#naturalists

[prokopetz]

Game: see how far you can get into any given Tumblr post about "naturalists" before being forced to draw any firm conclusions regarding whether the post is talking about wildlife scientists or nudists.

[mouseshouses]

Naturalists.

This little diorama will be living at the wonderful Green Bean Books in Portland for a few months.  It’s in the science section!

[apsciencebydan]

Short story time, about a reason I love doing what I do, in particular the science/naturalist aspect!

I spotted an unfamiliar ant a few weeks back (which isn't an entirely rare occurrence as I don't know ants well) here in Florida, got a few pics, moved on. After posting to iNat, it turns out it is kind of a rare one, though they couldn't be sure from my pics which of two species it was. So I went back to the site, found another, and got species confirmed: Temnothorax bradleyi, an acorn ant species which nests in pines. So that was fun on its own!

But here's the part that makes things extra rewarding for me: Finding a thing, then learning from a scientist about a related rarer thing and where to look for it, and then finding that as well. The scientist on iNaturalist who positively identified T. bradleyi gave a piece of information that helped confirm the species: T. bradleyi nests in *living* pines (where I found them), and the other similar-looking species, T. smithi, nests in *standing dead* pines.

So I had a new quest. I went searching a location in Florida which seemed like a likely habitat with many dead/burnt out pines, and found T. smithi!

There does not seem to have been any photographs of either species alive before mine, according to the scientist, so that's also cool to do!

The part where I learn about a thing by finding it, then get a whole other tiny world opened up, with creatures I've either overlooked or not encountered at all, will never get old to me. It's so damn fun, and rewarding. So many creatures to find, so many who've only had their moment in an obscure scientific paper seen by almost no one - maybe never even seen alive; now getting their own page with pictures on iNaturalist or wherever else... 🥹

It just makes me happy. That is all. ❤️

So here's Temnothorax bradleyi, which nests on living pines:

(diagnostic feature visible in the studio shot: the short rear-facing spines on the back of the thorax)

And here is Temnothorax smithi:

(the thorax spines are longer in this species, visible in the studio shots)

[sarasakyfreesoul]

Weekend on Mount Rtanj, encounters with naturalists. We learned all kinds of new things, about nature, crystals, how to take care of mother earth, and much more. 💚

[mypastnow]

[futurebird]

An ant we know little about, Cataglyphis lutea

Cataglyphis lutea (UAE and parts of India) is a desert dwelling ant, the photos of this ant on iNaturalist caught my eye, since, like Leptomyrmex erythrocephalus (the Spider Ant of Australia), this these little ants fold their gasters over their mesonoma.

Very little is known about Cataglyphis lutea, shockingly little. I can't even find a mention of gaster folding in any of the brief descriptions of this ant.

*This* is why descriptions are not enough.

Yes we have identified thousands of species of ants, but for many all that means in a single dry sample in a museum drawer and five or six sentences describing the ant. We know nothing of the ants behavior, their interactions with other ants and arthropods, their role in the environment.

Leptomyrmex erythrocephalus, is called the "spider ant" but it's not even clear if this ant is trying to mimic a spider, or mimic anything at all. As for what C. lutea is doing? These are her mysteries.

(photos by Jonghyn Park and TimL)

I was able to find a paper about the genus Cataglyphis that uses some serious geometry to make the case that raising their gaster may improve mobility. But, this paper did not cover ants that fold the gaster all the way over as these ants do.

[luckybatbones]

a male io moth Automeris io

sarasota, fl

march 2023

io moths are sexually dimorphic (meaning you can identify which are male and female) this one right here is bright yellow and has fuzzier antennae, which are the indicators of the male io moths.

this is a female io moth i saw in late january (in sarasota). she is a reddish-brown color and has thin antennae, which are indicators of the female io moth. most giant silkworm moths, the family saturniidae, males have fuzzier antennae than the females. however, io moths also have a color difference!!

[agitamaria]

[try-and-try-and-try-again]

17.07.24 - Young Darwin Scholarship Day 3

Today there was a heavy focus on marine life. The majority of the day was spent at Plymouth with the Ocean Conservation Trust.

1-2. Possibly my highlight of the visit to the National Marine Aquarium was meeting Rodger the Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris). I’ve written about the Common Octopus so much at school and university but this was my first time seeing one in the flesh and it was a special moment for me.

3-4. The other two most in-focus photos I took at the aquarium. A beautiful little jellyfish and a clown fish. I don’t know the specific species of either. I wish I’d thought to take photos of the signs - I did for other creatures so I don’t know why I didn’t for these two. Maybe it was because I was a bit overwhelmed in the aquarium and may not have been thinking clearly. It’s a brilliant independent aquarium that prioritises the welfare of the animals, conservation and research, it was exciting to see so many amazing creatures and I thoroughly recommend visiting it, but lots of spaces were crowded and noisy and had strange lighting which I personally found hard to deal with.

5. After a tour of the aquarium and a talk on conservation work, plankton and dichotomous keys we went on a boat trip round Plymouth Sound. We did some plankton trawling and looked at the findings under a microscope. There were a few zooplankton but also sadly, microplastics. Plankton levels are increasing around the UK, particularly phytoplankton, due to climate change which is drawing more whales to our coast lines to feed than before, hence why whale sightings are going up. Plankton is a significant indicator of environmental conditions and has an important role in food chains so recording their presence is important. The definition of plankton is anything that cannot swim freely against the current and can cover organisms of various sizes. Zooplankton are divided into Holoplankton which remain as plankton for their entire lives, and Meroplankton which live as plankton only at certain stages of their life cycle.

6-8. On the boat trip we also pulled up three Edible Crabs (Cancer pagurus) using smoky bacon as bait (apparently it specifically has to be smoky bacon). There was one male (picture 7) and two females (one of which is in picture 8). Their sexes are determined by the shape of the undersides of their exoskeletons. The prominence of the female’s features suggest she may be carrying eggs. We were hoping to see Cetaceans and Seals from the boat but alas no. Nature is unpredictable.

9. Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dolcamara) spotted on the way to the beach and bridge to look for otters again.

10. No otters were spotted but there was a parade of 22 Canada Geese! I also saw my first ever (live) Kingfisher!!!

Today was hard going again, I can’t lie. I came close to sitting things out but I really wanted to try and keep up. I am sick of the constant battle between pain, fatigue and sensory overload and the desire to see, learn and experience things. Thankfully the people I am with have been so accommodating and helpful and it was a good day over all. Another highlight was hearing lots of nice folk music on the way back from Plymouth that I am glad to have been made aware of (one of the scholars is Scottish and a cèilidh musician and had a playlist).

[walks-the-ages]

Another cool new Project Gutenberg book just dropped!

[misforgotten2]

Wholesale Prices of the Frank Blake Webster Company Catalogue for 1901 - "Dealers in everything required by naturalists."

[wisdomfish]

Far from justifying their underlying presuppositions, naturalists illegitimately rest their scientific operation on Christian theistic principles.

Greg L. Bahnsen

[blueiscoool]

A Rare Orchid Thought Extinct Rediscovered in Vermont after 120 Years

The small whorled pogonia, a federally threatened species of orchid, has been rediscovered in Vermont – 120 years after the plant was last spotted in the state.

The plant was last documented in Vermont in 1902, Aaron Marcus, an assistant botanist at Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, said. Naturalists had searched extensively for the small whorled pogonia in Vermont but come up empty-handed.

The small whorled pogonia is “one of the rarest orchid species east of the Mississippi,” said Marcus. The rarity of the species may have to do with its dependence on fungi in the environment, a relationship that is still little understood by scientists.

“One thing that’s really cool about our orchid species is that most of them are really, really dependent on fungal species, species we can’t see underground, connected to our root system, which makes it so hard for us to understand orchids and what they need,” Marcus said.

The last known documentation of a small whorled pogonia in Vermont was a photograph of a plant that had been dug up and placed in a flower pot, Marcus said.

The discovery of an outcropping of the plant in Vermont is “a really great and exciting bright light,” said Marcus. The population is “perhaps the most northerly population in the whole range of small whorled pogonia,” which are found in southern Maine south to Georgia and west to southern Ontario, Michigan, and Tennessee.

The orchids are threatened by climate change, habitat loss, and collection or trampling by humans.

Marcus explained that the population of small whorled pogonias in Vermont was discovered by a retired greenhouse manager who posted pictures of the orchid to iNaturalist, an online platform for amateur naturalists to identify plants and animals around them. Then Marcus and Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department Botanist Bob Popp visited the site and confirmed it was indeed a small whorled pogonia on May 25. The department made the discovery public in a news release published on June 8th.

“It was very exciting” to discover the orchid, said Marcus.

The “most important thing is to protect the plants where they are,” Marcus added. “That’s really our first priority, for them to be able to thrive in place.” The plants are located on publicly protected lands in Winooski Valley Park District, and the department is keeping their exact location a secret to ward off would-be collectors.

For Marcus, the discovery is an “incredible and humbling” reminder of how much scientists have left to learn about the natural world. “There’s more to find out there,” Marcus said. “There’s so much right in our backyards that we just don’t know, or that we once knew and we need to relearn.”

Botanist Bob Popp shared Marcus’ excitement at the “amazing find.”

“Things like that don’t happen that often,” Popp said. “I’ve been in my position for 32 years, and more often than not I’m documenting the decline of species,” he said. “Things going the other direction – it’s just phenomenal.”

Going forward, Popp said his team members hope to monitor the population. They found evidence of damage from slugs on some of the plants, and the orchids may also face threats from browsing by animals like deer.

Popp also emphasized the importance of naturalists “reporting what they see” in the outdoors. “There’s no substitute for eyes and ears in the woods,” he said.

By Zoe Sottile.

[largeintestineswithbadaim]

HELLO I WOULD LIKE TO TEACH YOU ABOUT AN ICONIC MAN NAMED CHARLES WATERTON BUT HE IS ALSO KNOWN AS

THE SQUIRE

(TW: very old taxidermy effigy of a human made of a monkey's ass)

He was born June 3rd 1782, he was an English naturalist

He claimed to have punched a boa constrictor in the face and ridden a crocodile.

He was known to hide under his dinner table in order to bite his guest's legs

He even taxidermied a howler monkey's ass to look like his tax collector's face for trying to tax him for his exotic specimen (it was actually quite a good taxidermy for what it was ngl)

When another naturalist, John J Audubon, suggested (albeit, wrongly, but that wasn't discovered for another hundred years) that vultures do not use scent to detect food, The Squire proceeded to wage war. He spent five years sending letters with the same energy as a controversial Twitter thread about Audubon and vultures' noses to the natural history magazine, after the nineteenth they stopped publishing his letters. He proceeded to publish the later letters himself.

He became leader of a group known as the Nosarians. Meanwhile, Audubon became the leader of a group known as the Anti-Nosarians.

Some excerpts of his letters: "Pitiful indeed is the lot of the American Vulture! His nose is declared useless in procuring food, at the same time his eyesight is proved lamentably defective." "I am now quite prepared to receive accounts from Charleston of vultures attacking every shoulder of mutton sign, or attempting to gobble down the painted sausages over the shop doors"

(p.s. please check out The Unexpected Truth About Animals by Lucy Cooke, it's so funny but also so interesting and I love it so much)