Comments

  1. fullyladenswallow says

    I used to have a manager that did that. Said it was his version of lean manufacturing, but he wasn’t fooling anyone.

  2. microraptor says

    Kaylee, find that kid who’s taking a dirt-nap with Baby Jesus; we need a hood ornament.

  3. Tempus Vernum says

    I guess it’s good that it’s predator is a jumping spider and not, say, an anteater.

  4. OldEd says

    Now if we’d only get a brief summary of A. petax, or at least a pointer to an authoritative but not-too-dense write-up of the creature, we could combine our daily dose of humor with a daily dose of education.

  5. Crimson Clupeidae says

    OldEd, not sure if you’re being snarky or not, but follow the link? It’s in PZ’s post.

  8. says

    I used to have a manager that did that. Said it was his version of lean manufacturing, but he wasn’t fooling anyone.

    Reminds me of that one X-Files episode where the boss is literally a giant bug, stalking around the cubicles.

  11. birgerjohansson says

    “Reminds me of that one X-Files episode where the boss is literally a giant bug, stalking around the cubicles”
    But still an improvement over Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss?

    I bet the Predators started off looking like this, but the skulls and bones would not fit under the cloaking device.

  14. says

    I guess it’s good that it’s predator is a jumping spider and not, say, an anteater.

    If the anteater prefers live ants, then this looks like a pretty good deterrent to anteaters as well as jumping spiders.

    This really is not helping my phobia of bugs

    Are you kidding? This bug is as safe as they get — it’s overloaded, so it’s both too slow to be a threat and too big to hide. Sort of like a Russian soldier with a sofa on his back.

    And just to be extra pedantic, the Reavers didn’t cover their ships with corpses to confuse predators; they did it because they were sadistic and deranged beyond all comprehension. (That is, in fact, why I never liked the whole Reaver concept: people that deranged and hyper-aggressive wouldn’t even be able to organize a robbery, let alone crew a spaceship for more than an hour.)

  16. mothra says

    “They say Reavers got to the end of the verse and saw a vasting nothingness and went all biblety.”

    Asssassin bugs can read!

  17. OldEd says

    Yeah, I followed the link. All that was discussed was the camouflage and the jumping spiders. Extremely little – I mean absolutely sub-atomic little – about A. petax.

    For instance: why is it called an assassin bug?

    At any rate, if you actually READ my post, you would see that I was interested in A. Petax, not jumping spiders.

  18. leftwingfox says

    Sort of like a Russian soldier with a sofa on his back.

    Correction: Sort of like a Russian soldier with a dozen dead Germans on his back. While I agree it’s going to harm it’s combat prowess, the pile of corpses is substantially creeper than a chesterfield.

  19. alkaloid says

    For instance: why is it called an assassin bug?

    It is called an assassin bug because the bugs in this particular family (Reduviidae) inject venom into their prey and then suck up the digested remains in a manner analogous to a spider. Some of them, based on the way that those particular species feed which is similar to how mosquitoes drink blood, are also carriers of serious blood-born diseases as well.