I Own Antlions.
They are nature's punji pit
Okay, let's not dwell on it. I already know it's insane. This was one of those midnight specials I received only because you can order anything on the Internet and I have legendarily poor impulse control. I think this particular purchase was due largely to a late night viewing of Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan and a bottle of vodka. Oh, Ricardo Montalban, you're so dreamy. What's this? A sand-burrowing nightmare hellbeast that crawls into your ear and wraps itself around your brain? Yes! I simply must order the closest analogous earthly critter! And then I promptly and completely forgot about the whole goddamned thing until the box arrived.
The arrival of mystery boxes is an almost monthly ordeal that I've learned to dread. The ones from Amazon aren't too bad. The worst that can come out of those are merely stupid. Yes, I really did need to purchase the entire series of the Man-Kzin Wars, all eleven books. I also frequently get boxes from companies with names I do not recognize. Corcorran? What the fuck do they make? Jump boots. It turns out they make a damn fine jump boot. Then there are the packages that are a structureless Tyvek envelope. They broadcast "You have paid too much for this t-shirt, you had damn well better hope it isn't stupid." Most of the time it isn't. Finally we have the little white box. What is in this box? God only knows. Could be a dried mantis shrimp. Might be an ocular prosthetic. There's a possibility it could be a blown glass fish. It's completely random. It could be anything really: an Iron lizard, radioactive marbles, a whistle made out of unspecified bone, or fucking antlions. Oh yes, the antlions.
After opening the box, I discovered I was the proud owner of a plastic bowl, sand, and a vial containing three armored, burrowing insects with scythe-like mandibles. Bully for me! As long as it isn't pitchblende or vaseline glass or any other form of uranium I'm happy. I immediately set to work researching antlions. Do they bite? Of course not, though fearsome looking, antlions prefer to bide their time until they burrow into your brain through your nose while you sleep. What do they eat? Ants (and the frontal lobe). But mostly ants and other insects (and the frontal lobe). Where the bloody hell an I going to get insects during winter? You're going to have to buy them from a store. Seriously? Yep. Of course, you are going to be the pussiest person buying pinhead crickets because everyone else is raising Amazonian death spiders and sub-African dragon toads. How do they eat? It's all very fascinating, really. The mandible is actually a hollow tube which is used to inject a crude form of venom / digestive fluid. The prey is then drained through the mandibles.
Setting up the antlion containment chamber was surprisingly simple: Bowl goes on the desk. Sand goes in the bowl. Antlions go in the sand. I dropped the first antlion into the sand and he disappeared immediately. I then placed the other two into the bowl, who also disappeared immediately. I named them Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Then I laughed and laughed and laughed. I'm so clever. That was the last I saw of them for a week and a half. There were no little doodles in the sand. There was no pit construction. There were no signs of life whatsoever. After a week I followed the instructions and spritzed them with water. Perhaps the water would spur on the pit building instinct. And then I could feed them so they would not die. Of course this also did absolutely nothing.
A week and a half in I began thinking I killed the goddamned things some how and it was all my fault. Might have been the lamp. Might have been the candle. Maybe I breathed on them too hard. I didn't know how I killed them but I knew I had to retrieve their tiny insect corpses and give them a proper Christian burial. Also I was more than a little concerned they had escaped the containment chamber and were already forcing me to do their shadowy bidding. I started dumping out the sand and I was pleased to see Athos come tumbling out. He attempted to burrow beneath the sand once again, however it was I who had the advantage this time! He was quickly removed and placed on the edge of a nearby plate until I could retrieve the other two. Porthos also tumbled out and started burrowing. Huzzah! I hadn't killed them after all and at least two thirds of them had been accounted for. I swiftly placed Porthos on the opposite edge of the plate from Athos and set about retrieving Aramis. To my great relief I located Aramis. He was valiantly clutching to the textured base of the antlion habitat even after all the sand had been removed. With a few quick taps he too was placed on the plate.
I took a moment to admire the antlions. They appeared so innocent and helpless while they folded in two and cowered on the glossy white ceramic. I turned back and dumped the sand back into the containment chamber (which only took all of three seconds, at the most). When I turned back to the antlions Athos had covered the entire diameter of the dinner plate, subdued Porthos, and had pierced through his armored thorax with vice like mandibles. Thinking swiftly I sprung to my feet, knocking over my desk chair in the process, and did the first thing that came to mind:
"NO! BAD ANTLION!"
Yes. That was totally going to work. Good thinking there.
I then noticed Aramis heading for the battle with frightening rapidity and murderous intent. I immediately scooped him up with a little paper trowel I had made and dropped him into the enclosure where he burrowed to safety. The carnage was over. Athos was the undisputed victor. Porthos was pinned, punctured, and his innards were currently being digested. A scene of frantic melee played at the front of my mind, however none of them were currently moving. So the damn things will eat each other. Good to know. Athos finished consuming his old habitatmate, and he had grown to nearly twice his old size while Porthos became a desiccated husk. A grisly tranquility settled across the scene for many minutes. Then, after it had become apparent feeding was through, I helped Athos dislodge one of his mandibles which had become trapped between two armored plates, and dumped him into the sand where he happily snuggled down.
The antlions were subsequently renamed Alferd Packer and Liver-Eating Johnson.
The arrival of mystery boxes is an almost monthly ordeal that I've learned to dread. The ones from Amazon aren't too bad. The worst that can come out of those are merely stupid. Yes, I really did need to purchase the entire series of the Man-Kzin Wars, all eleven books. I also frequently get boxes from companies with names I do not recognize. Corcorran? What the fuck do they make? Jump boots. It turns out they make a damn fine jump boot. Then there are the packages that are a structureless Tyvek envelope. They broadcast "You have paid too much for this t-shirt, you had damn well better hope it isn't stupid." Most of the time it isn't. Finally we have the little white box. What is in this box? God only knows. Could be a dried mantis shrimp. Might be an ocular prosthetic. There's a possibility it could be a blown glass fish. It's completely random. It could be anything really: an Iron lizard, radioactive marbles, a whistle made out of unspecified bone, or fucking antlions. Oh yes, the antlions.
After opening the box, I discovered I was the proud owner of a plastic bowl, sand, and a vial containing three armored, burrowing insects with scythe-like mandibles. Bully for me! As long as it isn't pitchblende or vaseline glass or any other form of uranium I'm happy. I immediately set to work researching antlions. Do they bite? Of course not, though fearsome looking, antlions prefer to bide their time until they burrow into your brain through your nose while you sleep. What do they eat? Ants (and the frontal lobe). But mostly ants and other insects (and the frontal lobe). Where the bloody hell an I going to get insects during winter? You're going to have to buy them from a store. Seriously? Yep. Of course, you are going to be the pussiest person buying pinhead crickets because everyone else is raising Amazonian death spiders and sub-African dragon toads. How do they eat? It's all very fascinating, really. The mandible is actually a hollow tube which is used to inject a crude form of venom / digestive fluid. The prey is then drained through the mandibles.
Setting up the antlion containment chamber was surprisingly simple: Bowl goes on the desk. Sand goes in the bowl. Antlions go in the sand. I dropped the first antlion into the sand and he disappeared immediately. I then placed the other two into the bowl, who also disappeared immediately. I named them Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Then I laughed and laughed and laughed. I'm so clever. That was the last I saw of them for a week and a half. There were no little doodles in the sand. There was no pit construction. There were no signs of life whatsoever. After a week I followed the instructions and spritzed them with water. Perhaps the water would spur on the pit building instinct. And then I could feed them so they would not die. Of course this also did absolutely nothing.
A week and a half in I began thinking I killed the goddamned things some how and it was all my fault. Might have been the lamp. Might have been the candle. Maybe I breathed on them too hard. I didn't know how I killed them but I knew I had to retrieve their tiny insect corpses and give them a proper Christian burial. Also I was more than a little concerned they had escaped the containment chamber and were already forcing me to do their shadowy bidding. I started dumping out the sand and I was pleased to see Athos come tumbling out. He attempted to burrow beneath the sand once again, however it was I who had the advantage this time! He was quickly removed and placed on the edge of a nearby plate until I could retrieve the other two. Porthos also tumbled out and started burrowing. Huzzah! I hadn't killed them after all and at least two thirds of them had been accounted for. I swiftly placed Porthos on the opposite edge of the plate from Athos and set about retrieving Aramis. To my great relief I located Aramis. He was valiantly clutching to the textured base of the antlion habitat even after all the sand had been removed. With a few quick taps he too was placed on the plate.
I took a moment to admire the antlions. They appeared so innocent and helpless while they folded in two and cowered on the glossy white ceramic. I turned back and dumped the sand back into the containment chamber (which only took all of three seconds, at the most). When I turned back to the antlions Athos had covered the entire diameter of the dinner plate, subdued Porthos, and had pierced through his armored thorax with vice like mandibles. Thinking swiftly I sprung to my feet, knocking over my desk chair in the process, and did the first thing that came to mind:
"NO! BAD ANTLION!"
Yes. That was totally going to work. Good thinking there.
I then noticed Aramis heading for the battle with frightening rapidity and murderous intent. I immediately scooped him up with a little paper trowel I had made and dropped him into the enclosure where he burrowed to safety. The carnage was over. Athos was the undisputed victor. Porthos was pinned, punctured, and his innards were currently being digested. A scene of frantic melee played at the front of my mind, however none of them were currently moving. So the damn things will eat each other. Good to know. Athos finished consuming his old habitatmate, and he had grown to nearly twice his old size while Porthos became a desiccated husk. A grisly tranquility settled across the scene for many minutes. Then, after it had become apparent feeding was through, I helped Athos dislodge one of his mandibles which had become trapped between two armored plates, and dumped him into the sand where he happily snuggled down.
The antlions were subsequently renamed Alferd Packer and Liver-Eating Johnson.