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Am I too late for more snailposting? Although, isn’t late snailposting really capturing the true essence of snailposting? 🐌 These Ghost Bulimuluses (Bulimuli?) (Bulimulus bonariensis) were having an all-ages snail party on this mural yesterday morning.

As much as I love our local community theaters, it had been way too long since I’d seen a big professional production, and whoo, I missed it. My first time seeing Hadestown and it was *phenomenal*.

Somehow these peas also require 10x the normal amount of water to boil.

I’m wearing a new pair of sexually dimorphic earrings today, and the desire to have them facing each other is warring with the voice in my head insisting that “ladies go on the LEFT!” (our mnemonic for which of a bird’s legs gets the numbered silver band.)

I love Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, but this week's episode had some casual hagfish erasure (referring to them as "eels"), and they're too awesome to let that pass unremarked.

*sighs in zoology professor*

This is hilarious. Will "when you see a blue dog, think porta-potties, not radioactivity" replace "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras"?

Should I ask him for a kayak? 🪶🌿

“are you worried AI is going to replace you?” the AI trying to do my job: *thinks there are Eurasian bird species and a notoriously sensitive northern owl on the Ohio State campus*

#LocalVertDiversity 31. Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea) Not the most illustrative picture, I know (adults are slaty blue with maroon-tinted necks and heads, not that you can tell that here). I usually see them much more frequently, but somehow this is the only one I've found this semester. 🪶

What do you get when you cross a red-tailed hawk with a turkey vulture? 🪶

I wore jeans today for the first time in a long while. The inadequate pockets means my phone managed to fall out and somehow land squarely in my dog's water bowl. I'm taking this as further validation of my "no hard pants" rule that I established for myself during the pandemic.

Old pictures of two of my local favorites, the Manatee Treesnail (Antidrymaeus dormani), which is endemic to FL, and the Rosy Wolfsnail (Euglandina rosea), a predator of other snails. 🐌

an important message from my neighborhood nuthatches:

Damn it. Another of my alma maters has caved to fascism. I really thought Cornell was going to be the one to resist.

I’d never heard about this — super cool!

I don’t think this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) moved more than a few meters between when I passed it on the way to my office and when I passed it again on my way home. #birds 🪶 #heron

#LocalVertDiversity 30. Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) Like the squirrel, this is another species that I see pretty much every day, but didn't realize until a month into the semester that I should take a picture of it so it could count towards my list.

Making students do The Wave to explain how action potentials travel along a neuron is one of my favorite parts of teaching Intro Bio II. One of the best teaching evals I've received was "I will never forget that I am a voltage-gated sodium channel."

CLUMSY MALE DINOSAURS INJURED FEMALES DURING MATING: Our new paper (Filippo Bertozzo et al. 2025), shows that a common tail injury seen in duckbilled dinosaurs was probably caused by heavy male dinosaurs clumsily crushing the spines of females during mating. /1

I like this perspective. It’s not poor work-life balance; it’s staying true to my mammalian roots!

My dog is very flexible about mealtimes but VERY punctual about letting me know when it’s time to stop whatever I’m doing and start our nighttime routine. Between the time change and her persistence, I might actually get to bed at a reasonable time tonight.

One of the largest temmnospondyls ever to exist: the gigantic Koolasuchus was also the last non-lissamphibian temnospondyl to exist. It survived into the Early Cretaceous of Australia when all other stereospondyls were long gone #temnospondyls #paleoart

#LocalVertDiversity 29. Marsh Rabbit (Sylvilagus palustris) Marsh rabbit range overlaps with cottontails, but they’ve got stubbier ears and limbs, and are supposedly good swimmers. This little buddy was feeling bold that day! Helps that the dog was asleep in another room. #wildlife #mammal 🐇

Frog loaf. 🐸🍞 (Green Tree Frog, Hyla cinerea) #herps #frog #wildlife

goddamn, bird. 🪶

Wishing everyone a very batty Halloween! 🦇🦇🦇

Duolingo, un ver de terre n’est pas un insecte! Tous les invertébrés ne sont pas des insectes! I almost flagged it, but there’s no option for “your biology is terribly incorrect.”

Egrets, I’ve had a few*. *(I passed two Great Egrets, Ardea alba, on my way to my office this morning. Plus an anhinga choking down a huge fish it had caught, but I didn’t get a good picture of that.) #wildlife #birds #egret 🪶

Today's student "Get to Know a Vertebrate" presentation was about Sacabambaspis, so of course I had to play this video for my class. If I'm going to have the song stuck in my head all day, I can at least make sure they do too. #Vertz

Pretty good article about the specifics of PRI's situation and what led to the immediate need they have from upstate NY based media. www.newyorkupstate.com/news/2025/10...

Some fossils I include in my Vertebrate Biodiversity lectures because they're important for understanding the evolutionary history of a group. Other fossils (like this shark tooth embedded in the spine of a Pteranodon) I include because they're awesome as hell. source: doi.org/10.7717/peer...

#LocalVertDiversity 28. Tree Frog (subfamily Hylinae) Probably a Squirrel Tree Frog (Hyla squirella), but the my windows are too dirty to tell for sure from this angle. Obviously not taken while walking my dog, but since I was already over the 25 spp requirement I counted it anyways. #herps #frog

Since I usually have an exam the week of Halloween, I bring in goodies (mini Play-Doh tubs, my trick-or-treat handout of choice) for students to take as a prize for finishing their exam. Some get very excited and will dig though to find they favorite color. It’s good to be a kid again when you can!

Spooky season in Florida, a breakdown: Plus Spooky Points: •Spanish moss everywhere •Lots of spiders •Bats! Minus Spooky Points: •Everything is still green and leafy; no skeletal bare branches •Bloodsuckers more likely to be mosquitos than vampires •It's hard to feel spooky while wearing sandals

There was a large mixed flock this morning that was being very vocal about something (maybe the presence of that hawk?). Here’s a clip with a closer American Crow calling (“caw”) followed by a farther away Fish Crow (“naw”) so you can hear the difference in their voices. 🪶 #birds

It rained last night for the first time in quite a while, so this morning’s walk yielded up a tiny toadlet, a treesnail, and lots of cool fungi. IDs in the alt text. #herps #frog #snail #fungi

#LocalVertDiversity 27. White Ibis (Eudocimus albus) Usually I see ibises in big flocks, or at least groups of 3-4, but this one was foraging in this little creek by itself, although there was a snowy egret nearby. 🪶 #birds #wildlife

Well that’s pretty cool. I snapped a pic of an unfamiliar #flower at the park this morning. Turns out it’s only the 81st observation of Flyr’s Brickellbush (Brickellia cordifolia) in iNat, and it’s the furthest south (only by a mile or two, but still)!

If you want faculty members to take you seriously as a prospective grad student, it’s probably a good idea to make sure that you replace “Dr. [Last Name]” with their *actual* name in your clearly AI-generated e-mail. Or, y’know, just write the e-mail yourself.

#LocalVertDiversity 26. Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) The best way to distinguish Snowys is their black legs with bright yellow feet. So of course they’re usually wading in vegetation and won’t let you get a good look at their feet. This one was being unusually cooperative, though! #birds #wildlife

#LocalVertDiversity 25. Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) Unlike the alligator, which I legitimately didn’t see until species #20, I see squirrels every day but just kind of forgot that I should take a picture to include them in the project until species #25. Whoops. #wildlife #nature

Happy World Wombat Day! Sound on to listen to the very soothing munching noises of this chonky wombat...

#LocalVertDiversity 24. Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) This was a definite balancing act between “get close enough that the photo isn’t just a black blob” and “don’t get so close that my dog will start barking at the big birds (one of her favorite hobbies) and scare them off.” #wildlife #birds

Because I'm teaching about turtles today, and because it's just that kind of morning.

I read Laurie Andersen's The Darkling Bride last weekend and it was a perfect spooky season read (despite being set in April, I think?). A great mix of modern cold case mystery, Victorian tragedy, and Gothic ghost story, all set in a Norman castle in Ireland. Definitely recommended. #books 📚💙

Major kudos to the students from both schools here.

Day168 of photoshopping @lastweektonight.com's John Oliver with fossils in the hopes that he helps save the Paleontological Research Institution John(H. sapiens) reflecting on what could have been with a specimen of Tiktaalik roseae Don't let PRI go extinct! #Science #SavePRI still going @ #GSA 🧪⚒️

If you say “phobias caused by the Final Destination movies,” everyone of a certain age is going to go directly to the log trucks. But they’re also the reason I still leave my old checked baggage tags attached to my suitcase until I get to the airport.