This little ankle biter on the other hand, needs to be respected. #Dendrocnide excelsa! Sounds like a magic dinosaur but nah, this is a baby giant stinging tree. While it may not be as horrorshow as the Dendrocnide moroides we work around, this fella can ruin your month. So yea social distancing ftw

Devils needles, sounds like a really intense plant. But tbh Solanum stelligerum isnt really a species thats much of a worry to work around. Its edible when RIPE but has a bitter part of its flavor that, makes you wonder if its ripe enough...... The berry in photo is not red enough for me.

Mirror ball spiders, Perons tree frogs, Christmas orchids and Earth stars. All make me happy to see :) For every leech or tick, there is a thousand cool species of wildlife, that just make this planet a better place to visit. Best to look after them, for the next generation of tourists.

I had 5 minutes to find a token zombie before suiting up. I didnt even need 1. And it was a stonker too :D nice huntsman spider host, monstered by #Purpureocillium atypicola. This is the Anamorph. The Teleomorph is a cool brown spike, that usually targets our primitive spiders in their holes.

Today I walked the eucalypts of Sphinx Rock, ripping the lantana vine from some very nice forest. An excellent example of how nice this type of forest can be. Its our most common forest type here in Australia, and even in rainforest areas it tends to dominate the ridges and other high ground.

Our native white mullberry is actually a non stinging nettle. The berrys are soft, slimy, squishy and pretty subtle in flavor. But when you find trees pumping they can be easy to gather handfuls of berrys, eating as you go. Easy food, if you in the right place at the right time.

A quick stop at Uki carpark before setting off today. Rather proud to get a token zombie to photograph in a few minutes of examining twigs on a shrub. Unusual to see a double spike :D

Landslip valley bush regen today. It's more work than you think to stop tree plantings being drowned in a sea of grass

sup #fungifriends?

My worksite today.

No time for photography today. It was all the team sliding in mud and hunting devil figs in the green. but...... you know.... you cant go into rainforest and not photograph a zombie!!! So heres my token coffin fly pupae chestburster, gestating in a Gibellula fungi that is consuming a spider. #life

A nice thing about rainforest with lots of little #Wilkiea trees, is you see plenty Regent Skipper #Euschemon rafflesia :) They may not be a huge butterfly, but they are a massive skipper!

A hitch hiker from the gardens epic adventure exploring alien terrain, before being released back outside. Song: #FireAndThunder. Composer: #Cjbeards details in alt text. #peacock #Spider #Cosmophasis #micarioides

The thing about tiny jewels, is its difficult to know what you have. That little thing crawling on you that you instinctively go to slap or crush off.... it might just be the coolest thing you see all day. On this planet, you can just go about your day, and interesting life will end up in your path

Theres a lot of little beetles on this planet. If life feels like groundhog day, and you need new content to measure time by.... theres always a new beetle!!! Just have to get close enough without startling to get a pic :) #Mondoshawan

A suburban short grass lawn, is, in many ways a biological desert. Very few species thrive there compared to almost any other biom. I think thats why I appreciate the species that flourish there so much. To thrive there, is to flex incredible resilience. Also ants eating a puffball fungi! :) neat!

At least once a year, like all good boys I make sure I visit my mum. While there I have to wander her veggie garden. In her childhood she learnt the importance of being able to grow her own food, and her gardens have always been an organic bug oasis. So heres a post of my last wander through it. <3

Can I get a #moth ID? #Entomemeology

Dried black mushrooms on a dirt bank being grown over by lichen. Life grows on life grows on life grows on life.... as it reaches for the sun

Another interesting garden reptile here, are the "legless" lizards. These swim through mulch. Yes they do have tiny legs, but not so easy to see them when its frantically wriggling around when exposed :)

An unfortunate sight to see on the lawn, a dead whip snake. Likely a cat or dog going off head punctures. But a chance to photograph some very pretty scales.

You cannot see what makes up the forest, if you are moving fast.

Orchid flowers are already rad, but this one looks like it has a little nudibranch sea slug in its mouth.

Some zoomed out photos, so you can sorta see them as I first do. Hopefully it gives you some inspiration to check out your local suspicious little blobs on leaves. Some of them are likely zombie fungi life forms, just chillin. Totally ignored by all who pass.

I feel like every time I leave the house I return with different skin photos of this crew.

Controversial opinion, but I think Slender Pholcid are better parents than some people.

Imagine how lame it would be, if you got bit by a funnelweb, because you could see a mystery mushroom in the spiders lair. And this is the mushroom photo you died for. oof. On plus side I didnt get bit! But yea sometimes curiosity should probably be tempered in the name of long term survival.

You guys have these amazing looking, mediocre tasting, awesome poppy seed texture, strawberry things there?

Sometimes I feel like time lapse of mushrooms would capture them making exasperated Italian hand gestures at me

It was my 4 year aniversery with my girlfriend yesterday, so as part of we squeezed in a quick bush walk to photograph some #zombie #fungi. Conditions were..... kinda terrible tbh. But luckily we were both on our A game, and still found a few dozen! Skillz! Heres some of the better finds.

A zombie fungi that has killed an ant, is in turn monstered by a white hyper parasitoid fungi :) Complexity like this in a nutrient cycle make it really hard to predict what changes to it will turn into what effects.

My first recording of a young vampire zombie ant chomping into a mature ant ophiocordyceps zombie teleomorph.

Some more #arky #spider photos from yesterday. They really are very photogenic creatures, although its often difficult for people to work out wth they actually looking at

Another day, another new spider :) My beautiful partner pointed this arky out to me. And all I could say was "what the unicorn is that?"

Baby #katydids got that adorable streak

Its a long way to the ground, but theres usually something going on down there to photograph if you can make it.

Tiger moths on the window

Little off topic but if you are a fan of Aussie culture and not so concerned with a bit of swearing to tell a story, some new Michael Cusack, Damo and Darren just dropped @michaelrcusack.bsky.social People dont come to bluesky to laugh but come on, Damo and Darren www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2UZ...

Shhhhh! Quiet you. Don't wake the toad.

The best thing about exploring Earth imho, is how most places you go have a similar life form cast, and yet, its always a little different. That subtle infinite variety, ever changing and morphing. Its just rad. A pulsing branching life explosion that extends through time like a seam of opal.

It is almost impossible to move through most rainforest in NE NSW without walking through the webs of the Four-spined Spiny Orbweaver aka #Gasteracantha quadrispinosa. They all seem to have unique butt patterns. A very common but very pretty little #spider.

Some fungi finds after the recent rain here. #fungifriends

Theres not much left when a predatory #fungi is finished with a beetle meal

Some of the nicest fungi to photograph are the most common. Golden scruffy aka #Cyptotrama aspratum are a reliable way to make you glad you left the house :)

Diversity is something you learn to love. The more different life all cluttered together, the greater the chance of seeing awesome #zombi #fungi #parasitoids like #purpureocillium

Leaving aside how cool these arky spiders are for a second, y'all can see why I call them #screaming #cat #spiders right?

Happy Halloween Legends! www.facebook.com/share/1Bq4D5...

Happy Eggs :)

For what its worth, I vote we do what United Nations Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, says. Its the only decent thing to do. And will help us all sleep at night.