I’ve seen these midge larvae in our local ponds, and wondered how that folded fang-like appendage worked. Now I know.
I’ve been saying for a long time that if you want to design a movie alien or monster, you just need to look at Earthly invertebrates. There’s huge amounts of nightmare fuel there.
Well, okay, but do we really have to go to invertebrates? I think today’s Sam Harris post ought to be enough to inspire nightmares. Shouldn’t it?
Whilst Sam Harris appears to be a vertebrate, that is taking his backbone out of context. One needs to examine all his bones over his entire history to claim he has a backbone, which even if true, would be, without also taking into account what those bones actually do, that he is a vertebrate.
Sam Harris is more psychological horror. This is more body horror, or gore.
17 rushing touchdowns, 31 passing TDs, 1 return TD, and 1 defensive TD. Those are stats from the Indianapolis Colts epic 2006 season, going 12-4 on their way to win superbowl XLI and charming a generation of sports enthusiast along the way. Wow.
Goooooooo COLTS!!!!!
Dragonfly larva are pretty frightening.
Wonder if anomolocaridids functioned the same way.
This is why I ended up studying biology. These critters are so beautiful and fascinating in all their alien weirdness. (esp. spiders, of course!)
How close is that natural design to the thing designed by humans to capture deep sea critters alive from your submarine?
That last sentence was exactly what I was thinking as I saw the picture. Hollywood could blow one of these up to 60 feet tall and have it attack LA. “Attack of the Sixty Foot Midge Monster”!
Sorry. Already done: “The Monster That Challenged The World.”
Except they were mollusks. I say, steam the bastards and have a beach party.
They mentioned the trap-jaw spider as being the fastest. I would think this would get the attention of PZM.
Here’s a video of one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Oc9K_D5FQ