It’s been AGES since the last time I made an actual new page on the site, but TODAY is the second day of April, which is… (drum sound) autism day. This means nothing, since every day is autism day for me, but I will not pass up any excuses to be annoying, so here’s how to tell apart the four classifications of ARTHROPODS, and you’re going to read and look at the images whether you like it or not.

ARTHROPODS are these little invertebrate bitches with the articulated legs, exoskeleton, segmented bodies, and so on. The classifications inside this term are insects (hexapods), arachnids, crustaceans and myriapods. They’re all fairly easy to tell apart in the most superficial ways, so I’ve taken to classifying random body horror pieces where the character has too many legs as whichever one of those best qualifies. In fact, we’re going to take that same approach as an introduction to every category (after, obviously, actual example images of The Various Beasts™)

First, we’ve got our good pals, the most common beasts from our gardens,

INSECTS

The group with the most variety, all INSECTS have a body divided in head (with antennae), mandible/feeding appendixes, eyes, thorax with three pairs of legs and an abdomen. They’re mostly terrestrial and adults tend to have wings, though there are exceptions. They breathe through tracheas and are silly.

THIS THING is an INSECT!

THIS THING is ALSO technically AN INSECT!

Fun fact: there’s way too many species of beetles. Also, you should google stuff about the Argentinian red ants. Maybe read their Wikipedia page. There are thousands of them in my backyard and we fight often. I am responsible for many of their troops dying.

ARACHNIDS

Part of the scary ones that make me jump from my chair when they start running towards me, ARACHNIDS are the ones with a cephalothorax and abdomen, eight legs, no antennae aaaand a little thingy they use to hunt and immobilize their prey named chelicerae (located in front of the cephalothorax). They breathe through laminar lungs and tracheas. Spiders will also have glands for web-making, they will use them to learn HTML and CSS. They’re not very good at JS. this is a joke and I mean the actual webs.

THIS CREATURE is an ARACHNID!

THIS CREATURE is ALSO AN ARACHNID!

MYRIAPODS

I have a weird relationship with MYRIAPODS. They’re both my bitch ex-wife (centipedes) and also my 6yr old step-son that I see on weekends (millipedes). I am still too young to have either of those, but it’s the sentiment what matters. Their body is divided in head (with a mandible) and a segmented trunk with numerous pairs of legs, and they’re all terrestrial (so far).

THIS GUY is a MYRIAPOD!

THIS GUY is ALSO A MYRIAPOD. i guess.

CRUSTACEANS

I have no opinion on CRUSTACEANS, but ever since I learnt that they’re arthropods I’ve been (obviously wrongly) calling them bugs. Did you know that pill bugs are CRUSTACEANS? It makes sense, but I don’t want it to. They’re all (except the pill bugs) aquatic, and their body is divided in cephalothorax and abdomen, like the arachnids. They’ve got antennae, four pairs of legs and swimming appendixes on the abdomen.

THIS BEAST is a CRUSTACEAN!

and i don't feel like drawing another abomination, so we'll leave it at that.

This has been The Arthropods Page, entry 1. Any new developments on this front will be listed on the NEWS page, if there are any at all. CLICK HERE TO GO BACK HOME!

It's Apr16, 2023 (at the time of writing this), and once again we’re at The Arthropods page!

We’ve already covered the classifications of arthropods, so I am going to assume you’re up to date with the homework that I didn’t even assign you, and have been successfully identifying body horror pieces as their respective buggy counterparts. If not, here’s two assignments to do before or after reading this section:

1. Doodle a creature that fits all or most of the criteria needed for it to be an INSECT. It must be done on either a napkin or a material that’s absolutely seen better days. If made digitally, it has to be of very low quality.

You may do this assignment whenever you feel like it. If you find a way to turn it in (artfol post link in the chatbox? blog post in your site?), you can absolutely do that.

ANYWAYS. Onto this week’s update:

STUFF ABOUT THE SOLENOPSIS INVICTA (ANT, INSECT)

The “red imported fire ant”, known in my country as the red ant, is a sore loser and my mortal nemesis of the month. They no longer appear in the kitchen (or at least I can’t see them anymore), but they’ve made enormous anthills in my backyard that I keep demolishing. I stepped on one to see how many ants were at the surface level, and there were at least 300! None bit me, because I had socks on.

These ants are omnivores and venomous, causing a burning sensation with their bite. They also exhibit necrophoric behavior, meaning they leave their dead ones outside the anthill! I had to kill a good amount of them because the situation was getting ridiculous (they’re very invasive), so I tossed some boiling water on the biggest anthill and came back two hours later to find thousands of dead ants being stockpiled by their living relatives around the anthill. I did not know they were necrophoric, so it was a great surprise to see the legendary Ant Corpse Piles(tm) in real life and not just in some guy’s see-through ant farm videos.

Now, I’ve known these fuckers all my life, and, until recently, there were few things I knew as the downsides to having this beast in my surroundings, which were:

- Bites hard. Ouch.

- Hurts my plants. :(.

It turns out they do more than "Ouch" and ":("! The Wikipedia page sums it up this way:

“The [red] ant is viewed as a notorious pest, causing billions of dollars in damage annually and impacting wildlife. The ants thrive in urban areas, so their presence may deter outdoor activities.” (They will, in fact, bite your ass and invade your food in picnics)

“Nests can be built under structures such as pavements and foundations, which may cause structural problems, or cause them to collapse. Not only can they damage or destroy structures, but red imported fire ants also can damage equipment and infrastructure and impact business, land, and property values.”

“In agriculture, they can damage crops and machinery, and threaten pastures. They are known to invade a wide variety of crops, and mounds built on farmland may prevent harvesting. They also pose a threat to animals and livestock, capable of inflicting serious injury or killing them, especially young, weak, or sick animals. Despite this, they may be beneficial because they consume common pest insects on crops. Common methods of controlling these ants include baiting and fumigation; other methods may be ineffective or dangerous. Due to its notoriety and importance, the ant has become one of the most studied insects on the planet, even rivalling the western honey bee (Apis mellifera).”

That last bit is crucial. Since it’s one of the most studied insects in the planet, its Wikipedia page is long as fuck, which is awesome. They’re apparently big predators of the Opiliones (or daddy long legs, also known as harvestmen! They are arachnids, but not actually spiders), and are believed to be the main cause for the extinction of the Stock Island tree snail in the wild. The list of animals often endangered by the red ant is multiple paragraphs long, but you’re better off reading the page yourself, for I have been reading it for about two hours and gone down a rabbit hole of animal pages. It's been wild to learn that they can actually kill quite a lot of animals (mostly newborn or sick ones).

LAST BIT OF INFO: they can survive floods by making a ball of ants (with the queen inside) that’ll float above the water until it hits a tree that the ants will climb and stay on until the water level goes down. This makes them superior to our species, unless we learn to do the same in, at LEAST, the next decade. This leads us to our second assignment of the day:

2. In groups of 10 to 20, make balls of human people that’ll float above the water in case a flood happens. We will be testing this every monday at the beach that appears in every movie that features a tsunami (yes, it’s only the one) until all groups succeed.

This assignment is due on April 2033. Don’t say I didn’t give you enough time.

This has been The Arthropods Page, entry 2. Any new developments on this front will be listed on the NEWS page, if there are any at all. CLICK HERE TO GO BACK HOME!