Science Memes

11068 readers

2865 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

198

Mandibles (mander.xyz)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (11 children)

Can they actually bite using those things or are there just there to look scary?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The lower left is a toe biter water bug with one of the most painful venoms on the planet

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I'm getting very mixed answers here (someone else said that's it's legs

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

They are its legs, however they are heavily modified legs made for strongly grappling prey

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Ohhh. Well the big parts that grab stuff are mandibles. They aren't legs but they originate, evolutinarily speaking, from legs. Same with antennae! The parts closer to the head do the eating but sometimes mandibles help with that.

For venomous arthropods sometimes it's the mandibles that have the venom (like spiders, where they are called Chelicerae), for some it's saliva and they use various mouthparts (the water bug uses a proboscus), for some it's their tail end (like ants), etc etc.

load more comments (9 replies)