Conopholis americana enjoyer

I'm not totally unemployed, I still have the Internet Job (which makes up more of my income), but I am gonna go super super insane with no outside-the-house work 😵‍💫

The Spring class I've been teaching since 2019 is going every-other-year so I'm basically laid off for Spring '26, we's SO toasted

A square laser cut wood ornament with a design of a Carolina mantis

Cutting a new batch of ornaments today... One of this year's new ones is this Carolina mantis.

Look very carefully and you will see an ant emerging from the weevil-hole on this hickory nut with a load of tasty nutmeat. Multiple ants were going back and forth doing this. Never thought about this interaction before!

This is so Philadelphian 😂🫶

Human Demography lab is one of my favorites and today was just perfect!

35+ and been in the nursing home for rehab and can't stress this enough, every day I was thankful for keeping up with those ballet excercises. It's easier to function on .5 working leg when that .5 is strong and flexible

Literally the best night at the abandoned ballcourt ever

I need to hear this at the next 80s night

This looks like the first colorful flatty I ever saw in the wild and lost my mind over 🤩

LOOK AT THESE CUTIES

🤩

Last week I got 2 seconds boxes of plum tomatoes, this week work gave me a crate of fancy heirloom ones, been making obscene quantities of pasta sauce to freeze. Truly in my sauce era.

I don't know enough about this to comment but gosh would i ever enjoy reading allllllll the posts

One fourth of a phylogenetic tree of southern Appalachian spiders, with photos of three representative taxa along the right side, Wadotes hybridus (reddish brown cephalothorax with zig-zag stripey gray and white abdomen), Neon nelli (large-eyed gray jumping spider), and Antrodiaetus sp. (a large-jawed mygalomorph trapdoor spider, light tan with a reddish abdomen.

One fourth of a phylogenetic tree of southern Appalachian spiders, with photos of four representative taxa along the right side, Centromerus denticulatus and Centromerus tennapax (both mostly golden brown with gray abdomen, both males with enlarged palps), Bathyphantes bishopi (dark brown cephalothorax, long legs, dark gray abdomen), Tenuiphantes sabulosus (golden cephalothorax, long legs, pale dark-striped abdomen).

One fourth of a phylogenetic tree of southern Appalachian spiders, with photos of four representative taxa along the right side, Collinsia sp. and Collinsia oxypaederotipus (both with light brown cephalothorax, pale legs, gray-green abdomen, both males with enlarged palps), Ceraticelus laetabilis (stout, with brown cephalothorax and lighter brown abdomen, palps slightly enlarged), Ceraticelus fissiceps (orange cephalothorax with distinctly enlarged dark snout, lighter abdomen).

One fourth of a phylogenetic tree of southern Appalachian spiders, with photos of four representative taxa along the right side, Sisicus n. sp (not yet described, light brown round cephalothorax, with pale abdomen and legs, large male palps), Floricomus praedesignatus (dark tuberculate male cephalothorax, gray-green abdomen, pale legs), Blestia sarcocuon (anteriorly pointed cephalothorax, dark with long yellowish legs, impressive male palps), and Ceratinops carolinus (prolonged elevated, brown male cephalothorax, gray-green abdomen).

High elevation litter spiders of southern Appalachia show less local endemism than other arthropods - ballooning by spiderlings apparently overcomes geographic isolation. A great collaboration with @forthespiders.bsky.social & Ernesto Recuero

doi.org/10.1636/JoA-... (if paywalled write me for pdf)

My work cut off my MS office access (no more full licenses for adjuncts apparently) so I have to update all the lecture slides for all my classes today and tomorrow before my license expires LMAO

Very cool! I worked on a paper about antmounds and soil chemistry in serpentine barrens and get so excited about ant activity now

Quiz time: why all the blueberries on one side of the embedded fencerow?

Post going around about shared housing makes me think about how rare living alone is in my community, like I've usually been the odd one out for having my own apartment or house. One of my old bandmates lived in the closet of a house w 30 other people at one point 😂

Got 2 seconds boxes of plum tomatoes at the market, hope everybody's ready for SUNDAY SAUCE

Sometimes I get really grumpy about my mangled-looking leg but it's probably not fixable without surgery and there's so much I'd rather spend that money on plus I don't ever want surgery again if I can help it so I'm stuck in the messed-up looking injured goblin realm 😩

You know I'm in an end-of-term/mid-semester/show booking stress spiral when I'm actually glad Pittsburgh Band practice and Youngstown Band recording were both cancelled this week 😩

New publication alert: Shining Navigation 30 is ready to be unleashed on the world next Saturday. FFO passionflowers, hay-scented ferns, acorn season, Philly, Portland, Guerra Final, Matar, The Dark, Crucified Class, Zyclone, Arson, Who Pays, & more! 30 issues, really been stackin paper?!

This article has a lot of very useful information detailing exactly how specific people were caught after exercising their constitutional rights to protest. I highly recommend reading it in this era where freedoms disappear by the day, along with our neighbors.

It appeared again 😭

😭😭😭😭😭

Just seen a cursed ai slop image where the "millipedes" had a single leg every 2-3 segments

A green and brown toad with a cream-colored belly! Their back is covered in lots of large, spiny bumps!

Our friend the Canadian Toad likes to spend the winter underground below the frost line, and create small mounds known as mima mounds that can contain hundreds of toads! (photo by Chris O'Donoghue)

Grading video assignments, yr goblin pal is struggling

Big Boss update: comfy