Megabunus diadema

This animal is: real

Megabunus diadema is a small species of harvestman (Opiliones) found widely in Europe. 

It has prominent spines atop its ocularium (the turret its eyes are on), the ‘diadema’ part of its name refers to this spikey crown (diadem). Its colours and spines act as camouflage, helping it blend in with lichens (and presumably make it hard for predators to swallow).

I see them quite regularly in woodland, resting with their legs stretched out flat on a gate post, or walking among mosses and lichens preying on small invertebrates.

External links:

Megabunus diadema on Wikipedia

Excellent photos of Megabunus diadema, by macro photographer Tim Jonas

You can look loads of cool pictures of Megabunus diadema on iNaturalist. Check out this one shedding its skin, and also this tiny young one.

This British Arachnological Society PDF pamphlet gives a nice introduction to UK harvestmen in general.

This Field Studies Council webpage has lots of harvestman information. To find Megabunus diadema, click ‘species’, then either enter the name in the search box or scroll down and click on it. 

Bare-faced Go-away-bird

 This animal is: real

Go-away-birds are found in Africa. There are three kinds: Gray, White-bellied, and Bare-faced. They are very vocal, and their call sounds like “Go away!” hence their anti-social name. 

Bare-faced Go-away-birds like to live in moist savanna and woodland, and can also be found in shrubby cultivated areas and gardens. They live in small groups, and feed on plant matter, like fruit, seeds and buds. They are 48 cm long beak to tail. They often build their nests in tall acacia trees, where they lay two to three greenish-white eggs.

The species has recently been subject to a lot of taxonomic shuffling, which I shall attempt to summarise simply (if taxonomy-themed bafflement is not your thing, skip the next couple of paragraphs!). 

Formerly, the Bare-faced Go-away-bird had the Latin name of Corythaixoides personatus, which contained two subspecies: C. p. leopoldi with a bare face, found in a large swathe of Africa; and C. p. personatus, which has tiny brown feathers on its face and more green on its chest, found only in the Ethiopian Rift Valley. 

Now those subspecies are recognised as species in their own right: the Black-faced Go-away-bird Corythaixoides leopoldi, and the Brown-faced Go-away-bird Corythaixoides personatus.

According to Wikipedia, all the Go-away-birds have now been moved to the genus Crinifer in 2021, where they now sit with the plantain-eaters, so the first parts of their names should be Crinifer rather than Corythaixoides.

However, many sites (iNaturalist, eBird and UCN Red List) call them Corythaixoides, so that might be correct.

Who knows! I quit, working it out is hard! 

I have drawn a Black-faced Go-away-bird (the leopoldi kind). 

I am no expert, and I got very, very confused with this, so please, if you know the correct Latin name for the bird I drew, leave it in the comments!

Both the Brown-faced and Black-faced Go-away-birds appear to be classed as ‘least concern’, which means they are not endangered currently. 

External links:

Bare-faced Go-away-bird on:

iNaturalist

eBird

Wikipedia 

Black-faced Go-away bird and Brown-faced Go-away bird on UCN red list’s site. 

Velvet Mites

This animal is: real

Note: There are several families of velvet mites, here I talk about the True Velvet Mites belonging to the family Trombidiidae. The above picture depicts a generic true velvet mite rather than any particular species. This is because information on specific species is hard to come by. So, here I talk about true velvet mites in general. There will be both vague remarks and sweeping generalisations! 

These mites can be found walking about in plant litter (and on walls) pretty much the world over. Typically bright red (although some are orange or come with pretty white splotches) they are some of the most conspicuous mites around. They are also HUGE (by mite standards), most are around 4 mm in length, but the mighty Giant Velvet Mites of the genus Dinothrombium reach up to 12 mm long. 12mm!! That’s like the size of a fingernail! 

When I think of velvet mites, I think of the adults. The eight-legged fluff nuggets wandering around looking for little bugs to eat or sometimes stuff to scavenge. 

But they don’t look like this all their life – they actually have quite a complex life cycle involving lots of stages: egg, pre-larva, larva, protonymph, deutonymph, tritonymph and adult. Basically, as babies they only have six legs. These youngsters are parasitic and feed on the haemolymph (bug blood) of insects and arachnids. They are the shiny red dots you may have seen clustered on the legs of harvestmen or the bodies of butterflies. Most do not harm their host (although I can’t imagine the host enjoys carrying the little vampires around). Once they’re done sucking, they detach and moult, becoming eight-legged adults. The adults of most species are covered in lovely velvety fuzziness and have small eyes on little stalks. 

Royal Natural History volume 6 (1896) edited by Richard Lydekker has a section on the species Trombidium holosericeum which includes a little picture, and has some delightful description of the animals, which are referred to as “Velvety Mites”: “They are beautiful and striking objects, resembling tufts of bright blood-red plush.” 

Its bright colour results from carotenoids and warns predators that the mite is toxic if eaten. 

I’m usually not keen on parasites, but I will make an exception for these fluffy fellas. 

External links:

The bit of Royal Natural History volume 6 (1896) I quoted from on Wikimedia Commons

Some photos of a giant velvet mite from Malawi on iNaturalist. You can see how huge it is! 

A photo of a baby velvet mite on Wikimedia commons. It actually looks kinda cute as it drinks the innards of a harvestman. 

Information on velvet mites from the genus Allothrombium on Les carnets nature de Jessica (Jessica's nature notebooks)

Information on mites, including velvet mites, on A Chaos of Delight

Velvet Worms

These animals are: real

Three species of velvet worms: Solórzano's velvet worm (the pink one), Eoperipatus totoro (the brown one), and the New Zealand Peripatus (the blue one).  

Velvet worms (Phylum Onychophora) are squishy, worm-like creatures. They are native to tropical and temperate places in the Southern Hemisphere, from Central and South America to parts of Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. They like dark damp habitats, like in amongst the moss and leaf litter of rainforests. They are mostly active at night, when they come out to hunt bugs. 

The two cute little nubs on their faces are tubes for squirting strings of very sticky saliva (rather like a Bug-Type Pokémon using string shot) at speeds of 3 to 5 metres per second. The glue sticks down their prey so it can’t escape. The velvet worm walks up to its stuck prey and chews a hole in the bug using its sharp ‘fangs’, which are usually concealed it its very cute little mouth. Then it injects saliva into its prey, making the unfortunate bug’s insides liquid, which the velvet worm eats up. Velvet worms also use their slime in self-defence, squirting it at a predator, so the worm can make its escape. 

Velvet worm claws are made of chitin (the same stuff as insect exoskeletons), and these claws are where they get their Latin name - Onychophora means ‘Claw-Bearers’. Velvet worms use their claws to grip when walking on uneven stuff, when on smoother surfaces they retract their claws and walk on their soft feet. Their ‘fangs’ are modified limbs, which is why the ‘fangs’ resemble the claws on their feet. 

At the base of each of the velvet worm’s antennae is a simple eye. The worm’s whole body is covered in little papillae (bumps). This gives them their velvety appearance and makes them water-repellent. The papillae have tiny hairs that are sensitive, they are used for touch and smell. 

Velvet worms have been around for a very long time, fossils we’ve found of them come from the Cambrian period, which was a long, long time before the dinosaurs!

Solórzano's velvet worm (Mongeperipatus solorzanoi) is one of the biggest velvet worms, growing to around 22 cm long. Other species are much smaller, they are about 5cm long on average (but some species are even smaller).

Eoperipatus totoro was named after the 1988 Studio Ghibli film My Neighbor Totoro. The first specimen was caught in 2007. The team that found it wanted to name it after Totoro because the velvet worm’s many-legged cuteness reminded them of the Catbus in the film. So far Eoperipatus totoro is the only velvet worm described (given a Latin name and officially recognised as a species) from Vietnam. The species can grow to be up to 6cm long.

The New Zealand Peripatus (Peripatoides novaezealandiae) gets its name from the word ‘peripatetic’ meaning ‘wandering’. The Māori name for velvet worm has a similar meaning – ngaokeoke comes from the word ‘ngaoki’ meaning ‘to crawl’. This particular species is about 10cm long (I can find no official measurement of how big they grow, I got that figure from looking at photos of them next to rulers). 

External links:

A short arcticle with a video of a velvet worm hunting and photos of Solórzano's velvet worm on The Wild Episode

An article about Eoperipatus totoro with cute pictures on Wired 

Lots of pictures of The New Zealand Peripatus on iNaturalist 

My illustration is available on a mug from Redbubble