Dr. Allison J. Gong

3/4 shot of a green circular object with rows of tentacles along the outer edge

Looking through my catalog of #seaanemone photos for something to use in an intro slide for one of my #marinebiology lectures and ran across this, one of my all-time favorite shots. The creature is Anthopleura xanthogrammica, the giant green anemone, photographed in #California on 2018-07-17.

Two birds with long legs and beaks facing to the left, in silhouette against a shiny light tan background

Marbled godwits in silhouette, at Moss Landing State Beach. 2026-01-04
#birds #birdphotography #wildbird #naturephotography #nikon #nikonphotography #marbledgodwit

Transparent lobed object with a golden edging. Pear-shaped reddish brown structure in the lower third at the midline.

Looking back at some old photos, and this is one of my all-time best. It's a 44-day-old larva of the bat star Patiria miniata. From top to bottom it is ~1mm long.
How I did it: canaturalist.com/another-1000...
#throughthemicroscope
#larvae
#marineinvertebrate
#seastar
#focusmerge

One of my favorite mollusks!

White plastic tub filled with water, in a metal sink. Nine squid are arranged around the rim so that their tentacles and eyes are draped to the outside of the tub.

Seen at work, or a scene at work.

Reminder: Election closing times. Please make sure to vote and remember, if you’re in line when the polls close, you still have the right to vote. Don’t get out of line!
- 7 p.m. ET - Virginia
- 8 p.m. ET - New Jersey
- 8 p.m. ET - Pennsylvania
- 9 p.m. ET - New York City
- 8 p.m. PT - California

Santa Cruz County approves $500,000 donation to Second Harvest Food Bank The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors declared a local emergency over food insecurity Tuesday and approved a $500,000 donation to Second Harvest Food Bank, as federal food aid delays from the ongoing government shutdown leave thousands without assistance.

The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors declared a local emergency over food insecurity Tuesday and approved a $500,000 donation to Second Harvest Food Bank, as federal food aid delays from the ongoing government shutdown leave thousands without assistance.

Long thin tubular structure stretched out over sand. Three people at far end looking down at it.

Serendipity = lecturing on kelps and noting the morphology of bull kelp, then finding an intact one on the beach during the field trip!
#fieldtrip
#marinebiology

Well earned, and I say that as a #sfgiants fan.

Zombeeees! Just in time for Hallowe’en! I have photographic evidence that some of our bees have been taken over by parasitic phorid flies. These flies are a group of diverse animals, including wasps and…

Some Halloween true-life horror, beekeeper-style!
canaturalist.com/zombeeees/
#beekeeping
#parasites
#zombies

Puffins were on my wishlist, too. I had to decide which lenses to take on the trip and ended up leaving the 400mm behind. So I was especially relieved that the puffins were so close that I didn't need it.

New month, new page in my calendar of #intertidal photos! July gets to show off Plocamium pacificum, one of the gorgeous red #algae we have in Northern California. It lives in the low intertidal in exposed rocky areas, and is one of my favorites.
#rhodophyta
#redalgae
#sanmateocounty

Stocky bird with white front, red webbed feet, white face, and multi-colored beak, standing next to a burrow in the ground.

Stocky bird with white front, red webbed feet, white face, and multi-colored beak, standing next to a burrow in the ground.

Wow, Iceland is an amazing place to visit! Not only can you see the ocean ridge there, but they have puffins! These are Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica) that breed on cliffs, especially along the south and west coasts. I also saw them in Scotland but from farther away.
#iceland
#puffin
#bird

Duck-shaped bird with white head, neck, and belly. Back and wings are dark gray. Beak is yellow and feet/legs are pink. Bird's shadow on sand is dinosaur-shaped, with a long neck and rounded snout.

Three years ago today, on 6 Mar 2022, I caught indisputable evidence that birds are dinosaurs. Shadows don't lie!
Western gull (Larus occidentalis)
Santa Cruz, CA
#birds

11 balls of yarn of various sizes, in a bright green color, piled on a tablecloth decorated with fruits and flowers.

#MalabrigoMarch2025 means it's time to knit with some of my favorite yarns! These balls of #MalabrigoRios in the colorway Apple Green are going to be a cardigan for little old me. I salvaged them from some other project I don't even remember starting, and so far the yarn and I are both happy now.

Circular animal with translucent tentacles radiating out from a central disk. Tentacles are clear or reddish in color.

Goodness knows I’ve needed a respite in the tidepools lately! Afternoon low tides aren’t my favorite, but there’s no denying the gorgeous light of the late afternoon. Really makes this moon flow anemone (Anthopleura artemisia) glow! #tidepools #seaanemone

So it work really well, then?

Two yellow slugs in a yin-yang formation.

On this day when so many celebrate romantic/sexual love, it's good to remember that the animal kingdom features many ways of having sex. Banana slugs, like all terrestrial mollusks, are simultaneous hermaphrodites. I caught this pair copulating in 2019. Can't tell which is acting as male this time!

Large bird with mottled brown feathers, ear tufts, and large yellow eyes perched in a tree

Happy SuperbOwl Sunday! This is a great horned owl I photographed at the San Luis Nat'l Wildlife Refuge in Central California on 2025-01-12.
#SuperbOwlSunday
#bird
#owl

You’ve got a good photo here, so submit it to #inaturalist. I bet someone can ID it for you.
inaturalist.org

Small songbird perched on a twig. Head is a sooty black, with a white mask that is narrow behind the beak, extends just under the eye, and widens at the back of the head. Cinnamon-colored nape, gray-black wings and tail, and light gray belly.

I'm lucky to be owned by a gang of 5 chickadees! They are year-round residents and are used to us, completely unfazed when I whip out the big lens and point it at them.
Chestnut-backed chickadee (Poecile rufescens) in California
#bird #songbird #backyardbirds

I tried so hard to read that book! Then decided that life is too short to fight with books I’m reading for pleasure and ditched it. Haven’t seen the show or the movie, either.

Jesus himself is too woke for these self-proclaimed Christians.

Two cats, a calico on the left and a tortie on the right, sleeping on a blanket. Cats are positioned so that they are mirror images of each other.

Achievement unlocked: Perfect symmetry! Well played, girls, well played indeed!

That's Lucie on the left and Maggie on the right.

#caturday #cats #calicocat #tortiecat

A little man. Poor baby.

Yes! I can’t believe we have to spell it out like this.

Since I’m not going to look at the source, care to explain what the idiot complained about?

You know me!

Large white birds along the edge of a wetland.

There were so many geese at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge in Central California last weekend! These are snow geese (Anser caerulescens), but there were also many greater white-fronted geese, as well as tundra swans.
#birds #birdwatching #birdphotography

Reddish-brown doglike animal with large ears standing on a hillside looking off to the right with the right foreleg slightly raised

Got to watch this beautiful predator in action this afternoon!
#wildlife #california #wildlifephotography #nikon

www.canaturalist.com/spying-on-th...