Calling a spade a spade 🪏

H5 strain of bird flu on Heard Island? Samples are yet to be tested. "The majority of mortalities were detected in elephant seal pups and in a small number of adults." — Dr Julie McInnes, wildlife ecologist with AAD and @imas-utas.bsky.social ▶️ www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10... 📸 Matt Curnock

The last paper from our project looking at the link between skin bacteria and a tadpole’s ability to regenerate its tail. A good summary in @frogsquisher.bsky.social’s comments!

#BirdoftheYear 🇳🇿

Parasite extinctions in threatened species may be far more prevalent than previous estimates suggest. Our new study of kākāpō dung spanning from ~1,500 years ago to present, finds >80% of parasite species were lost as the host species declined.

You want to collect insects (and maybe other arthropods) for reference genome sequencing, but don't want to spend a fortune on dry ice shipping! All you gotta do is SQUISH. THAT. BUG! More details in our recent preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Everyone knows about AMOC but have you heard about SMOC?! Stand by for extreme penguinity! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Saw this somewhere on the socials today, seems… relevant.

Better late than never for #worldpenguinday and #superseabirdsunday! Deadpan Gentoo had enough of my photography crap I reckon #marinelife 🦑 #birds 🪶

My nightmare in #eDNA is to detect a rare or threatened species that turns out to be a false positive, so we set out to evaluate some of the commonly used taxonomic classifiers. The results are finally out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... 1/3

Plastic pollution along Australia’s coastline has dropped by more than a third over the last decade. Researchers recorded a 39% decrease in coastal debris density and a 16% increase in areas with “no plastic debris at all.” www.sbs.com.au/news/podcast...

For this week’s #superseabirdsunday - hoiho / yellow-eyed penguin, Enderby Island #seabird #birds 🪶 #naturephotography #penguin #newzealand

SAVE THE PENGUINS. STOP TRUMP’S TARIFFS.

If you’re new here, welcome. Our Antarctica Nudist Colony Government was formed after Seal hunters left our land around 1920. We occasionally allow scientists to study our 29 mammals, multiple seabirds, and limited flora, but have no permanent human settlement. Australia partially protects us 1/2

Even when it's just the two of them, in an otherwise empty Oval office, Trump and Musk still aren't the smartest guys in the room.

Thought I'd revisit Star Wars. Just in case anyone forgot what starts the whole saga: it's a #TradeWar about #tariffs

Three Southern Royal albatross sharing a juicy piece of gossip on Enderby Island (NZ sub-Antarctic) #seabirds #superseabirdsunday #marinelife #wildlifephotography #naturephotography #birds

A bit of Saturday science - our new paper out this week is the first published record of a myxozoan parasite in Murray River turtles (Emydura macquarii) in Australia @vgonzaleza.bsky.social #parasitology 🪱 #herpetology #turtle 🐢

Not much a skua won’t fight over. Enderby Island, sub-Antarctic New Zealand #birds #marinelife #seabirds #birdphotography

Back from two weeks aboard the HMNZS Canterbury as one of the scientists on the 2025 Blake Expedition to the NZ sub-Antarctic Islands. Will progressively drop photos and commentary here as I go through them #marinelife #naturephotography #sealion #pinniped

2025 Blake Expedition on Operation Endurance with the NZ Navy. Off to the sub-Antarctic Campbell and Auckland Islands to do some sciencing and inspire the next generation!

Next step… takahē world (or maybe just NZ) domination 🤞🪶

This is the most relevant article to NIH and research cuts I’ve seen. Imagine if this was today , how many people would be saying “Why are we studying Gila Monsters and their impact on diabetes ? That’s wasted money !” globalnews.ca/news/9793403...

New tool for estimating prey size and energy content from animal-worn camera footage 🐧🦐

Well the award for most cowardly, boot-lickingest academic society has squarely gone to the American Society of Microbiology, who has taken down features of various non-white scientists. Absolutely pathetic behavior. Those articles are now coming up as “under review”. Truly sickening cowardice here.

For #superseabirdsunday - the honey coloured (and slightly judgey) eye of a Campbell albatross. Otago Canyons, NZ #birds #marinelife

I've just found the best hack. Swear in your search request. It's a great way to bypass the AI summary and make your search history look like you're chronically pissed off at everything!

Super! <useful tool> now has an AI✨ interface! Brilliant! That'll make me so much more productive. I'll use this everyday. Said no one ever.

Between 2019 and 2023, researchers paid $8.968 billion to make papers open access. Imagine what else could be done with this money if it wasnt paid to for profit publishing companies... 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2407.16551

Pet owners accidentally poisoning garden birds. Our latest research finds pet flea treatments (fipronil and imidacloprid) in 100% of blue tit and great tit nests, with nestling mortality higher in the more contaminated nest. @SongBirdSBS @SussexUni @CannelleTassin

Exciting news that Tīeke/South Island saddlebacks have arrived at Orokonui Ecosanctuary (near Dunedin) as the first step in reestablishing them on the mainland of NZ’s South Island. Go well little guys! #birds

I've built a machine that can be Confidently Wrong. It can also make pictures that all look a bit the same, as well as make a video of you kissing any celebrity or person you know. In payment, I'd like to boil the world's oceans dry, & steal all literature. For some reason, my head is not on a spike

F*ck me it is very easy to give into despair at the moment. Which is when I fall back on some more of my Oma's advice - when all seems lost, keep going just to spite those you fight against. If all else fails, exist to spite someone you can't stand 😉

Save the parasites!

This excellent thread from Bart … speaking as a researcher in a research area that has been recently defunded, this focus on the value of science being about what monies it generates is not just a misinformed understanding of science, but also a really short-sighted and self-defeating one.

Bluesky has been flooded with automated reply bots - they'll offer a sort of confrontational opinion as a reply. They're pretty convincing and we all need to train ourselves to not reflexively reply to all responses until we check Dead giveaway is new acct, few followers + original posts

Some eDNA fun from last semester: a water sample taken from the Leith, right in the heart of the Otago Uni campus! #eDNA s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wilderlab.op...

These are fantastic small grants for Early Career Researchers working on Antarctic Science projects. Supervisors - please point your students towards them. A huge range of projects and people have been funded over the years.

UM, I had NO idea facebook was tracking everything I did on the internet. EVERYTHING. I have diligently blocked and followed all ways to try to stop this messed up social media from taking from me, but this is the final straw… THESE JERKS! AGH! [screenshots on how to do it in the comments]

Apparently it’s #penguinawarenessday so here’s a Hoiho (Yellow-eyed penguin) we came across on the Otago Peninsula. #marinelife #birds #newzealand

Salvin’s albatross at the Otago Canyons #SuperSeabirdSunday #birds #marinelife #newzealand

I made a teeny tiny doodle idea generator! It's called Doodle Pal, and you can get it on itch for Windows, or directly use it for free in your browser ✨ 🖌️ mibyle.itch.io/doodle-pal

New blogpost: gobbledegook papers as canaries in the coalmine- and more bad news for MDPI deevybee.blogspot.com/2025/01/toma...

The best part of studying bull kelp is exploring the cool places it chooses to set up shop #phycologyfriday #marinelife

We have joined Bluesky! Looking forward to connecting to #eDNA researchers and enthusiasts here.

The Emu's are gathering, they are proposing that they be sent to Canada & Greenland. They are yet to lose a war. 😆

Must be #fungifriday #fungifriends Coprinus?

Onshore winds in summer mean lots of blue bottles to photograph on the beach 🦑 #marinelife #wildlifephotography #naturephotography