Most places with a cryptid try to make it make a little sense.
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@waitworry @scattapilla @Jaicup
Larger ants don't often attack smaller ants since they could get swarmed.
Ants that feed on other ants tend to do "nest raids" taking eggs and larvae which have many more calories than adult ants.
@futurebird @scattapilla @Jaicup yeah I guess the adults are mostly exoskeleton
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This would be more terrifying in a way. What does it mean if you can see a water bear with a simple magnifying glass? What else is larger and by how much?!?
@futurebird can the water bear see you through the same magnifying glass??!??!!!???!!?!????
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@futurebird @scattapilla @Jaicup yeah I guess the adults are mostly exoskeleton
@waitworry @scattapilla @Jaicup
Ants really lean into the whole "I'm hardly worth eating, made mostly of parts to sting and bite and you'll get beat up by my sisters if you do" strat a lot.
It's why there are so many creatures that mimic ants. Most things leave ants alone. (with notable exceptions, but even anteaters are going for the larvae not the adults.)
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Wikipedia: "Catfisting" redirects here; not to be confused with catfishing.
uh... OK. Thank you, wikipedia.
I would never, in one million lifetimes, utter the phrase "catfisting". That's just... it's... No. It's a "no" from me.
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@kate @waitworry @scattapilla @Jaicup
I don't know if we can know if these ants of different species do. Though I think they might since ants treat adjacent colonies different from lone individual insects.
But what about ants with a vast size difference who are from the same species? They don't just recognize each other but will share food, cooperate to do various tasks.
Alex Wild has a great photo showing the size difference in leafcutter ants. These are sisters.
Farming Ants: Leafcutters and Fungus Growers - Alex Wild
Hundreds of ant species live as farmers in the warmer regions of North and South America. These insects- a single evolutionary radiation comprising the subtribe Attina- cultivate an edible fungus fed with bits of vegetative debris, or in the case of the leafcutter ants, with live vegetation.
(www.alexanderwild.com)
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I'm a huge fan of any cryptid that is simply a very large fish. Especially if it has a name.
There is the giant sturgeon that sucks down swimmers at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers.
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There is the giant sturgeon that sucks down swimmers at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers.
Having gills, but not quite fish shaped, is the Humboldt Tree Squid. This squid lives in trees in and around Arcata, CA. It can shoot out a cloud of psychotropic gas that will absolutely have you seeing stuff and get lost in the woods. It is fully iridescent, but generally isn't noticed because nobody in the woods remembers to look up.
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Most places with a cryptid try to make it make a little sense. "Well, you see there are these primates from the last Ice Age and ... " or " ... this lake is very old and catfish never stop growing so you can't rule out that one is the size of bus..."
But not NJ. "There is a devil in the woods. It's gonna get you."
"so... how did it get there? what's the deal?"
"... it's the devil."
@futurebird
There’s an Oregon coast cryptid with no origin story that I know of.
Bandage Man prefers the kind of rainy nights when the darkness seems impenetrable, and you’re alone with nothing but raindrops, pavement, and the huge empty void of the Pacific waiting at the bottom of the cliff on one side of the road.
(Have I spent too much time driving in exactly those conditions? Yes, oh yes.)
He doesn’t do anything- he just appears in the back seat of your car…
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@futurebird
There’s an Oregon coast cryptid with no origin story that I know of.
Bandage Man prefers the kind of rainy nights when the darkness seems impenetrable, and you’re alone with nothing but raindrops, pavement, and the huge empty void of the Pacific waiting at the bottom of the cliff on one side of the road.
(Have I spent too much time driving in exactly those conditions? Yes, oh yes.)
He doesn’t do anything- he just appears in the back seat of your car…
*/@futurebird
…or, preferably, the empty bed of your pickup truck and sits there, wrapped from head to toe in bandages like a mummy in a 20th century horror movie. Presumably these are from all the collisions he’s endured on what is, on a clear dry day, a fairly dangerous road. Some drivers (always a friend of someone’s cousin or something) are supposed to have found a small piece of bandage, sodden with rain & other fluids unfathomable, in the bed of their truck…
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@futurebird
…or, preferably, the empty bed of your pickup truck and sits there, wrapped from head to toe in bandages like a mummy in a 20th century horror movie. Presumably these are from all the collisions he’s endured on what is, on a clear dry day, a fairly dangerous road. Some drivers (always a friend of someone’s cousin or something) are supposed to have found a small piece of bandage, sodden with rain & other fluids unfathomable, in the bed of their truck…
*/@futurebird
…after sensing Bandage Man riding with them.
He’s not a exciting cryptid: he doesn’t do anything (but sometimes shed), and he doesn’t have an origin story or a truly proper name.
But I can attest that, when you’re alone with nothing but absolute darkness beyond road conditions that are trying to kill you, it’s hell to get him back out after you’ve once let him into your thoughts. -
@cinebox @futurebird oh God you're all asleep in bed and the you awake to a tiny trunk exploring a foot!!!!!
@Jaicup @futurebird and nobody will ever believe you!
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I think my grandpa read me this book or something similar. I have this constant and unexplained worry at all times that a big catfish might eat me.
@futurebird @jrdepriest @wordshaper
There are rumors of monster catfish inhabiting the bottom of Canyon Lake in Texas. The lake, as one might surmise from the name, is very deep near the dam that forms it. (Texas has only one large natural lake. All others are dammed.)
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There is the giant sturgeon that sucks down swimmers at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers.
@futurebird @undead
I used to live in Sacramento, but sadly never heard of that one.
It’s especially good since that river confluence creates currents and undertows that are notorious for drowning people every year. -
Ants can already ride other ants.
Ant size range is wild.
This is an "acron ant" (temnothorax) and a carpenter ant. These aren't even the largest and smallest ants, just two ants you can find in Eastern Europe who can meet like this in the wild.
Remarkable photo by Bakos Ádám
Wow! This is like a person standing next to a semi-truck!
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Ants can already ride other ants.
Ant size range is wild.
This is an "acron ant" (temnothorax) and a carpenter ant. These aren't even the largest and smallest ants, just two ants you can find in Eastern Europe who can meet like this in the wild.
Remarkable photo by Bakos Ádám
Just curious, are there any extinct species of ants larger than any of our surviving ones? It seems like, given the size of some other terrestrial arthropods (tarantulas, giant beetles, coconut crabs, to name a few) that much, much larger ants might at least be POSSIBLE.
@futurebird @Jaicup -
@futurebird super fits the vibe, but it's actually a fearsome critter, a product of the late 1800s north american logging industry! it shows up in some paul bunyan stories, and loggers in wisconsin & that area would warn newbies to look out for the hodag. there was even a hoax!
@futurebird @goaty Apparently J, K. Rowling thinks it's a magical American creature as it drew the attention of one Newt Scamander, expert on magical creatures. Well hey--she's British. -
"Ol Jimmy Gum-Mouth, the school-bus sized catfish eats someone every summer. He eats you in one gulp. They say the water won't even ripple. Only comes out when the lake is still as glass and the fog is hanging low... But the town council has been covering up to not scare the tourists."
I'm reading this in the voice of the bait shop clerk in the Catfish Lake episode of The Simpsons.
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@Jaicup @futurebird tiny versions of large things. Cryptid thats a pocket-sized elephant.
@cinebox @Jaicup @futurebird they're called mimmoths
https://girlgenius.fandom.com/wiki/Mimmoth -
Most places with a cryptid try to make it make a little sense. "Well, you see there are these primates from the last Ice Age and ... " or " ... this lake is very old and catfish never stop growing so you can't rule out that one is the size of bus..."
But not NJ. "There is a devil in the woods. It's gonna get you."
"so... how did it get there? what's the deal?"
"... it's the devil."
@futurebird
Wikipedia has an explanation involving the lack of birth control in the 1700s. -
Most places with a cryptid try to make it make a little sense. "Well, you see there are these primates from the last Ice Age and ... " or " ... this lake is very old and catfish never stop growing so you can't rule out that one is the size of bus..."
But not NJ. "There is a devil in the woods. It's gonna get you."
"so... how did it get there? what's the deal?"
"... it's the devil."
@futurebird I actually grew up in New Jersey! I remember we had an overnight class trip to the Pine Barrens, and I stuck away from the group activity bullshit and spent the entire time searching for the Jersey Devil.
