He’s a Eurycantha calcarata, a large species of phasmid (stick/leaf insect relative).
A lot of herbivorous insects only eat a few types of plants, but these guys will eat literally anything that might count as a leaf. Grass, cacti and succulents, ferns, moss, even rhododendrons and other toxic plants that are left virtually untouched by insects outside aren’t safe. In the wild they’re pests of oil palm plantations, being among the only insects able to chew through the palms’ thick, leathery leaves.
And apparently they eat paper too. He can probably get some nutrition out of it as well, because he can digest some cellulose. Unlike weak- ass mammalian herbivores and their gut bacteria, phasmids produce their own cellulose- wrecking enzymes to handle their fiberey diet.
Other fun facts about this species:
– The males have giant spikes on their legs that can pierce human flesh down to the bone (but mine never seem to use them as long as they’re handled gently)
– Unlike other phasmids, which tend towards the epitome of passiveness towards their fellow insects, males of this species are jealous bastards that will murder each other with their leg spikes if kept together in the presence of a female
– There’s anecdotal evidence that mating pairs sometimes form long- term bonds (sleeping in the same toilet paper tube every day, coming out to feed at the same time night, etc.) and when one partner kicks the bucket, the other one often dies soon afterwards even if they were different ages.
– Their eggs are the size of small beans, and look exactly like beans. Seriously, you could throw them into a bag of mixed dried beans and you’d never know which beans were the eggs unless you knew exactly what shape and color of bean to look for.
Anyway I hope you had fun learning about this one particular type of bigass paper- munching bug. They’re one of my favorites and I enjoy them immensely.
To create the effect of the title, an animation cell with “The Thing” written on it was placed behind a fish tank filled with smoke that was covered with a plastic garbage bag. The garbage bag was ignited, creating the effect of the title burning onto the screen. [x]
Yep! Hence why I do not have any weevils in my taxidermy insect collection yet. have a hard enough time pinning beetles and getting them soft enough to pin through the elytra let alone with weevils and I’d be worried I’d ruin it if I tried to drill through it.
It works pretty well to just place them firmly against the foam underneath and pin them with two pins crossing over the junction between thorax and abdomen. They aren’t all nicely pinned through, but it holds them in place.
You could probably also relax one, spread the elytra and wings, and pin it unusually low on the body, through the abdomen, avoiding the elytra entirely. Beetle wing spreading takes some practice, but it can make nice displays. Start with cockroaches as easy-to-get practice bugs. Lift the elytra up and out, spread the wing underneath (you’ll need tweezers) until it’s fully spread and in a mostly natural position, trap it that way, and wait.
Semi-related question: is it really taxidermy, since it’s just a dead thing without anything else? I feel like it’s not taxidermy just like a mummified mouse or a clean animal skull isn’t taxidermy. Taxidermy is stuffing an animal hide to make it look lifelike. I always see dried insects referred to as taxidermy, but I feel like that’s not the right word for it. I’m just not sure what other word to use, aside from “pinned”.
They’re pouring latex on him to make a false chest. So that they can place the arc reactor prop in him and make it legitimately look like it’s embedded in is flesh and with tears and scar tissue. The latex is colored so they can see where they are applying and how thick the layers are. It will then be airbrushed to his skintone and details like nipples scar tissue discoloration will be added.
Here’s that picture
Then the reactor prop is added to the dimple. Basically the latex becomes fake skin and they tear part of the center open to embed it.
Now you can see how realistic it looks.
I cannot express enough how much I love little behind the scenes things like this.
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 