Main Page
Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki! We currently have 12 comic explanations. Come and add yours!
Latest comic
| Early Arthropods |
 Title text: 'Ugh, I'm never going to be like spiders. My descendants will all just be normal arthropods who mind their own busines and don't do anything weird.' --The ancestor of a bunch of eusocial insects |
Explanation
This comic pokes fun at spiders, which have a very unusual way of catching prey.
The first arthropod refers to isopods, while the second refers to scorpions or crabs.
Note that evolution in real life does not work the way the comic implies, as creatures cannot decide which direction in which to evolve.[citation needed]
Spiders are a recurring theme on xkcd.
The title text mentions the eusocial insects, another group of arthropods. They are notable for not "minding their own busines (sic)", as their ancestor arthropod apparently expects. Eusociality has evolved multiple times in the Hymenoptera alone, as well as in termites. There is no arthropod species that is the ancestor to all the eusocial arthropods and no others. While there are a number of species of social spider, there aren't any that meet the strict definition of eusociality. Eusocial insects have been known to do weird things, such as giving birth to a separate species.
Transcript
- [Wide panel with three small arthropods standing on the ocean floor. Two of the creatures are facing the leftmost one. Small bubbles and particles float around them.]
- Arthropod 1: Now that we're multicellular, what are your plans?
- Arthropod 1: I'm gonna evolve little legs and swim around with them!
- Arthropod 2: I'm gonna evolve sharp pincers and use them to crunch stuff!
- Arthropod 3: I'm gonna evolve glands to make string from my butt and use it to construct elaborate geometric nets hundreds of times my size to catch other animals.
- [Beat panel narrowed in on the arthropods.]
- [Same scene:]
- Arthropod 1: Dude.
- Arthropod 2: Can you please just be normal about this?
- Arthropod 3: What??!
New here?
Feel free to sign up for an account and contribute to the explain xkcd wiki! We need explanations for comics, characters, themes, memes and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd web comic, it should be here.
- If you're new to wikis like this, take a look at these help pages describing how to navigate the wiki, and how to edit pages.
- Discussion about various parts of the wiki is going on at Explain XKCD:Community portal. Share your 2¢!
- List of all comics contains a complete table of all xkcd comics so far and the corresponding explanations. The red links (like this) are missing explanations. Feel free to help out by creating them!
Rules
Don't be a jerk. There are a lot of comics that don't have set in stone explanations, feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.
If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.
Please only submit material directly related to—and helping everyone better understand—xkcd... and of course only submit material that can legally be posted (and freely edited.) Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users posting such are at risk of being blocked.
If you need assistance from an admin, feel free to leave a message on their personal discussion page. The list of admins is here.
Logo
Explain xkcd logo courtesy of User:Alek2407.
