February flash, flung 1 day late =D

 He is glorious; she has the munchies.

It's that time of year, turkeys parading all over.

I LOVE the percussion males provide to accompany their dance. SO COOL!

Squirrel-y cunning leads to tasty breakfast.

Extremely impressive core strength in this creature.

BIG THING FOR FEBRUARY:

new-to-me species!

Common sharp-tailed snake (Contia tenuis) I found while raking around the grape arbor.

 Pretty gorgeous tummy, eh?

Those are pine needles, so you can see this is a SMALL snake.

It was kinda cold, so I righted the snake for a photo,

then returned it to its home under a bunch of leaf litter.

Such an exciting discovery, and I'm glad it was unharmed (far as I could tell).

For more info on this species, I highly recommend its page at Calherps.

Now that gardening activity is on the upswing (here in the northern hemisphere),

a friendly reminder to CHECK under your row covers

EACH a.m. & release anything trapped w/in. =)

Beautiful male wasp (ichneumon, I believe)

I found under my row cover and released. 

It was 0% aggressive and, btw, males don't have the

equipment to sting. Note LACK of pointy barb @ end. =)

From February 1st--note the snow on the ground.

Seems like FOREVER ago. =)

Super cool stuff soil does when the cold freezes the water out.

I didn't grow up in really cold places, so this is fascinating to me. 

One of the first macro photos I ever took was

of this non-native early bloomer, red-stemmed filaree.

Changed my view of the world.

I'm a sucker for visible pollen grains, especially on purple anthers! =)


A lovely little flower...

Gorgeous small beetle I saw clambering across the greenery as I photographed the above flower.

So glad I got to see it.

Wildlife prints I found at the work site:

best part is the gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) print...

you can SEE the fur on the underside of the fox feet. SO cool!

K. That's some of the myriad delights that transpired in spring.

March onward!!! =)

xoxooxbb

random bio vocab quiz

  

The above photo is apropos of nothing (it's big, so feel free to click). I just like it. =)
Well, and it's kindof how I feel right now, having woken up at 3 a.m.
WIDE awake and a little off.... =)

This phrase has been in my head (though thankfully, lightly) for several days.
Time to make it a quiz, then define and explore it.

medulla oblongata

Please submit your without-looking-it-up guesses, including fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants wild proposals, via comments, and they will be posted. The most accurate submittals will a) be lauded, b) be posted LATER, so folks can have a chance to be as slick as thou.

'der ya go. datsit.

bb

super sneaky tentacled snake...

 
This video on Scientific American shows how this animal takes advantage of the prey's normally helpful reflexes and SNAP! Lunch. And reveals what those tentacles are for.

Dastardly! =)

bb

ew...

 
Sometimes being a biologist has it's costs.

I just woke up.

This morning I was dreaming, the images crystal clear, that I had a bunch of house plants and they'd been invaded by pale green scale insects, and sometimes when I'd reach in to scrape them off, some that were in a row would then raise up and morph into a green caterpillar which would then start walking. And there were ants surrounding the whole mess.

ew.

I think it was inspired by Bug Girls post on shellac, "also not a beetle," and its reference to a previous post on scale insects.

For some reason, scale insects creep me out. I think it's 'cause when I wasn't paying attention, they found and then COVERED my little plant, a cute little pink polka dot thing that I loved. I was so grossed out I chucked the whole thing out in the trash in the alley.

I know. I should have handled it. I am a biologist, after all. However, I do reserve the right to get grossed out by a very few things. Maybe next time I'll deal.

So, as I have suggested before, sometimes when a biologist is dreaming about a snake, rather than dipping into handy psychological symbology and suggesting it's a sexual thing, ask yourself if they actually handle snakes.

Sometimes a snake is just a snake.

Especially if you're a biologist.

And now, I'm off to check my plants for scale.

=)

biobabbler

P.S. What wildlife thing freaks you out?

OMG: This post freaked me OUT!

 
Just check this out, from mainly mongoose.

WOW!

Mouth agape over and over.

xobb