This week’s post is going to be short, but very very sweet. Not sweet in a delicious sugary kind of way, but sweet in a poop kind of way.
You’re right, poop isn’t very sweet...
But this post is, and it’s about poop!
Do you think that if you covered yourself in your own feces, that someone would try to get into a fist fight with you, or worse, try to eat you?
No. probably not.
Good job palmetto tortoise beetle larvae! These guys are terrific, and very smart. Or, at least, they have evolved in a very effective way. First off, we’re going to start with the adult palmetto tortoise beetle laying her eggs. She does so by cementing her eggs to a leaf, and then she conceals the eggs with a layer of dry poop. This is thought to be for defense purposes. Once the larvae hatch, they take careful notes from their mother, and start producing their own poop shields. Well, they’re more like hats, really. Large poopy straw-like body hats. They use their telescoping anus to poot out dried poop in coiled layers across their bodies. They are able to point their anus in different directions in order to build the most effective poop hat shield. They are then able to hold their poop hat shields in place with their very convenient anal fork!
THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY.
poop
magic.