(no subject)

[theora]

The other day I got into my car, looked out the windshield, and saw this:




Fortunately it was on the outside of the car. The thing was about 4 inches long from the tip of the antennae to the end of the stinger. The stinger itself was about 2 inches long.

My thought (after "holy crap, eek!") was, that stinger must be fake. It must be one of those creatures that puts off predators with outsize menacing parts that turn out to be harmless. At least I hope so, since it rode all the way home with me then flew off into my yard.

Comments

[crumpetsfortaenia]

It's not fake!

But they're also not dangerous animals, unless you're a wood-boring insect.

[theora]

Ooh, thank you! So cool! I suspect we have enough wood-boring insects to keep it happy.

[slippy]

My immediate response is just "no!" It looks utterly unbelievable.

[nanila]

Good grief. It's like the insect version of Edward Scissorhands. Uh...Buggy Needlebutt? Its creator meant to give it a nice fluffy tail but in the meantime, the GIANT STABBY POINTY STICK would have to do.

[holyschist]

Oooh, those are so cool! It's an adaptation for laying your eggs through lots of plant material, essentially (sometimes into whatever's living inside that plant). It amazes me how they find the larvae inside the wood and aim for it.

[lark_ascends]

WOW!!!

[pipisafoat]

holy crap!

also now I'm distracted trying to imagine flying with such a large, uh, thingy hanging off my butt like that.

[glinda]

Giant bug! :O