I didn't know what Lorenzen Mushrooms were before but now I'm obsessed with them

Very important bryozoan news

My incredible friend Sara has published a WILD paper from her soon-to-be-completed PhD, which is about IMMORTAL SEA CUCUMBER BITS www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I finally visited Joggins, Nova Scotia, and met the man*, the myth, the legend: Arthropleura trackways!!! *giant Carboniferous millipede

Yellow warbler decides to see what's up with this stairs thing humans seem to do so much and immediately realizes "actually, fuck this"

The craziest part of being alive is that The Magic School Bus could be in you right now

Everyone should back this kickstarter because I already own the dinosaur one and I am going to own the anomalocaris one but I also want to own the black hole one that unlocks at $10k!!!!!!!!!!

Did you know? Some skyscrapers evolved a mottled appearance to blend in better with overcast skies and low-lying clouds, but as sessile organisms this actually makes them more vulnerable to predators on clear sunny days!

Welcome to Shrimp City! Teach your friends about a variety of crustaceans with this helpful visual aid - and set the record straight... bugs is shrimp. Shrimp is not bugs These shirts are designed by @the666cat.bsky.social & printed in Philly! Get one at SquidFacts.net (pls RT!)

Last night at a party a biology friend was explaining to others who had joined us at the snacks table that carcinization is a thing, "but you know what has happened way more than crabs?" and I lost control of myself and accidentally chorused "WORMS!" along with her

I am always having so much fun with scale drawings. These images are usually depicted quite small on a page in books, there just to show the size of the animal. I love adding some extra details and funny situations to these. :) Here is a series I have just made for an upcoming book. #SciArt

I got a new L-shaped desk specifically so that my cat can sleep next to me while I work. I love it, she loves it, it's great. Except I forgot to account for the fact that the L is on the opposite side of the desk from her cat tree, and my keyboard is now perpetually in the line of fire

wizard

It's important that you always shoot your shot, because you'll never know unless you try. Like my friend in our "bimonthly crafternoons" group chat just asked if anybody wants to go stand in a river and count glass eels next month and her problem now is actually that too many of us want to go

I missed most of this #Invertefest for various reasons that include 20cm of snow on Friday, but I DID have people over with the Schmidt Ocean divestreams on for ~soothing background ambiance~ i.e. I made everyone sit down and shut up to watch when this seven-arm octopus eating a jellyfish appeared

Another moth eclosed, so we took graduation pictures

I recommend floor-level lighting if only to make your cat look like she's about to tell you a scary story

A jellyfish cafe. One wall is a large tank for sea nettles, another has moon jellies, the third wall is a bunch of small kreisels for weirdo species. The tables are rounded aquaria full of upside down jellies. It will cost me ten million dollars in startup costs and half a million monthly to run it

What a steal, home depot is offering philodendron verrucosums that come with free spiders

Do you ever look out at a beautiful day with the sun shining and the ocean releasing an ominous fog and think to yourself ah, there's definitely going to be a kaiju emerging from there any minute now

anybody who starts a conversation with me for the next month now that I've gone to one (1) public talk about hybrid colonies of fungi and algae/cyanobacteria better be ready for

Haha april fools! I thought it was spring!! I'm the fool!!!!!!

I went to a houseplant cuttings swap yesterday and I think I blacked out

Pour one out for my enormous philodendron that decided to snap off at the root under its own weight

Last summer I had to throw out my spider plant (gift from my thesis supervisor) because of thrips and a friend asked if I would buy another one. I said no, because no one has ever bought a spider plant. Eight months later I now have two pots containing five gifted spider plants I did not ask for

Please soothe your soul with this footage of an enraged muppet being treated at the wild muppet center.

There's this house I have coveted for years that has the most incredible little glade of flowers that change throughout the seasons, and I have just learned that it was the home of a botanist, Dr. Penny Allerdice, and after she died last year it has now been sold to condo developers. I am SO SAD

Calling on my ancestors for guidance but the only one who answers is a weird eutherian rodent-mammal from the early cretaceous period. "EAT BERRY SLEEP UNDER ROCK" it says. Pretty good advice

Thinking about jellyfish tanks again because someone was shocked when I mentioned that they're never as big as you think they are, like this 12ft deep, 15ft long jellyfish "wall" is actually only 1.5 feet wide

When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

I love how aggressively the zooids are like actually NO THANK YOU

An ex-colleague/friend with kids has just forwarded this to the rest of us and I'm going to need it retracted immediately because this is going to be stuck in my head for MONTHS youtu.be/bXhtViWYlXs?...

I like when you can tell that the snowstorm came from THAT way

Oh I see now why we had three full days of unending snow, there was this thing

#InvertebrateShitposting as per @joabaldwin.com's request

Whichever city employee saw fit to plow the 45cm of snow that has been falling since last night ONLY to the side of the road that has no street parking so that none of us had to shovel through a snowplow pile, I wish upon you many cool invertebrate sightings for the rest of your life

My friend sent me the list animals until failure game and I had to stop at 150 because I immediately realized this was going to be a problem and I have work to do today, but maybe you don't rose.systems/animalist

🌘 "Starchild" 🌟 Commission for @franzanth.bsky.social & at last another of my Golden Orbits.

I have acquired the best sweaters ever

Mid-festival update: I have tried 6 hot chocolates. I forgot to take pics of the cordyceps spirulina chaga but it was actually pretty good. The strawberry confit is VERY good. The butterscotch caramel orange toffee changed my life and the words to describe how good it was haven't been invented yet

I generally am tickled that my cat and I are on the same type of medications daily (for allergies) but now I have strep throat three days after she started antibiotics for a UTI and so I'm also on antibiotics and it's starting to feel like maybe this is actually a weird and specific curse

It's the first (annual?) St. John's Hot Chocolate Festival and the only logical thing to do when faced with 18 specialty hot chocolates that you and your friend want to try at various locations around the city is to make a spreadsheet about it

as much as I complain about some scientific names, some of them are very nice. the species name of this jellyfish is "punctata" meaning spotted. that is a good name that soothes me.

museums are cool because the people who work there are like look at this neat thing and you're like wow that is neat and you just do it over and over again until it is time to go

How to get into nature.

fingers crossed please, they said if i can demonstrate a proficient level of foraging over the next few months they will release me back into the wild

Helping your biologist friends pack for moving always involves the hard questions, like "can you throw out 1m ill-preserved corals in the regular trash" and "but the city requires only clear trash bags, they're definitely going to see it, what do I do with this rotting coral I need to throw out"

Yeah I slept like a log, my slowly decaying body provided shelter and sustenance to a wide variety of small invertebrates