Cruising around the garden, which is currently swarming with flies, we found a couple of happy arthropods chowing down on the bounty.
Here’s Tetragnatha with the mangled corpse of some kind of fly:
A meadowhawk was standing on some horrible, unrecognizable mass.
There are still plenty of flies available for feasting!
Dragonflies are like ladybugs as those insects that truly brighten my day. Ornate crab looking spiders do that too.
As for arachnids I never want to encounter would be the ticks conferring beef allergies or other horrific life altering nonsense. And people worry about recluse bites…well I still do, but fuck them nasty ticks spreading diseases. Oh and kissing bugs too.
Recently in my most recent installment of “Is that a termite?” I rediscovered isopods on my bathroom floor. When I picked one up and put on my reading glasses I was like “Too many legs for a termite I think”. Put that on my lifelist of earwigs and other crawlers across my bathroom floor. A regular petting zoo.
No wonder the flatties don’t succeed. They stick to the bathroom ceiling instead to watch me shower. The floor is the all you can eat buffet.
They need cloaking technology.
BTW will we get the infinite thread XL ? I tried signing in to XXIX but it was closed.
And now back to the dragonflies and spiders.
In case they meet Arnold, I still think they will need a cloaking device.
Predators?
If feeling down, maybe don’t pet your cat, new study suggests
.https://phys.org/news/2026-06-youre-dont-pet-cat.html
Birger, that is quite speculative and empty.
I can also see the telltale signs of bottish output.
It’s an article from The Conversation and republished on Phys.org, a pop-science aggregator.
From your link:
Their framing it as “A Dutch study has tried to find out”.
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Look at this claim: “Cats have undergone far less intensive selective breeding than dogs, so they still share traits with the solitary and territorial wildcat—a fact that many owners can attest to.”
See the problem? Instant red flags.
First, the second clause; epistemological nonsense.
Second, the first clause; less is irrelevant when it is still many thousands of years since they were domesticated and their morphology and varieties are similar to that of dogs.
Basically, two lay people putting out pap opinions.
Also, trust me, dogs can be pretty damn territorial.
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Also, one of my sisters has 3 cats. Not bad for being solitary, eh?
They sit on one’s the lap and purr soothingly.
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@ ^ John Morales : You may already know this but cats can actually form colonies of tens or even hundreds of individuals.
@5. birgerjohansson : :”If feeling down, maybe don’t pet your cat, new study suggests.”
In addition to what John Morales wrote above; as noted in the piece itself :
Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-06-youre-dont-pet-cat.html#google_vignette
Anecdata natch but I think I owe what remains of my questionable sanity from an old pet cat that comforted me as a kid and there are very few things.that I, personally, find more soothing than having a contented purring happy cat on my lap. Got both dog and cat too – and also few things also lift the heart (metaphorically speaking!) like seeing a happy dog running around enjoying life as well. Pet therapy definitely helps me.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have a psychotic/neurotic hellbeast, and this concept of a “contented purring happy cat on my lap” is total myth. It may be be stupid bot-clickbait, but I have to agree: don’t pet a cat unless you want to trigger vomiting and clawing.