Who I was, covered up in leaves

[sovay]

My mother heard on the radio this afternoon that butterfly fossils prove that the proboscis evolved a full geologic period before flowering plants did.

Me: "So what were they eating with them?"

My mother: "Aha!"

(She's suspecting carrion.)

Comments

[sovay]

I feel like I saw the carrion-eating butterflies in at least one episode of Doctor Who.

I encountered the idea first in P.C. Hodgell's Kencyrath series, where the strictly carnivorous insects are known as jewel-jaws. They are actually a pretty good metonym for the way that world is full of casually horrifying beautiful things.

I also like the nosehair tool.

Yes! That was a magnificent parenthesis.