Age of Arthropods

Arthropods.

Segmented, jointed invertebrates with an exoskeleton.  They make up over 90% of all known living animal species.  Humans like to eat them, raise them, and kill them.  We like to love them and fear them.  We think some are tasty, and we think some are the most creepy things we've ever seen in our lives.

What we need to keep in mind, however, is that we need to respect them.  When it comes to humans and bugs, one might naturally think that because humans are bigger, they are better and more superior.

This would be a mistake.  Bugs are crazy awesome.  They are well adapted to almost every environment, and can survive a lot more than humans can.  We throw all our waste at them and they simply keep on trucking.  If any person on this earth is foolish enough to think that this is the age of man, and that humans are ruling the earth, they merely have to look at the facts.  Some studies estimate that there are over 200 million insects for every human.  That's not even including crustaceans, which are also in this category.  We're outnumbered.  Badly.

And we're amazingly lucky that their size is limited by their exoskeleton so that movies like this

will never actually happen.  (The weight of the exoskeleton would crush them if they were that large)

Thank God.  But please don't think that you shouldn't be afraid of bugs.  They're disease carriers, they're poisonous, venomous (yes there's a difference between poisonous and venomous, look it up) and all very well adapted to survive.  If you don't believe me, check out this link.  It's a hilarious but pretty accurate description of some truly terrifying arthropods.

It's not my intention to freak you out with that article, but I do wish to impress upon readers that arthropods are all extraordinarily impressive creatures, and we would do well to learn more about them before they take over the world.

Quit calling my food cute

I have nothing against vegetarians.  Some of them are great.  But last weekend I was subjected to an hour long lecture on why I should stop eating meat, and I almost smacked one in the face.

Cows and pigs and sheep are cute.  I agree with this.  I have no problem admitting it.  But I also know that cute is a word we assigned for them because they had that winning combination of big eyes, big ears, big feet and silly noises.  That's anthropomorphizing.  Animals do not care if they are cute.  They did not evolve to be aesthetically pleasing to us.  That was not their purpose.  Big ears help control body temperature and hear better.  Big eyes help an animal to see better.

However, through our own hubris, we came to believe that they were.  It's easy to see how it came about.  These are the days of tea cup pigs, bred specifically for some twit who wants something adorable, and, apparently, so inbred it will die young in misery.  Cute sells, and cute is created by stunting normal growth.

Tea cup pigs are created by breeding the runts of runts.  They don't stay tea cup sized for long, either.  And you can buy them pretty cheap, but be prepared to shell out a fortune in vet bills, because these things are plagued with health issues.

I'm not saying that I'm eating your tea cup pig.  I am saying that to make the point that 'cute' isn't a word that should be used in an argument against eating animals.  They are two separate things.  I do not eat meat because I hate cute animals.  I eat it because it is tasty and I like it.

In that same vein, who are these vegetarians, to decide what plants live an die?  Cutting down plants means less oxygen for us heterotrophs!  You're killing us slowly with your plant eating!  At least I kill the methane and carbon dioxide producers as well!

Sorry for the rant, I'm just irritated.  And omnivorous.  And proud of it.

Also, if you're planning on getting a pet, get a mutt, not a breed.  People shouldn't have the right to breed animals to satisfy whims of the consumer.

Also FYI this is what those cute little porky things grown into:

Story on the DailyMail

I'll show you vampires

This rant was prompted by a very dear friend who enjoys romance novels.  Specifically paranormal ones.  I have nothing against that.  Read whatever you want to read.  What I have an issue with is the moment in the book after the vampire bites his lover, where he licks the wound closed because their saliva is supposed to have amazing healing properties.

I understand that this is a very specific issue to have with vampires in books.  But I want to keep this post away from the normal "I hate Twilight" nonsense.  Dracula was the only vampire story for me, and that's the way it will always be.  I never even picked up another vampire book.  So I'm staying away from that potentially disastrous conversation.  Frankly I'm amazed people still talk about Twilight, if it was so horrible.

Anyway, back to my problem.  The licking to seal the wound closed.  Vampire bat saliva has anticoagulants in it to prolong bleeding.  Not to heal wounds.  I think all these authors wanted to pretend their vampires were more like other mammals in the sense that wound licking can have some healing properties.  Everybody has heard stories about some dog licking a wound, and it helps to heal, or whatever.  That's true, wound licking does sometimes help, through cleaning or whatever.  It also sometimes introduces bad oral bacteria into your system and can kill you.

In this case, the authors made their vampires more like this:

Than this:

And it's a tragedy.  Truly a tragedy.  

Disney, Pixar, and Sharks

I was watching Finding Nemo with several small children, and I was finding it a bit more interesting since I've now taken a Marine Biology class, and I'm currently enrolled in a class called Sharks.  It is an awesome class, and I'm enjoying it a great deal.  Then we got to the part where Marlin (the daddy Clown Fish) meets Bruce (the Great White Shark), Anchor (the Hammerhead Shark), and Chum (the Mako Shark).  This part was fine for everyone else, but I discovered something.  Bruce, who was undoubtedly intended to be a male shark, is, in fact, female.

Male cartilaginous fishes have claspers, sort of modified reproductive fins, formed from the posterior part of their pelvic fins.

Compare:

Bruce

To a real Great White Shark

The animators probably thought that was too obscene, or something ridiculous, and didn't want kids asking about it.  But if my sharks class ruined Finding Nemo for me, I'm going to ruin it for everybody else.

Classifying Woody the Woodpecker

I should state, before I continue with my rant, that I am not an ornithologist.

Woody the Woodpecker.  He is a beloved character with a Wikipedia article miles long.  The reason I am bringing him up is because Wikipedia says that he is an "anthropomorphic acorn woodpecker."  I completely disagree with this claim.  Any person with eyes will tell you that the two simply do not match, no matter how anthropomorphous Woody gets.

This is Woody.

This is an Acorn Woodpecker.

This is a Red-headed Woodpecker, and what I believe Woody should be classified as an anthropomorphized version of.  I am basing this entirely on the head.  Truthfully Woody doesn't look like any species of woodpecker I've ever seen.