A furry red and white mite on a white background.
Here's a fabulous arachnid for the feed tonight, a Giant Velvet Mite. Their bright colors appear to be aposematic, warning potential predators of their unpleasant taste and smell.
(Dinothrombium sp.) Portal, AZ 2025 #Arachtober
An IT worker for the nat'l parks drove to a bridge & called a friend to talk him down.
A Medicaid researcher killed herself after repeating "I’m not enough" to her family.
A Social Security worker, whose data was under siege by DOGE, died at her cubicle. www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...
@olbrooks.bsky.social don't you have this?
A woman crouched down along an Appalachian stream flipping rocks for salamanders.
A brown and black salamander sitting in the hands of a human.
First salamanders of the year today with @olbrooks.bsky.social.
It. Is. Time.
A tall tree with a thick trunk in a snowy forest.
I'm a big fan of big trees.
This big ol' Northern Red Oak lives in an old-growth stand in northeast Ohio.
This tree has many features characteristic of old, forest-grown trees: a long, slightly wobbly trunk, a buttressed base, and a few large branches clustered at the tippy top.
I feel like dusky salamanders are the gull equivalent of the salamander world. It's complicated and you have to be reaaaally into it to get.
Trying to understand dusky salamanders and just...wat.
In areas with fire-adapted ecosystems, there is going to be smoke one way or another.
We can help choose when and how communities experience that inevitable smoke. I know people really don't like smoke and I know it has health impacts, but there simply isn't a "no smoke ever" option.
It's officially scream loudly into the void time.
One of my favorite insects. Just love these tiny dudes.
This is my first winter here in western Virginia. We received 2 inches of snow last night. You would have thought the world ended this morning based on the reactions in the city's Facebook group.
It's the eve of Thanksgiving! Who else is just anxiously sitting in their hometown with dread building for tomorrow?
Just me?
A rosette of interwoven shelf mushrooms with layers of blue, tan, red, and other colors. Behind the rosette are red, orange, and brown leaves on the forest floor.
There are few things as fine in the woods as a clump of Turkey Tail.
This is definitely one of my favorite #fungi.
A tight cluster of leaves with white veins growing on the forest floor. A hand is nearby for scale, with the cluster larger than the hand.
The largest clump of Downy Rattlesnake-Master (Goodyera pubescens) I've yet to come across!
This is probably the most common orchid species in the east. While flowers typically take the spotlight when talking about orchids, this species' evergreen leaves steal the show.
#orchid
If you're going to make an algorithm-based discover feed, at least make it good.
A single dead tree standing on the edge of a mountain overlook. The mountains in the distance are covered in oranges and reds from the forest's fall colors.
This year, the fall colors lasted only a week or so in western Virginia. Here is a view from the Blue Ridge Parkway during the peak.
We had one in southwest Virginia last night! First time I've ever seen one. Absolutely wonderful.
The photo above is from a wildfire in southeast Ohio a few years back. Southeast Ohio gets around 400 wildfires a year on average. But if you ask residents whether that happens, most will say no. It's such an interesting discrepancy.
A forest, with some of the understory burned and black, and other parts unburned and filled with leaves. Wisps of smoke rise from larger fallen logs.
It's fire season across much of the East. Wildfires in New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, and others have been getting news attention. Many people are shocked, but wildfires are a common thing in the East! Most times they're small and don't get any attention, making it seem like they don't happen.
A small salamander with bright orange skin, and occasional red dots lined in black.
Well, here I am, on yet another new platform.
May I offer a newt to the algorithm?
