One midterm down, 2 to go! The class was wildlife management which I’ve been…

One midterm down, 2 to go! The class was wildlife management which I’ve been really enjoying, but not going to lie I was pretty nervous for the midterm. The material has involved a lot of statistics which also means coding. I’ve gotten better at this over the years, but being tested on it still makes me nervous. But I think it went really well!! I actually finished early, which is generally a good sign (well either that or I don’t even know enough to know I got stuff wrong lol….I guess I’ll find out soon enough )
Either way, I figured it’s about time for another nerdy Ecuador post! This strange little caterpillar like creature is actually an Onychophoran, AKA a ‘velvet worm’. Onychophorans are super strange creatures. They have little ‘scales’ of skin down their body, jointless legs (so they can’t bend them) with tiny little claws at the ends of each foot, and perhaps most awesome of all – a ‘slime’ gland on their heads! They use their slime gland to hunt! When they sense prey they squirt a net of the extremely sticky slime out infront of them which traps prey almost like a spider wrapping it prey up with silk!
Despite being super unique creatures, very little is actually known about these guys. We found two individuals during our trip, and while I can’t go into the details, one of them might actually be unique in the history of science!! How crazy is that??!! What’s your favorite underappreciated animal???
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