It seems that as a species develops more emphasis on brains, it also produces more assholes.

[ddr@pony.social]

@bruce Occasionally a bee queen will be an asshole. Occasionally. I've heard of beekeepers who have had to replace queens, and then the hive stops being super-aggressive.

[alice@lgbtqia.space]

@roknrol he does it while I'm actively feeding them—just not fast enough for his taste.

[rosaaeterna@transfem.social]

@alice@lgbtqia.space Depending on how you look at it, Spotted Lanternflies and Marmorated Stinkbugs are both major assholes but have zero chance of solving any crosswords (or even a word search)

[unlofl@mstdn.social]

@alice I was going to say it's proportional to language skills, because the better a species gets at communicating, the more they can piss each other off.

But yellow jackets and hornets might be an exception, they don't dance like bees so they? Or however the hive coordinates things counts?

[meznor@mstdn.social]

@alice anti-point: octopi are smart and chill. no jerkish behaviour. just clever & devious.

[unlofl@mstdn.social]

@alice @roknrol octopuses are known to mess with divers, including yanking a dive mask so it floods, temporarily blinding the diver.

But they can also be playful, have always wanted to encounter one in the wild.

[idgs@mas.to]

@pewnack @alice YMMV. This has worked for me:

1. Get up immediately!
2. Turn on a lamp close to a wall.
3. LEAVE THE ROOM, closing the door on your way out.
4. WAIT. At least 15 minutes. More is better.
5. Grab a flyswatter.
6. Re-enter the room, closing the door behind you. (So mosquito remains contained.)
7. Approach the lamp.
8. SWAT the mosquito, which should be basking in warmth from the lamp on a) wall, or b) lampshade.

If you miss, or don’t see mosquito, repeat steps 3–8. Good luck!

[alice@lgbtqia.space]

@rosaaeterna what makes those two jerks?

[idgs@mas.to]

@pewnack @alice FWIW, True story: Using this method, waaay back in high school, I chose to catch two mosquitos (I’d thought there was only ONE in my bedroom!) using an empty jar w/ lid. Next day, I took them into my science class. The teacher asked, “What do you call them?” I answered “Son-of-a-Bitch and Bastard!” which cracked everybody up. Once order was restored, the teacher said, “The correct answer is… Female. Male mosquitoes don’t bite.”

[alice@lgbtqia.space]

@Meznor they punch fish for no apparent reason.

[alice@lgbtqia.space]

@Unixbigot but are they jerks, or just hunty-punchy bugs?

[meznor@mstdn.social]

@alice maybe they’re nazi fish. ever thought of that?!? NAZI FISH DESERVE PUNCHING.

[rosaaeterna@transfem.social]

@alice@lgbtqia.space Well for one, they're both maaaajor invasive agricultural pests. They have no natural predators in the US, and they both love eating up trees and crops. Spotted lanternflies are estimated to be causing hundreds of millions of dollars in agricultural and forestry damages in Pennsylvania alone. Marmorated stink bugs cause even more agricultural damage, although they don't tend to hurt the trees themselves so much compared to the lanternflies.

Lanternflies are also annoying as hell to deal with because they can jump pretty far distances, making them hard to quickly kill. Marmorated stink bugs breed like mad, love to invade homes, and as their names would suggest they have a potent odor as a self-defense mechanism that they love to use on you if they feel like it.

[koushiniku@hachyderm.io]

@alice The male of any species for which people use the the word “rut”?

[renardboy@mastodon.social]

@alice does it count if the assholery is embedded into the lifecycle? If so I'll raise you the parasitoid wasps, any one of them really.

[catsalad@infosec.exchange]

@alice Slander! Cats aren't jerks, they're just better than everything else (including other cats)

[jqmcd@sfba.social]

@alice Spiders ️️

[catsalad@infosec.exchange]

@mattblaze @alice Can confirm!

[eedly@mindly.social]

@alice Turkeys. Dumb and mean.

In the spring, the males travel in packs and try to corner individual females. Their usual downfall is that their aggressive mating behavior is also aggressive fighting behavior, and nine times out of ten the pack members will completely forget who they were chasing and attack each other.

[kishi@meow.social]

@roknrol @alice

crows don't poop while flying!