Nature's Predators...

On this thread, I thought I would share with you info on some of the bugs that I have kept, over the years.

I will focus on the predators, since I want to demonstrate their different abilities to take down their prey, find a meal.

Okay, so here we have what is called a Velvet Worm. Great bit of footage here, defo worth watching.


Here.


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh4ezLN2IqM



Velvet worms are bizzare creatures living in leaf litter on the floors of tropical forests. They superficially resemble caterpillars and are called "worms with legs," but they're their own phylum, Onychophora, which means "claw-bearers." This is a reference to the small chitin claws on their stub feet. Growing to between 0.5 and 50 cm (0.2 - 12.5 in), with an average length of 5 cm (2 in) velvet worms are segmented animals with between 13 and 43 pairs of legs.


Velvet worms come in a variety of colors, including brown, white, blue, grey, pink, and red. They share similarities with both arthropods (like spiders) and annelids (like earthworms), but are considered more closely related to arthropods, even though it was thought for many decades they were more related to annelids. More distantly, they are related to nematodes and horsehair worms.

Velvet worms are believed to have existed in their current form for an extremely long time, maybe as long as 430 million years, when the first animals took to the land. For much of history, velvet worms lived all over the Earth, not just in tropical regions. Fossils resembling velvet worms, called lobopods, have been found in Cambrian strata, up to 540 million years ago, demonstrating the lineage is very old. An early form, Hallucigenia, is one of the most fascinating organisms in the famous Burgess shale formation. Unlike modern-day velvet worms, Hallucingenia was covered in long spikes.

Velvet worms are carnivores with an unusual way of eating. They seek out prey (small insects) with their antennae, then barrage it with streams of sticky glue-like substance dispensed from hoses on their head. These streams criss-cross, like a lasso around the victim. In a single attack, a large velvet worm may use up a shot glass worth of sticky glue to trap their victim. The velvet worm has a waterproof body immune to the effects of the glue, so once the target is trapped, it just goes up and injects digestive juices into it, slurping up the dissolved victim. The glue also has a toxic effect that slows down the prey.

Because of their ancient ancestry, bizzare appearance, and unusual eating habits, velvet worms have proven to be popular exotic pets.

I have also had several of these.

Hard to keep alive for long in captivity.

Many myths about them, most of which are baseless.

Really interesting bugs, these. No venom, no special 'equipment', just speed and sheer ruthlessness!


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NXbwi1XFPXo


Solifugae is an order of Arachnida, containing more than 1,000 described species in about 140 genera. The name derives from Latin, and means those that flee from the sun. The order is also known by the names Solpugida, Solpugides, Solpugae, Galeodea and Mycetophorae. Their common names include camel spider, wind scorpion, sun scorpion and sun spider.

Solifugae are not true spiders, which are from a different order, Araneae. Like scorpions and harvestmen, they belong to a distinct arachnid order.




Urban legends

A SolifugidSolifugae are the subject of many urban legends and exaggerations about their size, speed, behavior, appetite, and lethality. They are not especially large, the biggest having a leg span of perhaps 12 centimeters (5 in). They are fast on land compared to other invertebrates, the fastest can run perhaps 16 kilometers per hour (10 mph), nearly half as fast as the fastest human sprinter. Members of this order of Arachnida apparently have no venom, with the possible exception of one species in India (see below) and do not spin webs.

In the Middle East, it is widely rumored among American and coalition military forces stationed there that Solifugae will feed on living human flesh. The story goes that the creature will inject some anaesthetizing venom into the exposed skin of its sleeping victim, then feed voraciously, leaving the victim to awaken with a gaping wound. Solifugae, however, do not produce such an anaesthetic, and they do not attack prey larger than themselves unless threatened. Other stories include tales of them leaping into the air, disemboweling camels, screaming, and running alongside moving humvees; all of these tales are dubious at best. Due to their bizarre appearance many people are startled or even afraid of them. This fear was sufficient to drive a family from their home when one was discovered in a soldier's house in Colchester . The greatest threat they pose to humans, however, is their bite in self-defense when one tries to handle them. There is essentially no chance of death directly caused by the bite, but, due to the strong muscles of their chelicerae, they can produce a proportionately large, ragged wound that is prone to infection.

The weird thing with this video is........

I could almost tell what the person in the video was saying. Though I don't speak that language.

Amazing.

Yeah?

Did you watch both vids?

It is facinating to think that on any given hour, there are entire 'wars' going on out there, only this time, man is not at fault.

Think of when ants raid the nest of those of other ants.

To them, this is the same as a full scale war, in their universe of being an ant.

So basically, insects, animals and man. There is not really much difference between us is there? We eat, sleep, breed and fight. We all want to top dog.

Old Timer wrote:So basically, insects, animals and man. There is not really much difference between us is there? We eat, sleep, breed and fight. We all want to top dog.

That is true.

However, the difference is that the ants are not able to think beyond their programming, so to speak.

We can.

Which makes our killing and wars avoidable.

I am afraid that I must disagree with you on that one. In reality, war is the only real way that we have of controlling our ever growing population.

My Labradoodle, Lily Belle, had one of these things this summer when she was 6 months old. When the vet showed me what was causing the suspect lump, I puked right in her office.

If you watch the video within this link, you might too; heads-up. Gosh, these people need baths.
http://ambergriscaye.com/pages/town/botfly.html

Notice the metal-like hooks which, with every squirm, tortured my poor dog:
http://ambergriscaye.com/pages/town/botfly2.html

Close-up:
http://ambergriscaye.com/pages/town/botfly_files/figure5a.jpg

Old Timer wrote:I am afraid that I must disagree with you on that one. In reality, war is the only real way that we have of controlling our ever growing population.

Surely you are not actually endorsing the merits of war, as means of population control?

If so, what is the difference between that, and the population management (sic), as used by the SS?

Had they won the war, I am sure their methods would soon have extended to others they deemed dispensable.

HotParadox wrote:My Labradoodle, Lily Belle, had one of these things this summer when she was 6 months old. When the vet showed me what was causing the suspect lump, I puked right in her office.

If you watch the video within this link, you might too; heads-up. Gosh, these people need baths.
http://ambergriscaye.com/pages/town/botfly.html

Notice the metal-like hooks which, with every squirm, tortured my poor dog:
http://ambergriscaye.com/pages/town/botfly2.html

Close-up:
http://ambergriscaye.com/pages/town/botfly_files/figure5a.jpg

Nasty.

Have you ever heard of a thing called the Parasitical Wasp?

They sting their host.

Eggs hatch into grubs.

Grubs control the mind of host.

Grubs eat their way out of host.

Spooky stuff...




http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7UkDMrG6tog

Eeewww.
Can they lay their eggs in humans and pets too?
Because If they can, 5 will get you 10 that my dog will have one of these sooner than later.

HotParadox wrote:Eeewww.
Can they lay their eggs in humans and pets too?
Because If they can, 5 will get you 10 that my dog will have one of these sooner than later.

Good question.

I have not heard of them doing so.

Tics can though, and they look nasty, close up.

The Ghost Of Yeah Well Fi wrote:

HotParadox wrote:Eeewww.
Can they lay their eggs in humans and pets too?
Because If they can, 5 will get you 10 that my dog will have one of these sooner than later.

Good question.

I have not heard of them doing so.

Tics can though, and they look nasty, close up.

Ticks?
My dog is on Frontline, and will be, every day of her life. Even in the winter, she has ticks. In the spring, summer and fall, we find dozens a day on her. She gets groomed once a week and that's one reason why so often.

Sometimes these ticks fill to the size of a black grape before we notice them. We pull them 'out and off' and burn them because they are very hard, even if stepped on. My dog Taggy, who died a year ago at the age of almost 16 years, got bit by a deer tick, which is a much smaller tick. From the deer tick, she got full-blown Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Lyme Disease. Taggy was also on Frontline at the time, but sometimes it doesn't matter.

We have a friend who is a plumber. He did a job for a family with a clogged toilet. Seems that after removing the ticks from their dog, they would flush them down the toilet. What he removed was a baseball-size mass of livings ticks. From the toilet...

I guess you have one of those tools that allow you to easily remove the tic, right?

Like a small corkscew, it is...

The Ghost Of Yeah Well Fi wrote:I guess you have one of those tools that allow you to easily remove the tic, right?

Like a small corkscew, it is...

No. Fingers.

You just grab on and yank. They say if some gets broken off, that they will regenerate or get infected. Since 1991, when we got Taggy Rose, and now with little Lily Belle, I have pulled off hundreds, conservatively, of ticks and there have been no problems...

Except for the deer tick in Taggy, which is is very tiny, and which I never saw. It was the vet who, upon diagnosing the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Lyme Disease, told me that my dog had been host to a deer tick. The tick did so much damage that my dog was convulsing with fever, every muscle was lame, and was in frightful pain. She lived through it.

I have many times, especially when they were tots, removed deer ticks from the children. I would check them daily, and several times a week I would find them.

Lyme Disease is named after a town in Connecticut from where the disease was brought to light.

Of course, CT is part of New England, and is not far from MA.
Besides having deer, my town is a big equestrian town, and that is where deer tick like to reside.

Wiki:
"The full syndrome now known as Lyme disease was not recognized until a cluster of cases originally thought to be juvenile rheumatoid arthritis was identified in three towns in southeastern Connecticut in 1975, including the towns Lyme and Old Lyme, which gave the disease its popular name.[173] This was investigated by physicians David Snydman and Allen Steere of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, and by others from Yale University. The recognition that the patients in the United States had EM led to the recognition that "Lyme arthritis" was one manifestation of the same tick-borne condition known in Europe.[174]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#History

You should get one of those things I mentioned. Very effective, get them for about $5 your money.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pNcIUIULafw

Had many of these.

Usually feed them on crickets and locusts.

Stealth killers.

The Ghost Of Yeah Well Fi wrote:You should get one of those things I mentioned. Very effective, get them for about $5 your money.

I thought you were kidding about a corkscrew. Never heard of such tool. I'll do a google.

HotParadox wrote:

The Ghost Of Yeah Well Fi wrote:You should get one of those things I mentioned. Very effective, get them for about $5 your money.

I thought you were kidding about a corkscrew. Never heard of such tool. I'll do a google.

I am sure they are for sale on E Bay.

This is what it is like in the UK version


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-OTom-Tick-Remover-Hook-Pet-Dog-Cat-Animal-Human-Or_W0QQitemZ260285237642QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Pet_Supplies_Dogs?hash=item260285237642&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1301%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A2%7C240%3A1318

Huh. That's so funny I've never heard of them. I guess what it is is we all have dogs here, we live in an equestrian town, and we're all just so used to picking 'em out. I mean, you'll be talking to your friend and while your both talking, your both picking the ticks off your dogs.

HotParadox wrote:Huh. That's so funny I've never heard of them. I guess what it is is we all have dogs here, we live in an equestrian town, and we're all just so used to picking 'em out. I mean, you'll be talking to your friend and while your both talking, your both picking the ticks off your dogs.

You can do that.

But it really not as effective.

It is the difference between using tweezers to remove a wood spinter, or using fingers.

With the latter, you don't always get the entire thing.

Kept a few T's.

But would not do this....


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ES50zZnCR34

The Ghost Of Yeah Well Fi wrote:Kept a few T's.

But would not do this....


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ES50zZnCR34

Oh, that made me so sad. The poor little thing suffered for so long. Who is the idiot that set this up? Cruel. If it happens in nature, that's one thing but to cause it, that is quite another and I question their sense of compassion with humans as well as with creatures. Cold hearts.

Yeah.

I know.

Also, by doing that, there is a reasonable risk to his spider, were the mouse to bite back.

It has been known.

In the US, a hobbyist can feed live mice and rats to their pet inverts or snakes.

In the UK, technically it is a banned practice.

The Ghost Of Yeah Well Fi wrote:Yeah.

I know.

Also, by doing that, there is a reasonable risk to his spider, were the mouse to bite back.

It has been known.

In the US, a hobbyist can feed live mice and rats to their pet inverts or snakes.

In the UK, technically it is a banned practice.

I used to have a b/f that had a snake and he would feed it little mice that he bought at the pet store. I'd be what the hell, and he'd be all well, that's what they do in the wild. And I'd go well that's the next problem with you-why don't you let him free? NEways, when I found out about its diet, I kinda lost feelings for him. True.

Surely you are not actually endorsing the merits of war, as means of population control?

It is not what I do or not endorse about war as a method of population control. It is what happens each and every day in the world today. With out it just try to think of all the people that would have born and created more folks. We would all be starving because we can not grow enough food to feed that meny. While it may not be ethical it seems to be the only way that we can really use at this present time.

The Ghost Of Yeah Well Fi wrote:On this thread, I thought I would share with you info on some of the bugs that I have kept, over the years.

I will focus on the predators, since I want to demonstrate their different abilities to take down their prey, find a meal.

Okay, so here we have what is called a Velvet Worm. Great bit of footage here, defo worth watching.


Here.


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh4ezLN2IqM



Velvet worms are bizzare creatures living in leaf litter on the floors of tropical forests. They superficially resemble caterpillars and are called "worms with legs," but they're their own phylum, Onychophora, which means "claw-bearers." This is a reference to the small chitin claws on their stub feet. Growing to between 0.5 and 50 cm (0.2 - 12.5 in), with an average length of 5 cm (2 in) velvet worms are segmented animals with between 13 and 43 pairs of legs.


Velvet worms come in a variety of colors, including brown, white, blue, grey, pink, and red. They share similarities with both arthropods (like spiders) and annelids (like earthworms), but are considered more closely related to arthropods, even though it was thought for many decades they were more related to annelids. More distantly, they are related to nematodes and horsehair worms.

Velvet worms are believed to have existed in their current form for an extremely long time, maybe as long as 430 million years, when the first animals took to the land. For much of history, velvet worms lived all over the Earth, not just in tropical regions. Fossils resembling velvet worms, called lobopods, have been found in Cambrian strata, up to 540 million years ago, demonstrating the lineage is very old. An early form, Hallucigenia, is one of the most fascinating organisms in the famous Burgess shale formation. Unlike modern-day velvet worms, Hallucingenia was covered in long spikes.

Velvet worms are carnivores with an unusual way of eating. They seek out prey (small insects) with their antennae, then barrage it with streams of sticky glue-like substance dispensed from hoses on their head. These streams criss-cross, like a lasso around the victim. In a single attack, a large velvet worm may use up a shot glass worth of sticky glue to trap their victim. The velvet worm has a waterproof body immune to the effects of the glue, so once the target is trapped, it just goes up and injects digestive juices into it, slurping up the dissolved victim. The glue also has a toxic effect that slows down the prey.

Because of their ancient ancestry, bizzare appearance, and unusual eating habits, velvet worms have proven to be popular exotic pets.

The realm of the snake is much more interesting and intriging, then some bugs.

Well women don't like snakes, I think it has something to do with apples and a garden

Going back to the OP, I want to do something positive, something that young people will benefit from.

Anyone interested in the idea?