Snake: I'm a rattlesnake. Fear me. Me: You look like a bullsnake. Snake: No. I have a rattle. Listen! Me: That's not a rattle. You're just hitting your tail against the vegetation. Snake: Fear me! #wildlife #nature 🐡

Video: a Timor zebra finch perched on the nose of Aegon, a Komodo dragon. The bird pecks away all over the big lizard's head for peeling skin and insects until he finally shifts position. [via Cincinnati Zoo]

After a lot of work, the first chapter of my thesis is a published article! We compare two popular BKA methods using agreement statistics and dive into the mechanistic underpinnings of the method. There's even a lit review! @biologyopen.bsky.social #academicsky 🧪 doi.org/10.1242/bio....

Video: an Egyptian fruit bat crawling along a branch before demonstrating their pooping technique: flip over to hang from the wing-claws so the butt is aimed at the ground. [Toyohashi General Botanical & Zoological Park]

I'm trying to read a new book, but Piranesi is sitting across the room. Taunting me.

I've had project rattlecam up in the background at work every day this week and I can hardly explain the joy I feel every time a snake pops up! It's been oddly soothing. If you like snakes, definitely check out rattlecam.org! The Colorado den is out of hibernation so you can see some fat snakes!

Every time I hear a bird these days, I bring up Merlin. 9/10 times, it's house finches/sparrows, but sometimes I get to hear something fun! The past two days there's been a chipping sparrow near my house and I'm hoping I'll manage to see him someday

Merlin is the ONLY app you need on your phone! 🎉

I deleted and reposted my journal article because the typo was haunting me

After a lot of work, the first chapter of my thesis is a published article! We compare two popular BKA methods using agreement statistics and dive into the mechanistic underpinnings of the method. There's even a lit review! @biologyopen.bsky.social #academicsky 🧪 doi.org/10.1242/bio....

Oh goodness, I love this little algae dumpling crawling over into the clover and violets to lay eggs. Protect turtles at all costs!

Megatron, hunter of minnows, destroyer of food pellets, absolute drama queen, is 144 grams today. 42 days until she is released back to her native waters in the Chesapeake Bay.

Image: two downy gray plush-toy birdlets with little yellow-trimmed black beaks and the pained squint of the barely-awake, snuggled into blankets together.

I saw the big turtle - I zoomed in and saw the small turtle up and behind it - I knew little turtle would be a bit out of focus and that was all. But when I got home and looked at the photograph, I saw the little bullfrogs along the edge! Zooming in, I count five pairs of frog eyes! 🐢 🐸 📷 👀

How To Live A Good Life #oldknees

What!? Apparently one of the adaptations that queen bumblebees use to survive flooding during winter diapause is slowing their metabolisms so much they can respire UNDERWATER for up to a WEEK. They also accompany aquatic respiration with anaerobic metabolism. I'm stunned. What superstars! #虫 🧪🌎

Friend.

Did you need a larval Sal for #salamandersaturday? Wish granted. Larval California Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma californiense) briefly on display for the public before being released back into its vernal home. #herps

This year's #kakapo breeding season has been the biggest on record: - 256 eggs (252 in 2019) - 148 fertile eggs (116 in 2019) - 105 eggs hatched (86 in 2019). It'll be 2+ months until we know how many chicks will fledge (73 in 2019). There are currently 95 alive. #conservation #kakapo2026 #birds

Conservative men want so badly for nature to be violent and brutal. They want sexual violence to be the law of nature and refuse to consider otherwise. They won't acknowledge that in many species, courtship is consensual, and often, the females are extremely picky, because to do so would be to 1/

Look at this absolute charmer. What an encounter.

Book countdown Day 2- #Echidnas have such incredibly long and quick tongues but they are usually quite hard to see. Have to be quick - takes a lot of ants or termites to fill up an echidna! #thenigmaticechidna out May5 Thanks to @kk-maker.bsky.social for this post from Perth Zoo.

Video: echidna slurping at a lick mat with their wormy sticky tongue. [via Perth Zoo]

Most burrowing frogs use their back feet to burrow, but the appropriately named shovel-nosed frogs use their heads. Despite the large number of burrowing frogs, none have evolved an elongate body, which is a common strategy for burrowers in other vertebrate groups.

Eddie is up, and once again ruler of all he surveys. (Our other desert tortoise, Bob, is also awake for the season, but prefers not to participate in social media at this time.) #Eddiethetortoise 🐢

Field job in the beautiful mountains of NE Oregon doing passive acoustic monitoring and woodpecker demography just went live. Please share! jobs.rwfm.tamu.edu/view-job/?id...

Mojave desert tortoises depend on taking periodic drinks of water from unreliable rainstorms for hydration. Because of this, they can tolerate extremely high conc. of solutes in their bodies when water is scarce -- a state known as anhomeostasis. #thecrittercorner #science #scicomm #tortoises

Hi everyone! As promised, here is my very first installment of #thecrittercorner. My goal is to post these little fun facts with illustrations once or twice a month; I'm hoping to make it a regular thing going forward. Enjoy!

Last night I was down a rabbit hole of why fish can't exist deeper than around 8000 meters and I realized that the deepest a fish has ever gone in the ocean and survived was in a submersible. The fish were people. All vertebrates are fish. I hope this helps with ~~the horrors~~

The wonderful and semi-arboreal evergreen toad. [via Zoo Atlanta]

I'm still in my nest. I may stay here forever. Girl has made me a bath. She's told me that it's available but that she's going to leave maybe instead of putting me in it, since I'm so happy.

Hi everyone! I've been debating what to do with this account since I graduated last summer, since mostly I wanted to share pictures and updates on the research tortoises (I started the account way too late), and after much debate, I've decided to start sharing some animal facts, featuring lovely 1/2

Borb alert! #CaliforniaQuail #QuailGlobe #20F

Love having people whose understanding of CO2 begins and ends at "it's got what plants crave" making decisions about pollution and the environment

I love Beep’s curious head tilts 🐥

Saw a smol bean out after sunset getting a bit of fish carryout😂 #mammals #opossum

Hanging with Uncle Jeremy

Video: black and rufous sengi (giant elephant shrew) snoot compilation. Their absurd long pointy nose wiggles this way and that as they pick their way around their enclosure on their spindly clawed legs. [via Philadelphia Zoo]

Would you give Dennis a kiss? 🐸

My father made his annual visit a bit before the big day (his photo from today). We all tried to convince him to threaten Phil into ignoring his shadow even if he sees it, because this winter sucks and we want it over.

Our friend the Southern Toad is a common toad who lives on the coastal plain of the southeast United States! They are most easily distinguished from other local toads by the knobs and backward-pointing spurs on their head! (photo by Eli McEuen)

IMG: Photo of a little parrot baby sitting on a log. Its tail and outer wing feathers are verdantly green but still stubby, and the rest of it is all pinfeathers and gray fluff.

Hello everyone! I'm looking for job leads or potential PhD positions in Vancouver, BC or Halifax, NS. I graduated in May, 2025 with my MSc in Biology; for my Master's thesis, I studied immune function in the threatened Mojave desert tortoise. I also have experience working in production #Science 🧪1/

Image: a glossy little black snake, the thickness of a string cheese, slithering off through the greenery and leaf litter.

pondering my rorb

beebees

Two new pygmy falcon chicks! Quarters (American) for scale. [via San Antonio Zoo]

🪶

Video: sand cat scrambling through enclosure to keep their strangest visitor in view: a North American porcupine named Humvee on a stroll. The prickly rodent is twice the size of the cat. [Via Potawatomi Zoo]