Heyya,
As everyone knows, the Wasteland is full of dangerous critters, the type that can tear your balls off if you don’t know what you are doing. Usually folks go fucking around like true jackasses, without any second thought to what kind of beasts they might go across, and then it’s time for regretting and bleeding. That’s why I have decided to consecrate my life to be a boffin about all this, a respected Official Bugger and Mutardologist from the Scrapbridge Methane and Meat Electro-proteic Guild (in which I am founding member, as well as president, secretary, treasurer and field specialist). I am doctor Sarious, and I will try in this Guide to the animals, critters and mutations of the Wasteland to make a cool study about the animals that populate our world.
When you walk around the Wasteland for a while you end up picturing a retarded Creator whose braines only were useful enough to try picking up different parts of several animals and putting them together to see what came up. Well, with these rustmoths he certainly won the first prize. Those huge ass moths (not saying they have big asses, mind me, you pervs) that flap around leaking corrosive acid as they fly. Why the fuck? Because, that’s why. How would I know, I’m just a scholar.
Description
Although people usually know rustmoths already in their moth form, they are not born that way. They do so as long larvae or worms the size of a human baby, and almost as wrinkled and ugly as one. Their color is shit green with some dots that vary from intense violet to bubblegum pink, and they are covered with thick pointy hair that if touched will leave you with itching and hives for a week.
When they grow up to be full sized moths their bodies turn slenderer and longer, but adding the size of those butterfly-like wings they look really huge and can measure up to 5 feet in wingspan when fully opened. Their body color is similar to the one in larva state but with brighter tones, and the wings range from green to purple, yellow or browns, all mixed up forming funny shapes like a buffamel anus. The strangest thing about them is that their wings secrete acid, very abrasive to anything but themselves, and when they flutter around they sprinkle everything nearby. If you see one of these creatures, keep your distance or it will surely ruin your day for good.
Habitat
Generally rustmoths go out at night, although sometimes they can also be seen fluttering about at day and in any environment. But their larvae can only live in areas with toxic or acid pools, whether natural such as in the Acid Lands, or created by the action of man like in some cities from the World of Before. So my guess is that adult rustmoths migrate to those areas when they have to lay their eggs so their worms be born there. The thing I don’t have a fucking clue about is whether couples also bang in those zones or females already arrive pregnant, because so far I haven’t been unlucky enough to find two of them making out.
Behavior
In their larvae state, rustmoths just crawl around the acid pools eating, crawling, eating and so on. Their diet consists primarily on a type of strange plant that also grows around toxic areas, the the causticsap. You don’t need a degree to know that it’s called like that. Just try to pull out one of them and you will lose your fingers faster than you can count to many if the sap splats your hand.
The time comes when these worms get fat as fuck and they create a cocoon to hide inside, where they rest for a couple of weeks in what I have read in a dirty magazine it is called “pupation”. I think that should be called “pumpation”, because the cocoon pulses like there was someone pumping hard inside it. Thing is, after 14 days or so the cocoon breaks and, presto, magic has been worked and there you have a full grown rustmoth ready to go fuckin’ around.
As adults they just fly around to find more food, from plants to food scraps. I have no clue why nature has made them secrete this acid, rusty liquid from their wings that they don’t seem to even notice for good or bad. Ridiculously enough, when they are eating their own acid fluids are corroding the very food they eat, so they soon are forced to fly away to find more. We have all heard about some caravans camping for the night and having their complete cargo destroyed by a bunch of rustmoths looking for food.
When they fly the movement of their wings makes the acid splatter everywhere, like my neighbor’s mongrel after it gets wet in the river… and her husband too. It is easy to track these critters just following the small acid burns they leave behind them. Luckily they are not aggressive animals and they won’t chase you if you run away on sight. So if you cross one of them just move away to avoid ending up like one of those cheeses full of holes.
Uses
This is one of those bugs normal people would prefer to have very away from home and no one would try to use it without suffering some heavy medical issues. But in the Wasteland we have plenty of weirdos that always go too far, and we now know that their acid segregating organ, properly treated, is one of the most appreciated ingredient by some of the craziest chefs in the area of Scrapbridge. Now, capturing one of these creatures alive and then cutting them open without being fried in their acid is a tricky, near impossible task. So the aim is to get one of the cocoons in the stage near to eclosion but not that close that it will hatch in your face and rust you to the bone. The timing is crucial to have the acid gland mature enough to be producing acid, but not too young so the taste is not right for seasoning dishes. You better be cookin’ some A-level dishes for the risk to be worth it, buddy.
Rumors reached me about some weird dudes living in the Acid Lands that use these creatures as a weapon somehow, but I have not been able to confirm anything, so I won’t be givin’ credit to none of those stories.