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Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-02 09:40am
by LaCroix
Raw Shark wrote:Purple wrote:Can you eat that?
I guarantee that, if you have working jaws, you could at least one time.
Borgholio wrote:Commander Shark engages his afterburners and sets a collision course for the nearest Minbari War Cruiser. As the massive ship fills his cockpit, he unleashes a fearsome battle cry, "YOU'RE DESPICABLE!!!!!!!!"
*BOOM*

"Balls." said Commader Raw Shark.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-02 11:37am
by U.P. Cinnabar
Raw Shark wrote:SpottedKitty wrote:Don't forget that in Daffy he's up against the ancient Egyptian god of frustration.
It is one of my dearest hopes that I will live long enough to paint a Screaming Daffy on the side of my starfighter in my twilight years. I might not shoot a lot of Minbari down when they come for us, but the crew of one of their fishy frigates will know sheer terror as I kamikaze my wrinkled ass into them in the true self-destruct fashion of my mascot.
Way your luck runs*, Shark, they'll reel you in, use the triluminary on you, find out you're Valen, and DeLenn takes a liking to ya.
*Or, rather, the way it ran yesterday.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-02 06:09pm
by Broomstick
Purple wrote:Raw Shark wrote:Purple wrote:Can you eat that?
I guarantee that, if you have working jaws, you could at least one time.

Good point. I walked into that one.

Although it does little to help me classify this thing on a cuddly pet - food item scale. Since it looks like it could fit neatly into both. Sort of like a bunny really only with more legs.
You can eat the giant ones - apparently they're served up in Japan from time to time. Tastes like a crab-shrimp-prawn-lobster sort of thing, which makes sense as they're all relatives of a sort.
The backyard woodlouse/pill bug, however, is not considered edible. Remember I said they smell of ammonia? Apparently they taste very strongly of it. It's a defense mechanism. Few things think ammonia tastes good.
I have not personally sampled either sort of isopod.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-02 08:24pm
by SpottedKitty
Purple wrote:Broomstick wrote:The is the deep sea big cousin of the common garden isopod. No, I have no idea who the guy in the photo is, I just grabbed this example off the web. It does make for a nice size comparison, though.
Can you eat that?
That isn't something to eat — that's something to scream like a little girl and run away from.
If I saw that coming up on the end of my line, I'd probably run from the boat all the way back to dry land...

Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-02 09:40pm
by U.P. Cinnabar
I'm with Perps. I'd get the water boiling and some drawn butter.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-03 07:26am
by Purple
That or a cage. The thing is positively cute. It's like natures sea bunny. You can eat it (as broom explained) and it looks positively cuddly. The only question is if it bites, is toxic, cant survive outside water or some other bullshit that would make it unsuitable for keeping around with a pink boetie and cuddling it.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-03 12:48pm
by SpottedKitty
<shudder> Some of us are creeped out by critters with way too many legs. That one pushes all my "aaaiiieee!!!" buttons.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-03 06:28pm
by Broomstick
Purple wrote:That or a cage. The thing is positively cute. It's like natures sea bunny. You can eat it (as broom explained) and it looks positively cuddly. The only question is if it bites, is toxic, cant survive outside water or some other bullshit that would make it unsuitable for keeping around with a pink boetie and cuddling it.
It's a deep sea predator. In addition to requiring water, and preferring the pressure of hundreds of meters of depth, the thing will try to eat anything that doesn't eat it first. Pretty sure, yeah, it bites.
They have been kept in aquariums, though, so maybe you could keep it in a large salt-water tank in your living room. Feed it occasionally (one specimen went nearly five years without eating).
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-03 07:18pm
by Purple
What would I feed it with? Fish? Rabbits? Mice?
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-03 07:58pm
by U.P. Cinnabar
Purple wrote:What would I feed it with? Fish? Rabbits? Mice?
I would think live fish.
And, this just proves I'd prefer my deep-sea icky on a plate with drawn butter and a thick, med-rare ribeye steak. Some fries and scallops would not be amiss either.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-03 07:58pm
by U.P. Cinnabar
WTF?! Double post, nothing to see here.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-03 08:12pm
by Purple
Where is one even supposed to find living fish? I mean, dead but raw I could get but living? Well, unless you mean like small pet fish stuff thats goldfish sized. That stuff you can buy easily enough but dam, I can't imagine how many goldfish it would take to keep one of those full.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-03 09:40pm
by muse
SpottedKitty wrote:Anyone else seen something unusual this year?
I'm waiting for a pair of
escaped capybaras to turn up in my area.
Any day now...
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-03 11:18pm
by Broomstick
Purple wrote:Where is one even supposed to find living fish? I mean, dead but raw I could get but living? Well, unless you mean like small pet fish stuff thats goldfish sized. That stuff you can buy easily enough but dam, I can't imagine how many goldfish it would take to keep one of those full.
It's a cold-blooded, cold water animal. Did you read where I said one specimen went
five years without eating? They probably need a tenth of the food needed by a warm-blooded animal of the same size.
And yeah, you get "feeder goldfish" which are basically carp bred to be fish-food for other fish/water creatures. But given this is a scavenger feeding it bits of dead things (raw - not cooked) like fish and squid might work out better.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-03 11:29pm
by U.P. Cinnabar
It's a scavenger?! Even better...on my plate. As mentioned upthread. I might even have a veg with it(grilled asparagus or grilled corn on the cob?).
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-03 11:33pm
by U.P. Cinnabar
muse wrote:SpottedKitty wrote:Anyone else seen something unusual this year?
I'm waiting for a pair of
escaped capybaras to turn up in my area.
Any day now...
My god, tribbles are real.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-04 01:27am
by SpottedKitty
U.P. Cinnabar wrote:muse wrote:I'm waiting for a pair of
escaped capybaras to turn up in my area.
Any day now...
My god, tribbles are real.
Not at that size — these critters can grow to the size of a medium-large dog. And they're thick-bodied and heavy-set; think of a guinea pig that wants to grow up to be to be an elephant or rhino.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-04 02:21am
by U.P. Cinnabar
And, I thought wharf rats got big.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-04 07:00am
by Purple
Broomstick wrote:It's a cold-blooded, cold water animal. Did you read where I said one specimen went five years without eating? They probably need a tenth of the food needed by a warm-blooded animal of the same size.
Cold blooded animals tend to go a long time between meals but when they do eat they eat a lot. That's the problem really. A goldfish or two a day is easy. 5000 goldfish at once... Well it's a challenge.
And yeah, you get "feeder goldfish" which are basically carp bred to be fish-food for other fish/water creatures. But given this is a scavenger feeding it bits of dead things (raw - not cooked) like fish and squid might work out better.
If its a scavenger just how picky is it? I mean, I have a cat that's supposed to be a hunter and yet isn't picky about eating everything off the table including but not limited to cooked stuff, vegetables and well everything.
This is all academic of course. No bloody way anyone is going to permit me to keep one of these in my home legally. But its fun to dream.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-04 07:19am
by Raw Shark
Is it wrong that you guys are making me really hungry right now? Do I care? Holy shit, you need to stock up on food before you quit drinking.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-04 07:39am
by Broomstick
Purple wrote:If its a scavenger just how picky is it?
Not very.
You don't feed water-breathers cooked meat because oils in it can fuck up their gills, but other than that, it will probably eat anything, or at least sample it.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-04 07:41am
by Purple
Oils? Er... I do a lot of cooking but I don't use that much oil for it.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-04 11:00am
by Broomstick
All animals tissues have fats and oils in the cells. Cooking liberates those oils. You don't need very much at all to fuck up gills.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-04 11:39am
by Zaune
I think the easiest solution might be to just go to your nearest fishmonger (or fish and chip shop, if you're so fortunate) and ask about their off-cuts. A friend of mine used to feed her cats that way, I dare say a giant isopod wouldn't be any more of a picky eater.
You'd need an awfully big tank though, I'd have thought.
Re: Garden visitors
Posted: 2016-06-04 01:21pm
by Purple
Would a bathtub work?