Most places with a cryptid try to make it make a little sense.
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@futurebird maybe you could saddle a Little Black Ant.
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
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This is from "Fishead" by Irvin S. Cobb, published in 1913.
But the biggest of them all are the catfish. These are monstrous creatures, these catfish of Reelfoot—scaleless, slick things, with corpsy, dead eyes and poisonous fins like javelins and long whiskers dangling from the sides of their cavernous heads. Six and seven feet long they grow to be and to weigh two hundred pounds or more, and they have mouths wide enough to take in a man’s foot or a man’s fist and strong enough to break any hook save the strongest and greedy enough to eat anything, living or dead or putrid, that the horny jaws can master. Oh, but they are wicked things, and they tell wicked tales of them down there. They call them man-eaters and compare them, in certain of their habits, to sharks.
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.
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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 those ones they are describing are just babies compared to the ones in Thailand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekong_giant_catfish"Attaining a length of up to 3 m (9.8 ft), the Mekong giant catfish grows extremely quickly, reaching a mass of 150 to 200 kg (330 to 440 lb) in only six years.[3] It can reportedly weigh up to 350 kg (770 lb).[3] The largest catch recorded in Thailand since record-keeping began in 1981 was a female measuring 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in) in length and weighing 293 kg (646 lb). "
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This is from "Fishead" by Irvin S. Cobb, published in 1913.
But the biggest of them all are the catfish. These are monstrous creatures, these catfish of Reelfoot—scaleless, slick things, with corpsy, dead eyes and poisonous fins like javelins and long whiskers dangling from the sides of their cavernous heads. Six and seven feet long they grow to be and to weigh two hundred pounds or more, and they have mouths wide enough to take in a man’s foot or a man’s fist and strong enough to break any hook save the strongest and greedy enough to eat anything, living or dead or putrid, that the horny jaws can master. Oh, but they are wicked things, and they tell wicked tales of them down there. They call them man-eaters and compare them, in certain of their habits, to sharks.
@jrdepriest @futurebird @wordshaper That’s a delightfully Lovecraftian description.
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Cat was playing lazy by the pond, booping the fish on the head and having forbidden cat thoughts. Then you suddenly see the cat backing up and turning to run... but you can't see what's in the water?
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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.
% same fear from my uncle telling me stories about the catfish he'd catch noodlin'. -
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."
I mean the correct answer is that it took the Atlantic City Expressway, then got off at Exit 58 of the Garden State, but nobody likes to talk about that.
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@futurebird what about exceptionally large versions tiny things. Roberta the water bear. She's barely macroscopic.
@Jaicup @futurebird I’ve always thought that it’s a missed opportunity that someone hadn’t bred macroscopic tardigrades. I’d take them over stupid “sea monkeys” any day.
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@Jaicup @futurebird really that makes them more elusive. a tiny elephant could be hiding anywhere
@cinebox @futurebird oh God you're all asleep in bed and the you awake to a tiny trunk exploring a foot!!!!!
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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
@futurebird @Jaicup That’s an amazing image.
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@jrdepriest @futurebird @wordshaper That’s a delightfully Lovecraftian description.
@michaelgemar @futurebird @wordshaper
I have it, ironically enough, in a compilation by S.T. Joshi of stories that probably inspired Lovecraft.
When Irvin S. Cobb’s “Fishhead” appeared in the Argosy on January 11, 1913, among those who expressed enthusiasm for the tale was twenty-two-year-old H. P. Lovecraft, in one of his earliest published letters: “It is the belief of the writer that very few short stories of equal merit have been published anywhere during recent years” (Argosy, February 8, 1913). Lovecraft cites the tale again in “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” calling it “banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake, which at the last avenge their biped kinsman’s murder” (S 53–54)—a description that immediately brings to mind similar unnatural affinities between the inhabitants of Innsmouth and the ichthyic denizens of the deep described in “The Shadow over Innsmouth.”
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% same fear from my uncle telling me stories about the catfish he'd catch noodlin'.
"You can catch some pretty big fish, but you need to be careful, because you get the wrong one and it will just gobble your arm... and keep going!"
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@michaelgemar @futurebird @wordshaper
I have it, ironically enough, in a compilation by S.T. Joshi of stories that probably inspired Lovecraft.
When Irvin S. Cobb’s “Fishhead” appeared in the Argosy on January 11, 1913, among those who expressed enthusiasm for the tale was twenty-two-year-old H. P. Lovecraft, in one of his earliest published letters: “It is the belief of the writer that very few short stories of equal merit have been published anywhere during recent years” (Argosy, February 8, 1913). Lovecraft cites the tale again in “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” calling it “banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake, which at the last avenge their biped kinsman’s murder” (S 53–54)—a description that immediately brings to mind similar unnatural affinities between the inhabitants of Innsmouth and the ichthyic denizens of the deep described in “The Shadow over Innsmouth.”
@jrdepriest @futurebird @wordshaper Thanks! No wonder it has a similarity to his work.
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"You can catch some pretty big fish, but you need to be careful, because you get the wrong one and it will just gobble your arm... and keep going!"
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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
@futurebird @scattapilla @Jaicup snack time
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% same fear from my uncle telling me stories about the catfish he'd catch noodlin'.
Wikipedia: "Catfisting" redirects here; not to be confused with catfishing.
uh... OK. Thank you, wikipedia.
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@futurebird @scattapilla @Jaicup snack time
@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.
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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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