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stray archivist

@taesyln

occasionally feral. Paper (he/him)
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Reblogged tigerwing-infinity
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"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. Maybe many of us won't be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing."

Arundhati Roy

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Reblogged
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comic that appeared to me as I was waking up from a dream

Edit: this got more attention then I thought lol if you wanna redraw this just reblog this with your redraw to credit me or put my @ (idk how tumblr works ngl)

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#zeal
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Reblogged littleorangemushrooms
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Baeus Wasps: these strange little wasps are smaller than a grain of sand, and the females are flightless

Wasps of the genus Baeus are sometimes described as "micro-flea wasps," because the females of this genus have tiny, rounded bodies that measure just 0.8mm long.

Above: a female Baeus wasp compared to the tip of a pencil

As this article describes:

Baeus represents one of the most unusual genera of parasitic wasps in that females are apparently wingless, highly compact and flea-like in appearance. They are endoparasitoids of spider eggs of host families associated with above-ground vegetation and crytobiotic niches such as leaf-litter.

Above: female Baeus wasps

The wasps often ride around on the backs of female wolf-spiders, simply waiting to parasitize the wolf-spiders' eggs:

They have a hypodermic-like ovipositor that is used to pierce the chorion of a host egg, in which they lay their own egg. The [wasp] larva then consumes the contents of the host egg, pupates within it, and emerges as a fully developed adult.

Above: a female Baeus wasp clinging to the underside of a wolf spider's eggsac

This genus remains poorly studied, with only 25 species currently described world-wide:

Even though the highly unusual nature of Baeus has been known for over 170 years, only 25 species have been described to date, three from Australia, seven from the Nearctic, six each from the Neotropics and the Palaearctic, one each from the Oriental and Afrotropical (Seychelles) regions, and one from Hawaii. However, significant numbers of species occur in many regions, particularly in the wet tropics, subtropics and southern hemisphere temperate forests.

Above: a Baeus wasp depicted next to a 0.7mm mechanical pencil lead

These may be the world's most adorable wasps.

Above: a female Baeus wasp grooming herself

Sources & More Info:

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#smol
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Reblogged what-even-is-thiss
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Every time I'm forced by circumstance to hand-sew something, I remember a fairytale I once read. There are lead-up shenanigans as the humble protagonist helps small animals and meets the princess and all that, but in the climax, the princess rigs a contest for her hand by setting her own task: sew her a dress in a single night.

The noble suitors, who have never sewn a thing in their lives, sabotage themselves by their own ambitions: they choose difficult fabrics to work with and cut huge, elaborate patterns and select gems and pearls and beads to sew onto it, and snip such long bits of thread that they lose time detangling their stitches, and ultimately resort to pinning bits together as they run out of time, so that their offerings initially look beautiful and flashy, but when the princess tries them on they stick her with pin ends and fall apart as she moves.

The humble protagonist uses a very simple pattern without embellishments and sews using short lengths of thread (snipped off and threaded for him by little birds of course) which don't tangle and therefore save time. His dress is plain by contrast, but holds together and the princess is able to move freely in it, and so he wins the contest and her hand.

I particularly think about the bit about threading the needle with shorter lengths of thread, needing to tie off more often but avoiding tangles and thereby saving time.

I then ignore that piece of wisdom passed down through who knows how many years and proceed to cut the longest damn length of thread I can manage because I hate tying off beginning or ending knots and I will not subject myself to more of that even if it does mean more tangles along the way.

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