Ixtab
Ixtab is lone wanderer. The little information we have on this species comes from stories of the local tribes and old surviving scriptures of the Mayan empire. The Mayans referred to them as ‘the small drifters’. In contrary to their appearance, they are gentle creatures that feed on lichens, rotten wood and berries. Emerging from the pupal stage, they are equipped with a beautiful set of wings. But they grow up in dense, thorny shrubs. Together with clumsiness and an inability of the wings to fold, most of their wings get torn apart, leaving only the venation. Without the selection pressure of flight, their bodies became more bulky and heavy, leaving the wings as a vestigial structure. Their first years of post-pupal life are characterized by fighting through the weeds and plants that get stuck in their thorny appendages. You can imagine that Ixtab, covered in green foliage, would be perfectly camouflaged. It hides them well from people and predators, but also weighs them down, burdening the journey. As they develop, they make up for it by being nifty and ingenious creatures, creating cutting tools like to clear a way in their environment. The space they create provides new nesting grounds for insects and small mammals, and nurseries for seeds that drop from the tree-tops. As some of these tools have been found, we think that they swap them like hermit crabs swap shells, only leaving the current one if a bigger has been found. Judging from the size of spotted specimens and found tools, some carry scythes up to 3 times their own bodyweight.
In local cultures, they are revered and seen as a good omen. Although the sightings have been sparse, the locals cherish their encounters. One lucky guide tells about his encounter: “When we see the little ones, we are happy. We see how they are born, how they look and what they have to struggle with. The scythe may look like a burden, but it is their solution and way forward. For us, this is a reminder of how we have to follow our own path, even if it gets hard. They teach us a lot.”
This work is dedicated to Luka. She always left me with a smile, and followed her own path.
