It wasn’t until I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast that my opinion on ants changed from “loathsome menace” to “fascinating hive beasts”. In my journey toward armchair entomology I’ve come across a number of strange and fascinating ants, but somehow overlooked this spiteful creature.
Camponotus Saundersi (Latin for “Fuck you, buddy”) has two glands filled with toxins running the length of its body. Any animal aiming to make this ant a meal is subject to the toxins in those glands. But poison animals are so passe. Camponotus Saundersi goes one spiteful step further than those half-assing poison hoarders. When cornered the ant will clench its glands, resulting in an explosion of toxins. Yes that’s right, this ant will suicide bomb a predator rather than allow itself to suffer the indignity of digestion.
Any animal that would commit willful self destruction just to spite its antagonist is OK in my book.
Are you drawing comics for Marvel? Do you need reference for someone being attacked by a tentacle demon? Swipe it from an adult magazine! Thanks, bela!
Back in the early 90’s David Cronenberg adapted Naked Lunch to film, a release that had a profound effect on my development, introducing me not only to the works of Cronenberg but also Burroughs and then further into the strange labyrinth of cinema and beat poetry. Naturally, the film was received with a mixed reaction; an unsurprising turn of events considering the combination of both Cronenberg and Burroughs was likely to stir the hornets nest of fanboyism for the latter. Personally, I found my first (and subsequent) viewing of it similar to the abject horror followed by near post-coital bliss of the insipid Reese’s commercials from the 80’s; two great tastes that did indeed taste great together.
While I could prattle on about my love for Cronenberg, Burroughs, and the combination of the two artist’s work for hours on end I’m also able to admit it’s not going to be to everyone’s tastes. Regardless, if you’re enough of a thick-skulled bint not to wholly appreciate the film in its entirety (it’s ok, we still love you, but you only get half an Octobee for Christmas this year), simply mute your TV; because this movie is pure eye-candy ladies and gents. Hit the jump for more stills from Naked Lunch.
In spite of what you may have heard, our beloved mascot wasn’t the result of a stroke of genius (or just a stroke depending on your opinions on the matter) leaping full born from the hideous brains of our inimitable editors-in-chief.
Oh no, there were countless inhumane experiments in cutting edge Octopus/Insect combination technology. While the aforementioned editor’s gruesome experimentation resulted in flabbergasting advances in the field, it also resulted in a trail of adorable abominations such as the above.
While I sure do love the little Beetlepus “gifted” to me by John and Eliza (and would never begrudge him the space in my bathroom); who ever heard of an octopus that’s afraid of water?
The trend by couture designers to take inspiration for their advertising campaigns from surreal art is a most welcome one. Prada’s Spring-Summer 2008 line is advertised with the work above, which while beautiful, at times suffers from the translation of static image to dynamic. Artist James Jean produced the storyboards for the film, which are more stunning than the video by dint of not having to move. Particularly interesting are James’ flower/insect concept sketches, the delicate petals of each blossom supported on the shelled stilts of a beetle; so alien they seem to have sprung from Alice’s Incongruous Wonderland, in which the fields of chittering tulips scuttle and sway with the wind.
The Japanese love bugs. If they’re not forcing them to engage in gladiatorial combat they are penning songs about them and the newest bug-themed craze is Larva Chocolates (Youchu Choco).
Produced by the Komatsuya confectionery, the bodies are made from milk chocolate and corn flakes, which are then covered in a layer of skin made from white chocolate. The legs are made from strips of dried squid, and the whole thing is topped off with a mouth made from orange peel. They can be purchased online for about two dollars. It goes without saying that they are flying out the door as fast as they can be made.
The Asian giant hornet is the worlds largest hornet, reaching lengths of up to 2.2 inches. Their venom is acidic, and contains mandaratoxin which, in sufficient doses, can cause death in humans, even those without allergies. Asian giant hornets are responsible for about seventy deaths a year. The venom also contains a pheromone that attracts other hornets, allowing them to predate in groups.
It is this which helps them to overcome European honey bee hives. Thirty hornets can massacre thirty-thousand European honey bees, which they behead or bisect with their powerful jaws, and whose stingers cannot penetrate the hornet’s thick exoskeleton. They then consume the bees’s honey and take the bees’s larvae back with them, to feed their young.
The native Japanese honey bee, however, has figured out a way to fight back. When the initial hornet scout approaches the hive they lure it inside. Once inside, they swarm the hornet en masse, covering it entirely and keeping it from moving. They then begin to vibrate their flight muscles. This has the effect of raising the temperature of the honey bee mass to 47 °C (117 °F). The honey bees can just tolerate this temperature, but the hornets cannot survive more than 45 °C (113 °F), and are effectively roasted alive.
The December 1930 issue of Modern Mechanics looks at one ultra-plausible, ultra-scientific possible fate for humanity: colossal longhorn beetles rampaging through our metropolises and gobbling down our dapper business men. Grimly confirmed by an actual college professor in his cups somewhere!
The article is actually a bit less ridiculous than you’d expect, but it sure does take some bizarre turns on its way to convincing us that mankind’s future is filled with man-eating giant insects:
Dr. Andrews told of treating a Mongol brigand who had been shot in the leg with an ancient blunderbuss loaded with nails and rusty scrap iron. When Andrews saw the patient, gangrene was so bad and the maggots so thick a giant syringe, used to treat sick camels, was necessary to wash the wound.
“Male seed beetles have spectacularly harmful penises covered in sharp spikes. These help the male’s chances of fertilizing the eggs by providing an anchor, but can also pierce the female during sex, causing injury.
For seed beetles – a group of insects consisting of many species that infest beans or seeds – the battle of the sexes is not a psychological game played out in the home, it’s a deadly serious evolutionary arms race, according to a new study…”
Nits, lice, justification for immediate extermination, call them what you will, at some point or another in childhood most of us have had to endure the trial of a head full of the beasts and the accompanying shame. Thankfully, those of us having previously suffered at the mandibles of head lice have long since abandoned the activities conducive to attracting a louse.
Unfortunately, not everyone is held to the rigid standards of cleanliness and grooming we at Ectomo demand of our friends, lovers, and crawlspace-confined kidnapping victims.
Some things are almost too intimidating for words and filling Eliza’s petite engineer’s boots with my own Noise du Jour is certainly one of them. Still, one must soldier on.
“Evil Bee” from Menemona exposes the real story of the birds and the bees. Enslaved and downtrodden, forced to regurgitate a blood-like fluid as honey, one bee rebels, paying the ultimate price while two others find their freedom. The song is excellent, bringing to my mind The Flaming Lips with saxophone accompaniment. I hope you enjoy it.
[Update: YouTube works now so I’ve included the video.]
Absolutely not big on the Noise portion of this du Jour, but the video itself is beautiful, and features Butoh-like ballet. Thanks for the link, Jhayne.
A millipede moustache creeps across the cheek, looking to plunge its ichor-fanged mandibles into the honey-sweet vitreous of Flickr user bowlingalley’s eye. It could be worse: it could be scurrying up his nostril.
There’s no point even trying to top this gorgeously wrought description by my hello-future-girlfriend over at Bioephemera:
The aquatic caddisfly constructs a shell-like “case” for itself out of debris in its environment. For years, artist Herbert Duprat has been supplying his caddisfly corps with top-grade building materials…
There’s even a video of a caddisfly case in progress, with the larvae perched like Smaug on a huge heap of gold and pearls, scrabbling and gluing away….
I used to collect caddisfly larvae in streams, although I hadn’t thought about them in years. I think the mica-faceted blue-grey caddis-houses of the Pacific Northwest are every bit as beautiful as these baroque arthopod Versailleses.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
