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LittleLovableLoli commented at 2022-08-09 20:46:14 » #2736989
Whoa, you are looking at the Velvet Worm, quite possibly the rarest creature you can come across in the Costa Rican rainforest. This creature's ancestors date back 500 million years to the Cambrian period (that is before the time of the dinosaurs)! Now this is one of the first terrestial creatures to ever walk this planet and even to this day, they are strictly terrestrial, which means they stay on land.
Well, let's talk about where this animal gets its name from: the "Velvet Worm". Believe it or not, this creature feels just like velvet. It does not have any hard exoskeleton like an arthopod, but in fact has a very soft, squishy body -almost feels like a gummy worm. But if you pat it very gently, it feels just like velvet. Now here is something really cool, they are actually capable of shedding the outer layer of skin around once a month, just like a snake, and when they do shed that, they basically walk out of the skin (similar to the way a snake slithers out of its skin) and then they're even softer and more brilliantly bright.
Oh, it's so cool...
Let's take a look at the anatomy of this animal. It looks like a mix between a caterpillar, a worm and a slug. But Onycophora is actually its own phylum, right? And there are close to 200 of them worldwide. However, scientists don't even know how many truly exist, because they're very rarely seen. Now, despite the fact this creature is actually kinda cute, believe it or not, it is actually a voracious predator. And the way that they hunt is they slowly move through the rainforest flora, foraging amongst leaves and dead logs, and they'll use those two front sensory organs to kind of tap on their prey. And as soon as they sense something to mate with- this is crazy- they have two glands beside their face that shoot out a sticky slime. It's like Spiderman's webbing! And it is so incredibly strong that it can immediately pin the prey down. It actually comes out in two streams, and those streams will cross, creating a net. So let's say it's a hapless tourist- it will go *pssshew*, shoot out those two streams, tangle up the man and then slowly walk up on top of it. And they have a little mouth up front, you can see it right there. But inside that mouth is a single tooth that is like a razorblade. They use that tooth to strip the victim, and then they leak out saliva. That saliva is similar to the saliva of a succubus, in that it causes immense arousal in their prey, which they then wring dry (kinda like a toothpaste tube that kind of looks empty, but you know you can get one more mouth's worth of mint-flavored paste out of -and, well, of course you're going to try because you don't really want to go all the way down to the family-run cornerstore just to buy one tube of toothpaste, but you don't really need anything else and you'd probably just end up buying twenty (20) dollars worth of Hostess pastries anyway -which is kind of weird, come to think of it, have Hostess pastries always cost this much? It feels like you could enjoy a lot more of these treats for a lot less... No, it's probably just that you were a lot younger back then and couldn't eat as much- or maybe it had something to do with the fact your parents paid for them. Man, things were so much simpler back then, you could wake up, brush your teeth, get dressed and go to school and know that as long as you got good grades, everything would be great. But you're an adult now, it isn't as simple as just going to work and doing your job -hell, many people don't even have one of those, but that doesn't mean they also don't have the need to eat...)
Now, each one of those little stub-feet has two little, hooked claws...
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Whoa, you are looking at the Velvet Worm, quite possibly the rarest creature you can come across in the Costa Rican rainforest. This creature's ancestors date back 500 million years to the Cambrian period (that is before the time of the dinosaurs)! Now this is one of the first terrestial creatures to ever walk this planet and even to this day, they are strictly terrestrial, which means they stay on land.
Well, let's talk about where this animal gets its name from: the "Velvet Worm". Believe it or not, this creature feels just like velvet. It does not have any hard exoskeleton like an arthopod, but in fact has a very soft, squishy body -almost feels like a gummy worm. But if you pat it very gently, it feels just like velvet. Now here is something really cool, they are actually capable of shedding the outer layer of skin around once a month, just like a snake, and when they do shed that, they basically walk out of the skin (similar to the way a snake slithers out of its skin) and then they're even softer and more brilliantly bright.
Oh, it's so cool...
Let's take a look at the anatomy of this animal. It looks like a mix between a caterpillar, a worm and a slug. But Onycophora is actually its own phylum, right? And there are close to 200 of them worldwide. However, scientists don't even know how many truly exist, because they're very rarely seen. Now, despite the fact this creature is actually kinda cute, believe it or not, it is actually a voracious predator. And the way that they hunt is they slowly move through the rainforest flora, foraging amongst leaves and dead logs, and they'll use those two front sensory organs to kind of tap on their prey. And as soon as they sense something to mate with- this is crazy- they have two glands beside their face that shoot out a sticky slime. It's like Spiderman's webbing! And it is so incredibly strong that it can immediately pin the prey down. It actually comes out in two streams, and those streams will cross, creating a net. So let's say it's a hapless tourist- it will go *pssshew*, shoot out those two streams, tangle up the man and then slowly walk up on top of it. And they have a little mouth up front, you can see it right there. But inside that mouth is a single tooth that is like a razorblade. They use that tooth to strip the victim, and then they leak out saliva. That saliva is similar to the saliva of a succubus, in that it causes immense arousal in their prey, which they then wring dry (kinda like a toothpaste tube that kind of looks empty, but you know you can get one more mouth's worth of mint-flavored paste out of -and, well, of course you're going to try because you don't really want to go all the way down to the family-run cornerstore just to buy one tube of toothpaste, but you don't really need anything else and you'd probably just end up buying twenty (20) dollars worth of Hostess pastries anyway -which is kind of weird, come to think of it, have Hostess pastries always cost this much? It feels like you could enjoy a lot more of these treats for a lot less... No, it's probably just that you were a lot younger back then and couldn't eat as much- or maybe it had something to do with the fact your parents paid for them. Man, things were so much simpler back then, you could wake up, brush your teeth, get dressed and go to school and know that as long as you got good grades, everything would be great. But you're an adult now, it isn't as simple as just going to work and doing your job -hell, many people don't even have one of those, but that doesn't mean they also don't have the need to eat...)
Now, each one of those little stub-feet has two little, hooked claws...
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LittleLovableLoli commented at 2022-08-10 00:26:38 » #2737031
Excuse you, I *literally* just said that, despite looking like a worm (or caterpillar, for that matter) Onycophora is its own phylum.
Christ, some people.
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Excuse you, I *literally* just said that, despite looking like a worm (or caterpillar, for that matter) Onycophora is its own phylum.
Christ, some people.
8 Points
Flag
1