Velvet worm

Thought i share another pic of my recent find of the year, a very cute velvet worm Taken at night in singapore forest.

Funny read from weirdimals.wordpress.com/2009/...
This fabulously decadent fellow is the velvet worm, so named for his downy skin, but the plush appearance of this oddity has nothing on its rather curious hunting habits. This chap bimbles through the forest, like a worm with legs in a smoking jacket, looking for victims by quite literally sniffing them out. When he finds a hapless individual he rears up and squirts goo everywhere like a primordial spiderman. The victim is stuck fast by the threads and all the dastardley velvet worm has to do is inject it with its poisonous saliva and suck the gooey insides out. After a fine brunch he will spend a good bit of time chomping up all his sticky stuff to use on some other hapless chap.

The male, which is much smaller than the female, deposits his sperm in a sac and leaves it on the females back. These can build up and there are oft many of these spermatophores from different males all over her. Then by sheer jiggery-pokery the packages are absorbed into the side of her and the sperm swim willy-nilly through her blood until they reach the sperm storage organs, where she is fertilised. One species however has evolved to do without all this silly fornication, and put simply it clones itself … a virgin birth as it were. This isn’t the only mating oddity as some species lay eggs, others hatch eggs inside their bodies and some actually have live young. I’d like to see spiderman try that. Actually no … no I wouldn’t … that’s the last thing I’d like to see.