Goblin-in-the-rain - Meta

Animal of the Day!

Greater Hog Badger (Arctonyx collaris)

(Photo by Kulpat Saralamba)

Conservation Status- Vulnerable

Habitat- Southeastern Asia; Central Asia

Size (Weight/Length)- 14 kg; 100 cm; 25 cm tail

Diet- Insects; Small mammals; Fruits; Roots; Worms

Cool Facts- Despite appearances, the greater hog nosed badger is the second largest mustelid and not a pig. Eating practically anything, these badgers spend their days wandering through thick forests and grassland. The greater hog badger uses their sensitive snout to dig through leaf litter in search of delicacies. They are relatively unafraid of people and are often seen waltzing past camera traps without a care in the world. In as few as 15 years, their population has been halved due to illegal poaching and snaring. Conservationists are rushing to put an end to snaring and encourage captive breeding programs.

Rating- 13/10 (Ban snaring worldwide.)

Asian striped land leech, Haemadipsa guangchuanensis, Haemadipsidae

Photo 1 by dhfischer, 2-3 by daver, 4-5 by bentsai, and 6-7 by albertkang

Moth Of The Day #123

Blair's Mocha

Cyclophora puppillaria

From the geomtridae family. They have a wingspan of 28-36 mm. They tend to inhabit open and coastal habitats, but are also occasionally seen in woodland. They can be found in Europe and North Africa to the Caucasus area.

girls love to eat soup

February is right around the corner, which means it’s soon time for Funguary 2023! the drawing event where we draw a bunch of mushroom based characters during the month of feb.

Here’s how it works:

Each week of the month will have a theme with seven different prompts, draw something mushroom related within that theme in order to join. The themes are Weird, Mystical, Malicious and Friendly. You don’t have to complete all the prompts, just one mushroom per theme/week is plenty!

If you’re hardcore you can definitely try and finish all the prompts though ;). The challenge intensity is adjustable to what suits you. This is a chill event where the goal is to just have fun and vibe, and honor the fungi kingdom with some really cool art🍄

I invite you all to come draw mushrooms with me! Use the hashtag #Funguary when posting your creations. I’ll be posting some of the creations here, and I’ll also be hanging out in the hashtag and comment sections! Really hope y’all join and draw fungi with me🥰🍄🌿 See you all on the first of February, LETS GOOOO!!

Closet cosplay of Arthur Lester!!

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

Moths. Feathers. Moths with feathers*!!

*These feathers are brought to you by CONVERGENT EVOLUTION!

So, here's the Alucitidae Family!! Commonly known as the many-plumed moths!! (Note, there’s also just plume moths, in the Pterophoridae family, but I wanted to talk about these ones today)

Their wings are really something else! Each wing is made up of about 6 flexible spines from which bristles (similar to the barbs of bird feathers) project laterally forming feathers! There are about 200 species known, they are pretty small, the wingspan of adults ranging from 7-28mm. They are distributed in temperate and subtropical regions worldwide and, not surprisingly, are mostly nocturnal and some crepuscular. Their larvae tunnel through the leaves and buds of various shrubs, the larvae of the type species for example, Alucita hexadactyla (pictured above as adult, as larva below), feeds on honeysuckle!

Also as a little fun fact, until 2004 there was only one species of many-plumed moth known to live in North America, A. montana (lowest photo) which was by the way mistaken to be the same as the European type species I talked above, since then however, two more species have been discovered by Bernard and Jean-François Landry, A. adriendenisi (left) and A. lalannei (right)!

Mothman's fashionable brother.