient themselves and keep moving in a straight line.
With all that in mind, I encourage whomever reads this to go and put clothes on any animal you find, and record your observations.
Trust me, it is for science.
I found it in the beach (IV region, Chile) what’s it name?
Oh a toughie, I first thought it was an Ichneumon but after staring at it for a minute I convinced myself it’s an Antlion. What do you think?
Doug Yanega from the UCR Entomology Research Museum say that it is most likely a Nemopteran (spoonwing) that has lost its forewings. I am very inclined to agree.
harleyshine: Gynandromorphs are mutations of sexually dimorphic organisms that simultaneously exhibit male and female characteristics. They are also sometimes known as half-siders because this mutation typically presents with half the body as female and the other half as male, split ventrally down the middle. It occurs as a result of errors during embryonic development and is extremely rare. The mutation arises as an error in the first cell division. Instead of passing on a complete set of sex chromosomes, the divided cell passes on only a partial set to one half, causing it to develop different physical characteristics. Non-disjunction, as the failure of a chromosome to separate fully during cell division is known, is usually fatal for the cell because it needs that genetic material, but every now and then the result is a gynandromorph.” -WiseGeek.
I really want that gynandromorph Carpenter bee!
