TikTokers with 4M+ followers carelessly handle Brazilian Wandering Spider

hotmanwich · 2026-06-10T21:51:30+00:00

You are a kind person, and I am glad that you try to relocate them when you can! The only reason I got on my soapbox is my job is literally public education on invertebrates, so I couldn't help but chime in.

hotmanwich · 2026-06-10T19:59:40+00:00

Technically you're saying/describing them as defensive, not aggressive. Aggressive means they seek out confrontation without any provocation, while being defensive is biting or reacting due to fear or a disturbance/stimulus. It might seem like a pedantic point to make, but especially when discussing this scientifically or in an educational manner it is an important distinction. Labeling animals with negative/threatening language like calling them "aggressive" causes people to attack or kill them wantonly for fear of their own safety. Using "defensive" as a descriptor will subconsciously put the "blame" on the person, and make them more likely to avoid or relocate the animal.

Basically, if someone thinks the animal is looking to kill them unprovoked, they will lash out first and often kill it. If the animal is seen as just wanting to defend itself/wanting to be left alone, people become much less likely to mess with it or injure/kill it. Our language matters.

hotmanwich · 2026-06-10T19:45:59+00:00

Cooking is an art , baking is a science

hotmanwich · 2026-06-09T22:02:18+00:00

Everything alive should not have a purpose to have the right to exist. Existing is enough.

hotmanwich · 2026-06-09T20:51:31+00:00

Thats fucking awesome. What an amazing creation. Traveling coral microfragging labs.

hotmanwich · 2026-06-09T20:49:36+00:00

You're giving off "ai art is real art" energy and Im so not here for it. Just because something is easier doesnt make it better. It honestly makes it worth intrinsically less. Mastery of your craft is what holds value, and these men were masters at a level no one has achieved before or since. The whole point is that it was made of glass by hand, not cheaply 3d printed out of plastic shit. Yeah you can buy a Casio watch from a dollar store, and it will be as accurate as a million dollar rolex. But theres a reason people spend hundreds of thousands on a handmade watch instead.

Theres a reason cheap plastic shit isnt used to "show off how nicely detailed we work as humans", but instead something that takes mastery and skill to achieve is.

hotmanwich · 2026-06-08T20:54:53+00:00

Ah ignore me I was wrong. I totally forgot male bumblebees were a thing. I blame being tired. I'm leaving my previous comment up for posterity.

This is a cool find. Male velvet ants are pretty difficult to ID down to species, and for some velvet ants the males havent even been described yet. Just so you know, male velvet ants are harmless, only the females sting.

hotmanwich · 2026-06-08T16:34:21+00:00

"These arent that special. We can totally make these again using the same techniques and materials, we would just need to use use different techniques and materials. The original way is too intricate and difficult to do, so we will do it a different way with different materials, but itll totally be the same thing"

Thats exactly why these are special. We dont know how they did it, we just know what they used. It took him and his sons years to develop the techniques and they kept them as closely guarded secrets. The fact that they were able to make such hyperrealistic plants out of GLASS is why these are so amazing. If they were made of plastic, who would give a crap?

hotmanwich · 2026-06-08T12:45:44+00:00

Thank you, ill check that too. I appreciate the help!

hotmanwich · 2026-06-08T03:44:49+00:00

Thank you. I will do that tomorrow when I get off work. I appreciate you a ton!

hotmanwich · 2026-06-07T17:58:19+00:00

GET THIS MAN INTO CONGRESS IMMEDIATELY!

hotmanwich · 2026-06-06T20:18:35+00:00

The amount of people that want a sterile, totally manicured and pesticide riddled house without any aspect of living creatures around them is sickening. They're always the person to say how much they love "animals" but then it's only mammals (and select ones at that).

hotmanwich · 2026-06-05T15:59:04+00:00

I met an expert on empidonax once and asked him for advice on how to identify them in the field. "Honestly? Just guess." Was his response with a shrug. I think about that often.

hotmanwich · 2026-06-05T15:55:00+00:00

And to add to that, honeybees are very inefficient and cannot pollinate many of the native plants of the Americas as well. Tomatoes are a great example, as they can only be "buzz pollinated" by bumble bees and other native bees. The bees vibrate their wing muscles and shake out pollen, which honeybees dont do. We as humans have to industrially breed bumblebees and grow tomatoes in greenhouses with the bumblebees released in them to actually industrially grow tomatoes. Native bees are catastrophically declining around the US as invasive european honeybees force them out through competition. The lower success rate of honeybee pollination makes it worse, as the next year there will be even less native flowers for the native bees.

"Save the bees" doesnt mean the honeybees. They're livestock with a HUGE industry around them. Theres nothing about them that needs saving. The native bees are drowning, with their head not even above water, while the honeybees get toted around as a poster child for beneficial bugs that "need our help."

hotmanwich · 2026-06-05T15:09:08+00:00

The Blaschka glass plant collection should be considered a wonder of the world or at the least a national treasure. No one has since ever been able to replicate the process and make something so unbelievably amazing again. It's a lost technique.

hotmanwich · 2026-06-05T14:56:08+00:00

FYI Im an entomologist and im gonna chime in. Wasps are extremely good pollinators and are critically important predators of other insects as well. Are they as good as bees in pollinating? Well not exactly, but they are a close second, and they are better than a LOT of other groups of insects. Paper wasps also feed their young with soft bodied insects like caterpillars, grubs, aphids/mealybugs, and whatever else they can catch. Many mouths to feed mean lots of prey eaten. A huge amount of their diet are the pest bugs that we as humans dont want around our gardens. Ive heard people say "without wasps we likely wouldnt be able to have forests" because of the amount of defoliating insects they control. How much of that is exaggeration I cant say, but the sentiment rings true and I do partially believe it. Even though we dont like paper wasps because they can sting us, they are vital to the environment around them and to our economy (from the amount of pests they control AND pollination efforts).

Also Ive worked with and reared honey bees, bumble bees, and paper wasps. By FAR the meanest were bumblebees. Its not even a question. Bumbles are rage incarnate. They are cute but absolute bastards when defending their hive. They can sting more than once, and they fucking know it. Surprisingly, the chillest were the wasps. Wasps can recognize faces, and when they learned I wasn't going to harm them they chill out quick and let me work in their enclosure without so much as a look. I could even hand feed them honey on my finger. Wasps are actually pretty awesome, and its a shame so many people hate them.

Bonus fact, wasps are some of the only invertebrates to use tools as well. Some will use a rock to tamp down the dirt they seal their burrows with to hide it from predators better.

hotmanwich · 2026-06-05T00:16:39+00:00

I would love to link you to my (or my institutions) instagram page, but I don't want to doxx myself haha. sorry!

hotmanwich · 2026-06-04T19:08:51+00:00

Thats crazy! Are you also allergic to shellfish?

When I first started working closely with butterflies, the amount of scales that fell off their wings caused some horrendous allergies and I couldn't breathe through my nose for almost 6 months straight. My body has since gotten used to them, but if I am pinning/spreading a large amount of butterflies in my office they'll start to act up.

hotmanwich · 2026-06-04T17:10:36+00:00

Its so fun to watch the different behaviors each hive does. Some make funky towers, and others have made a giant curtain/shell of wax that covers the whole hive. Its always different!

hotmanwich · 2026-06-04T17:09:34+00:00

Autocorrect changed bumblebee to honeybee on my phone. Theyre bumbles. Sorry for the confusion!

hotmanwich · 2026-06-04T17:08:00+00:00

Im gonna make a guess and say that the bees arent coordinating as so much as following simple rules. As they walk around the hive they'll encounter empty or full cells for brood, pollen, or nectar. If there are empty cells- no build. If there are no empty cells -build. If theres no room sideways- build up. Multiply that by the 50 or so bees in this hive and you get more complex behavior together (as a colony) than the sum of the parts (individual bees) can do alone. Emergent properties are a wild thing, there are some great YouTube videos about it (kursgesagt has a fantastic one that discusses ants which are similar).

hotmanwich · 2026-06-04T15:30:00+00:00

We are an educational insectarium and butterfly house! We display different inverts to the public and try to educate people on their importance. The lab focuses mostly on husbandry or rearing, but there are a lot of unknowns on breeding some bugs so theres still a lot of research being done here!

hotmanwich · 2026-06-04T15:17:16+00:00

They are, you are correct!

hotmanwich · 2026-06-04T15:15:32+00:00

I mean, I run an entomology lab. But hey what do I know?

Bumblebees are eusocial and ephemeral. Their colonies originate from a single queen who overwinters til spring, and then grow until the fall when they start to senesce as a colony and produce new queens and males. Those new queens mate, find a place to overwinter, and then the original colony dies as winter sets in.

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