Regular Frog Profile picture
Jan 12, 2019 7 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Sometimes to relax I look up how chefs prepare weird fish, and last night I saw a geezer prep a giant isopod. I was expecting a nice surprise where it was full of fun meat but no: it was full of sloppy grey hell, like you might expect in the innards of a ghastly benthic scavenger
Here's a giant isopod; it's the size of a moderate loaf of bread & is essentially a woodlouse, but consigned to the frigid abyss of the ocean floor. I actually reckon they're quite aesthetically satisfying, like most crustaceans, but there's something really unnerving about them.
What's quite interesting is that while we think of woodlice as insects, they are actually just these scuttly horror men who have found a way to keep their gills wet inside a hard shell, and started implausibly living in the woods. Look up close and there's sod all difference!
Love that thing where you realise some bit of shared morphology between two animals & are like "oh yeah, that's just a mashed version of that other one". Another classic in crustacea: the ventral triangle on a crab is just a lobstery tail that has long since folded under the body
While we're at it, ever seen a hermit crab without a shell? Bad news - it's got a horrible worm bum! That's because it's less a 'crab' (taxonomically) and more like the tailed decapods (lobsters etc). Its tail has lost its hardened shell, hence the hiding in hollow objects thing.
Then you've got the coconut crab (the biggest land arthropod & my second fave animal), who's a hermit crab that has *re-acquired* bum armour (but only partially - you can see the abdomen is leathery underneath). Young coconut crabs even shelter their bums in shells, like hermits!
Sorry, I was meant to be studying kanji but I seem to have procrastinated by banging on about crustaceans for a full hour. While I acknowledge that literally no one asked to see a crab's bum, I hope it has been of some use to you??

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More from @FrogCroakley

Mar 19, 2020
It's frustrating that after all last year's headlines about "the collapse of nature" w/r/t insect population declines, there's been zero public visibility for the vast amount of connected research which - as ever - is less bleak but way more complicated:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ic…
It drives me fucking spare. This isn't yahoo research funded by oil barons. It's decent scientists, who are _of course_ concerned about anthropogenic change, but don't get listened to unless they blurt out shit for tossers to retweet with "the end is nigh" gifs
Yet again, beloved social media reduces everything to the darkest, simplest narratives, because hope is complicated and nuanced, and doesn't give people any drama to play with. This fucking electric dungeon rewards people who thrive on despair, I hate it with my life.
Read 10 tweets
Jan 9, 2020
Idea for a book called "harry potter and the stone" where he just finds a stone in a dirty yard and uses it to bash in people's windows. no magic or anything. just 800 pages of harry shattering windows and snarling swear words at anyone inside, then running away
Next book is called "harry potter and the chamber" where he kicks his way through the boards over the door of a condemned paint factory, and finds a room where he has a massive piss, draws a dick on the wall, & spends an aimless hour trying to set fire to bits of insulation foam
In "harry potter and the prisoner", harry meets a sunken-eyed bruiser under a tarp in the local woods, who promises he'll stab one of harry's enemies if he'll bring him a box of KFC and a 35cl bottle of glenn's vodka. But if harry tells anyone, he'll shank him with a bit of glass
Read 14 tweets
Feb 16, 2019
It's february 16th, which means @Glitter_brawl, our daughter & I are watching all 3 Lord Of The Rings films as a weird memorial to my dad, while eating _every food item shown on screen_. This is #ThereAndSnackAgain, and we're in for nearly 50 courses over the next 12 hours...
1. Already seen a hobbit honk down a cake in a montage, so first course is a litte slice of cake with a mug of weak, sweetish tea
2. Bilbo is chatting about butter spread over too much bread (know the feeling mate), and we're in his larder, so we're having a very small bite of buttered bread and cheese. 6 month old is monstering the bread.
Read 73 tweets
Jan 31, 2019
Keep hearing "It's not living" by the 1975 on the radio, and there's this bit of the song where it sounds like he's singing about having a twenty stone monkey that he "just can't eat" and let me tell you folks that's one hell of a mental image
Now, the heaviest living monkey is the mandrill - a massively sexually dimorphic species where males can grow up to 50kg, and there are reports of exceptional individuals of 60kg. Even being generous and accepting the possibility of a 70kg mandrill, that's still only 10 stone.
So a mandrill twice that mass would likely be extraordinarily obese, to the extent where it's probably not likely to be moving. If the geezer in the song is talking about eating a monkey of that size, it would pobably have to be some sort of nightmare tray bake scenario.
Read 6 tweets
Jan 29, 2019
Ok listen my cousin has asked if I can boost her undergrad research survey so I'm going to need a load of you to do this please. Come on you bastards make me look like I'm cool online
If you have done my cousin's survey, please reply below and I will PERSONALLY carry you through the gates of Valhalla, and/or pay you a single very high quality compliment
I have already carried FIVE people over the threshold of Valhalla this morning, and they are now partying with spectral warriors from all across time. Will you be the next to complete my cousin's survey and join this party?
Read 6 tweets
Jan 24, 2019
Had a really rough time keeping focus on work yesterday, so tried tricking my brain into a better today with a weird ritual oath. HOWEVER it seems the ritual has summoned an unexpected ally, as I found this on my keyboard when I came down to my office just now! Ave Ghoastus!
Two hours of complete focus so far, and feeling well up for another 10 or so. Truly, this is the power of the Ghoastus Ritual.
Ghoastus continues to sustain me
Read 4 tweets

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