Cthulhu Appreciation Thread

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Etymology

Pimoa is derived from the language of the Gosiute people in Utah and means "big legs". Gustavo Hormiga, who named the species, derived the specific name from Howard Phillips Lovecraft's fictional deity Cthulhu, which Hormiga writes is "akin to the powers of Chaos".

Distribution

The range of Pimoa cthulhu is restricted to areas of Mendocino and Sonoma counties in western California. Within that range the species is associated with redwood forestland habitats such as redwood stumps and logs.

Description

Male Pimoa cthulhu are distinguishable from related species by the unique cluster of thick spines found on the cymbial projection. Female P. cthulhu are very similar to the related species P. vera, but are distinguishable by the long sausage-like epigynum which is narrower and laterally compressed at the distal end. Males of P. cthulhu have a cephalothorax length which ranges from 4.4 to 5.7 millimetres (0.17 to 0.22 in) while females range from 4.0 to 6.1 millimetres (0.16 to 0.24 in). Both males and females are very similar in coloration, with a light to very light brown cephalothorax that is slightly darker towards the margins and an abdomen that is dark gray with four dorsal whitish spots. The males have a brown sternum, while in the females the sternum is reddish brown. While the females have legs which are dark reddish, the male legs are covered in long setae instead.

American history is filled with writers whose genius was underappreciated—or altogether ignored—in their lifetime. Most of Emily Dickinson’s poems weren’t discovered and published until after her death. F. Scott Fitzgerald “died believing himself a failure.” Zora Neale Hurston was buried in an unmarked grave. John Kennedy Toole won the Pulitzer Prize 12 years after committing suicide.

But no tale of posthumous success is quite as spectacular as that of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, the “cosmic horror” writer who died in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1937 at the age of 46. The circumstances of Lovecraft’s final years were as bleak as anyone’s. He ate expired canned food and wrote to a friend, “I was never closer to the bread-line.” He never saw his stories collectively published in book form, and, before succumbing to intestinal cancer, he wrote, “I have no illusions concerning the precarious status of my tales, and do not expect to become a serious competitor of my favorite weird authors.” Among the last words the author uttered were, “Sometimes the pain is unbearable.” His obituary in the Providence Evening Bulletin was “full of errors large and small,” according to his biographer.

His final years were as bleak as anyone’s. He ate expired canned food ...