Oct 31 2011

Mary’s Monday Metazoan: What else would you expect? It’s Halloween!

Categories:

Organisms

by PZ Myers

(Also on FtB)

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25 comments

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1

ibyea

31 October 2011 at 3:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Also, happy 7 billion human population day! Well, actually, that’s not so good.
2

Glen Davidson

31 October 2011 at 3:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

ID: Because it explains so much. Sure, if you have crappy genetic algorithms as your God.

Glen Davidson
3

azportsider

31 October 2011 at 3:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oh, I dunno, PZ–maybe a Halloween Pennant Celithemis eponina?

http://bugguide.net/node/view/2591
4

ChasCPeterson

31 October 2011 at 3:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Glen, are you, like, stuck?
5

Dhorvath, OM

31 October 2011 at 4:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Now that is a bloody good drink.
6

cheesynougats

31 October 2011 at 4:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Damn, but vampires are *ugly*. I always forget until I see a pic of one. Kinda feel sorry for the buggers: bad press and a face that looks like they beat themselves senseless with the ugly stick. I have to ask: How did we get from that to Edward Cullen?
7

Gregory Greenwood

31 October 2011 at 5:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

cheesynougats @ 6;

Damn, but vampires are *ugly*. I always forget until I see a pic of one. Kinda feel sorry for the buggers: bad press and a face that looks like they beat themselves senseless with the ugly stick. I have to ask: How did we get from that to Edward Cullen?

Ugly? Perhaps, but I find it far less annoying than the nauseatingly ubiquitous Twilight franchise and its attendant masses of ‘Twi-hards’, and far less creepy than the toxic paeans to Mormonism that run throughout Stephanie Meyers’ work.

I would take a haemophage like our little winged friend over that tripe any day of the week.
8

Dianne

31 October 2011 at 5:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I wonder what vampire bats use for an anticoagulant and if it would be useful in DVT or stroke.
9

Dianne

31 October 2011 at 5:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oh. It’s a Xa inhibitor called…draculin. Cute!
10

RFW

31 October 2011 at 6:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I thought tongue kissing was verboten.
11

Predator Handshake

31 October 2011 at 6:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Unfortunately I can’t remember who said it, or even the episode (though I’m reasonably sure it was a Halloween edition-maybe called Spooky?) of Quite Interesting, but one of the questions was regarding vampire bats. I think it was “where are you most likely to be bitten by a vampire?” They showed a picture of a vamp and one of the panel members said it was what Yoda would have looked like had he joined the Dark Side.

However, having played a few games of Vampire: The Masquerade, I’m of the mind that vampire bats look perfectly reasonable for Nosferatu.
12

badandfierce

31 October 2011 at 7:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Aw, lookit his/her ickle face! Vampires are just the friendliest looking little phyllostomids. Unless they’re showing you their teeth, which are bizarre and rather menacing, but most teeth are like that, so I’ll let it slide. I’m sad whenever I remember that the giant species in the genus is almost certainly extinct. I would love a horde of huge vampire bats to be my friends.

(I, uh, spent the last half week or so at NASBR 2011. Still in bat mode. But I stand by my statements!)
13

Ron Sullivan

31 October 2011 at 7:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

What? It doesn’t ~sparkle~???!
14

Shadow

31 October 2011 at 7:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

At least vampire bats are honest in their bloodletting…
15

H.D. Lynn

31 October 2011 at 8:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Bats are one of my favorite animals! I think I like Halloween so much because I can actually by things with bats on them. Even the ugly ones are pretty adorable. And the blood drinking ones just prick you and lap up the blood.
16

feralboy12

31 October 2011 at 8:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Imagine how disgusting it will be when all her little bat eggs start hatching.
17

Rey Fox

31 October 2011 at 8:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Imagine how disgusting it will be when all her little bat eggs start hatching.

BATS AREN’T BUGS!
18

vltava

31 October 2011 at 8:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

BATS AREN’T BUGS!

Well played, Calvin. Or, rather, Susie Derkins and the rest of Calvin’s classmates.
19

Bechamel

31 October 2011 at 8:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@Predator Handshake #12:

QI Series 5, episode 1 (Engineering). It was a General Ignorance question, hence the unrelated topic, and it was Stephen Fry himself who introduced the Yoda comparison.
20

JohnnieCanuck

31 October 2011 at 10:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

BATS AREN’T BUGS!

There’s only one response to this calumny:

YOU chowderheads.
21

Blupp

31 October 2011 at 10:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The smuggest looking bat I ever saw.
22

jamesproffitt

31 October 2011 at 10:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Vampires aren’t ugly! Just look at Diphylla ecaudata: http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/tmot1/diphecau.htm
23

Matthew Reid

1 November 2011 at 12:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

And vampires will help each other out if they’re short of a meal. Sociable as well as blood sucking…
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v308/n5955/abs/308181a0.html

Matt Reid
24

Samantha Vimes, Chalkboard Monitor

1 November 2011 at 9:05 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Okay, the muzzle area doesn’t win beauty contests, but look at the playful glance it throws toward the camera and say there’s not something appealing there.
25

amandas

1 November 2011 at 10:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I’m currently attempting to re-train a microbat (Lesser Long-Eared) how to fly (currently her flight tend to go straight downwards for no physical reason that can be ascertained). If anyone has any advice on how a strictly non-flying mammal can train a flying mammal how to do it, it would be greatly appreciated.

I do rather love bats. The fact I’m a carer is probably proof of that, I guess.