#inktoberPierce They slash more than stab when hunting, but won't shy from a true pierce in self-defense. #inktober #inktober2025

#inktoberDeer Still not comfortable drawing mammals and/with lines, but gotta start somewhere 😅. #inktober #inktober2025

#inktoberMurky Mudskippers thrive in murky, tropical environments like mangrove swamps and mudflats, utilizing both water and land for survival. #inktober #inktober2025

#inktoberCrown To impress, warn or threat, the royal flycatcher opens its feathery crown. #inktober #inktober2025

#inktoberWeaving Jumping spiders don't really weave webs to hunt; but they weave little sleeping bags within leaves to chill. #inktober #inktober2025

#inktoberWeaving Jumping spiders don't really weave webs to hunt; but they weave little sleeping bags within leaves to chill. #inktober #inktober2025

The September AArk Newsletter is out! With 6 stories of hope for #frogs and #salamanders all over #LatinAmerica 🐸 English version here: www.amphibianark.org/fileadmin/up... Versión en Español: www.amphibianark.org/fileadmin/up... #ConservationScience🌎 #Conservation #wildlife #SciComm

First time I do the entire #SciArtSeptember 💪!! Now jumping into #inktober. I won't have the same time for October, and will try bigger/longer ideas, but here we go 🐒 #inktober2025 #inktoberMustache

Day 30: Dream In several cultures, foxes symbolize adaptability, intelligence, transformation...this one dreams with the adaptability of all the ecosystems and species drawn in this #SciArtSeptember challenge! As for the transformation: that's on us 😉🦊 #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 29: Foresight With increasing water levels, birds that lost nests to floods nest higher or farther inland the next year—a glimpse of natural foresight? Wildlife will find its own ways to climate adaptation. Will we? #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 28: Harvest Leaf-cutting ants clip foliage not to eat, but to farm certain fungi—an underground harvest that feeds the colony and recycles forest nutrients. #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 27: Bounded Oases form where groundwater reaches the surface, creating "islands" of other lifeforms bounded by desert. They're critical refuges for some migratory species. I'd love to see one/be in one, one day—have you? #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 26: Forage A quick late and tired sketch today 😅

#SciArtSeptember Day 25: Tireless At first I thought the Monarch butterflies flew tirelessly until reaching their overwintering grounds, but since finishing this drawing and looking it up I've learned they do take breaks. But still, +100km a day for a total of 4000 km?! Tireless! #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 24: Numbered. Tree rings record annual growth in temperate zones, letting dendrochronologists date age and even climate events. Tropical trees often lack clear seasonal rings though, making age estimates trickier, but not impossible. #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 23: Scouting In many ant species, a lone or couple of lone scouts go out in search for food before recruiting the whole colony, leaving a pheromone trace along the way to find it again and to later "guide the crew". #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 22: Fellowship Wildlife is both brutal and beautiful, yet full of surprising partnerships. From mutualism to simple coexistence, we can take inspiration from these relationships and remind ourselves that collaboration takes us further, too. #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 21: Reef

#SciArtSeptember Day 21: Reef Coral reefs can reproduce both sexually and asexually. Some species are male or female, some are hermaphrodites, & some even switch sex with age! That's called 'sequential hermaphroditism' and it increases the individual's reproductive potential. #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 20: Glacial Did you know 2025 is the International Year for the Conservation of #Glaciers? If you know Spanish: this year we talked with LatAm & EU scientists in EpiSTEMas to raise awareness about the importance of these freshwater giants: youtube.com/playlist?lis... #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 19: Depths The Mariana Trench goes up to about 11 km deep! It is the deepest point in our ocean (that we know of?). It is deeper than Everest is tall, and harbors microbes that survive those crushing pressures, cold, and darkness! #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 18: Cenote These limestone sinkholes in Yucatán and northern Guatemala form as rain dissolves the karstic bedrock—and some trace their origin to the Chicxulub meteorite that started the end of the non-avian dinosaurs. 📝 More here: www.braeunerd.com/a-misunderst... #SciArt

September 17: “trawl” This is the opposite of bottom trawling: a traditional bamboo fish trap used in Alor Indonesia for subsistence fishing. See alt text for more info. #sciartseptember #sciart #coralreefs #oceanconservation

#SciArtSeptember 17 - Trawl Bottom trawling has a devastating effect on deep-sea fish, including the roundnose grenadier, which is now classified as critically endangered. Like other deep-sea fish, the grenadier grows and reproduces slowly, making it unable to tolerate industrial fishing.

#SciArtSeptember Day 17: Trawl Bottom trawling scrapes seafloors and hauls huge bycatch, altering entire food webs and destroying entire ecosystems. I do not, however, have an answer/solution besides reducing our seafood demand...any sustainable (for real) fisheries you know of? #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 16: Rift Lakes form in many ways—volcanic craters, cauldrons, glacial scours—but some of the world’s deepest appear where tectonic plates diverge. 🚣‍♀️ 💙 Lake-nerd-alert 🤓 I've some old blog posts on some lake formations here: www.braeunerd.com?s=lakes #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 15: Spawning Frogs have a variety of reproductive strategies. Some spawn on leaves above streams, tuck them in tree holes, or directly on different types of water bodies, depending on current, temperature, and threats like fish. #SciArt #DependsOnTheSpecies

#SciArtSeptember Day 14: Mimic Caligo butterflies fly at dawn to dodge birds, then rest with wings closed, showing their eye-spots that mimic an owl’s face (or at least some face that appears to be of something much larger than themselves). #SciArt

A memoir & moral critique, exposing the myths of a virtuous “North,” colonialism, & the limits of empathy without action. It’s an unsettling and essential read. His reflections resonated in unexpected ways. My short review here: www.braeunerd.com/one-day-omar... #booksky #nonfiction

#SciArtSeptember Day 13: Bottleneck Numbers can rebound fast, genes more slowly—another reason to protect wildlife before the squeeze. #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 13: Bottleneck Wisent herds have been reintroduced to Eurasia and now number in the thousands. All living animals are descended from 12 individuals. - #SciArt #wisent #wildlife #conservation #sketchbook

#SciArtSeptember Day 12: Wandering 🦎

#SciArtSeptember Day 11: Venomous Even within a single species, venom composition can be very different in each individual snake depending on age, sex, diet, location...💚🐍 If you see one, remember: snakes don't want to go after you 😉 give them space to leave!

#SciArtSeptember Day 10: Tawny Autumn is coming in the northern hemisphere, and tawny leaves are about to cover everything. Where possible, remember to keep these leaves undisturbed😉: leaf litter is a surprising microhabitat and good for the soil! 🍂🍁

#SciArtSeptember Day 9: Vanishing Over 40% of amphibians are threatened—they've been vanishing since ~1980s worldwide. I'm lucky to work together with Amphibian Ark, & I’ll be bold today & say: pls consider a small donation to support amphibian conservation 🙏🐸 ➡️ www.amphibianark.org/support-us/

#SciArtSeptember Day 8: Niche 🌿🦎 High in tropical trees, bromeliads form tiny water-filled pockets that serve as refuges—a unique niche for insects, microorgs., spiders & even amphibians.

#SciArtSeptember 7 - Boreal Boreal forests are known for their conifers, but a real tree of life for them is the aspen. In Finland, there are over 200 species exclusively living on aspen, and many, many more that benefit from it. A large aspen is a hub of life that should be treasured.

🚨 The EU is trying to quietly weaken nature laws during summer break. We have 10 days to stop this. Don't let them destroy our forests, rivers & wildlife in silence. #HandsOffNature www.wwf.eu/campaigns/it...

#SciArtSeptember Day 7: Boreal Still one of the biggest forests and our "second lung" after tropical rainforess, boreal forests are at risk of permafrost thawing with increased temperatures, releasing carbon long locked in frozen soils, and other potential risks for wildlife and humans alike. 🌲

#SciArtSeptember 6 - Prairie The greatest beasts are gone, but maybe the land still remembers. Another version of the idea of ghosts of lost beasts, this time the spirit of a mammoth walking with a bison somewhere in the fragments of the American prairie that still exist.

#SciArtSeptember Day 6: Prairie Often overlooked as “just grass,” prairies are in fact important ecosystems (not only for grass species!). Their deep-rooted plants store carbon, and they're habitat for inverts, grazing mammals, & other small wildlife.🌾🦬🦋 #SciArt

#SciArtSeptember Day 5: Corridor Different species respond differently to forest fragmentation. While some animals use human-made paths, we’ve already fragmented this planet enough—restoring & protecting biological corridors is vital! 🐆🌳

#SciArtSeptember Day 4: Riverbank. Shallow zones along riverbanks usually have slower water flow, providing vital habitats for small fish, breeding areas for amphibians, & support vegetation that filters nutrients and stabilizes riverbanks. 🏞️🐸🐟

#SciArtSeptember Day 3: Jewel ✨ The Maya Jungle is a true jewel—the largest rainforest in the Americas after the Amazon. Belize, Guatemala & Mexico recently agreed to create the Great Maya Forest Biocultural Corridor to protect 5.7M ha of forest, wildlife & Indigenous rights. 🌳🌴💚🌎 🫶🇬🇹

#SciArtSeptember Day 2: Canopy Some 🐸s, salamanders, & insects spend all their lives in the canopy, only coming down to breed or seek shelter in lower layers during rainy days. Bromeliads, other plants, & holes in trees can form "mini ponds" for them, called #phytotelmata. 🌳🐸 #SciArt #SciComm

Day 1: Islet — Tiny islands come in many forms: volcanic peaks peeking from the sea, coral cays built grain by grain, or river islets shaped by shifting sediment. As oceans rise, countless present-day mountaintops may someday become tomorrow’s isolated islets...🏝️ #SciArtSeptember #SciArt #Ink