It's December!🎄 But where are all the Christmas beetles? 😕🪲 Share any Christmas beetle observations with @inaturalist.bsky.social to help figure out why they seem to have disappeared. Even if you're unsure, mis-ID'd observations are valuable too! www.inaturalist.org/projects/chr... 🧪🌏📊 #rstats

Killer whales or orca have been observed hunting with Pacific white-sided dolphins in the waters off British Columbia, Canada, and sharing fish scraps with them after making a kill, according to research in Scientific Reports. go.nature.com/4rZ08RJ 🧪

Big new blogpost! My guide to data visualization, which includes a very long table of contents, tons of charts, and more. --> Why data visualization matters and how to make charts more effective, clear, transparent, and sometimes, beautiful. www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/salonis-gu...

😯🧪🌏

New in Science, Macaques tap to the beat. Very cool study for its main result and its null one: consistent with nearly every other comparative study of music, monkeys don't differentiate beats by their relative strength—which even young children do innately. Monkeys have rhythm but not meter!

If you missed my talk but still want some tips for writing good code for scientists, my slides are here: daxkellie.quarto.pub/a-guide-to-w... All the links and references are there too in case you want to see more! 😀🧪🌏 #ESA2025 #rstats #quartopub

We all want to write good code…but…how? In my talk later today, I’ll give all few tips I’ve learned about good scientific code writing that have really helped me & maybe they’ll help you! Riverbank room 8, 2:50pm #ESA2025

We’re at #ESA2025! Come to the Atlas of Living Australia booth, located conveniently by the coffee cart! Come grab a hex sticker and say hi to me & @shandiya.bsky.social while you’re there 😀☕️

@shandiya.bsky.social shows how huge data infrastructures like the ALA also show what we *don’t* know about biodiversity, but how Data Mobilisation programs & our new {galaxias} package can help people provide data to fill the gaps 👇👀 www.ala.org.au/abdmp/ galaxias.ala.org.au 🧪🌏 #ESA2025 #rstats

For the first time, scientists have documented an unusual defense: Some species of arachnids build giant doppelgängers on their webs, creating a frightening deception that scares off would-be killers. https://scim.ag/487Myn0

Large-eyed animals like owls 🦉 have a trade-off between large eyes & short optic nerves, which lowers eye mobility (to compensate they evolved swivelly necks) But chameleons 🦎 have long, coiled optic nerves with extra slack for eye mobility, allowing them to use their famous large swivelly eyes 👀🧪🌏

New #dataviz on summer heat-stress anomalies in Europe, 1950–2025. 🥵 This map shows hours with WBGT > 29.5 °C—extreme stress where work should be limited. Since 2010, positive anomalies dominate. 300h = 12.5 days of danger. It’s important to focus on the sub-daily exposure. #rstats #climatechange

Spotted this beautifully hairy #owlfly (Acmonotus incusifer) this week. One of the Split-eyed Owlflies, it seems this isn't a commonly observed species. There are only 5 observations in #inaturalist with all of those in Western Australia. #ausinverts #Neuroptera #wildoz #insects #nature

Heard about this at #LivingData2025, if you have biodiversity data you want to share but are not sure how, I think this will be really useful.

www.theguardian.com/environment/... Everyone deserves to see this beautiful piece of science communication. 🌏🧪🪶 There are many things I love about this, but I think number one is that it features the story a little known, but amazing seabird species, the Desertas Petrel.

(1) 🥁 Announcing the 2025 Ebbe Nielsen Challenge winners! First place: 🥇 @rukayaj.bsky.social (@gbifnorway.bsky.social) for BDQEmail Sharing first place: 🥇 @daxkellie.bsky.social, Amanda Buyan, @shandiya.bsky.social and @rowdynerd.bsky.social (Atlas of Living Australia) for galaxias!

I’m a few episodes in and this podcast is *fantastic*

VERY proud to release the first version of the OceanOmics per-site #eDNA reports: every site we sampled over the past 4 years, summarised and visualised. We have >5,500 samples over 950 sites, so eventually we will have 950 reports. Features: (Thread: 1/6)

Want to see what {galaxias} can do? 🤔 Check out slides from a talk we presented on galaxias this week at the Living Data conference: martinwestgate.com/presentation... Or, check out this intro video about galaxias: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO4-... #rstats 🌏🧪🐟

🚨Our new package {galaxias} is released in R & Python today! 🚨 📦 galaxias makes it easy to standardise data to Darwin Core, the accepted format for sharing ecological data with infrastructures like @gbif.org and the Atlas of Living Australia galaxias.ala.org.au #rstats #python 🧪🌏🐟 A thread 🧵👇

These worms can jump up to 20 times their body length—the equivalent of a human jumping the height of an 11-story building—by riding on electrostatic charges 🪱⚡😮 An incredible example of how important electrostatic forces are for many insects & plants (eg pollination) 🧪🌏🐙

🎉Congrats to 2025's Australian Bird of the Year, the Tawny Frogmouth (everyone's favourite tree-stump-that's-not-actually-a-tree-stump)! 🦉 Here's a map of where they've been recorded. Take a photo of the next tree stump you see, it might be a bird of the year!😉 🌏🧪📊 #rstats @birdlifeoz.bsky.social

And of course a big benefit of joining a group like SORTEE is meeting other like-minded people who care about robust and transparent science. Many are on Bluesky! If you’re a member and want to be added, send me a DM 😀 🧪🌏 go.bsky.app/44PpngU

Looks like a good guide - the general data cleaning part is a lean intro to some very common issues in all sorts of data. Would be great if every phd who touches raw data was offered a short course in these basics (in R or Python or whatever HipsterScript) cleaning-data-r.ala.org.au/2_general-cl...

Still want to make cleaning biodiversity data shrimp-ler? 🦐 Good news: We just updated our Cleaning Biodiversity Data in R book, so you still can! We've updated data for 2025, added new content & fixed lots of silly typos 😀 Live the shrimp-le life: cleaning-data-r.ala.org.au #rstats #ecology 🧪🌏

Was listening to D’Angelo just yesterday talking about how he’s one of the greats. Huge loss 💔 RIP pitchfork.com/news/dangelo...

Southern emu wren is a good one for targeted conservation action too. It needs immediate saving from a tenth of it's habitat being converted to a rocket launching facility

Vote now, if you haven't already, for the Guardian's Bird of the Year 2025 It helps to nominate a bird that's endangered, giving it a much higher profile - like Baudin's black cockatoo for example Please vote - this is a wonderful environmental exercise 🙏🏽 🦜 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Field crickets (Gryllinae) aren't just plain brown chirping things in backyards - the group is actually pretty diverse, with >3,000 species. Maybe the weirdest are in the genus Sciobia, which all have these delightful Pikmin-like "hats" 🥺 📸: Sciobia barbara, Pierre-Henri Fabre #EverydayEnsifera

So much this!! Code is so valuable and literally the thing that creates your results. When you include it in your paper it can be such a valuable resource to everyone (plus earn you a couple more citations).

Pink empress Mantis

The threat of extinction is not spread evenly across the tree of life. To protect animals, it’s important to know which ones are most threatened and why. Of all vertebrates (animals with a backbone and skull), amphibians are most threatened with extinction.

That’s me asking a question that appears to be causing everyone else in the audience to have an existential crisis 🥲 Thanks #WOMBAT2025! I had a great time listening to cool speakers and meeting many nice, passionate and impressive people. See ya next time 👋 #rstats

SquidSim is the coolest package - it let's you build complex hierarchical data structures and then simulate data from the world you create. The best tool for doing proper power analyses and testing how well your models can uncover the 'truth'. I've been recommending it to everyone!

Octopuses can use any of their arms to perform tasks, but tend to use a particular arm, or arms, for specific tasks, according to a study in Scientific Reports. go.nature.com/4pjR34k 🌊 🧪

That method is a bit confusing because the countries with which comparisons are being made are distorted. I like this method of comparison better, showing a country’s actual area compared with the Mercator projection.

Even if you don't code (or use Python), the visual way we explain how locations of sensitive species are obfuscated (i.e. made less precise📍) in this post is something I'm very happy with in the end It might be worth a look if you work with sensitive species data 🙂🧪🌏

🔍 Need to search for species in an area with a buffer? 🔵 Learn how to add a buffer in Python and see how to consider threatened species with obfuscated locations in a new ALA Labs post by Amanda Buyan & me 😀 labs.ala.org.au/posts/2025-0... 🧪🌏 #Python #matplotlib #geopandas #geospatial #quartopub

A stack of bricks 🧱 or a luxury frog sauna? 🐸 Many species seek out these warm enclosures and, excitingly, regular visits on warm days can help fight against deadly chytrid fungus too. The fungus is sensitive to heat. ~28°C (82°F) is enough to limit chytrid growth 🧪🌏 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Sex-reversal in birds (genetically male/female but appear female/male) is surprisingly common. Best detail: A genetically male bird called a laughing kookaburra had recently laid an egg. (1/2) By @phiejacobs.bsky.social on @science.org

A tree-ring dataviz where every ring represents that tree’s number of observations each year?? 🌳🤩🌳 Yet another stunning piece of work from @shandiya.bsky.social. This one leafs me speechless 🍃🫢 😜 #rstats 🌏🧪📊

Need to make a species list for an area? 📋🌱 Learn how to download a list of species, cross-reference with conservation status lists, and visualise with {ggplot2} in a new ALA Labs post by me & Amanda Buyan 🔗 labs.ala.org.au/posts/2025-0... #rstats 🧪🌏📊

It's been a while since I last shared my starter pack If you're a stats/data person in or from the Pacific region (not just Australia or Aotearoa) and would like to be included, please let me know! #statssky #episky #databs #rstats #python

Wurmbea tenella - Eight Nancy A widespread winter flower in Western Australia, where it is endemic. Each tepal has a bright purple spot halfway along, advertising the presence of nectary glands to possible pollinators #ozflora #wildoz #nativeplants #bloomscrolling #inaturalist

Apparently I like this colour palette. Am I too predictable lol #rstats 📊

Nautiluses are so cool. They just seem so ancient! 🐙🦑 Like other cephalopods they have tentacles, but not just 8 or 10—they have 47 pairs that lack any suckers or hooks 🤨 They also use their chambered shells to control buoyancy This post was inspired by my friend Omanyte I picked up in Tokyo 🧪🌏

The newly-paired female Powerful Owl this morning. Her nearby partner was displaying a bat, so dinner is sorted. Last night they were very active, calling & purring, mating twice, the female went into the nest hollow to investigate, the male later sat at the entrance purring #brisbane #birds #wildoz

It reminds me of how Kevin Parker (Tame Impala) learned people weren’t hearing the parts he wanted people to hear on Borderline (the bass line + specific harmonies & rhythms), so he redid the sound production and rereleased the song. IMO the newer version sounded better youtu.be/2g5xkLqIElU?...

Some great tips on making better #dataviz 👇 In my experience, the final point—feedback—is invaluable Funny how another person might focus on something completely different to what you intended 🙃 Adjusting from this feedback always makes for a clearer visual message📊🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It's #WorldRainforestDay! 🌴 Australia's Gondwana Rainforests hold examples of major evolutionary & geological stages dating ~359 mya, including the largest surviving population of Araucarians (the most phylogenetically primitive species of conifer) 👴 Code & high-res 📷 👇 #rstats #dataviz 📊🧪🌏🌳