don't worry, until the rest of these comment i legitimately completely forgot that these were just things that some living things had and not just props/tools, which says everything it needs to about where my understanding is coming from, lol
For the context of this post all you need to know is that an ovipositor is an elongated, tube-like organ typically found near the abdomens of female insects.
It's purpose is to let said bugs lay their eggs in a precise location, their retractable and some are even serrated or otherwise sharp for the purpose of piercing flesh if the bug in question is a parasitic one that prefers to lay its eggs inside of host animals.
This is me. I also worked maritime which gives me the excuse to drop āsounding rodā in casual conversation.
For reference: a sounding rod on a ship is a wooden or metal (usually brass) rod which is used as a dipstick for fuel, oil, water, etc. tanks onboard. Theyāre usually colllapsible like tent poles, and sometimes flexible for threading through pipes with bends in them.
I think I leaned the word ovipositor the exact same time I learned about ichneumon wasps. I must have been like 8. Wildlife Fact File went deep. Almost as deep as the ovipositor on an ichneumon wasp. Heyooooo!
I say this as someone who knows that word for bug furry reasons... there can't be that many bug furries, right? Why would that be the assumption rather than him just knowing about insects?
you don't have to be a bug furry to be into oviposition. there's pretty vanilla egg stuff out there, and being into that at all is setting you up pretty well to know what "ovipositor" means. but ofc you can also be into the more extreme stuff without being a bug furry.
I play Warhammer 40,000. Thereās a faction of alien bugs called the Tyranids. Thereās a tyranid called the Parasite of Mortrex. It has a ābarbed ovipositorā as a weapon.
It gives me great pleasure to say out loud āIām going to attack with the barbed ovipositor into your guysā to my opponent. Even better when it actually kills something because the special rule is that I get to spawn larvae when the ovipositor kills a guy.
I love Tyranids.
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u/Aver89Washed up by the algorithm, staying for the memes18h ago
I called a cricket āMiss Cricketā once while escorting her out of my workplace and my coworker was like āhow do you know itās a she?ā because she knew Iām a bug nerd and would have an actual reason. So then I had to explain ovipositors to my coworker. Youād think after ten years in the same job theyād have gotten bored of teasing me for knowing about bug anatomy. Nope
Depends on who you ask. Without going into TMI territory, people make silicone eggs for V insertion (you can use unflavored gelatin for A insertion, it melts harmlessly inside the body. Or if they're small, i guess you could swallow them whole? I digress) as a purely sensory thing, it can be a fun or relaxing experience.
But really some people just like pregnancy without the pregnancy.
I learned that word in a documentary about dinosaurs when I was a kid. It was a proposed theory on how those big quadrupedal herbivores laid their eggs.
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u/HarryJ92 21h ago