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ace tilton ratcliff

@mortuaryreport.bsky.social

1.3K followers 410 following 1.4K posts

genderqueer disabled metalsmith, multidisciplinary artist, and writer. former mortician. hEhlers-danlos et al. living in florida. i post pics of spiders https://linktr.ee/mortuaryreport

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ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 10h

i love kiké hernandez in october

ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

eeee thank you very much

ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

thank you so much!

ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

honestly if that doesn’t sum me up idk what does (thank you!!)

ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

and male spiders will weave sperm webs to collect his sperm before picking it back up again with his palpal bulbs. lil spankie blankies

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ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

also if you’ve never looked up spider sex, that’s a whole weird hole (heh) to fall down! when adult male spiders mature they develop tibial hooks to hold the female’s fangs from murderin’ & they get big boxing gloves to hold their sperm for insertion into the epigynum

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ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

and i presume @tkingfisher.com already knows this but there is a history of weaving with spider silk (look up the golden spider silk cape!) some silk is colored yellow (nephila family) and some indigenous humans use spider silk to construct fishing lures

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ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

the tarantulas can “walk on water” because they’re covered in hydrophobic hairs that repel water in conjunction with being balanced evenly across eight legs so they don’t break surface tension

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ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

there are also semi aquatic intertidal spiders (desis genus) that emerge at the ebb tide to hunt for invertebrates & stay submerged during high tides in an air chamber sealed with silk

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ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

there are fishing spiders that catch fish (dolomedes genus) that are worth watching! there’s a diving bell spider that attaches a bubble of oxygen to a plant with silk & lives almost its entire life underwater (argyroneta aquatica), including resting, catching & eating prey, mating, & egg laying

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ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

please tell me you know about the urticating hairs

ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

what were you there for??

ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

it was brutal. i ended up leaving the last night bc the water had been out since the night before and i was quite simply ~done~

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ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

the single detraction was the mattress but everything else was truly magical. it was such a good weekend

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ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

all of the new tarantula keepers freak out thinking their t’s are dying. nope, just poop cannons

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ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 1d

i was!!! it was beautiful!

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ace tilton ratcliff @mortuaryreport.bsky.social · 2d

mostly arboreal species, especially the pink toe tarantula. it’s colloquially known as “poop cannoning” by keepers. nothing fun in it (they save that for their urticating hairs) but it’s annoying and gets everywhere!