Frank Ashwood on Nostr: Since you all really like Onychophora, here's a Peripatoides - another of NZ's ...
Since you all really like Onychophora, here's a Peripatoides - another of NZ's beautiful endemic velvet worms.
Unlike the previous post, these little critters give live birth, but that's not the strangest thing about their reproduction. During mating, males deposit sperm packages anywhere onto the skin of the female, which then DISSOLVE HOLES in her skin and travel throughout her body. This process has a name as unromantic as the act itself: 'dermal-haemocoelic sperm transfer'.
And they say romance is dead.
#SoilBiodiversity #SoilEcology #Entomology #Macrophotography #Nature #NaturePhotography
Unlike the previous post, these little critters give live birth, but that's not the strangest thing about their reproduction. During mating, males deposit sperm packages anywhere onto the skin of the female, which then DISSOLVE HOLES in her skin and travel throughout her body. This process has a name as unromantic as the act itself: 'dermal-haemocoelic sperm transfer'.
And they say romance is dead.
#SoilBiodiversity #SoilEcology #Entomology #Macrophotography #Nature #NaturePhotography