We petitioned the CA Fish and Game Commission today seeking protections for the western spadefoot under the state ESA. In 2023, the western spadefoot was proposed for federal protections as a threatened species under the ESA, but a final decision has not been made. Learn more ➡️ bit.ly/4nqxxlE

You had met at ridable trilobite

While iron-nickel alloy taenite gets physics points for its meteorite origin, magnetism & Widmanstätten patterns kyanite gets physics points as an index mineral. Plus lovely blue kyanite definitely gets the arts vote for jewelry and use in porcelain and pottery glazes. #MinCup25

ENOUGH.

When I was growing up, I felt lied to about emeralds. All the movies showed deep green gems and then every one I saw in person looked like absolute crap. When I met dioptase I was like THIS this right here is what emerald is supposed to look like! 💚 #Dioptase with calcite and duftite (I believe)

Although molybdenite is most useful for technical purposes, it’s dioptase that attracts simply by its beauty.

We’re no fools over at Eos. For today’s #MinCup25 matchup, we’re going with brilliant, green dioptase over "fool’s silver" (molybdenite). 📸: Didier Descouens, CC BY 3.0

Tried to water the baby asparagus but the spout was blocked so I tried to shove the blockage down into the can but the thing inside shoved back. Computer…enhance. #garden #gardening #oopsfrog

Happy September 21st to those that celebrate!!! 😃 💃🏾🕺🏾

While it may be associated with jadeite & hence be carved, it’s a challenge to find sculpture that’s definitely kosmochlor so I’m giving titanite, prized for it’s beauty & a source of the pigment titanium dioxide white since ~1910, the arts vote. On the physics front it boasts trichroism. #MinCup25

Everyone should be watching this video by @msolurin.bsky.social

A hitchhiker’s guide: Tiny, immobile creatures like barnacles can get a leg-up on competition by hitching a ride into the water current where there’s marine snow aplenty. The vehicle of choice here — Lithodes crab, a genus of king crab found throughout the global ocean. #uruguaysub200

🔊Sound on🔊 for the distant roar of an erupting volcano (while hiking down a neighboring volcano, as the Sun rises over another volcano).

Baryte is one of my top 5 minerals as a collector… but I can’t deny hematite is fundamental as a color-causing element in minerals, geology, and art. Plus it can be other-worldly www.mindat.org/photo-237820...

Baryte might be useful geochronology but you can’t vote against 164,000 years of art history! From cave painting to today! Electrically conductive hematite is a pigment with a storied history in red ochre & chalk. Vote for art & human culture. Vote hematite! #MinCup25

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

there is already a way to extend life and youth indefinitely 1. Be a stored-grain dermestid beetle larva (say, Trogoderma) 2. Every time food gets scarce, moult backwards into a previous instar 3. Proceed to grow as usual 4. Repeat step 2

Breaking: First new sections of Trump border wall are going up in the San Rafael Valley. This is an ecological catastrophe for the Arizona-Sonora borderlands, especially for the endangered jaguars and ocelots that move across the border here. READ: biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press...

Skysopod....

Leaf or a leaf insect? 😉Stick & leaf insects mimic twigs & leaves to avoid predators. Even their eggs are camouflaged to look like seeds. There are about 3000 known species & they are largely nocturnal herbivores. On display in our upper gallery. FREE entry! @camunivmuseums.bsky.social

Leaf or slug? (Spoiler alert, it's a slug — possibly the species Athoracophorus bitentaculatus!) 📷 bmacro on iNaturalist 📍 New Zealand 🔗: www.inaturalist.org/observations... #ObservationOfTheDay

Sometimes I gotta just break out the fit🦈👏🏽

While iron-nickel alloy taenite gets physics points for its meteorite origin, iron-rich clay mineral nontronite is formed in deep sea hydrothermal vents, used in pulp & paper and cosmetics and since weathering would be needed to produce it, is part of the evidence for water on Mars. #MinCup25

I was looking for some migrant warblers, then… Zoop! In a single elongated strike, a dragonfly for dinner Green Heron 🪶 Green Darner 🪲 📷🌿

Noooooo! Team hedgehog, vote for #Ikaite www.mindat.org/photo-544796...

#Cuprosklodowskite is the essence of Do Not Lick, but in the same way every radioactive element needs to stay away. But #ikaite is the Melting Mineral (that’s gotta count as kin to 2019 champion ice) and it pseudomorphs into eliminated #calcite, so it’s a sneaky way to vote for beloved minerals.

252 of #365Minerals 🧪⚒️ Opal: - Hydrated form of silica - A mineraloid (has an amorphous structure) - Consists of silica spheres which diffract light, producing a rainbow effect - Wood can become opalised during fossilisation - Its name likely comes from the Sanskrit "उपल/upala" (stone) #minerals

Pretty blue Kyanite is used in porcelain(though more dishware/plumbing than art) but it is used in jewelry. Points for physics as an index mineral. But topaz wins the art vote with centuries of gems, carving & jewelry. Plus on the physics front we have its use in lens & xray spectroscopy #MinCup25

I got yer timeline cleanse right here, folks. A whole clutch of teeny tiny snapping turtle behbehs emerged one at a time from their underground nest and crossed the gravel road while I and a couple other humans watched and made sure they were safe from anyone else coming along.

#Topaz has run without winning since 2023. #Kyanite has run without winning since the inaugural 2017 #MinCup. Whichever mineral that doesn’t win this match will not be back in 2026.

Give them the ol razzle dazzle

Zunyite is a collector’s stone & source of Al & F. Molybdenite ores are the source for Re used in geochronology, an important ore of Mo (used in steel, as a catalyst, in battery electrodes, alloys of iron & semiconductors) plus looks like & marks paper like graphite. Gets my physics vote. #MinCup25

1/ Today for #FossilFriday, a short thread about a strange “magma” of fossils 🦴 It may not look spectacular, but it tells an extraordinary story of palaeolithic horses, fossilized corals, “this is Sparta” hunting myth, and - since we’re in France - fine white wine.

Crystals won’t help your chakras, but #zunyite wonderous little stars will certainly make you smile :) #MinCup25

A preprint describing our concerns with Voortman and De Vos posted here:

Arizona's San Pedro River is being sucked dry. Yesterday, one of its main monitoring wells dried up, violating a court order guaranteeing water minimums. Dire implications for myriad endangered species & millions of neo-tropical songbirds that depend on it. biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press...

A new study finds dozens of heat waves would be "virtually impossible" without the activity of major fossil fuel producers, including oil companies.

I am having A Day (although granted it’s a lot better than some people) so here’s a flying shrimp. Ok really they’re called Hummingbird Clearwing Moths. They love this wild bergamot #invertebrates #NativePlants 🌿

I didn't see this in person, but it always makes me laugh. It's a pom-pom crab, it holds a sea anemone in each claw, and WAVES them at its enemies to scare them off. The anemones benefit from scraps of food the crab drops - everybody wins!

Hi I know we're all talking about something else at this particular momennnttt, but can I interest any of you in educational posters? I've got 'em in a pack & seasonal lightning bugs too! It helps support SaS and makes it easy for you to spread important messages in your community! SquidFacts.net

Thai cat treatises — called “Tamra Maew” — pair illustrations of auspicious felines with poetic notes: one has “eyes like dewdrops on a lotus,” another’s are “lit like fireflies, applied liquid gold”. Pages of a fine 19th-century example here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/tamra-maew/

Such a nail-biter today! My art vote goes to the storied pigment azurite! Be sure to vote and let the Last Judgement be blue! #MinCup25 (Hieronymus Bosch, The Last Judgement ca 1495-1505, painted with azurite)

Kosmochlor is nice and all but can it do this?! www.mindat.org/photo-114671...

Voting for the beautiful blue #Azurite! #Copper mineral. Used for blue #pigment. Besties with #malachite! 💙 #Arizona (former home state). Makes caves more interesting with brilliant blue stalagmites/tites. Vote: www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r1... #MinCup25 📷 mine

Seven hours to go in this Blue v Green match, and it’s a dead heat! #Azurite and #Kosmochlor are going down to the wire. I’m Team Blue all the way, as it was a primary source of blues used by medieval & even more ancient artists. Vote Blue: www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r1... #MinCup25

Resharing for #IguanaAwarenessDay

Ultimately, I keep coming back to #tugtupite. Indigenous name + piezoelectric, tenebrescent, & florescent…vs a mineral largely valued for its use to the fossil fuel industry. I'm afraid pollucite can't redeem itself to me, despite its other uses. Not in time to secure my vote for #MinCup25.

My face, as I campaign for minerals in art, when I see the #MinCup25 voters swayed against mineral titans of art history, like voting for “Borg crystals” over calcite and pro-werewolves against silver. 😱 Give me hematite you rock nerds! Without hematite we couldn’t have this: