It’s not just a big dangerous-looking weapon, it’s an electrosensory organ.

My wife remembered, so she sent me a video that reminded her of all the things I’ve done as a parent: the egg tending, the fungus gnawing, the battling of the interlopers, the affectionate clashing of chelicerae. See, this is what fatherhood is all about.

In case that’s not enough for you, National Geographic has a paternal gallery. None quite as adorable as me, but the cockroach does come close.

I have to give credit where credit is due, and this isn’t entirely an anti-cat post. I’ve had cats; I’ve had to clean up their puke and hairballs, I’ve had to change their litter boxes, I’ve found the secret places in the house where they go to pee, so I know what they’re like. And I know the cat dream, and what they aspire to, so here, for all the cats out there, is a goal.

Dream on, kitties, dream on.

Although I promise, if ever I have an anesthetized cat on my hands, I won’t be giving it electric shocks to make it excrete slimy stuff.

PZ told his awful skunk story in his talk in Dublin — don’t use this picture as an excuse to ask him to repeat it. It’s disgusting.

As before, I seek to explore the boundaries of this “caturday” phenomenon, and this time we turn to the rich and evocative world of fungi.

Can your mere cat do this?

No. It is a failure then. I wash my hands of their dry furriness and plunge them into the feculent, fecund ooze of the ripening fungus. It is erotic: smooth, moist, slippery with rising phallic stalks and soft plump mounds. No cat can compare.

No one would ever look at a pussy and think of sex.

Could be either, but it’s notable that an orangutan can demonstrate them.

I don’t know. I usually don’t care for that kind of explicit gynecological porn that is all leering closeups, with the camera competing with the hectocotyl arm for a place in the mantle cavity, but this is pretty.

(via Haole in Hawaii’s excellent dive series)

Whatever you do, don’t listen to the song.