Butterfly kisses
June 24, 2017 8:37 PM   Subscribe

"For the cabbage white [butterfly], sex involves sperm packages of ungodly size, genitals that double as a souped-up stomach, and an unexpected set of chewing jaws."
posted by Eyebrows McGee (17 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite


 
idk that I really needed another reason to be slightly unnerved by butterflies and their brethren but wow ok
posted by Hermione Granger at 8:49 PM on June 24, 2017 [3 favorites]


I will never look at a water cooler bottle again without a heady mixture of wonderment, relief, and inadequacy.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:52 PM on June 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm just up the road from the Pismo Butterfly Grove, the southernmost wintering place for Monarch Butterflies that are kinda lazy, and the Natural Attraction that replaced the Pismo Clams when they got kind of scarce a few decades ago (I blame Bugs Bunny). They put 8-foot-tall cement sculptures of clams at the city limits, and now paint them butterfly colors during the migration season. So now 8-foot butterflies are scarier than 8-foot clams.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:12 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


And folks think that when the extraterrestrials come all they'll be doing is a bit'o innocent probing...

chomp chomp, may you be first to be eaten
posted by sammyo at 9:12 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


The Aristocrats!
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:54 PM on June 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


This club has EVERYTHING
posted by clockzero at 10:27 PM on June 24, 2017 [5 favorites]


I thought we were down on kinkshaming...
posted by Samizdata at 10:53 PM on June 24, 2017


A few years ago now, The Squirrel Machine's Hans Rickheit and I made a six-page comic about the warring reproductive strategies of Britain's Large Blue Butterfly and the Ichneumon wasp. You can read it here.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:48 AM on June 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


"Each female carries around the legacy of all her past sexual encounters, as withered husks sitting inside her genitals."

Indeed.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 4:37 AM on June 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


Thanks for the frisson, Paul Slade.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:57 AM on June 25, 2017


Incredible! Thanks for sharing this.
posted by stillmoving at 1:02 PM on June 25, 2017


The only thing better than crazy insect sex lives is crazy parasitic insect sex lives.
posted by Kabanos at 6:49 PM on June 25, 2017


Scientists who work on ejaculates will often show up to meetings with props,” says Morehouse. “I’ve never had it in me to bring a five-gallon bucket along.

I don't know if I'm more surprised at the first or second sentence in the above.
posted by mediareport at 3:48 AM on June 26, 2017


I was going to vote for the first sentence, then I realised I'd misread it as "scientists who work in ejaculates". Eww!
posted by Paul Slade at 5:13 AM on June 26, 2017


Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Ejaculates.
Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in ejaculates. Think about it. Will you think about it?
posted by Kabanos at 11:46 AM on June 26, 2017


Belated correction:
Pismo Grove is the NORTHERNMOST wintering place for Monarch Butterflies that are kinda lazy, because the ones that aren't fly all the way to Mexico.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:20 PM on June 26, 2017


That is truly amazing. I did not expect to be riveted by that link.
posted by umbú at 10:00 PM on June 26, 2017


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