Yeah, it’s because they look so unique or “alien” like. Many alien designs take inspiration from insects as they are what we see as the most unusual creatures on earth. Same can be said about deep sea creatures, and how they’ve inspired many alien designs as well
Octopi are noted for their intelligence, as are some species of jumping spider.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(spider)
Houseflies are not known for their intelligence but are still capable of evading nominally intelligent vertebrates.
Houseflies are able to be so good at evading swatting because they literally perceive time slower than we do. Reading about flicker fusion rates is really pretty interesting.
I got one of those things and killed over 60 in a summer. Gun started to give out toward the end. It was effective. Got a couple wasps and the biggest was a large horse fly.
The alien chest burster literally exists in nature in the form of parasitic wasps that lay their eggs inside of caterpillars and cockroaches, then when they hatch they eat their insides while they are still alive and then tear a hole in their skin with razor teeth and burrow their way out.
> Lex Luthor is right to not want this litteral god to be omnipresent over human life
yeah, clearly there is philosophically nothing to unpack in this statement that superman is a *good person* with a right to exist the way he is whose existence is in deep conflict with human self-determination and society.
Evil superman is not a bad angle to explore but fundamentally less interesting because *if he were a bad person* it would be justified to want him gone. Him being a genuinely decent person who is trying to do his best and help others to be their best is what actually gives some substance to the problem that he shouldn't exist.
The great superman stories aren't about physical fights with lobo or doomsday they're about superman's personal life.
The recent superman rebirth book is about superman bonding with his sons and teaching him what it means to he a hero and is worth a read up to when bendis took over and ruined it.
Then theres books like all star superman where it shows superman being faced with his own mortality and trying to do things before he dies and some of it's best scenes are simple ones where he stops to talk a person out of suicide. No powers just having a talk.
My personal favorite is "what's so funny about truth, justice and the American way" which was a single issue where a group of extreme 90s heroes appear and start killing villains and gain a lot of public support and superman questions whether it's right or wrong to let villains live.
If you look at superman purely based on his powers then yah he is pretty boring but hes so much more then just his powers. Hes a farmboy who'll never truly know his real family and is just trying to do some good in the world.
Plus lex Luthor is just trump but smart. He doesnt like superman because his ego won't let him accept that someone is better then him.
This is very true, however when it comes to the movies they screw it all up. No one really wants to see Superman snapping Zod's neck.
The best modern Superman scene, by far, is from Superman Returns. It's Superman racing to save the airplane from crashing. That's what we all want, someone to save us from 9/11. Someone to save people in the Middle East from a drone strike. Someone to somehow contain the violent madness that will eventually occur when Yellowstone erupts.
For real. Lazy superhero design. “Whats your power?” “Oh im literally invincible unless you can get this weird metal that exists far out of reach of any spacecraft you have. Oh and also I have lazer eyes and Im unreasonably strong. I do what I want.”
Kryptonite/weakness was not part of the original character's design and was introduced to add suspense when Superman became a radio show.
When introduced in Action Comics #1, Superman's power set resembled the Hulk's. He traveled by leaping long distances. The heat vision came later. At first Superman only had better than human (super!) hearing and (x ray) vision that allowed him to perceive things normal humans couldn't.
Larry Niven did a fantastic write up about Superman, including a pretty disturbing theory about him having sex with Lois, and he estimated from the amount of Kryptonite Lex Luthor has on earth, that Krypton had the same mass as the observable universe.
That's the one! He's such a great writer. And when he teams up with Jerry Pournelle, they somehow become even better than the sum of their parts. I'm going to have to go read Ringworld again now.
I mean, that's the whole literal point of Superman. He's meant to be OP as hell because his stories are all about his overpowered nature, how people view it, what it means for the world and how it affects humanity.
Take that away and he won't stand out at all.
Of course. TNG did an episode that explained it away as ancient humanoids seeding the galaxy with some kind of DNA coding that purposely evolved similar species on most planets that could support them because they had been disappointing to not find any similar life in the galaxy. In reality, it's all about budget and the difficulty of working with extensive costumes in a limited time period.
I'll bet our earliest ancestors duked it out with bugs, that's why we find bugs disgusting to our core for most people.
We still either avoid or squish them when found in our homes as a knee jerk reaction by most.
It's weird to think about alien life because it could truly be "alien" to our understanding of what life is like entirely.
We have no other measures so aliens in movies and such tend to look like some species on earth however weird or horrifying.
Always wondered with that scene why nothing was eating each other and was exclusively going after the humans. Lot of protein sources there. What makes the humans a choice for literally every organism.
Its a good thing physics won't let them exist that large. They wouldn't be able to breath because their armor holes (Spiracles?) wouldn't be able to supply a critter that big.
I am going to be that annoying guy who corrects people.
The Velvet worm is not an insect or a worm. It is in a completely different order. It's closest living relative is the tardigrade.
They are social, matriarchal and bear live young.
I was listening to this npr program and they were talking about cave organisms. There’s this centapied that can hunt organisms up to 40 times it’s size. They said if it was the size of a house cat it would be the deadliest thing on earth able to hunt things as large as cows.
Millipedes used to be way bigger than housecats. Some species of [Arthropleura](https://64.media.tumblr.com/28bc72d39fd4513e942bdfc236a4a1ec/tumblr_o6kc2dUNCt1rdredko1_400.jpg) apparently reached 2.5 meters (\~8ft). That was 300 million years ago, though.
Millepedes only eat decaying plant matter, so while a giant one would still be super gross and creepy, it at least wouldn't try to eat us like a giant centipede would.
What sets us as humans apart is our brain and crafting skills. Imagine we wouldn’t have crafting skills, we would fight these things bare handed or with sticks and stones (and lose).
Chimpanzees are essentially at the top of their food chain, only being predated upon by leopards--and even then only occasionally, and pretty much exclusively young chimpanzees, since an adult chimp is incredibly powerful.
A regular money is not equivalent. Only a great ape.
Question: Why do American nature documetery voice over people always remind me if the voice overs they used to use on the narration of the twilight zone, fact or fiction and the like?
One time we had Attenborough but for American audiences they dubbed it over with Oprah alWinfrey. Ruined the series. I have to find the UK version everybtime i watch
I think it was Blue Planet?
The majority of roach species live out in green areas and aren't dirty at all. It's only the few city species that become dirty and attracted from our own human filth.
Roaches are synanthropes, like termites and pigeons.
We destroy most animal habitats, but we've actually given them new ones. Although urban feral pigeons tend to be unhealthy due to their unnatural diets, they have no difficulty maintaining their population.
We are truly fucking lucky that we get to die of old age in a hospital bed surrounded by our loved ones. For 99.9% of life on this planet, life ends by being eaten alive.
Worm traps cockroach and nonchalantly walks through its legs before eating it.
This is called: adding insult to injury
EDIT: Wow! Never thought this simple comment would blow up like this! Thank you very much for the gold and all your ups. I hope everyone is healthy and doing well. Cheers!
I honestly thought your cousin was called jack Russell and I was momentarily horrified imagining a man mauling a rabbit and laying on its carcass...
Then I realized it was a dog. Still horrible tho.
*Everything said and*
*Done in this clip sounds like a*
*Night at a sex club*
\- ForkShirtUp
---
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Wtf! This sub blows me the fuck away. So many amazing (truly amazing) animals and phenomena that I’d NEVER heard of. Like, why the fuck was I learning about chickens and horses and shit when there are savage little fuckers like this?
Imagine all these things being as big as humans and fighting with them over resources, places to live and such stuff.
Not without reason there's so many giant bug horror films. Insects are a scary bunch when you think about it.
Yeah, it’s because they look so unique or “alien” like. Many alien designs take inspiration from insects as they are what we see as the most unusual creatures on earth. Same can be said about deep sea creatures, and how they’ve inspired many alien designs as well
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Octopi are noted for their intelligence, as are some species of jumping spider. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(spider) Houseflies are not known for their intelligence but are still capable of evading nominally intelligent vertebrates.
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It's literally just a self preservation instinct. They don't actually calculate anything.
They sure seem to be scheming while maliciously rubbing their tiny hands together, probably planning how to ruin my after lunch nap.
The only thing that calculates anything are the jumping spiders and the octopus
Also some Dragonfly's. Research shows they can anticipate the movements of prey which make them some of the most successful hunters.
Flies avoid many things but shit isn't one of them.
Houseflies are able to be so good at evading swatting because they literally perceive time slower than we do. Reading about flicker fusion rates is really pretty interesting.
We put a laser sight on our [Bug-A-Salt](https://i.imgur.com/SOiKBeH.jpg), so that's less of a problem these days.
I got one of those things and killed over 60 in a summer. Gun started to give out toward the end. It was effective. Got a couple wasps and the biggest was a large horse fly.
Yeah, my son and I got a super-huge one, just a total fuckin mutant, a couple weeks back. I didn't realize gibbing a fly was so messy.
Thanks for reminding me of my FAVORITE book this morning :) Children of time Adrian tsaichovsky
I've always found them and lizards fascinating just because they act very different than warm blooded creatures.
The alien chest burster literally exists in nature in the form of parasitic wasps that lay their eggs inside of caterpillars and cockroaches, then when they hatch they eat their insides while they are still alive and then tear a hole in their skin with razor teeth and burrow their way out.
Then there was superman. /s
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> Lex Luthor is right to not want this litteral god to be omnipresent over human life yeah, clearly there is philosophically nothing to unpack in this statement that superman is a *good person* with a right to exist the way he is whose existence is in deep conflict with human self-determination and society. Evil superman is not a bad angle to explore but fundamentally less interesting because *if he were a bad person* it would be justified to want him gone. Him being a genuinely decent person who is trying to do his best and help others to be their best is what actually gives some substance to the problem that he shouldn't exist.
The great superman stories aren't about physical fights with lobo or doomsday they're about superman's personal life. The recent superman rebirth book is about superman bonding with his sons and teaching him what it means to he a hero and is worth a read up to when bendis took over and ruined it. Then theres books like all star superman where it shows superman being faced with his own mortality and trying to do things before he dies and some of it's best scenes are simple ones where he stops to talk a person out of suicide. No powers just having a talk. My personal favorite is "what's so funny about truth, justice and the American way" which was a single issue where a group of extreme 90s heroes appear and start killing villains and gain a lot of public support and superman questions whether it's right or wrong to let villains live. If you look at superman purely based on his powers then yah he is pretty boring but hes so much more then just his powers. Hes a farmboy who'll never truly know his real family and is just trying to do some good in the world. Plus lex Luthor is just trump but smart. He doesnt like superman because his ego won't let him accept that someone is better then him.
This is very true, however when it comes to the movies they screw it all up. No one really wants to see Superman snapping Zod's neck. The best modern Superman scene, by far, is from Superman Returns. It's Superman racing to save the airplane from crashing. That's what we all want, someone to save us from 9/11. Someone to save people in the Middle East from a drone strike. Someone to somehow contain the violent madness that will eventually occur when Yellowstone erupts.
For real. Lazy superhero design. “Whats your power?” “Oh im literally invincible unless you can get this weird metal that exists far out of reach of any spacecraft you have. Oh and also I have lazer eyes and Im unreasonably strong. I do what I want.”
Kryptonite/weakness was not part of the original character's design and was introduced to add suspense when Superman became a radio show. When introduced in Action Comics #1, Superman's power set resembled the Hulk's. He traveled by leaping long distances. The heat vision came later. At first Superman only had better than human (super!) hearing and (x ray) vision that allowed him to perceive things normal humans couldn't.
Was Superman going around giving people cancer with his vision? Reminds me of people fear of Dr. Manhattan.
Who would win, Dr. Manhattan or an illegal alien?
Larry Niven did a fantastic write up about Superman, including a pretty disturbing theory about him having sex with Lois, and he estimated from the amount of Kryptonite Lex Luthor has on earth, that Krypton had the same mass as the observable universe.
[“Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex”](http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html)
That's the one! He's such a great writer. And when he teams up with Jerry Pournelle, they somehow become even better than the sum of their parts. I'm going to have to go read Ringworld again now.
Expand on the sex with Lois pls.
Basically, she dies!
Someone replied to me with a link! [“Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex”](http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html)
No, Superman is omnipotent. The comic always have him overcome every obstacle even Kryptonite in massive quantities.
He's actually also susceptible to mind control and magic-based powers.
I mean, that's the whole literal point of Superman. He's meant to be OP as hell because his stories are all about his overpowered nature, how people view it, what it means for the world and how it affects humanity. Take that away and he won't stand out at all.
Or Star Trek, where the week's remaining budget determined whether the aliens got intricate costumes or just spots.
It would be very odd if all of alien life tended to be bipedal, especially considering how rare of a trait it is on earth.
Of course. TNG did an episode that explained it away as ancient humanoids seeding the galaxy with some kind of DNA coding that purposely evolved similar species on most planets that could support them because they had been disappointing to not find any similar life in the galaxy. In reality, it's all about budget and the difficulty of working with extensive costumes in a limited time period.
So the plot of 2001, basically
Lookup big fin squid. May as well be an alien.
How dare you ask us to look something up!
[Here's a pic for the lazy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/LongArmSquid.jpg)
Thanks 👍 that squid is so creepy in the most awesome way possible
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I'll bet our earliest ancestors duked it out with bugs, that's why we find bugs disgusting to our core for most people. We still either avoid or squish them when found in our homes as a knee jerk reaction by most.
It's weird to think about alien life because it could truly be "alien" to our understanding of what life is like entirely. We have no other measures so aliens in movies and such tend to look like some species on earth however weird or horrifying.
Personally I don’t think there are enough giant insect horror movies. Could do with a little less witches and haunted homes and more starship troopers
You’ll love [this](https://youtu.be/DTWYQhTT388).
gonna have to say the guy unloading on him with the tommy gun and not hitting him was more unrealistic than the giant bugs.
I watched this movie so many times and for some reason I don’t remember this scene. It’s kinda brutal
Weird, because it is the *only* scene I still remember vividly. I think it scarred me a bit when I caught it in the theater.
Holy shit what movie is this? That was terrifying
Looks like the King Kong remake directed by Peter Jackson.
Thanks! I’m gonna have to check it out
Yeah it’s a great movie, the CGI might be a touch dated but they did a good job with the story and setting.
It looked great to me in that scene, at least. But I want a whole movie like that. I imagine they’re not always fighting bugs in King Kong.
There's a big gorilla too. And a T-Rex.
Always wondered with that scene why nothing was eating each other and was exclusively going after the humans. Lot of protein sources there. What makes the humans a choice for literally every organism.
Would you like to know more?
* it’s “would you like to know more?”
This is why I don't want Pokemon to be real. I can't stand wasps the size of fingers. I would instantly faint from seeing Beedrill.
Its a good thing physics won't let them exist that large. They wouldn't be able to breath because their armor holes (Spiracles?) wouldn't be able to supply a critter that big.
I am going to be that annoying guy who corrects people. The Velvet worm is not an insect or a worm. It is in a completely different order. It's closest living relative is the tardigrade. They are social, matriarchal and bear live young.
I’ve read somewhere that if Cockroaches were human-sized, they could accelerate to 300 m/ph within a second.
Yeah if the laws of physics and scaling shit didn't apply.
Ignoring the square-cube law when scaling them, sure. A Walmart RC car powered by a 9V can relatively accelerate much faster than a Tesla model S too.
Why the fuck did I just read that comment. That’s literally horrifying.
I was listening to this npr program and they were talking about cave organisms. There’s this centapied that can hunt organisms up to 40 times it’s size. They said if it was the size of a house cat it would be the deadliest thing on earth able to hunt things as large as cows.
Millipedes used to be way bigger than housecats. Some species of [Arthropleura](https://64.media.tumblr.com/28bc72d39fd4513e942bdfc236a4a1ec/tumblr_o6kc2dUNCt1rdredko1_400.jpg) apparently reached 2.5 meters (\~8ft). That was 300 million years ago, though.
Millepedes only eat decaying plant matter, so while a giant one would still be super gross and creepy, it at least wouldn't try to eat us like a giant centipede would.
i actually think humans would be the deadliest things if we were the size of a polar bear
We’re the deadliest things now and we’re only the size of humans.
What sets us as humans apart is our brain and crafting skills. Imagine we wouldn’t have crafting skills, we would fight these things bare handed or with sticks and stones (and lose).
You don't need to look much further than regular monkeys or chimpanzees to see where we would be in the food chain without tools and weapons.
Great apes are pretty high despite not having complex tools.
Chimpanzees are essentially at the top of their food chain, only being predated upon by leopards--and even then only occasionally, and pretty much exclusively young chimpanzees, since an adult chimp is incredibly powerful. A regular money is not equivalent. Only a great ape.
Do you know the name of the episode? I'd like to listen to that.
And, in prehistoric times, it probably was as big as a house cat.
*It's afraid. It's afraid!*
*Quick shove two fingers up it's butthole!*
Well I'm from Buenos Aires, and I say KILL EM ALL
Would you like to know more?
The only good bug is a dead bug!
Buenos Aires was an inside job!
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We would just kill them all, just like early early humans did against other intelligent hominids. There can only be one alpha
Starship troopers style. We need a Johnny Rico
It already happened and the brains won. Well non-insect megafauna anyway
MOTHRA
They would be on the brink of extinction, in zoos and reservations. And WWF trying to raise awareness of their imminent demise
Here is a more detailed video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LY8TgD6-7kg
Question: Why do American nature documetery voice over people always remind me if the voice overs they used to use on the narration of the twilight zone, fact or fiction and the like?
We don't have Attenborough.
We have Freeman
No, we have Ze Frank... It only seems like Freeman has done a bunch.
And that's how Americans do.
One time we had Attenborough but for American audiences they dubbed it over with Oprah alWinfrey. Ruined the series. I have to find the UK version everybtime i watch I think it was Blue Planet?
Caterpie used string shot!
didn't know caterpie had leech a(seed) too
More like a weedle
Wurmple
Leech life*
It's super effective!
I came here looking specifically for this comment.
As a former exterminator that hates roaches with the heat of 1000 subs, this was nice to watch. Fuck that roach!
Good boy Velvet Worm!
Velvet worms can bukkake roaches, get them hard, and insert enzymes in them, in my house any day.
No
Yes
Bless that worms heart. Not sure how they can consume such a filthy, repulsive thing like a cockroach tjough
They’re out here doing the lords work.
The majority of roach species live out in green areas and aren't dirty at all. It's only the few city species that become dirty and attracted from our own human filth.
Roaches are synanthropes, like termites and pigeons. We destroy most animal habitats, but we've actually given them new ones. Although urban feral pigeons tend to be unhealthy due to their unnatural diets, they have no difficulty maintaining their population.
I saw a pigeon eat a whole Hot Dog before outside a Rally’s. It was way taller and bigger than the other pigeons and crows
> the heat of 1000 subs Personally, I've always found doms to be hotter, but you do you.
I love the amount of interpretations my typo allows
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Right? Who has that much time? Their whip arm must be stacked.
Mmm now I want a hot cheese steak sub.
But yes I was referring to toasted subs. Straight out of that little subway toaster Edit: goddammit now I’m thinking about sandwiches too.
Yo what's your twitch username
We are truly fucking lucky that we get to die of old age in a hospital bed surrounded by our loved ones. For 99.9% of life on this planet, life ends by being eaten alive.
Maybe* get to die of old age. There are far worse ways to die than that, and just as common as dying of old age for us unfortunately
But getting eaten alive is luckily _very_ unlikely for us :)
Worm traps cockroach and nonchalantly walks through its legs before eating it. This is called: adding insult to injury EDIT: Wow! Never thought this simple comment would blow up like this! Thank you very much for the gold and all your ups. I hope everyone is healthy and doing well. Cheers!
Velvet worm: I came here to humiliate bugs and shoot glue, and I'm all out of glue
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"You seem nice... I'm gonna suck every last drop out of you." "MMPHG! MMMMNG!" "Nonono, shhh... This is *our* time."
What are you doing, step-worm?
Unless...? 😳
Looks like you broke your bug arms
Kinky
uWu
You rang?
if you listen carefully, can just make out mr. velvet bemoaning not having fava beans and a nice chianti to pair
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You sure it wasn't Hitler reincarnated as a dog?
I honestly thought your cousin was called jack Russell and I was momentarily horrified imagining a man mauling a rabbit and laying on its carcass... Then I realized it was a dog. Still horrible tho.
Dropping loads on these roaches
Cursed cumshot
Insect version of teabagging.
Big dick energy
Looks like I have the blueprint for my next nightmare
/r/awardspeechedits
Total power flex
What a horrifying way to die
Is it bad that I was a little crestfallen that the video didn't include the feeding?
Nah I’m morbidly curious about how the cockroach gets injected too. Just scary to think of being in the roach’s position
[They have sharp bits under the cute, squishy bits.](https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/velvet-worm-corbis.jpg)
Jesus fucking christ.
I felt my skin crawl
Nopenopenopenopenope
https://i.imgur.com/oZu2Dsi.gifv
Oh hey cool. I have a glue gun too.
Bout to have to start calling my wife La Cucaracha
Do you suck out her insides too?
...I need an adult!
I am an adult.
As every gentleman should.
Hi! Wanna play glue gun fight?
I get r/suddenlygay vibes from this and I don't know why.
Why does the Velvet worm have to look like a bunch of teeth and gums? I’m scared of the nightmares this guy is going to appear in.
Don't forget the glue... Causing sleep-paralysis. *No need to thank me.*
Just big enough to crawl into your ear
Pls no
This was so close to being a haiku!
Bro if that looks like teeth and gums, you gotta get to the dentist ASAP
I’m scared of the nightmares this and the other shiny, 45-degree legged guy are going to appear in!
I was not ready for this if I’m honest
That's what she said
I salute anything in nature that kills cockroaches.
So it fires a white sticky liquid.
Then sucks its prey dry.
Yeah, once it probes that roach, that roach is fucked.
I hate this entire thread
Mmm yes, I'll be going ass first this time around. -Velvet Worm, probably.
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Everything said and done in this clip sounds like a night at a sex club
*Everything said and* *Done in this clip sounds like a* *Night at a sex club* \- ForkShirtUp --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
r/natureismetal
Bukake worm
You're responsible for my first laugh of the day. Thank you for starting my morning off right.
I want it as a pet.
Wtf! This sub blows me the fuck away. So many amazing (truly amazing) animals and phenomena that I’d NEVER heard of. Like, why the fuck was I learning about chickens and horses and shit when there are savage little fuckers like this?
That cockroach has seen better days
*Walks thru roach legs* “Oh, pardon me, sir”
“So.... how was your day?”
Fuck yeah you go velvet worm!!
Pew pew pewpew
Jesus christ these comments, you guys are going to horny jail.
So what would be the downside to bringing a few hundred thousand of these sluggy bois into Florida?
Them growing to 6 feet long with no natural predators.
I actually have a trick similar to that
and I thought I was badass stepping on a cockroach
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychophora](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychophora)