Nimblenewt

It's true! Thanks for mentioning it, I would not have found it otherwise🐸

A tiny brown Pacific Chorus frog (Pseudacris regilla) sits amidst the brassy braided-cord-looking branches of a Hebe ochracea shrub that fill the rest of the frame. The frog has a scrawny you g-adolescent look to its frame. There is a matte look to the wee frog because of a thin layer of doubtless uncomfortable potting soil; a misplaced hop onto my potting bench led to a complete accidental dusting.

A potting soil covered pacific tree frog (brown underneath, but dusted like a cinnamon timbit with soil) in a Hebe ochracea. Usually I rinse them if they land on my potting bench but this wee hopper was quite frenzied so I just put my drippers on at the base so he could sluice at will.
#frogs #herps

I looked them up and am now cackling with laughter! New gardening theme song of the summer for sure.

Thank you for these useful guidelines! I look forward to your other transcribed threads.
📌

Oh no. I hope everyone is safe. Condolences from the (also burning) Island at the western end of the country.

Tourist discovers ‘extinct’ jellyfish while rock-pooling in Outer Hebrides Thistle-shaped Depastrum cyathiforme was last seen in France in 1976, but has now been found on South Uist

"But a holidaymaker who was rock-pooling on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides found four of the creatures, which attach themselves to rocks rather like anemones..."

I didn't know jellyfish could attach to rocks! A nifty story all around.

Thank you!

Golly! Without the orange eyelid, it would be a perfect disappearing act! She's very pretty; great photo.

This is interesting, what is the host plant?

A panicle of red flowers hangs from a sparse green-leaved tree in a greenhouse. The flowers have a large central petal that folds open to reveal a beaky central tube, also red, tipped by a cluster of whiskery stamens at the tip, like a muppet. I am always tempted to add some googly eyes at the base of the beak! It's quite an elegant little tree, the leaves are a lovely green and the flower panicles, sometimes quite long, droop down to eye level from the branch tips. It's sparse because it was a martyr to thrips this year though, I had to partially defoliate it to get them under control, which was annoying because the leaves have little barbs at the tip of the petiole where it meets the leaflet. Normally it's a lovely umbrella of leaves tipped with long bloom chains. I considered it a shrub when I sowed the seed, but I once saw one growing as a sturdy tree bigger than a bungalow in a front yard in Brisbane. Not hardy here in Canada, alas, so we have to dig it up at the end of the season and bring it in to winter warmth, on the years it is on display.

Erythrina crista-galli (Cockspur Coral-Tree) blooming in my greenhouse. It's getting quite a trunk on it, finally, with a lovely braided-texture to the bark; I sowed the seed in 2009. I like how the buds are so beaky.
#bloomscrolling #plantnerd

It's so furry! Nice to know who lays the egg masses🙂

Video caption photo alt text: an intricately patterned white crab with russet spots and brown and black stripes has a tiny white anemone on its visible claw. Also there are orange eggs in a mass below its abdomen.

YouTube video by Deep Marine Scenes Facts: The Boxer Crab (A Tiny Kleptoparasite)

My new favorite crab! Boxer crabs have anemones permanently attached to their modified claws and when attacked hold up their little anemone-ally pom-poms to fend off their attackers! Plus they use them to hunt. I like how they resemble jumping spiders when they wave their anemones around.
#inverts

I didn’t know rabbits liked trampolines, but then again…..

Victoria may be as early as 11:30pm, I see now, with the peninsula between 11:30 and 2am; I guess the waves take time to turn the corner!

Thanks for this thread, I live on Vancouver Island so I appreciate the links and new information.

It has been updated to an advisory (6:42pm) for strong localized swirling currents near beaches and water, but no significant innundation expected. Various respected sources predicting approx 2am ETA for Vic and the peninsula.

South Vancouver Island friends, we are zone D (from Jordan River to Victoria to Saanich Peninsula including Sidney and Saanich Inlet). This is at present a Tsunami Watch (evaluating risk), not a Warning that it is for sure coming.

Ribes lobbii! Native where I am on Canada's West Coast. Such elegant small burgundy flowers, but those festery thorns are unrelenting, haha. The flowers make me forgive though, plus I like the leaves.

I spend all day working with plants but somehow neglected to consider the functionality of specific pollen structures. I'm usually thinking of systems that promote pollination, like arum family spathes heating up then closing in cold weather to attract, enliven and keep pollinators in to coat them!

On further reading I'm wondering how efficient the staticky, spiny-pollen covered (but empty pouched) bees are at pollinating the next malvaceae flower they visit? *very interesting* Thanks again for the links to the journals!

Whoa neato! Equally difficult to excavate from the pouch if collected, and then it would get stuck all over the nest as well! How interesting: pollen defending against any but specific pollinators? Easier than building an exclusionary flower shape, I guess! Thanks for telling us all about this🐝

Yes, please tell us how the pollen is weirder than other pollen!

YouTube video by UkeeTube Plankton Bloom on Vancouver Island makes Ucluelet Even More Beautiful

Here’s some video of the plankton bloom; youtu.be/o3pMET7sucg?...

Our newest unofficial video series—deep-sea animals that dance better than you 💃

Most sea cucumbers live a sedentary life on the bottom of the ocean, but some take a break from eating and pooping on the seafloor to go for a quick swim. They may do it as a defensive behavior or to find a mate.

Heartwarming!

A multitude of blue, deeply divided Hare's Foot Fern fronds (covered with lines of white dots that mark where golden spore clusters sit on the back of the leaves), are interrupted by the hand-sized flower of a Queen of the Night cactus. The flower is still opening, but it is white at the centre with a fringe of slim blush-toned petals. While closed it somewhat resembles a spider-petalled chrysanthemum, though by the time it opens it will be glorious beyond compare with any other flower. The latin name of the fern is Phlebodium aureum; the succulent is Epiphyllum oxypetalum, and it's a succulent tropical epiphyte more than a cactus, though sometimes it does produce some crafty very-fine spines in its leaf scallops, to torment its custodian.

Epiphyllum bloom season has arrived! This one is on a branch that stealth-infiltrated my Phlebodium fern; I love the combination.
#plantnerd #bloomscrolling #plantsky #ferns #succulents

Very lucky! So many kinds of crabs, and I keep learning about new ones to be excited about and look for in our different habitats. I like how this one looks like a cheddar-cheese-based soufflé, gone awry, when it is little🙂

This is a great video! I like the legs/claws explanation, how the left claw is for crushing and the right claw is dexterous. Thank you for posting, I will keep an eye out for the cute orange spiky juveniles in the deeper tidepools.

Puget Sound King Crab (Echidnocerus cibarius) Puget Sound King Crab from Strathcona, BC, Canada on November 10, 2023 at 02:32 PM by Daniel Hershman

E is for Echidnocerus.

This is a cute and funny shallow water king crab, but it's not a true crab! Carcinization molded hermit crab ancestors into abandoning shells and developing these camouflaged tanks. Orange ones are juveniles - they become multicolored adults (see video next)

🦀🦑🧪 #CrabAZ