Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.

Lois McMaster Bujold,A Civil Campaign (via clarinetchica)

[astronomy-to-zoology]

Onymacris candidpennis

O. candidpennis is a species of desert dwelling beetle from Africa, most notably from countries like Angola and Namibia. Like most desert insects this beetle is probably very adept and storing water in its exoskeleton and overall for desert survival, it could also make use of the sand for quick travel and keeping cool.

Phylogeny

Animalia-Arhtropoda-Insecta-Coleoptera-Tenebrionidae-Onymacris-candidpennis

Source,Source

[tinsnip]

Looks like Mark Vorkosigan’s assassin bug design.

Ivan had developed a personal metaphor for this first task (after the coffee) of the day. It was like opening one’s door to find that an overnight delivery service had left a large pile of boxes on one’s porch, all marked “miscellaneous”. In reality, they were all marked “Urgent!” but if everything was urgent, in Ivan’s view, they might as well all be labeled miscellaneous.

Each box contained one of the following: live, venomous, agitated snakes; nonvenomous garden snakes; dead snakes; or things that looked like snakes but weren’t, such as large, sluggish worms. It was Ivan’s morning duty to open each box, identify the species, vigor, mood, and fang-count of the writhing things inside, and sort them by genuine urgency.

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold, 2012. (via very-grownup)

Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.

― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign (via sigridellis)