made this NSFW so as not to trigger arachnophobic comrades. Where my fellow arachnist anarchists at? This little guy is the spinybacked orb weaver. Probably my favorite species of spider. Funny thing I dont like insects but spiders are awesome.
made this NSFW so as not to trigger arachnophobic comrades. Where my fellow arachnist anarchists at? This little guy is the spinybacked orb weaver. Probably my favorite species of spider. Funny thing I dont like insects but spiders are awesome.
Why, just why? Sure if you’re an engineer or something their circulatory system is cool. But, living things shouldn’t be able to be described as pneumatic. It’s gross. Even the best bugs (ants and bees because they are sorta protosocialist palace economies) have monarchs. Name any animal other than humans that also has a monarch.
I’m totally down to start a bug struggle session so long as there aren’t any pictures
Edit: Wrong word. Hydraulic not pneumatic
social spiders collectively build nests and share their catches, and have no hierarchy.
That’s cool I didn’t know that. Wait...social spiders. Fuck I’m torn between fearing their evolution to a point we can’t morally interfere and also going that’s dope as fuck.
I thought the octopus was the only social invertebrate other than hive animals.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_spider
Is there a way to open a link with reader view or no images or something? I’m not kidding when I say I’ll have a bad time if there’s a massive image of a camel spider or something
there are two images on the page, one is of a bunch of little spiders in a web together, taken from kinda far away and kinda blurry, the other is at the bottom of the page and its a single small spider. Nothing giant and terrifying, but I really dont know how much you can take because personally I can look at stuff with big spiders without issue.
That sounds like something I can handle. Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know what to expect. I appreciate your willingness to take the time to make a descriptive and helpful comment for the sake of somebody else.
glad to help
I read the article and it was very interesting. The communal web thing was of particular interest. I didn’t exactly Appreciate learning that swarming was a thing lol
I feel as if most people treat insects the same way the bourgeoisie treat the proletariat; A nessicary nuisance. This analogous s behavior sits wrong with me. Viewing arthropods, or any group of animals, as "lesser" or "greater" than one another is an extension of the hierarcal thought that validates bigotry and bias towards our fellow man.
I disagree, all people have endoskeletons. All known intelligent species (whales,dolphins, apes, ect) do as well. The octopus is a newcomer that hasn’t been properly studied yet, seeing as reports of social structures and complex relations are like 2-3 years old in terms of first reporting.
Also, unless you go full Buddhist mode and treat all life as equally viable there is going to be a hierarchy of some sort. Personally, I’m fine saying a human matters more than a rattlesnake and saying a bee matters more than a cockroach.
Like there exist species who the planet would collapse without, and there are those who if they disappeared would simply have their niche filled by another species.
Or take humans, if we all got raptured only domestic species would suffer outside of those who would suffer due to problems we previously created and were trying to contain like domestic cats. They would be fine for the most part if they had access to the outside at the time of disappearance.
So there are species that matter due to ecology and species who matter because of their intelligence.
I’ll fight a person who says an elephants life has less meaning than a spider crab
Speaking of ant or bee queens, or of termite kings and queens, is human projection. The organizational structure of eusocial insects is decentralized and free of hierarchies. Seeing a well-ordered line of worker ants makes us think of steep military hierarchies, but ants do not need generals to form a line. They do that independent from any central authority. Each individual operates guided by chemical clues placed by their fellow hive members. This is known as stigmergy ("work by / through signs"). You find a food source, you place a marker and other workers will carry food home to the anthill until the source is depleted. You see that the hive needs to be extended, you place a marker and everybody passing by will help building until it's done. This is how a tiny termite, literally a squishier, smaller kind of cockroach, an incredibly irrelevant seeming creature when viewed individually, can become a force reshaping its entire environment by turning dead wood into giant termite hills. By working together in a collective that is integrated so deeply that scientists call it a superorganism.
Yo there is a spider species that is totally communal! It's really cool!
Edit: someone beat me to it lol
I appreciate your enthusiasm and willingness to share knowledge. It’s only when posters plant learning they’ll never read the results of that a forum grows great.