Newton (@mossynewt) — Bluesky Profile

1 day ago

Sphagnum affine and angermanicum #moss #bryophyte

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2 days ago

Anna’s Hummingbird on sakura at dusk

📷🌿🪶🌸

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1 day ago

Depending on where you are in the world and where the spot is light-wise, a buttonbush, Cephalanthus occidentalis, would be a delightful shrub for that spot. They have glossy leaves and stunning flowers that attract all manner of pollinator. The seeds are also highly coveted by birds.

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2 days ago

Shriiiimps! Finally another aquarium themed piece since I really love aquatic critters. Maybe I can have a shrimp tank again someday in the future… which one is your fav shrimp?

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1 day ago

A chicken-like bird walks through dead leaves in front of vegetation with large oval green leaves. The bird has bubblegum-pink legs, black tail and thighs, a rusty-brown body and nape, greenish-brown wings, a grey neck and throat, bright red eyes, and a long pointy bill that is bright yellow turning to a yellow-green toward the tip.

Russet-naped Wood-Rail (Aramides albiventris), Guayabo National Monument, Costa Rica, December 2025.

🌿🪶 #birds
#birding
#nature
#wildlife
#photography
#rails
#birdsseenin2025
#costarica

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1 day ago

I got such a lovely response to the Belted Kingfisher photo I posted, a few days ago, that I wanted to post a short video I recorded of her. She looked right at me!

#birds #photography #ECK #WestCoastKin #PhotographersUnited

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2 days ago

Today's frog is the long-nosed horned frog.

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1 day ago

Photo of a round, orange lichen growing flat on dark grey rock. Lichen is comprised of numerous tightly packed branches radiating outward from the middle. Middle of the lichen is covered in hundreds of small orange discs.

Rusavskia elegans #lichen. About 3cm in diameter. #Yellowknife, NWT, Canada.
#fungi #fungifriends

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1 day ago

Common teal

#birds #photography

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1 day ago

Macro photograph of a bright green, spiky cushion of bristle moss growing on rough tree bark among patches of yellow and pale grey lichens. Dozens of tiny brown capsules sit among the upper leaves, each topped with a pale hairy hood that makes them look like a cluster of little horns. These shaggy coverings are protective hoods called calyptrae that shield the developing spore capsules.

A rather ferocious-looking little Bristle Moss.

#moss #bryophyte

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1 day ago

#fungifriends #mushrooms #mycology #nature #fungi #biology #photography
Daedaleopsis confragosa (thin-walled maze polypore or blushing bracket) a couple of weeks ago.

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1 day ago

Podarcis bocagei on a rock. He has mottled stripes of alternating black and green down his back and gray and black symmetrically mottled markings on his back and tail. He’s male so he probably has around 18 torso vertebrae, whereas a female would be more likely to have 20.

We tend not to think about lizards as exemplars of sexual dimorphism, but there are multiple examples from different clades of females having more vertebrae than males.

It’s usually 1 or 2 more vertebrae in the torso. Probably so there’s more room for babies!🦎🧪

📷Podarcis bocagei by nachoperez

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1 day ago

Macro photograph of Springy Turf Moss (Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus), a moss bryophyte forming a dense colony among blades of lawn grass in Devon.

The yellowish-green moss grows in upright shoots that can reach around 10 cm tall, though here only the upper tips are visible between the grass stems. Each shoot rises from a reddish stem, and the pointed leaves bend sharply backwards at almost right angles, so that each shoot ends in a tiny soft star of pale yellow-green leaves.

The many shoots crowd together into a thick carpet beneath the grass. When walked on, colonies of this moss feel soft and springy underfoot, giving the lawn a spongy texture.

Dew droplets cling to the grass blades and moss tips, catching the light so that the surface appears bright, soft, and faintly glittering, scattered with dozens of miniature star shapes.

Some of the colony of Springy Turf Moss (Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus) that has taken over the village hall yard here in Devon.

The tiny star-like shapes are the moss leaves, bent sharply backwards.

tinyurl.com/rhytidiadelp...

#moss #bryophyte

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1 day ago

Photo of a tuft of Shagnum moss that’s off white to light and medium green in colour. The branches of the moss plants look feathery, radiating out from the centre.

Sphagnum moss. #Newfoundland, Canada. #moss #bryophyte #plants
Photo covers about 6cm, left to right.

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1 day ago

Few more shots from yesterday. First up, a male shoveler.

#birds #photography

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2 days ago

A Southern Bobtail Squid (Euprymna tasmanica) swimming, flapping its fins. Two of its arms (no its centre most arms, maybe the next pair over) are raised up with their tips curled, giving the bobtail squid a very cute and excited look. Its other arms are going down and are curving backward. The bobtail squid's flesh has a pale purple colour and is covered in black and gold chromatophores, with some blue, cyan, red and gold iridescent areas. The background is dark and out of focus.

Its honestly unfair that bobtail squids get to be this cute. I mean, how are you supposed to compete with this?!

🦑📷Lawrence Hylton (www.inaturalist.ca/observations...)

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1 day ago

Reconstruction of the bizarre branching crinoid Iocrinus. Done as part of an internship reconstructing Ordovician invertebrates with Paul Mayer, curator of fossil invertebrates at the Field Museum of Natural History
#sciart #paleoart

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1 day ago

The happiest little nugget man you'll ever see (Zygoballus rufipes) 🥹
#EmotionalSupportSpood #HappyWavyLegs

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1 day ago

3 small matte-orange spiky ants, cutting up a large white flower

Fungus farmer ants (Trachymyrmex septentrionalis) harvesting some blackberry petals for the garden

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2 days ago

This little Ruby was perfectly hidden on the inside of a piling making both lighting and shooting it quite a challenge. I just love the blue hue of its skin in the first shot!

#marinelife #octos #pnwdiving #macrophotography #underwatercreatures

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2 days ago

A rough-skinned brown toad, covered in lots of spiky bumps! They have a thin lighter brown line running down the center of their back and a slightly wider lighter brown line running down their side! They have a cream-colored belly! They have a prominent ridge running from their nose and around their eyes! Their parotoid glands are nearly round and quite small, smaller than their eye!

Our friend the Southern Round-gland Toad is also known as the Dry Forest Toad, or even better in Spanish as the Sapo Chiquito de Bosque Seco! They live in extreme southern Mexico and through Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua! (photo by Josue Ramos Galdamez)

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2 days ago

A bright green moss bryophyte growing as a loose patch on damp soil and decaying wood beside a woodland stream. The shoots rise upright in small clusters, each bearing rounded oval leaves that spread like tiny spoons around the stem. Individual leaves are only a few millimetres across and appear glossy with water droplets. Several darker stalks with developing capsules (sporophytes) are visible among the leaves, hinting at the “dotted” appearance that gives Dotted Thyme-moss (Rhizomnium punctatum) its common name. The surrounding scene includes other mosses, small woodland plants, and mossy wet leaf litter in a shaded Devon woodland.

Dotted Thyme-moss (Rhizomnium punctatum) starting to live up to its name, the leaves dotted with dark capsules.

Growing beside a woodland stream in Devon.

tinyurl.com/rhizomnium-p...

#moss #bryophyte

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1 day ago

A pretty and pretty tiny beetle, smaller than a rice grain, in the Mojave Desert a couple of weeks ago. I think it's a soft-winged flower beetle (family Melyridae).
#BugSky 🐙🌿

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2 days ago

Ypotryll anyone?

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2 days ago

An adult crested caracara sitting on top of a triangular shaped rock, with its back to the camera and looking over its shoulder

A zoomed out view of the crested caracara with nearby grassy hill in the foreground and a large mountain in the background.

A Crested Caracara looking out over the Patagonian steppe
#birds #Chile

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2 days ago

A name just as cute as them

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3 days ago

A macro photo showing alate (winged reproductive male and female) black harvester ants near a burrow entrance on desert sand. The male alate is a bit smaller than the female, and has a markedly smaller head. Also visible, mostly out of focus, are a few wingless workers.

A macro photo, ground level, of a male black harvester ant alate (winged reproductive caste) on desert sand.

A macro photo of an unlucky male black harvester ant alate (winged reproductive caste) hanging upside-down in a spider web.

A macro photo, vertical orientation, looking down at a female black harvester ant alate (winged reproductive caste) on desert sand. To the left of her are two wingless worker ants, both of which are much smaller than she is.

Black harvester ant alates (winged reproductive males & females), Mojave Desert. Their emergence was well-synchronized across numerous colonies; on the same day I saw them coming out of nests hundreds of yards (even a few miles) apart. The male is the tiny-headed one, but I don't judge. #BugSky 🐙🌿🐜

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3 days ago

Yesterday a snow bank. Today, this. A welcome sight in central Connecticut. In the 70s near 80 today. So we will call it winsprummer.

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3 days ago

A close view of a tiny liverwort bryophyte growing along a slender fallen twig in a damp Devon woodland. The twig runs diagonally across the image and is densely covered by a soft green mat of very small leafy shoots. Each shoot creeps closely along the surface of the wood and hangs slightly over the sides, forming layered fronds only a few millimetres wide. The colony itself is small, about 2 cm across.

The leaves are closely packed and overlap like tiny roof tiles. Each leaf is rounded to oval and translucent fresh green, giving the patch a soft luminous appearance in the woodland light. Many leaves show a slight fold or pocket near their base that creates a small forward-facing flap. These pocket-like structures are subtle in the photograph but become clearer when the plant is examined under a microscope.

The shoots lie mostly in two flattened rows along the stem, producing a delicate branching pattern that spreads across the twig and drapes slightly over its underside. Beneath the main patch a few slender shoots of a feathery moss hang downward, their thin leaves forming narrow green sprays that contrast with the broader rounded leaves of the liverwort.

The background is softly blurred woodland — muted greens and browns suggesting bark, moss, and shaded vegetation. Moisture and shade are implied by the fresh colour and the dense bryophyte growth covering the wood.

Under the microscope the leaves reveal hexagonal cells and small pocket-like lobules.

I saw this beautiful little liverwort for the first time today.
I think it may be Micheli’s Least Pouncewort (Lejeunea cavifolia).

It was growing on a fallen twig in woodland in Devon.
The whole patch was only about 2 cm across.

tinyurl.com/lejeunea-cav...

#liverwort #bryophyte

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