Horrifying Tuesday: Casu Marzu

Welcome back to Horrifying Tuesday! Wasn't the lack of something horrifying for the past few weeks, purely horrifying? Thankfully, we've saved something that's especially terrifying for today. Speaking of terrifying, is there anything in the world worst than rotten, stinky, maggot-infested cheese? If your answer to that question goes along the lines of "Why yes, good sir. There is certainly nothing more disgruntling than a rotten roll of cheese", then you're going to love today's topic.

Article may/may not be related to apricots*

The Casu Marzu is a traditional Sardinian sheep milk cheese, that happens to have a extra "umfp" than your regular cheeses. While we've all heard of those "aged cheeses" that cost a few thousands dollars due to the hundreds of years worth of effort put into them. Casu Marzu takes "aging cheese" one step further by going beyond the typical fermentation stage, and goes into some crossroad between insanity, torture, and decomposition. How? Why? We'll explain.

The Casu Marzu brings about this "super-advanced" aging process by using the helpful assistance of the Fruit fly.  To be more specific, the larvae of the Cheese fly. In order to establish the natural soft texture taste, the larvae of the Fruit fly are introduced to the cheese in order to break down the cheese's fats and therefore bringing it to the next level of insanity decomposition fermentation. Before we go any further, allow me to explain how it's fermented.

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Horrifying Tuesday : Antlion

It's that time of the week again, Horrifying Tuesday. Today, we're going to talk about a creature that brings your sand-dune-sink-hole nightmares to a reality. (On a miniature scale of course.) Allow me to introduce you to the Antlion or better known as, the "doodlebug" due to the mysterious marks it leaves behind in the sand. (Which happens to resemble doodles in the sand by young child)

These lines must indicate that young-hearted fiends are nearby!

With no relation to the Antlion in the Half-Life series, these creatures are well known for their sand pit traps which comprise of capturing small, unsuspecting creatures in a rapidly decaying pits. It all starts with a humble-sized larva and its basic instinct in the big, bad world. The larva would dig a pit into the sand about 2 inches deep and 3 inches wide at the edge, creating a downward-facing cone shape in the sand. (Unless they manage to bend the laws of physics and make the sand particles stand with magic.)

Luckily for you, these are the video game versions.

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Horrifying Wednesday : Blowfish (Fugu)

We've all heard of the legendary Fugu pufferfish, one of the world's most poisonous fish that people actually consume without being severely beaten and threaten first. Why's that? Because almost the entire fish is toxic and will murder you horribly. Now, without further ado, I present you the Fugu.

"I do not respect you." - Fugu

In Japanese, "Fugu" literally means "river pig" and is commonly used to refer to the "pufferfish" in general. This fish is well known for it's lethal neurotoxins that can kill you in the worst way possible. So if neurotoxin didn't quite scare you off yet, hopefully death by asphyxiation will. If digested, the toxin will paralyze muscles, and muscles only. What this means is that you'll remain perfectly conscious throughout the entire process before you die. The method in which you will die is simply put, suffocating in air.

When I said that the toxin will paralyze you, I wasn't talking about that awesome buzz you get from drinking, I'm talking about every single muscle in your entire body, including your lungs and heart. Eventually, your body will be unable to provide enough oxygen to the body from both inadequate oxygen intake by your lungs, and inefficient oxygen distribution via. heart. So while you won't feel a thing, you'll practically fall into a motionless, immovable sack of flesh as you slowly black out as you watch everyone scream in panic and point at you. For this same reason, Fugu is the only food that is officially forbidden for the Emperor of Japan for his own safety and was banned in multiple time periods in Japan and currently banned in the European Union.

Such deliciousness!

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Horrifying Tuesday: The Mantis Shrimp

The Mantis Shrimp is possibly one of the most innovative creatures of the ocean due to its cleverness and undeniably powerful jabs. If you thought that you were a good boxer, wait until you meet this little guy and get introduced to a whole new world of pain. But how could a small marine crustacean pose any threat to your masculinity? It may or may not be related to the fact that they're common referred as "sea locusts" and "thumb splitters".

"Why hello there, my good man!" - The Mantis Shrimp

To emphasize how hardcore these creatures are, the Mantis Shrimp are commonly placed into two different groups depending on which type of claw they have. There are "Spearers" which have spiky appendages with barbed tips, which are used to rapidly stab and break prey. The other group is called "Smashers" which have their appendages in a blunter form which gives them a more developed club that can be used to smash their victims apart like a hammer, while making their stabbing less effective as a result. But you can't win them all, right?

But despite only having a "spear" or a "club", these creatures are capable of taking on and killing much larger victims with these rudimentary weapons. They are commonly known for their unbelievable quickness in both spear and club, capable of firing a single jab/smash at the same acceleration of a .22 caliber bullet. Their lunging punch can be shot at their prey with an acceleration of nearly 335,000 ft/s^2. What does this all mean? It means that by the time you finish your first punch, this little guy would probably be starting dinner.

"Would you like a plate? I've made way too much for my own appetite." - The Mantis Shrimp

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Horrifying Tuesday: Sydney Funnel-Web Spider

Ah, it's that time of the week again! The sky's shining, the air's crisp, and children play in the fall leaves, what else could be added to that equation to make a better day? You know where this is leading, Horrifying Tuesday! Today, we're going to talk about one of the most deadliest and aggressive spiders known to man, the Sydney Funnel-Web Spider. So yeah, if you're a little jumpy around spiders, you should probably close this page and turn on your TV to watch some children cartoons.

While you're at it, why don't go you knitting or something?

The Sydney funnel-web spiders are  medium to large in size, (in spider terms) which honestly doesn't matter due to the fact that you'll find yourself in the fetal position regardless of their size. The spiders are usually glossy dark, ranging from dark blueberry to dark apricot colors. Thanks to nature, the spiders are practically hairless, which allows the spider to come off with the famed black glossy finish on its body. Just like a well-waxed head, without the lethal venom thing though.

These spiders commonly create burrow-retreats in which the entrance appears to look like a "funnel" due to the amount of webbing that the spider usually creates. Instead of making some type of lame floating web between a few branches or corners, these spiders prefer to make their homes in small burrows in which they fill up with web to make a tube-shapes.

The arrow indicates where hell begins.

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Horrifying Tuesday: Premature Burial

As you may have noticed, we haven't had a "Horrifying Tuesday" segment since 1753! Thankfully, we will today! Instead of making an excuse relating to brainstorming a truly horrifying topic, I'll tell you the truth. I literally could not find the right topic to talk about. From super-sized crabs to crazy freak of natures, almost nothing compares to the fate of dying due to "premature burial". Even while  movies and TVs have you on the end of your seat praying that the main character will make it out alive, it's extremely difficult to capture the true essence of being buried alive.

This game on the other hand, captures the minute details of premature burial.

If you were declared legally dead and buried, your death would most likely be cause by suffocation. But what exactly does it mean to be suffocated to death? You'll probably just smack around for a few hours before succumbing to a familiar warm feeling of death, right? Unsurprisingly, it can be one of the most horrifying ways to die in the book of methods of dying.

Unless you wake up in a coffin full if angry dwarves with knives, you'll probably die from carbon dioxide poisoning and lack of oxygen in general. Every breath you take will further assure your slow and painful demise. If you thought that dying in a coffin would be comparable to slowly passing away in your sleep, you would be wrong, dead wrong.

Because you'll be dead.

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Horrifying Tuesday: The Mystery of The Ourang Medan

Horrifying Tuesday isn't all about scary plants and animals, it's about bringing together the most terrifying things in nature and history, together. Today, we're going to talk about one of craziest ship sinking you've probably heard of. Everybody's heard of the Titanic and it's maiden voyage, but what about the mysterious Ourang Medan, a ship in which it's own existence is in question.

The incident was said to occur around June 1947; two American ships were navigating their way between the Malay Peninsula and the island of Sumatra when they began to receive strange distress messages from a Dutch merchant ship called the S.S. Ourang Medan. The radio operator of the distressed ship reported the death of the captain, the officers, and possibly the entire crew. After saying that, the operator continued to send incomprehensible messages before finally stating "I die."

The first American ship to board the Ourang Medan was the Silver Star. The crew located and boarded a seemingly undamaged Ourang Medan in a rescue attempt. Instead of finding bullet ridden bodies and/or anything that would make sense, they found the entire ship covered with corpses of the crew down to the ship's dog. They found all of the bodies in a fixed, terrified posture, with almost no injuries, All of the bodies were found with their eyes still opened, faces affixed to the sun, mouths stretched opened and a few with arms outstretched.

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Horrifying Tuesday: CTVT (Transmissible Cancer)

If you disregard the date this article is released, it's technically, Horrifying Tuesday. Which brings us to the topic of the day, CTVT or, canine transmissible venereal tumor. But before we talk about that, lets talk about STDs. (Just because.) What do you think is the worst possible sexually transmitted disease a human can contract? Herpes? Genital Warts? HIV? How about cancer? Wouldn't it be just the darndest thing, if cancer could simply be transmitted from touch?

Tag: The Game Of Death

Thanks to nature, we now have cancer that is transmittable by touch. But before you take out your radiation suit in preparation to isolate yourself from the world, allow me to remind you that the 'disease' is called the "canine transmissible venereal tumor". That means, only dogs can contract these horrible tumors from each other. One of the only cases of cancer transmitting from human to human was when a surgeon contracted it from a patient when he injured his hand during an operation. So unless you're a careless surgeon that runs around injuring your hand around pleomorphic undifferentiated sarcoma diagnosed people, you're safe. For now.

Canines are one of the only three known animals to have a strand of transmissible cancer in the entire world along with Tasmanian devils and Syrian hamsters. But obviously, you don't want to hear me ramble about hamster cancer. The thing about CTVT is that, it's technically not cancer, but it's definitely cancer. The tumor cells formed on the canine themselves are infectious agents that that are not genetically related to the host canine at all. What that means is that the tumor isn't a part of the host dog, and is it's own living, unicellular asexually reproducing pathogen.

Delicious.

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Horrifying Tuesday : Death Cherries

It's that time of the week again, Horrifying Tuesday. This week, we're talking about that ghastly Atropa belladonna or more commonly known as Devil's Berries, Death Cherries, or Deadly Nightshade. Hinting from the word "death" in the name "death cherries", you can assume what will happen to you if you consume one. But what exactly are death cherries? Are they simply every-day red cherries with white skull and crossbones painted on them?

The skull and crossbones indicate health and beauty.

The death cherry is commonly grown in shrub-fashion, reaching up to 5 feet tall with 7 inch leaves. The berries grown from the plant are commonly green, ripening to a piano black color; most likely to indicate the serious nature of the berry. The berries can only reach about one centimeter long in diameter, but it's as potent enough to kill a fully grown adult if consumed.

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Horrifying Tuesday : Giant Water Bugs

It's that time of the week again, Horrifying Tuesday! This week, we're going to talk about the dreaded "Belostomatidae or more commonly known as the giant water bug. However, other than jumping out of the kitchen sink every now and then, what's the big deal? Surely, I'm not going to write ten paragraphs about how disgusting they are, right? But wait a second, I'm not talking about any ordinary water bug, I'm talking about the giant water bug.

"The hat indicates high social class."

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Horrifying Tuesday : Sundew

Just because it's Horrifying Tuesday doesn't mean we can't look at one of the most out-worldly plants in the world. Allow me to introduce you to the Sundew, a spectacular plant with wondrous pink spines covered with the crisp morning dew. The name alone sparks memories of warm summer mornings with red-orange skies covering the earth as the morning dew settles down on the grass and leaves below the celestial bodies. But hold on a moment, did I mention that the Sundew is classified as one of the few carnivorous plants in the world?

This disturbing clown picture is somehow related to this post.

The Sundew, or the Drosera is one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants in the world along with 194 of its own species. These plants greatly vary in size and form and can be found growing natively in almost every continent in the world, except Antarctica. If it was found in Antarctica, we could probably expect their entire ecosystem to be destroyed in a matter of weeks. Those polar bears can't hide forever.

Soon.

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Horrifying Tuesday : Bombardier Beetle

It's that time of the week again, Horrifying Tuesday. Today, we're going to talk about the Bombardier Beetle, which definitely has one of the cleverest weapons of all times. Sure, there's insects with razor sharp claws and teeth, but what about creatures that can literally spit pain and agony at almost boiling point? Well lets welcome the Bombardier Beetle, one of the few creatures in the world that can shoot a mixture of death at 212 degrees Fahrenheit at only a fraction of a second.

Pictured: Recreated Simulation Of Bombardier Beetle

But how does this witchery work? Does the beetle carry around a squirt gun full of ominous fluids that mix together to form pure death in liquid form? How it works is actually somewhat simple. The beetle is able to produce hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide which is stored in two different reservoir. When the beetle feels threaten, it can force the separate fluids into a "reaction" chamber along with some catalysts which will allow oxidation to occur.

Yeah, you know. Basic science.

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Horrifying Tuesday: Masked Hunter (Reduvius personatus)

It's about time for Horrifying Tuesday right? Today, we're going to talk about one of the most devious insects we've ever come across. So it's pretty much just another day at Skyakes. Today's creature is the Masked Hunter, which actually closely resemble it's name, unlike other lamer creatures. This creature is probably one of the most "resourceful" insects we've had on Horrifying Tuesday and while it doesn't run around shooting pure acid at people, it's pretty creepy to think that these guys could be anywhere.

The Masked Hunter is an insect belonging to the assassin bug family, so you can probably guess that it's highly trained in tactical insurgence and being awesome with sunglasses. The bug itself is generally dark brown (to black), and can reach up to 22 mm. The insect is a short stubby three-segmented bug that somewhat resembles giant cockroaches. So far, it doesn't sound too impressive.

"I am disappoint."

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Horrifying Tuesday: Wheel Bug

Horrifying Tuesday has arrived yet again! It's time to discuss the strangest, scariest, most dangerous critters on earth. If you're used to reading about cute dogs dancing around hats, you might want to turn away before you end up bleaching your eyes. I mean, bleach ain't cheap nowadays. Today's Horrifying Tuesday Topic is the Wheel Bug, which is possibly one of the creepiest bug that crawled out of nature to date, on Skyakes.

Not Related.

The Wheel Bug is one of the largest earth-born 'true bugs' in North America. But even though it only grows up to 1.5 inches, it packs a mean bite. These bugs are very common in eastern North America, but even though these bugs are as common as stray dogs and sewer rats, people in the local area have never seen them before. The reason for this, is that they are well camouflaged and very shy of humans. Their weak wings allow them to make very loud clumsy flights that can be mistaken for a simple grasshopper. Sounds more likely for them to be the prey than the predator in any scenario right?

"Espanol?"

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Horrifying Tuesday : Camel Spider

Camel Spider? Is that some type of creepy inter-species lovechild? No. That's disgusting. Despite it's name, the Camel Spider is one of the scariest bugs you can find running around your home. In fact, the spider's horrifiyingness alone, has gained hundreds of urban legends associated with this specific species exaggerating their size and speed, or maybe they were all correct, and we're simply getting the sock pulled over our eyes by the good ol' government. But yeah, probably not.

"Soon Canada. Soon."

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Horrifying Tuesday : Asian Giant Hornet

As any animal with the words "Giant Hornet" in their name, they're generally not a pleasant animal. This week, we're going to talk about the Asian Giant Hornet, which is no laughing matter. These aren't those little raccoons that break into your house and steal some of your dishes; these guys are going to break into your house, bite the crap out of you, steal your furniture, and kidnap your children. Okay, they won't kidnap your children.

"But we will steal your high-quality china"

The Asian Giant Hornet, or the Vespa madarinia is one the world's largest hornet in the entire world. Their body length is about 2 inches, and their wingspan is about 3 inches. Think about it, two inches of flying agony, flying around looking for fine-quality furniture and a nice exposed skin to latch on.

They are native to tropical Eastern Asia, hence the name. Since we know nothing 'good' comes out of any jungle from Asia, we can safely assume that the Asian Giant Hornet isn't going to be a fluffy bear that throws love and magical love at people. The Japanese have even named the critter "suzume bachi" which literally means "Sparrow Hornet", which is disappointingly not "Awesome/hardcore Instant Killer Of All Things Hornet" as I've suggested at the "Give Animals A Local Nickname" conference.

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Horrifying Wednesday : Hercules Beetle

Sorry about missing yesterday's post, we had some 'technical difficulties' that included restarting my computer. After I couldn't access this site, I went to "downforeveryoneorjustme.com", and they told me that this website was down. Probably because they were worried that I would write my Horrifying Tuesday segment, and would be too afraid to work. Probably.

Pictured: You

The Hercules Beetle is one of those species, that you wish wasn't so darn resistant to a palm smash. You can't get rid of these fiends with a simple smack of a newspaper. Unless you spend the entire day smacking away with a hammer.

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Horrifying Tuesday : Puss Caterpillar

It's that time of the week again, Horrifying Tuesday! Today's topic is top-notch, probably one of the most adorably murderous creature you'll ever see. If you don't like long haired dogs/cats/people, mops, or have chaetophobia (Fear of hair), you'll probably find yourself vomiting in fear from our small friend.


The Puss Caterpillar could possibly look like the cutest little bugger you've ever seen. If you look close enough, it's like one of those miniature mop-looking dogs. If you look even closer, you'll find hundreds of venomous spines, piercing your eyeballs. 

It's like a cuddly fur-ball of agony!

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Horrifying Tuesday : Giant Isopod

I've decided to do this one another shot, let's actually do it on Tuesday. In fact, I've written "Do Horrifying Tuesday Post" on my arm to remind myself. If that doesn't show you how committed I am about horrifying stuff, then I don't know what commitment is.

In this post, we're going to discuss a creature out of your childhood nightmares. No it's not Zippy the clown, it's  something a little less scary, the Giant Isopod. While the name sounds like a giant mutant jelly fish from a science fiction movie, it's actually somewhat close.

The Giant Isopod has been compared to pill bugs and woodlouse. Both of them, not very pleasant to look like.

They definitely are not something you give your kid to cuddle up with at night.

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Horrifying Sunday - Tarantula Hawk

Hello good friends! I hope nobody notices that it is in fact Sunday, not Tuesday. Perhaps nobody will notice eh? It'll be between me and you, don't tell anyone! If anybody asks, it's Sunday. Without further ado, here's today's post.

The Tarantula Hawk towards in un-trained ear, sounds like a combination of a giant creepy crawlie, and the swift power of a hawk. In the terms of being horrifying, you'll be completely correct. The Tarantula Hawk isn't a giant Hawk flying around with eight legs, spinning random webs everywhere; It's actually a "Spider Wasp".

"Well that sure did clear it up Mister Norman!" Hold your horses, let me explain. The Spider Wasp could be easily defined as a Wasp grown and trained, to be natural Spider Bounty Hunters. In our case, our species specifically hunts Tarantulas.

Film Not Related.

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