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The Lone Badger posted:A question about spiders predating vertebrates: Y'know, it's one of those things that I've heard entomologists say offhandedly and seen pictures of spiders going to town webbing up reptiles, but always wondered about the exact mechanics. I assume maybe the web keeps everything contained while it's being digested, or maybe they just drink what they can and let the rest go to waste, but I've yet to find the actual answer myself.
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Sep 14, 2018 16:08
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I kind of enjoy the image of a spider bagging something too big, attempting to eat it while scratching its had in bewilderment and ultimatelly letting it go with a polite apology. I'm not familiar with the name of Tarantula Hawks, but it's that wasp, isn't it? Also, creepiness view from an arachnophobe: For some odd reason I am perfectly fine with scorpions so that is not an issue - the cave with hanging coccoons is, though, especially the spider moving around the gecko. I also had a really bad scare when one of the spiders managed to sneak behind your back and suddenly attacked you from out of camera's angle. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Sep 14, 2018 |
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Sep 14, 2018 20:54
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Fiendly posted:Y'know, it's one of those things that I've heard entomologists say offhandedly and seen pictures of spiders going to town webbing up reptiles, but always wondered about the exact mechanics. I assume maybe the web keeps everything contained while it's being digested, or maybe they just drink what they can and let the rest go to waste, but I've yet to find the actual answer myself. They don't just splurt digestive juices all over the prey and wait for the whole thing to melt, but the exact way they manage their food depends on exactly what animal you're looking at, because spider and scorpion mouthparts get weird. Spiders and scorpions are defined in part by their mouthparts, which are specialised things called chelicerae. More specifically, the taxanomic group above arachnidae is chelicerata, which are defined by having them and is made up of arachnids, horseshoe crabs and possibly sea spiders, which there's some debate about. In most chelicerata, the chelicerae are weird grabby-claw things used to grab prey and either tear bits off or just generally mash and "chew". Solifugids (camel spiders) are one of the few arachnids that use their chelicerae to hunt and outright kill prey, so they have a particularly large and intimidating pair that do a good job of showing off what they're generally about.  Scorpions, meanwhile, use their claws and venomous sting for the actual hunting, so their chelicerae are generally kept tucked away inside the prosoma (the front part of the body). They're surprisingly dextrous! Scorpions and spiders, along with all other chelicerata, as far as I know, can only ingest liquid food and have specialised "sucking stomachs" for it. Scorpions manage this by using their chelicerae to tear and slice bits of prey off and draw it into a special pre-oral cavity where digestive fluids melt it down into a sort of soup before being sucked into the stomach proper  Spiders are characterised by having uniquely specialised chelicerae. Rather than being little claws, they contain venom ducts and have a hollow fang to inject their venom with. Exactly how the fangs and chelicerae operate is one of the big divisions in spider taxonomy but I'll get into that later on. The actual mouth of a spider is on the underside right behind the chelicerae, and is used either to force digestive enzymes into the prey, or just generally to spread digestive juices over it, depending on the structure of the chelicerae. Spiders like our tarantula friend just tear and mash the prey into a ball called a bolus and "lick" at it until they're got as much of the digested, liquid parts as they can before throwing the rest away. Other spiders will just make a hole, inject enzymes and then drink up the liquid before repeating the process, ending with either a mostly-intact exoskeleton or the skin and bones of an unfortunate small reptile or rodent. The arachnid method of digesting food externally and only actually ingesting it once it's liquid has some pretty neat benefits, namely that they don't waste energy on indigestible parts of their prey, and having near-immunity to things like digestive parasites and other nasties that us solid eaters have to worry about being in our food.
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Sep 15, 2018 07:52
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So, I don't know much about scorpions, but I'm questioning one thing in game that I don't think I've seen anywhere else. Do scorpions have the same wall scaling ability that spiders have? I've seen a lot of scorpions in games and movies and other such media, but never one that shows crawling at or near 90 degrees like we do here.
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Sep 15, 2018 21:49
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I presume the digestive fluid the spiders use dosent break down skin or something. I swear they used sounds effects from Aliens in that opening scene.
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Sep 16, 2018 00:57
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CzarChasm posted:So, I don't know much about scorpions, but I'm questioning one thing in game that I don't think I've seen anywhere else. Do scorpions have the same wall scaling ability that spiders have? I've seen a lot of scorpions in games and movies and other such media, but never one that shows crawling at or near 90 degrees like we do here. Fourth Indiana Jones movie, also they crawl up people's legs sometimes. It does depend on the size of the Scorpion though, if they're really big they won't crawl on walls.
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Sep 16, 2018 04:36
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CzarChasm posted:So, I don't know much about scorpions, but I'm questioning one thing in game that I don't think I've seen anywhere else. Do scorpions have the same wall scaling ability that spiders have? I've seen a lot of scorpions in games and movies and other such media, but never one that shows crawling at or near 90 degrees like we do here. I can assure you from experience that the scorpions that live in Arizona do indeed crawl on my loving walls every goddamn week all summer long gently caress this garbage state! So hopefully that answers your question.
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Sep 16, 2018 04:58
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DropsySufferer posted:This made me think about Gila Monsters. I knew they were venomous but I wanted to check if they could kill a human. Nope, their bite is merely painful but not fatal. People also keep them as pets apparently which seems like a bad idea. Funny venomous lizard fact: For a long time, scientists assumed that there were only two venomous lizards, the Gila Monster and its cousin the Mexican Beaded Lizard. Then, a few years ago, a biochemist asked 'Hey, uh... did we... did we ever actually LOOK to check?' and the biologist community kind of shrugged and shuffled their feet. So he went out, pried open some lizard mouths, and actually looked, and yep, a bunch of lizards we never knew were venomous actually have venom glands, they just don't have injector fangs.
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Sep 16, 2018 06:01
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anilEhilated posted:I'm not familiar with the name of Tarantula Hawks, but it's that wasp, isn't it? There are a lot of wasps that live life as the stuff of nightmares, so much so that I've even seen fellow entomology enthusiasts revel in their deaths (which I find really gross, but it happens). Tarantula hawks are among the most notorious, though, for their sting's effect on humans and for the "real life xenomorph" stuff they do to tarantulas, so they may well be that wasp. I'm not surprised you'd have less of a problem with scorpions, they seem much more widely acceptable despite being immensely more dangerous to humans (though still not especially dangerous). Might be because they're an astrological sign so people relate to them or something, I dunno. CzarChasm posted:Do scorpions have the same wall scaling ability that spiders have? I've seen a lot of scorpions in games and movies and other such media, but never one that shows crawling at or near 90 degrees like we do here. Turns out they can! The game does make a point of the scorpion being worse at scaling walls than the spider, though, and it never gets the ability to walk on ceilings. Dreadwroth posted:I swear they used sounds effects from Aliens in that opening scene. Yeah, I get a strong Aliens influence from the entire game, they seem to go out of their way to make the tarantula look like a facehugger in the Wii menu screen. Tendales posted:Funny venomous lizard fact: For a long time, scientists assumed that there were only two venomous lizards, the Gila Monster and its cousin the Mexican Beaded Lizard. Then, a few years ago, a biochemist asked 'Hey, uh... did we... did we ever actually LOOK to check?' and the biologist community kind of shrugged and shuffled their feet. So he went out, pried open some lizard mouths, and actually looked, and yep, a bunch of lizards we never knew were venomous actually have venom glands, they just don't have injector fangs. Super not surprised, the creepier an animal is the less we know about its biology. I'm trying to avoid bringing up unknown stuff or widespread misinformation in the LP, but it's hard, the word isn't even out about this as the Gila monster Wikipedia still has that "fact" in the opening paragraph.
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Sep 16, 2018 06:28
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IIRC scientists planned to bring in a certain species of horror wasps that specifically prey on fire ants to... well, help deal with fire ants. I saw that many years ago on National Geographic, so I don't know what happened with that.
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Sep 16, 2018 06:45
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I discovered there's a species of wasp called "Signal Wasps" that do the tarantula hawk thing to roaches, I just thought they were weird-looking crickets.
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Sep 16, 2018 07:06
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Fiendly posted:Tarantula hawks are among the most notorious, though, for their sting's effect on humans and for the "real life xenomorph" stuff they do to tarantulas, so they may well be that wasp.
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Sep 16, 2018 08:56
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I know it's not a wasp per se, but since hornets are part of the wasp family (I think), I have to say that Japanese hornets are one of the most terrifying insects around.
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Sep 17, 2018 20:54
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anilEhilated posted:Yeah, it is. Nature gets loving horrifying. This always amuses me when people bring up slaughterhouses and such, as far as I know these places are relatively humane (as much as death can be) vs what happens in the wild. In nature you're *lucky* if you're dead before something starts to eat you. I'm all for treating animals well while they are alive, but quick and somewhat painless? Well, there are much much much worse ways to go.
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Sep 18, 2018 04:55
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these days I don't think it is how animals are slaughtered that people have problems with, they take issue with the living conditions of the animals bred for slaughter and food production. Yes there are still militant people that are against cows getting shocked and then having a bolt shot into their skulls but mostly people are upset with them being cramped together, having hormones pumped into their bodies so they grow faster. Chicken farms are pretty bad for that since they keep thousands of them in poorly lit barns with lovely ventilation and barely any personal space and so they routinely beat the poo poo out of each other. Sure they do that out in the free range as well but there will be fewer incidents because they actually have space to avoid each other
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Sep 18, 2018 15:24
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Update: Chapter Three - Watchers
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Sep 23, 2018 05:42
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Aw, I wanted to throw uticating hairs at people.
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Sep 23, 2018 08:01
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This video has one of the -as far as I'm concerned- worst things you can show spiders do to an arachnophobic: rappeling. I honestly have no idea why this particular move triggers such a response, it's not like it presents danger or anything, but just the sight of them dropping down, moving their legs just like that... that's enough to make me start shivering all over. And that's on screen; I've had instances of my body literally freezing when confronted with a small, harmless spider doing this RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE.
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Sep 23, 2018 09:12
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Aw, I wanted to throw uticating hairs at people. Yeah, just the animation alone would've been worth it. anilEhilated posted:This video has one of the -as far as I'm concerned- worst things you can show spiders do to an arachnophobic: rappeling. I remember having about the same problem back when I didn't like spiders. They always seemed to end up swinging in my general direction too, dunno why, maybe I'm positively charged. Last time I saw a rappeling spider, though, I just said, "What are you up to, buddy?" Before they pulled themself back up, which I always thought would be funny to an outside observer.
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Sep 23, 2018 14:10
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Didn't know that behavior was called rappelling, see it so often I've gotten pretty good at grabbing the web and tossing them out the front door. As for things I'm disappointed weren't included, I spoiled myself on the bestiary and not including Jerusalem Crickets was a missed opportunity, they wouldn't be much of threat but those waxy skull faced bastards usually freak out most people.
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Sep 23, 2018 17:24
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They do tick damage? Dont you mean mite damage
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Sep 23, 2018 22:50
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The flying clouds of mites are strange and inaccurate even by this game's standards. Mites are arachnids like our protagonists, and can't fly. At all.
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Sep 24, 2018 10:48
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Maybe they meant to say midges?
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Sep 24, 2018 13:35
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So, out of curiosity, we see a lot of spiders coming at us in groups or squads. How common is it for spiders to be pack/cooperative hunters in any sense? I thought they were primarily loners.
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Sep 25, 2018 19:05
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I haven't done all the necessary research yet, but I do not believe there exists a single species of spiders that hunt as a group. There are spiders that hang out in groups, but they stick to their large communal webs rather than actively hunting. Precisely one species of hunting spider will behave semi-socially, but that's far from the strangest aspect of their behavior; they're also primarily vegetarian!
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Sep 25, 2018 20:53
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PurpleXVI posted:So, out of curiosity, we see a lot of spiders coming at us in groups or squads. How common is it for spiders to be pack/cooperative hunters in any sense? I thought they were primarily loners. They are, and most spiders will happily cannibalise members of their own species given the chance. There are a few species that will live communally but they're very much the exception rather than the rule. Some of the cobweb spiders (Theridiidae) are most well known for it and can spin gigantic webs that cover entire trees or areas of forest.  The family actually includes the widow spiders, and despite their reputation they have been known to live communally in captivity, although that could be due to other factors. Aside from them, at least one species of huntsman spider is known to live communally, crammed together into tiny spaces. As for tarantulas, I know of very few species that will live together. M. balfouri is the only one I know of that will truly live communally, living in a giant "web castle" together and happily sharing their prey.  Poecelitheria species like the spectacular P. metallica below have been known to live in the same enclosure in captivity, but they very much keep to themselves and make separate webs, so I don't think they can be called communal. Even then, there are plenty of people who tried communal setups and ended up with one big fat spider left before long. 
Mr. Vile fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Sep 25, 2018 |
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Sep 25, 2018 21:34
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I love those huge "castle" webs. There's just generally something cool about social animals, the more advanced and permanent their social interactions, the better, especially if they're physically really unlike us.
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Sep 25, 2018 21:42
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I'd show my love with a flamethrower. That tree image is seriously freaking me out.
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Sep 25, 2018 22:17
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Mr. Vile posted:P. metallica  I'm a bit arachnophobic (moreso now that I live in a part of the country/specific house where you can find both brown recluse and black widow spiders), and that is just a beautiful spider. Really appreciating all the informative supplementary posts.
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Sep 26, 2018 00:00
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That's so precious! What a good fuzzy friend.
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Sep 26, 2018 00:50
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Mr. Vile posted:They are, and most spiders will happily cannibalise members of their own species given the chance. There are a few species that will live communally but they're very much the exception rather than the rule. Some of the cobweb spiders (Theridiidae) are most well known for it and can spin gigantic webs that cover entire trees or areas of forest. Aren't these the spiders that kept the mosquito population controlled in Japan after Fukushima? Kept a malaria outbreak from occurring iirc
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Sep 27, 2018 00:24
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Here's a neat spider fact: they actually use the Earth's electric field to levitate when ballooning https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2818%2930693-6
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Sep 28, 2018 16:51
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Aces High posted:Aren't these the spiders that kept the mosquito population controlled in Japan after Fukushima? Kept a malaria outbreak from occurring iirc Per Wikipedia, that picture is from Pakistan after flooding drove massive numbers of spiders into the trees.
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Sep 28, 2018 19:54
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I meant the type of spider, not the ones in that picture in particular
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Sep 28, 2018 20:14
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anilEhilated posted:This video has one of the -as far as I'm concerned- worst things you can show spiders do to an arachnophobic: rappeling. I honestly have no idea why this particular move triggers such a response, it's not like it presents danger or anything, but just the sight of them dropping down, moving their legs just like that... that's enough to make me start shivering all over. And that's on screen; I've had instances of my body literally freezing when confronted with a small, harmless spider doing this RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE. Are you familiar with the psychological concept of flooding? Basically stay in an environment that causes fear long enough that the fear response starts to diminish. The brain will slowly start to unlearn the phobia. For you a method could be watching a spider rappel down a wall for one minute a day and then two minutes the next day and so on. Eventually the fear will go away. You won’t ever like spiders but that panic response can be removed. I’m not a therapist but have worked with those that deal specifically with phobias. The fact that you can even watch this LP is probably helping.
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Oct 1, 2018 02:41
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Update: Chapter Four - The CitadelExtras: Gallery Two
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Oct 3, 2018 04:18
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Bombardier beetles are goddamn insane, I just read up on it right now. It's literally an explosively propelled projectile, not like... just something they spit or poop out, holy poo poo.
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Oct 3, 2018 18:54
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PurpleXVI posted:Bombardier beetles are goddamn insane, I just read up on it right now. It's literally an explosively propelled projectile, not like... just something they spit or poop out, holy poo poo. If there is a Creator they spent 95% of their creativity on insects, and vertebrates as a whole were handed off to an intern.
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Oct 4, 2018 06:12
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For anyone curious about spiders, Bogleech has been doing an arachnophobic friendly guide to spiders featuring cuties like this little gremlin friend: http://www.bogleech.com/spiders/spiders01-intro.html
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Oct 9, 2018 07:40
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Update: Chapter Five - Dust to DustMight take a while before I can do another video, I have a pretty bad head cold (you can hear it in the commentary, much to my dismay) and it'll probably get worse before it gets better. If I don't entirely lose my voice or the ability to think clearly for the duration of a video, I'll try to keep things on track, but I can't be sure and I'm not optimistic.
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Oct 15, 2018 02:12
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