the world is pretty! yay!

⊹₊ things I find interesting ₊⊹ + low quality photos taken by my bomb of a cellphone 😃

[scrumpygoat]

made a companion piece for my basilosaurus tattoo >:3c

[utterly-amazed-bee]

Sooooo, I do a technical course of Apiculture/Beekeeping and recently I've joined a project destinated to take care of the campus' bee collection.

What happens is that it is pretty fucked up, and I don't know exactly what might be the cause :\

Might be a fungus, might be little bugs (I've seen some really really tiny ones running around, but couldn't even see them properly think of what they might be).

Before I start to take action on it, I would like to hear if anyone knows what's going on there.

Anything would be a great help :)

[wild-e-eep]

Mystery Webs!

I come across these webbed-up fungi occasionally. They look quite like the tent-webs of some moth and sawfly larvae, but differ in occurring later in the year; enclosing a fungus instead of a food-plant; not being full of specks of caterpillar dung; you also rarely see any living (or dead) creatures, eggs or pupae in them.

The cleanness of the webs and the way they are restricted to a particular fungus might make you think you are looking at a grey, fuzzy mould.

To find out what was making these, I took a piece home and kept it in a vivarium. Checking on the vivarium in the middle of the night I spotted a small mealworm-like creature moving through the web, leaving a slime trail behind it. I caught it and put it in an empty enclosure where it soon started fervently weaving by bobbing its head back and forth at an impressive rate, extruding silk from spinnerets on its snout. In the morning, the new enclosure was full of webs, and the larva resting in the middle.

I believe these larvae are fungus gnats of the family Mycetophilidae - a large family of small, rather plain flies with thousands of described species, most of which lay their eggs on fungi. I haven't found much witten about the function of the webs: maintaining a humid atmosphere; excluding other small creatures; catching spores for consumption have all been mooted. The larvae also seem to be able to move smoothly and rapidly through their silk network.

[westformiles]

@onenicebugperday

[easel-eisel]

big moth? please identify

[bisexualbaker]

[Image: An owl inside someone's house, perched/clinging to the top of some drapes, its wings spread and resting tent-style so it resembles a moth.]

[bugapalooza]

@onenicebugperday

[onenicebugperday]

The wing pattern reminds me a lot of brahmin moths, which are also sometimes called owl moths :)

This one is Brahmaea wallichii photographed by arthur_chapman

[great-and-small]

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

[iravaid]

Visit Original Link

On conservation and survival

[konn-torm]

Tips on how to care and get connected with nature

1: Pick up trash

2: Avoid AI! Support actual artists/writers etc

3: Support/volunteer at animal shelters

4: Put out feeders and bird baths for the local critters

5: Plant trees or flowers outside or in your house (make sure the trees/flowers are native to your area)

6: Talk or sing to your plants (yes plants love it)

7: This tip depends on the circumstances, but I've helped many stray dogs and cats that I randomly take in and care for till I find them a home

8: Instead of buying from factory farms, buy stuff from local farms or grow your own food

9: Spay and neuter pets (there's enough unwanted babies in the world)

10: Don't buy from breeders or puppy mills, get ones from shelters or pick up a stray

11: If you see an animal being abused or neglected, report it

12: Build birdhouses or bat boxes

13: Donate/volunteer to organizations that protect endangered species and natural habitats

14: Reuse containers, clothes and bags instead of throwing them away, learn to sew

15: Put out water for wild critters during hot weather

16: If you have leftover food, offer it to homeless or stray animals

17: Save electricity, open windows for sunlight, unplug chargers when not in use

18: Instead of cars, walk, bike, ride horse, bus or train

19: Go swimming in a lake, pond, river or ocean etc

20: Go barefoot often (in mud, grass, dirt, water)

21: Go bird watching, listen to their sounds and guess what type of bird it is or what the call means, take pictures, draw or write it down in a journal

22: Sit under a tree or by a stream, go for walks/hikes, look at the moon and stars, observe animal behaviour

23: Use a large rock to hold a door open, hold paper down or paint on, use a feather as a bookmark, make jewelry out of things you find in nature

24: Don't buy fur clothing/tails from fur farms or alligator skin pursues/shoes etc

25: Watch animal documentaries or read books

26: If you have a rodent problem, use the humane traps

27: Thank the earth

[acarinarium]

As a naturalist one thing I know is that most of us love to yap about what we've seen and learnt, so...

Naturalist ask game

What do you tend to focus on in terms of taxa? Animals, plants, specific orders or families? Marine biology, parasites, other looser groupings?

If you record your sightings somewhere like iNaturalist, iRecord, etc., how many observations do you have?

How many species?

Identifications?

A taxon you're good/best at identifying

A taxon you would like to learn to identify

A globally rare species you've seen (you can be as vague as you want since these can get doxxable lol)

A species you've seen that's rare in your area

An uncommon species (local or global) that you find a weirdly high number of

A species you wish you could see that isn't found in your area

A common species in your area you haven't seen yet

An uncommon local species you want to find

A local species that you find cool

A common species you still get excited about

An introduced species you still enjoy seeing

The most recent species you've seen

A species you've recently found for the first time

A species you've specifically sought out (like going out to a specific habitat/site/country with the intention of finding it). Did you find it?

A taxon you wish more people took notice of

An interesting species interaction you've seen

An anomalous individual you've seen (aberrant colouration, fasciated flowers, extra limbs, etc)

Coolest evidence of a species you've seen (nests, prints, seeds, eggs, galls? Some of those are arguably just forms of the species itself but you get the gist)

An interesting story about how you found an organism

A species you think people should know more about (do give details 👀)

Any nature related art you want to share, yours or someone else's (with credit of course)

Anything else this list has made you want to talk about that I haven't included, I'm sure there's plenty I've missed

Answer however many of these you wish in whichever way you like (in reblogs, in your own post, ask game)! And be longwinded if you want that's what it's all about

If you use iNaturalist this site might help with some of the questions, although of course being underobserved on there doesn't necessarily mean something is rare but you can either go with those or it can be a starting place for figuring out which ones are actually uncommon

[utterly-amazed-bee]

[reasonsforhope]

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

Explainer: what is citizen science?

Public participation in science is increasing, and citizen science has a central part in this. It is a contribution by the public to researc

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

--

I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

[crabussy]

"being a human is so boring why can't I be one of the COOL animals" okay hey. I hear you. but I actually really super love being an omnivorous persistence hunting primate with a stomach capable of dissolving many literal poisons and the ability to smell geosmin (released in the soil after it rains) at five parts per trillion. I super enjoy being a bipedal terrifyingly agile mammal with some of the most efficient sweat glands in the animal kingdom. I find a lot of joy in being an endotherm with mimicry abilities that rival most other animals with vocal chords. it's sick as hell I'm having a lot of fun

[bryoinformatics]

So most people who have been interested in entomology for a little while know that death's head hawkmoths (Acherontia spp.) steal honey from honeybees (Apis spp.) and that honeybees can have some pretty impressive tactics in dealing with intruders, but today I found out that sometimes the bees catch on and kill the intruding hawkmoth, strip it bald, embalm it and cover it in propolis. What the fuck

(Acherontia atropos and Apis mellifera pictured here: photo source)

It's an instinct in honeybees to cover any foreign material that they're unable to drag out of the hive in propolis to prevent pathogens spreading as it decays, and they also do this to mice

[melgillman]

I got to spend a terrific weekend in the woods surrounded by mushroom nerds at SOMA Camp! Here's a handful of scribbly diary comics I drew while I was there.

[spacefroggoo]

[keawi]

i'iwi (Drepanis coccinea) on māmane branch for avian august 2025

[dollpartssgirl]

[utterly-amazed-bee]

June 22th, 2025 >゜))彡

Showing here some nail art that I have previously done because why not

This one I made while watching "Porco Rosso"!!

It turned out better than I expected for my first time using a brush specific to nail art =)

🌊 🐟 🦞 🍊 🍋 🍋 🍊 🦞 🐟 🌊

[razehider]

my good friend Pycnogaster cucullata - mouse-sized beast, maker of high-pitched hums, and lumberer extraordinaire - very clearly prefers to hang out hidden in dense, spiky bushes like gorse in my experience. this one, though, was wandering around on fennel for some reason, which is the exact opposite of a dense plant, allowing me to get a pretty good look at him

i considered handling him for better photos, and easily could have, but even small katydids are famously bitey so i didn't really feel like testing my luck against something of such hippopotamus-like proportions

(May 19th, 2025)