Dr Rachel Hale Marine Biologist

Perish and publish

When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

Read all about our adventures catching a real-life demogorgon from the Antarctic deep! @marine-omics.bsky.social @arcsaef.bsky.social

www.marine-omics.net/2026/03/04/f...

Lol that's fair. I actually haven't been to the US for a while now.

But you should go to Greece/Cyprus if you haven't already. The cheese-pastry concoctions are top tier!

Yeah I know. That's always an issue.

Many restaurants, even in Nelson, where providing a veggie/vegan alternative is not an after thought but a large portion of the menu.

Oh really? Yeah I feel like we are good at the halloumi/mushroom alternatives. NZ too if it tempts you over 😉

There is an amazing halloumi burger in central Wellington.

Hmmm well if I come across another I'll definitely try it now!

Luxon? More like Luxoff!

This made me lol. Classic.

Noodlebar, Gloucester Green Oxford, UK
Franks, Norwich, UK

Bonus: I mourn the loss of the incredible onion rings at our local chippie. They switched to shop bought and they're awful and expensive now.

On the one hand we should try and make the deep sea seem less distant and scary.

On the other hand deep sea animals are heckin cool and should definitely have cool names. I'm on the side of "demon whale-biter" for this one.

🐙🦀🌊🦑🧪🪸

Identifying the “demon whale-biter”: Patterns of scarring on large whales attributed to a cookie-cutter shark Isistius sp The presence of crater-like wounds on cetaceans and other large marine vertebrates and invertebrates has been attributed to various organisms. We review the evidence for the identity of the biting age...

Dawg if I was a cookie-cutter shark and found out that my species could have been known as the "demon whale-biter" instead I'd be fuckin' *pissed*. Absolute nomenclatural humiliation.

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

A large iced coffee (in a reusable receptacle!) and a rectangular green cake on a tray.

Transitting home via Singapore.

The green coconut cake was good!

A woodcut of a bird beside the text "YOU UNBEARABLE FUCKING DUMBSHIT"

A report is something that an org can say "we funded that" but intangible, often slow and many unmeasurable conservation gains aren't desired.

It seems to me after interacting with some of these large funding orgs that the funding is only there to fund these information gathering reports. Funding a team of efficient doers (even established ones) doesn't seem to be possible as it doesn't produce "a result".

👀👀👀

Good article, but the framing is wrong. There is not a dearth of interest in taxonomy. There is a scarcity of funding and positions, which is a deliberate choice by funding agencies and institutions. The youth love taxonomy! It's the olds that are failing to meet their passion!

Opinion | To Save Life on Earth, Bring Back Taxonomy (Published 2024)

Quote: "We need to be able to interpret genetic data in a way that humans can understand and use. That's taxonomy's job. And if we want to save what's left of the vast diversity of life on Earth, we'll have to reinvest in this science."
www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/o...

It's the funding of taxonomic research & training that's dying out. Without an ability to identify life forms, we can't recognize/quantify invasions & extinctions and their impacts on ecosystems. Imagine trying to repair a complex steel structure if you can't distinguish different types of bearings.

A close up of the emojis

Mine says "no glyph"
Weird

Genuinely want those bottom two as slippers though...

Alright if you don't like that one there is the Spider Moonsnail....

I know. I was trying to be annoying 😜

Now do fire-work jelly-fish...

6 bad doodles with text under each one. horseshoe crab is literally the animal horseshoe crab. shoehorse crab is a crab riding a shoe, cowboy style. crabshoe horse is a horse wearing literal crabs as shoes. shoecrab horse is a horse telling a crab to go away. crabhorse shoe is a pair of shoes, left one crab shaped, right one horse shaped. horsecrab shoe is literally the same pair of shoes, flipped.

#InvertebrateShitposting as per @joabaldwin.com's request

WHAT

Where are you???! Hopefully not home! I want to go back to the warm!

'There are so many bones everywhere': The whale graveyards that transform the deep sea A photographer captured this extraordinary site where whales' bodies lie in the shallows, with troubling repercussions for the deep oceans.

"As whale populations continue to struggle, a decline in whale falls is reported to have reduced the biodiversity of deep sea ecosystems – and has likely contributed to the extinction of species before we ever knew of their existence." @kathla.bsky.social

www.bbc.com/future/artic...