Oops. I almost said something positive about FedEx last week, when they managed to get my package from Japan to near my city in only 3 days. (But then they tried to deliver it to somewhere in the wrong city and it has been stuck in that city since and the delivery date ._.)

Look closely at the surface of the sea cucumber… There’s a strange little creature hiding there! This scale worm changes its coloring to match its sea cucumber host. You’d never notice it unless it moves. Such amazing camouflage! ✨️

Interesting times ahead! Just bought this microscope today and carried it (with the help of 4 different trains) halfway across Germany. My back hurts, I am exhausted, but it was very worth it! #microscope #biology

Dragon Flower Mantis (Toxodera integrifolia) #AppreciateADragonDay

Another sponge from the university collection. This one is really weird! (If anyone knows has tips for ID, let me know! It wasn't labeled) #MarineLife #Nature

Check out these beautiful macro photographs of Slime Moulds by Barry Webb at www.barrywebbimages.co.uk/Images/Macro... Additional links - Fungi: www.barrywebbimages.co.uk/Images/Macro... Instagram: www.instagram.com/barrywebbima... Slime mould info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mo #Nature

I tried that soap bubble freezing thing. Catastrophic failure. ☹️

Felt a little festive at the microscope this morning for #FluorescenceFriday 🎄 Here’s the nervous system of a juvenile sea star ⭐️ Green = acetylated tubulin, red = nuclei Happy holidays!

Happy new year! :D I have no pictures of fireworks, but I have this one of a siliceous sponge skeleton from the university collection. #MarineLife #Photography

A juvenile jack sheltering in a crystal jelly. They are part of the daily diel migration which brings plankton and associated critters up from the depths to the surface at night. Pic from Balayan Bay, Anilao #Fishmas #MarineLife 🌿🐟

For the 17th day of #Crustmas, I have another water flea. This one was found in a tropical greenhouse. It's Macrothrix sp., but the exact species is probably not determinable without DNA analysis(?) Look at the snoot! :D #pondlife #microscopy

A copepod for #Crustmas day 15 🦀 This one's a Calanoid copepod from Spain which I sadly do not know how to ID further ( Help much appreciated! :D ) The enlarged antenna segments are interesting as well. I have no idea what they are for and why they're only on one antenna. #marinelife #copepod

It's the fourteenth day of #Crustmas and I bring you another amphipod. I really like its slight blue and red colouration. :D It is probably Apohyale perieri, but I'm not quite sure. #MarineLife #Crustacean #Amphipod

Omg it’s so precious! #crustmas

🦐☘,, #invertebrates

#Crustmas Day 13 🦀 I‘ve posted this species recently (about a month ago), but this one has a different colouration and not such an enlarged claw. This is Pisidia longicornis, the Long-clawed Porcelain Crab. #marinelife #crab

#Crustmas Day 12 Green Shromp! It’s the Chamaeleon Prawn (Hippolyte varians) and very variable in colouration as the name suggests. I don’t know what influences colour, but all I found at that region were green. #MarineLife #Shrimp

Slipper Lobster Metamorphosis Crustaceans display some of the most spectacular metamorphoses from free-swimming meroplankton to reef-dwelling adults. Slipper lobsters (below) are closely related to rock lobsters but have a flattened body and short, wide antennae. #Crustmas

Also for #Crustmas: Fluffy crab! (not actually a true crab) Porcellana platycheles, the Hairy Porcellain Crab. #MarineLife

For the 10th day of #Crustmas 🦐, I found this Scapholebris (cf. mucronata) Daphniid that is infested with Chlorella(?) green algae. I believe, they are parasitic, judging by the Daphniid‘s reduced mobility & the strange twitching motion of the antennae. #microscopy #pondlife #parasites #crustacean

Procreate tracks the number of individual marks I make, and I’m currently on 66,816!

#Crustmas Day 9 This is one of the prettiest copepods I‘ve found. It‘s called Hersiliodes latericius and was found in coastal waters in Spain #MarineLife #Copepods #Crustacean

Omg #Crustmas

A pair of Coleman Shrimp (Periclimenes colemani) in between the spines of a variable fire urchin. #MarineLife #Invertebrates #Crustmas 🌿

Just think this gossamer worm needs a moment again 🐙🦑🐡

For Day 8 of #Crustmas, I bring you Greenhouse isopods! Back in June, the botanical gardens in Germany hosted a BioBlitz during which I got to dig around a bit in the greenhouses. #1 Philosciidae indet. #2 Nagurus cristatus #3 Reductoniscus costulatus #4 Venezillo parvus #Isopods #MacroPhotography

#Crustmas day 7 (belatedly) 🦀 I came back from a rehearsal weekend with my orchestra yesterday and I was too exhausted to post anything. The pic I planned to send yesterday is this Xantho pilipes which has some very nice markings on its back, in my opinion #marinelife #crab

#Crustmas day 6! 🦐 I saw some posts with these ostracods (Strandesia sp.(?)) yesterday, so I wanted to share this one. Found in the greenhouses of the botanical gardens in Bonn. If anyone can help ID, that would be amazing! :D #microscopy #ostracods #crustacean

Siphonophores are champions of community collaboration. 🤝🏆 This isn't one animal. It's actually a colony of individual animals called zooids. Each has a specialized role. From the orb-like swimming nectophores to the bright orange stinging tentacles, they're essential to the survival of all.

I am loading all of the worlds' biodiversity databases with many pictures of things called "? Strandesia" because I don't have the heart to open up hundreds of indvidual ostracods to look at the adductor muscle scars, but they look a lot like this guy named Strandesia. I'm sorry.

These little guys that I posted last December are still thriving in a water-filled saucer in my greenhouse. Easy pets, if difficult to see and not at all affectionate.

Day 5 of #Crustmas Presumably a female Cymodoce truncata. No spoilers, but some individuals of this species have some really beautiful patterning (I‘m saving those pics for later) :P #MarineLife #Isopods #Crustaceans

The toxic crab (Lophozozymus incisus), a rare and very beautiful species found in warm waters the world over, including off the coast of Australia. Toxic crabs can be incredibly dangerous, containing toxins that are similar to those of the pufferfish, called tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin. #crustmas

It's day 4 of #Crustmas. This crab is probably about the same age? I was very surprised to learn that this is what larval crabs look like. I think it's either Xantho sp. or Carcinus maenas. P.S.: The feathery things at the top are the cirri of a barnacle and are not part of the larva. #MarineLife

With Crustmas going on right now, it's easy to forget that it is #WormWednesday, too! This is an unidentified Terebellid worm. It may be Amphitrides gracilis, but I'm far from certain. #MarineLife #Polychaete #Worm

Wow! It's hard to tell which part of this animal is which! Very cool shrimp for #Crustmas! :D

I’ve made a diagrammatic reconstruction of one of my favorite prehistoric animals, Aquilonifer spinosis. I’ve noticed many of the reconstructions of this animal appear to be based solely on the fossil model, resulting in some errors that contradict the actual description. #paleoart #sciart

For the third day of #Crustmas my colleagues gave to me: 3 papers with peracarid phylogenies 🧪🦑 (Sorry for messing up the song a little) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#Crustmas day 3! 🦐 Look at the claw on this amphipod! I think it is Gammarella fucicola, but I‘m not quite sure. It’s the only one I found with modified gnathopods like this. Found in a rocky shore habitat in Galicia, Spain. #MarineLife #Amphipod

A rare non-animal-related post, but I also took photos of a bunch of flowers this year. I saw them arranged in a grid like this for the first time today and thought they looked really pretty like this :) #macrophotography #flowers

Day Two of #Crustmas! 🦐 Athanas nitescens comes in a variety of colours. I found this green-blue individual that‘s speckled with red chromatophores that form these very cool dendritic splotches of colour (closeup below) #marinelife #crustacean #shrimp

#DeepSeaDecember 🐡 I'm hoping that more people on BlueSky will celebrate the #deepsea (partly because I still don't like Instagram) #artchallenge 🐟🦑 @dsbsoc-arts.bsky.social

This cute fluffy crustacean is perfect #crustmas :D

A couple of pics of a pair from a blackwater dive in Balayan Bay, Anilao. I think this is a phyllosoma (the larval stage of a lobster) riding a purple-striped jelly which is really too small for it... ID very tentative in both cases though! #MarineLife #Invertebrates 🦀🌿

we see a lot of amphipods in all depths of water. Some species live in the plankton but most live on or close to the sea floor! They come in a range of colours, shapes and sizes

Since the last one went over so well...another amazing Antarctic punk-rock crustacean..I believe is the amphipod Epimeria sp. 🧪🦑🇦🇶🌍🪱

Cool Antarctic ISOPOD Pleuroprion, about 700m from the USNM collections! #Antarcticaday #crustmas

The first article from last year's expedition on the famous Polarstern that I participated in has been published. The amphipod species Amathillopsis spinigera was found for the first time during this expedition in the 25 year sampling history of the Fram Strait. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...