Colin Purrington
@colinpurrington.bsky.social
📤 2430
📥 480
📝 1918
Nature pics and science. Swarthmore, PA, USA.
https://colinpurrington.com
reposted by
Colin Purrington
Aussie Moths
about 20 hours ago
One of the Bobtails or Western Shinglebacks (Tiliqua rugosa rugosa) that lives in our Perth Hills garden showing off the blue tongue these skinks are known for
#reptiles
#ausreptiles
#wildoz
#inaturalist
#nature
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Goiter?
#inaturalist
#tortoise
#reptile
#physiology
www.inaturalist.org/observations...
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Sierra Negra Giant Tortoise (Subspecies Chelonoidis niger guntheri)
Sierra Negra Giant Tortoise in October 2025 by Ryan Chaffee. never seen a tortoise with a double chin before
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/322333198
3 days ago
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So photographs on Bluesky look really bad when zoomed. Are there any tricks to minimize the compression problem? Or should I just stop clicking on images? I've seen lots of conflicting advice.
#photography
#macrophotography
4 days ago
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Lichen covered in ice. From a trip a few years ago to Lake Mohonk, New Paltz, NY.
5 days ago
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Wonderful photographs by Svein Erik Larsen of denticidal capsules of some Silene species. Useful for identifying plants in the fall and winter.
#silene
#inaturalist
#botany
www.flickr.com/photos/svein...
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Silene Seed capsules
6 diifferent Silene capsules 1:Silene vulgaris 2:Silene gallica 3:Silene secundiflora 4:Silene latifolia 5:Silene colorata 6:Silene nicaeensis
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sveineriklarsen/7119699245
5 days ago
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Colin Purrington
Andrew Johnston
7 days ago
Thinking about buying a macro lens for insect photography? Along with
@ageofarthropods.bsky.social
we have been testing many options! Our results are summarized in 2 blog posts in the field
www.insectid.org/post/macro-l...
and in the lab
www.insectid.org/post/lab-tes...
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Macro Lens Comparison in the Field
As I continue to dive deeper into insect macrophotography, I have been exploring lens options and fallen down many YouTube rabbit holes and read probably hundreds of photography blogs and customer rev...
https://www.insectid.org/post/macro-lens-comparison-in-the-field
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Alex Wild
7 days ago
I wasn't that excited about this stock standard photo of a darkling beetle (Eleodes goryi), until I noticed the parasitic tachinid fly egg attached above the insect's midleg. This beetle is on borrowed time.
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Glen Grambo 🇨🇦
7 days ago
Dung beetles know where they want to go. They roll, push or shove their dung ball & every few seconds they stop pushing to climb on top of the ball to make sure they are going in the right direction. This dung beetle male is just climbing down after a look around. More info in alt text
#insects
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Andy Marshall
7 days ago
🤔 Largely unnoticed by visitors to Ripon Cathedral, Henry Wilson’s 1913 repoussé pulpit gleams with Anglo-Saxon saints and burnished light. 📸 I worked hard here to capture how his craft bridges the past and present, the material and the spiritual. A real hidden gem.
#thread
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Tom Sharpe
7 days ago
#MolluscMonday
: a small part of the 'Ammonite Pavement' in the Lower Jurassic Blue Lias Formation at Lyme Regis. Pound coin for scale (if you can spot it).
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Colin Purrington
Alison Fisk
10 days ago
Roman glass cups with colourful enamel decoration of animals from the Roman arena. AD 200s. Found in richly-furnished graves in Denmark. National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. 📷 by me
#FindsFriday
#Archaeology
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Richard Fallon
10 days ago
Does anyone know where the Iguanodon footprints found in the Greensand near Arthur Conan Doyle's house in May 1909, and which ended up on display in his billard room, are today? I suspect they remained with the family, but there are a lot of potential museums they could have ended up in.
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😿 iNaturalist is down. I've grown accustomed to starting my day with a good nature fix.
#inaturalist
11 days ago
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Colin Purrington
Adam Haberski
about 1 month ago
Anyone know what's going on with this dead fly? I think it was on grapevine.
#insects
#entomology
#wtf
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Colin Purrington
Rachel Deering
16 days ago
Bat, Frederick II, De arte venandi cum avibus, c.1310. 🦇
#Gothtober
#BatWeek
#31daysofhalloween
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Callan Bentley
13 days ago
Varves in Castile Formation: seasonal wet/dry variations recorded by alternation between gypsum (white) + calcite (dark) laminae. ⚒️
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Colin Purrington
Jen Cross
14 days ago
Some spiders can fly! OK, not really fly, but spiders in the genus Selenops are able to glide. If they fall from a tree top they are able to steer and even right themselves in order to make their way back to a tree trunk.
#Arachtober
(Selenops sp.) Yasuni National Park, Ecuador 2018
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Colin Purrington
Bernoid
14 days ago
Auriscalpium vulgare - Earpick Fungus. One of my favourite mushrooms.
#FungiFriends
#ConeOfTheDay
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Colin Purrington
David
14 days ago
The Gold-ringed cat snake floating and swimming along a forest stream in Singapore. Beautiful and hypnotic
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Kate Littler
15 days ago
Thoroughly enjoying checking out the spectacular folded and overturned Carboniferous-aged turbidities near Millook Haven on the NE Cornish coast. Lovely sedimentary structures - graded bedding, slumps, load casts, flutes, all subsequently squeezed into tight chevron folds ::chef’s kiss:: ⚒️🧪🌍
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Colin Purrington
Sue Stone
15 days ago
Timeline cleanser: Banded Iron formation, Soudan, MN We took a drive over there today. I adore interesting
#geology
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Colin Purrington
Surgeons' Hall Museums
17 days ago
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.
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Colin Purrington
Natural History Museum, London
17 days ago
A long-held myth about a mosquito evolving in the London Underground has been debunked! 🦟 The insect gained notoriety in the Second World War, when it fed on Londoners seeking shelter in the rail tunnels during the Blitz. Discover its true origin story.👇
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...
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Origins of the London Underground mosquito revealed | Natural History Museum
New research reveals that these insects likely evolved in the Mediterranean basin more than 1,000 years ago.
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2025/october/origins-of-the-london-underground-mosquito-revealed.html?utm_source=bls-link-post-20251024-ec&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=news
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Many of the articles on the mosquitoes that were recently found in Iceland mention wine ropes. Here's a video by
@savebutterflies.bsky.social
showing how to make them.
#entomology
#insects
#wine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZcj...
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National Moth Night 2020 - how to attract moths using wine ropes and sugaring
YouTube video by Lancashire Branch Butterfly Conservation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZcjBfvwZTY
18 days ago
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Fernandina marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus cristatus). Always kind of low energy but particularly so when I visited, in 2015, because El Niño had reduced the abundance of red and green algae near the shore.
#ElNino
#reptiles
#galapagos
#iguanas
#weather
#algae
20 days ago
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Colin Purrington
Jen Cross
22 days ago
This lovely friend is a Burrowing Wolf Spider, introduced to me by
@apsciencebylyn.bsky.social
in northern Florida. (Geolycosa sp.)
#Arachtober
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Jen Cross
22 days ago
Here's a fabulous arachnid for the feed tonight, a Giant Velvet Mite. Their bright colors appear to be aposematic, warning potential predators of their unpleasant taste and smell. (Dinothrombium sp.) Portal, AZ 2025
#Arachtober
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Sunrise over Daphne Minor and Daphne Major, treeless tuff-cone islands in the Galápagos archipelago.
#galapagos
#islands
#volcanoes
#ecuador
#ocean
22 days ago
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Dicyrtomina ornata, a globular springtail. The setae-like structures on the rump are brittle, hollow tubes made of wax.
#collembola
#springtails
#dicyrtomidae
#arthropods
23 days ago
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Colin Purrington
Don Yee
24 days ago
Blog post on some research in the lab thanks to
@entsocamerica.bsky.social
. This is undergrad Liz Wynne's big discovery of a non-raft laying Culex. If you didn't catch the original paper in Scientific Reports you can read the blog. 🦟🧪
entomologytoday.org/2025/10/16/u...
.
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Unique Egg-Laying Behavior Re-Discovered in Culex Mosquito Species
Culex antillummagnorum doesn't lay eggs in a tight group like fellow Culex species. Instead, females hover or perch above pools of water in plants and drop in eggs one at a time.
https://entomologytoday.org/2025/10/16/unique-egg-laying-behavior-rediscovered-culex-antillummagnorum-mosquito/
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Colin Purrington
Jen Cross
25 days ago
Here is an ant-mimicking spider from the Amazon rainforest. I was heading down a trail back to our boat and saw it and got a few shots. It's one of 3 observations of the species on
@inaturalist.bsky.social
(Myrmecium deladanta) Cuyabeno Reserve, Ecuador 2022
#Arachtober
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This fungus gnat emerged from a pile of rotting walnuts that I have a net over. Possibly Leia bivittata (Mycetophilidae), the larvae of which surround themselves in transparent bags of mucus that are extended whenever they want to move. Would like to see that.
#diptera
#flies
#gnats
#fungi
#walnuts
24 days ago
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I'm not exactly sure of the details, but this web-traffic business seems to be pushing the use of iNaturalist as way to increase ad revenue. One recommendation is to create an account and then direct users to webpages that ostensibly have nature content (and ads).
#inaturalist
#advertising
24 days ago
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Colin Purrington
EnberLight
24 days ago
Did you know that there's an orchid that grows, and flowers, completely underground? It requires the help of a particular bush and fungi to get nutrients. And it's become very hard to find in the wild.
#Science
#News
🌱
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'It lives underground and is fabulous': The race to save the world's rarest orchid
The world's most mysterious and elusive orchid lives underground in Australia. Scientists are trying to rescue this botanic marvel from going completely extinct.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250925-the-race-to-save-the-worlds-rarest-orchid
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Colin Purrington
FrontRangeWildflowers
27 days ago
Peltigera venosa, our Fan Pelt Lichen, flourishing on a mossy Ceran St. Vrain slope 🌿
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Colin Purrington
Lambeth Palace Library
24 days ago
This flyleaf comes with real flies! This early 18th century book has four flies preserved between the paste-down and the flyleaf. We wonder how they got there! [Sion A61.4/Ex1]
#LambethPalaceLibrary
#RareBooks
#Flyleaf
#SionCollege
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Eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) missing its hind wings, probably the result of a bird or mantid attack. Seemed to be making the best of the situation.
#insects
#lepidoptera
#butterflies
#monarda
#flowers
24 days ago
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Colin Purrington
Tom Iwanicki
25 days ago
Dazzling! Look at the twinkly iridescence of a ctenophore at ca. 5,000 m deep just above a vast expanse of polymetallic nodules. Tune in to EV Nautilus Live to see stunning critters & listen to the crew rank the food they are missing while at sea
add a skeleton here at some point
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Colin Purrington
Erik Stokstad
25 days ago
How to protect your children by covering them in fungus (if you’re a stinkbug)
www.science.org/content/arti...
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These stinkbugs coat their eggs in fungi to protect them from parasitic wasps
An unusual relationship could shed light on how insects choose their partners
https://www.science.org/content/article/these-stinkbugs-coat-their-eggs-fungi-protect-them-parasitic-wasps
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Colin Purrington
Jakob Jilg
25 days ago
My report for the Weevil Course I visited earlier this year in Arizona is ready!
www.curculionoidea.org/gorgojito/vi...
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Curculionoidea - Visiting the Weevil Course & Roundup in 2025
By Jakob Jilg
https://www.curculionoidea.org/gorgojito/visiting-the-weevil-course-roundup-in-2025
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For monarch fans, just a reminder that now is the perfect time to start stratifying milkweed seeds so that they'll germinate in the spring.
#monarch
#butterflies
#milkweed
#asclepias
25 days ago
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One of the remora following a group of manatees a few years ago near Icacos Cay, PR. I always bought into the idea that they were scraping off parasites but apparently stomachs are full of manatee feces. Not sure which species this is.
#remora
#fish
#manatees
www.inaturalist.org/observations...
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Genus Echeneis
Echeneis from Ocean Park, San Juan, Puerto Rico on March 24, 2016 at 11:20 AM by Colin Purrington. Near group of West Indian manatees.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/321234987
25 days ago
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Just got blocked by a guy I was following after I praised him for an excellent blog post and let him know (privately) it had a tiny typo. I've received hundreds of messages about errors on my site over the years and I'm grateful for every single one. Most of them were sent by my mom.
#science
25 days ago
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Colin Purrington
Lloyd Davies
25 days ago
A Pseudoscorpion from the garden in Shaftesbury last week, this one is the Reddish Two-eyed Chelifer, Roncus lubricus.
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Colin Purrington
Lloyd Davies
25 days ago
A garden find from Shaftesbury this week, I occasionally see these in the house (usually the kitchen) but this is the first outdoor one I've seen. This is a Wine Cellar Spider, Psilochorus simoni carrying her eggs. (I do have a small cellar but rarely any wine for very long)
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Colin Purrington
Ann Finkbeiner
26 days ago
Eric's black locust tree shades his neighbor's tomatoes. This situation often doesn't end well but in Eric's case, everybody kind of forgot about it and the neighbor moved away so fine. But not before Eric and trees have to come to terms.
www.lastwordonnothing.com/2025/10/13/t...
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Colin Purrington
Armando Rosario-Lebrón
28 days ago
Learning the spiders of the UK for Halloween season! This Linyphia triangularis (correct me if wrong) was beautifully posed in its delicate web on a cool day.
#ukwildlife
#bugsky
#Invert
#Linyphiidae
🌿
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Marbled orbweaver (Araneus marmoreus). Plump (gravid), orange females are sometimes called pumpkin or Halloween spiders. Rose Valley, PA.
#spiders
#arachnids
#halloween
26 days ago
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Colin Purrington
Tom Iwanicki
27 days ago
Kailua Beach, Hawai’i: The first time I laid eyes on a By-the-wind sailor, I stopped dead in my tracks, dusted the sand off my hands, grabbed my iphone and...
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Colin Purrington
Eric R. Eaton
27 days ago
Fulgoraecia exigua is the Planthopper Parasite Moth, a diminutive creature, the caterpillar of which lives as an external parasite of planthoppers, sucking the host’s hemolymph. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA, October 14, 2025.
#bugsky
#moth
#moths
#insects
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