Eel smuggling is a major problem today. But it's not new! In 1463, London city officials arrested 9 Zeeland merchants who tried to slip 97 barrels of salted eels past customs at Billingsgate. They wanted to avoid import fees, but wound up facing a £40 fine. 🗃️🧪

Fun fact: By the 1880s, people were so worried about how rundown & shabby the White House bathrooms were, when President Garfield died (from an infection from assassin’s bullet 2 months earlier), rumors circulated that the true cause was poisoning by sewer gas from the White House's faulty toilets

#Caturday goals. c. 1890 Special Collections Dept. Univ. of Delaware Library

Happy Halloween🖤 #13DaysOfHalloween Day 13 is the Pacific blackdragon, one of the blackest (no joke, called ultrablack) animals, determined by whether they reflect <0.5% of the light hitting it. They live a couple hundred to ~2000 yards deep and have a bioluminescent lure they use to attract prey 🧪

My daughter, who runs Sewn Company, is a hand-sewing instructor and historic sewing/clothing consultant. She tells the story of my haunted vintage clothing store as she sews in this video. youtu.be/fZoFAM8u-d0?... #ghoststories #Halloween #vintageclothing #hauntings

This #Halloween, Madeleine Vionnet is offering all of the witchy stitches with her 1927 Araignée gown, a pale and ethereal design dripping with a beaded cobweb #madparisfr #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡

Mild plant horror 🌱🌿

Common Raven #birds 🎃

Wishing everyone a happy Halloween! The scariest thing about today is that it’s the deadliest day for child pedestrians, so please stay safe, and stay off the road if possible 🖤 If you’re like to see all of my black- (or very dark red or purple) themed #13DaysOfHalloween 🧪 posts, click here! 👇🏽

Skelly and Moulder wish you a happy #Halloween!

A halloween cartoon for @newscientist.com

#PhantomsFriday An Overwhelming Odour of Corruption "Even in the broad day the shuffling, unsteady steps would come down the stair, accompanied by the odour of death..." A malodorous and malign ghost at Holly Cottage. hauntedohiobooks.com/news/an-over...

Carstian Luyckx, Memento Mori with musical instruments, books, sheet music, skeleton, skulls, and armor, Oil on canvas, 73.5 x 92.5 cm (Private collection)

Happy Halloween🖤 #13DaysOfHalloween Day 13 is the Pacific blackdragon, one of the blackest (no joke, called ultrablack) animals, determined by whether they reflect <0.5% of the light hitting it. They live a couple hundred to ~2000 yards deep and have a bioluminescent lure they use to attract prey 🧪

An iPSC heart muscle cell forming sarcomeres videoed through a microscope by Emma Koory for 20 h before it dies most dramatically. This was our first try on a new microscope, and Emma now has the imaging parameters dialed in so her cells do not go POP! Alpha-actinin-2 is shown. #CellBiology

#13DaysOfHalloween Day 12 is the black hollyhock. This beautiful flower (most commonly a deep red or purple) is a pollinator-friendly plant that can grow to be over 6ft tall! The hollyhock is edible, is believed to have medicinal properties, and is used to create dyes. 🧪 🖤

#13DaysOfHalloween Day 11 is the black sea hare! This total chonk of a sea slug is a hermaphrodite, with both sets of sexual organs able to contribute to reproduction at the same time. While it looks like an amorphous blob on land, it spreads its wings and becomes a flowing beauty in the water 🧪 🖤

I have released the monkeys that were in the shipment and which you were probably saving for research Forgive me they were devious so angry and so sick

#13DaysOfHalloween Day 10 is the black brittle star, a relative of the starfish. It often lives in dense communities, spanning hundreds of square yards on an ocean floor! Despite variations in appearance and location, they exhibit remarkable population homogeneity pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37524805/ 🧪

#13DaysOfHalloween Day 9 is the Dracula parrot, living in New Guinea rainforests. They have hooked beaks and featherless heads, unlike other parrots, giving them a vulture appearance. While they look super spooky (and their calls sound like screams), the 🧛 parrot feeds almost exclusively on figs 🧪

This plaster cast of the face & neck shows a large fibro-osseous tumour of the mandible. The patient was Robert Penman & he was operated on by James Syme in 1828.The procedure was carried out without anaesthesia in 24 minutes, while Penman sat upright in a chair.

These prosthetic eyes are made from cryolite glass, originally used to make dolls eyes. Their appearance was so life-like that they were also used to make prosthetic eyes.

Death's got a killer costume. Friar's skeleton dressed as Death, the Reaper, in a decorative ossuary or "chapel of bones." Photograph taken c. 1900 #MementoMoriMonday #TheVictorianBookoftheDead wellcomecollection.org/works/ddjm2b2u

When humans look at something we find beautiful our brains release dopamine, lifting mood & if we connect with what we're looking at oxytocin, giving us a sense of belonging. A tiny posy I made in a thimble, with real flowers I grew👇 If you like it it'll alter your brain biochemistry for the better:

Bat, Frederick II, De arte venandi cum avibus, c.1310. 🦇 #Gothtober #BatWeek #31daysofhalloween

Tremella mesenterica is a common, cosmopolitan fungus, growing on decaying branches in forests around the world. It has a yellow color & the texture (but not flavor) of a gummi bear. But to understand its common name, I have to dive into Nordic folklore a bit. It's often called "witches' butter."

After a weekend of Fall fun, my child informed me, “Trunk or treat is not an activity; it’s just getting candy, and candy is not good for you,” then stated that his favorite thing he did was playing with kinetic sand in my bathroom. A great reminder that sometimes simpler is better. 😅 #TinyJoys

Odilon Redon, The Battle of the Bones, 1881, Charcoal on paper, 44.7 x 37.3 cm (Kröller-Müller Museum)

Bartolomé Bermejo, Saint Michael triumphant over the Devil (detail), 1468, Oil and gold on wood, 179.7 × 81.9 cm (National Gallery, London)

"A Burglar Bitten by a Skeleton," Illustrated Police News, June 27, 1874

Vasilisa Romanenko is an illustrator who focuses on naturalistic fantasy. Her work is inspired by nature, botany, folk art, and textile design. She often depicts botanical elements, birds and insects, seeing her art as a "window to a magical world”, and works primarily with acrylic paint on canvas.

A note that the bat flower predominantly self pollinates! The downsides of a small text limit. If you’d like to really nerd out on pollination and pollinators, check here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.... 🧪

#13DaysOfHalloween Day 8 is the bat flower. Resembling a bat in flight, this stunning perennial is found in the understory of tropical Southeast Asian regions. It has bat-like wings (bracts) and cat whiskers (bracteoles). Its color and faint decaying scent attract flies and beetles as pollinators 🧪

The bone buddies are out front, having a lovely time being bones.

It's #NationalPumpkinDay! 🎃 Why are pumpkins orange, and what do pumpkins have to do with pumpkin spice? Here are the chemical answers in @cenmag.bsky.social: cen.acs.org/articles/93/... #ChemSky 🧪

These little tools are apple scoops. They date from the 1800s and are made of sheep bone. They were common in apple-growing districts. The marrow has been hollowed out to allow the user to scrape off pieces of apple if they had few teeth and couldn’t afford dentures.

Three glass eyes with portable velvet carrying case and mirror, c.1870. These were likely meant to be carried by an ocularist – someone who specialized in making and fitting prosthetic eyes – to assist them in making the best possible match to the patient’s remaining eye.

#13DaysOfHalloween Day 7 is the black squirrel! Or is it? The black coloration is due to a pigment gene grey squirrels likely picked up from fox squirrels. Grey squirrels are actually white, black, and orange, but the ones with MC1R∆24 are just black! bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... 🧪

🎶 Beaded & sequinned cotton tulle dance dress, France, c1925. Via NGV Melbourne.

#13DaysOfHalloween Day 6 is the Brazilian treehopper, one of >3K types of treehoppers, with fancy helmets on both male and female bugs (and funny enough, not much treehopping). The black “beads” will pop off if picked up by a predator, adding a layer of defense www.sciencefocus.com/nature/what-... 🧪

wanna see a thread of all the sea creatures etc that appeared on my beach at very low tide?

Lovely thread, and a heads up that if you see garlic chive (Allium tuberosum) flowers, they are both beautiful and pack a delicate, garlic flavor! Great for an edible garnish or salad (or just regular snacking, if you’re a garlic lover like me) #GardenSky

Flemish painter Catarina Ykens II, mostly known for still her lifes, puts the EEK in Ykens in this memento mori. Signed and dated: "Catharina ykens. filia Devota f. 1688" (Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp).

Delighted to announce that tickets for the Symbols of Mortality Conference 2026 have now gone live. With a fascinating range of talks by some of the world's leading experts, why not grab yourself a FREE ticket and come and join us! 💀 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/symbols-of...

#13DaysOfHalloween Day 5! The ninja lanternshark, discovered 15 years ago, remains fairly rare and elusive, because...well…ninja! Not only is this a bad ass name, it emits a blue light, due to photophores (mostly around its head) 🤯 Learn more here: www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/n... 🧪

Humans of Bluesky! I want your questions, please. Let me explain. I like writing explainers about things like: What colors do bees see? Do bugs fart? How long can viruses survive in a dead body? What's the difference between hemp and marijuana? But my brain is wrung dry. I need questions! 🧪🧵

#13DaysOfHalloween Day 4 is the black flying fox! This is one of the larger bats, found in Australia, Indonesia, and surrounding regions. They eat pollen and nectar (though may eat other plant materials when food is scarce), and while they’re not endangered, they are susceptible to heat stress 🦇 🧪

#13DaysOfHalloween Day 3 looks like it came out of the Snow White poison apple basket! The black diamond apple is a black/deep purple apple, grown in a mountainous region of Tibet. The color comes from the UV exposure and high (3k+ m altitude). Due to a short growing season, one apple can cost $7+ 🧪

At lower altitudes: the stratosphere, the most intense phenomenon is the non-mythologically named "BLUE JETS". You're seeing ionization headed "upwards" between the positively charged cloud tops and the zones above, possibly induced by the discharge headed "downwards".

Day 2 of #13DaysOfHalloween is the male, northern phainopepla. With his black glossy feathers, red eyes, and spiked ‘do, he is the a little punk rocker amongst the goth black birds. They breed during two different seasons, in two different habitats, with two different behaviors! Learn more here ⬇️ 🧪