I love these little guys. I saw this one on my driveway baking in the sun and relocated them to a flower using a stick for a photo shoot. After 15 minutes or so our little friend here scurried away into some leaf litter. 💚
This was a hard post to read.
You're not shadowbanned from YouTube. The creator you're commenting on has simply "hid" you from their channel. Which ironically is a shadowban, just on a creator level.
The level of panic and outrage you've displayed here despite not having a clue as to how the mechanic you're discussing works is remarkable.
I always find it so extraordinary when someone replies to one of my comments with some off-the-wall shit like this.
You're splitting hairs I already split. I specifically pointed out that their core products, you know, the things that actually matter, render the company among the most-reliable tech giants out there. I explicitly countered the notion that the fling-shit-and-see-what-sticks method is anything other than an elaborate R&D scheme.
Yet, here you are, responding to me raging about Google's failproducts as if I didn't JUST get finished explaining what that's all about and how it doesn't detract from their ability to generate income. They're not lunatics, you just don't understand what's happening. Which again, is wild, because you're literally responding to a comment where I explained what's happening.
They love milkweed. You can attract them to your yard if you plant some. I've personally raised large colonies of these for research, they're truly remarkable insects for a number of reasons, beauty of both the larvae and adults being chief among them.
One of the more common issues that plague the Monarch is Ophryocystis elektroscirrha, a parasite that can be identified by examining a body-dust sample through a microscope. OE is passed on via spores that are consumed, and if an animal is affected by OE and undergoes metamorphosis, it will emerge with a number of defects that often lead to reduced lifespan or imminent death.
Sadly, in research environments, the only way to deal with OE outbreaks (a sign of poor control) is to euthanize the animals to contain the spread of spores. This is typically done using a freezer, which ostensibly allows the animal a peaceful death by slowing down its metabolism and numbing its senses.
Tiger beetles are notable for one thing: their speed. They can move up to 9km per hour, which given their size, is spectacular (a 1:125 body length per second ratio).
Because they run so fast, they can be observed pausing after short bursts. Scientists suspect this brief respite is a way for the insect to get its bearings. But, like a lot of entomology, there are other ideas...
These aquatic insects are intimidating-looking, with large modified forelimbs. Although they live in the water, they're air-breathers, and like virtually all insects, can fly when necessary. The modified forelegs, referred to as "raptorial" (predatory) legs, have a similar function to that of mantises — they grab and secure prey to be consumed. Preferred prey is soft-bodied, but Giant water bugs don't need to discriminate, given how powerful they are for their size.
However, unlike a praying mantis that chews its prey with a traditional insect-mouth plan made of many mandibles, since Giant water bugs are Hemiptera, they have a straw instead of "teeth." This means that they, like some assassin bugs and spiders, rely on injecting digestive juices into their immobilized prey, then sucking up the now-digested innards.
In my personal experience, these things are scarier than they look, but they're absolutely capable of pinching or piercing you with their forelimbs, and they move fast in the water. I personally stay away from them.
They're huge. But they only experience this form for a very short period of time! Most of their life is spent underwater in their larval stage, where they hunt other animals and cling to objects to manage currents.
In their mature form, shown, they aren't even really interested or capable of sustaining themselves. Indeed, they just wither away and die. It's sad, but for insects, the dramatic life cycles are part of what makes them so special.
These are photos of slides and sticky traps featuring various Chalcids, mostly Fairyflies, from a research project many years back.
The Mymaridae, commonly known as fairyflies or fairy wasps, are a family of chalcidoid wasps found in temperate and tropical regions throughout the world. The family contains around 100 genera with 1,400 species. Fairyflies are very tiny insects, like most chalcidoid wasps, mostly ranging from 0.5 to 1.0 mm long.
