An appliqué prawn, lots of layers of fabric and the red tentacles are the rolled hem of an organza scarf with a background of hand quilted cotton. Design taken from one of my own watercolour paintings and I tried to replicate that feel in the embroidery. . . . #appliqué #prawnart #embroideryart #embroideryartist #threadsketch #damngoodstitch #britishstitchers #beachart #handembroidery #heytheremaker #natureart #broderie #ricanoamano #stitchedart https://www.instagram.com/p/CAk6qXXHHCV/?igshid=empd9yvxq4bi
On Day Two of the San Francisco Bay Area’s stay-at-home orders in March, Nohemi Jimenez got into her car in San Pablo, California, waved goodbye to her 3-year-old son and drove to her regular Wednesday dialysis appointment.
The roads were deserted. No traffic. Jimenez, 30, said it is hard to admit what she thought next: No traffic meant no car accidents. And that meant she’d be on the waiting list for a kidney transplant even longer.
“I don’t want to be mean, but I was like, ‘Oh, my God. Nobody’s going to die,’” she said. “I’m not going to get my transplant.”
Oh my gosh, I never realized those were considered rare! I have dozens of ‘em!
In all this time I haven’t yet gone on HORG and identified all–well, any of my specimens. Who knows what else I’m missing!
Hang on, I’m gonna dump out the jar and find out how many different kinds of these little guys I have…
(…with the help of my lovely assistant Half-And-Half!)
Preliminary findings:
TheA. lehmeri-sized tabs make up a third of the jar! This is more than I remember having; I’m going to guesstimate that pile has at least 100.
On the left, you can see some even larger–and rarer!–specimens. I’m interested to see if HORG has documented these ones.
Now, on the Aspericardis lehmeri species card you linked, the description has this to say:
This large and distinguished occlupanid has been only found twice, and little is known of its habits. It has been conjectured that it lives in “big-box” shopping store environments, and occlupanologists are encouraged to keep watch for this species.
Two things.
1: I can confirm that these types of occlupanids frequent big-box habitats! Most of the ones I’ve collected were observed migrating to my family’s house from our local Costco. They seem to prefer large bags of potatoes or onions as hosts.
2: There’s a fancy latin name for people who study bread tabs?! How did I miss that before? Heck yeah, I’m an occlupanologist!
Excuse me for a second, I gotta go change my blog description real quick.
I wonder… Hypothetically, if I were to introduce myself, and someone asked the “what do you do?” question… How long would people think that was a serious scientific job?
I realized it might be possible to document one of these species in their natural surroundings! Off to the potato cupboard…
Aha!
Look how well they blend in with their environment. If not for my intervention, who knows how long they might have remained hidden? (As it is, they only made it until now because I personally dislike potatoes.)
Also, someone needs to clean the potato cupboard. Onion skins everywhere.
New friends! Soon they will join their brethren. But first, the onion bin…
Jackpot ahoy! A pristine A. lehmeri still loosely clinging to its host!
More field observations are needed to determine whether the A. lehmeri and the unknown species always appear on onion and potato bags, respectively. I think a portion of the A. lehmeri in my collection may actually have arrived on mesh bags containing lemons.
One coincidence worth noting is that both of the host bags here are made of a combination of plastic film and plastic mesh materials. Whether this holds any actual significance remains unclear.
You all and your stupid memes got me to sign up for this Dracula email thing, and so in order to celebrate, I am sharing this “bloody eye” lichen, H. nicoyense! It reminds me of that moment where Johnathan cuts himself while shaving and the Count’s “eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury.” Kinda, I mean, these apothecia remind me more of a jelly donut then anything. But I gotta do what I can to keep these cats hip and cool for you kiddos! This crustose lichen was described in 2006, and thus far has only been found in a few montane forests in Central America. Tropical lichens are largely understudied, which is such a pity when they are out there being as adorable as this lil guy. If only more people cared about lichens and lichen research. But hey, if we can revive interest in a 125 year old gothic novel, surely we can get people interested in cuties like these right?
This lichen is very texture. Like think of a texture, and E. hispidula probably has it. Descriptions I have found include pannose (the texture of felt or woolen cloth), spiny, filamentous, hair-like, beard-like, jelly-like (only when moist), and my personal favorite, ‘Brillo-pad’ texture. It has a dark olive to brown to black, fruticose thallus of short, lateral branchlets. E. hispidula grows on damp, siliceous rocks in the northern hemisphere, adding a little pop of texture to the world since probably like, 40 MYA or whatever.
So often when I see the scientific names of lichens, I wonder if the people who named them bothered trying to say them out loud. I think mughicola sounds like a sneeze. Not necessarily a bad name, but maybe something easier to pronounce next time, ok guys? This crustose lichen has a glossy, beige-yellow, bumpy thallus. It produces apothecia with an undulating margin and orange-brown to dark brown discs which often appear paler due the a layer of chalky pruina. L. mughicola grows on the lignum (woody tissue under the bark) of conifers in boreal forests. It has been found in North America and Europe, but its range likely extends into northern Asia.
This foliose lichen grows in small roundish-patches or narrow lobes. The upper surface varies in color from gray to brown when dry (darker in shaded areas), becoming bright green when moist. Lobe tips and occasionally surface area covered in coarse soredia. The lower surface is black with thick black rhizines. A distinctive feature of P. rubropulchra is the bright red-orange medullary layer at its core. This is due to the presence of skyrin. What is skyrin? I don’t know what do I look like a chemist? For our purposes, it makes red. P. rubropulchra grows on trees and rocks in eastern North America, eastern China and Russia, and Japan. Apparently it is a common snack for slugs, which doesn’t really surprise me because looking at that medulla makes me think of flamin-hot cheetos and now I’m hungry. Thanks, lichens.
Met a little girl last week with red hair and complimented her on it. She said she never saw people with her hair color, and I told her that there are lots of redheads in my family and proceeded to show her pictures. I don’t know if it made her feel seen, or made her feel a little less special (oops, sorry kid), but it got me thinking. I know you may look at P. albovariegata and think, psh, whatever, a boring gray lichen. But listen, this guy is in the Teloschistaceae family, and most of those lichens are bright orange/red. P. albovariegata is actually an original! A stand out! The gray sheep of the family. Someone’s ordinary can totally be someone else’s extraordinary! Keep that in mind when seeing the world everyday and you will never be bored.
I have never wanted chocolate chip cookies more in my entire life than I do after staring at P. venosa. This lichen has small overlapping or larger fan-shaped lobes. The upper surface is bright green when moist, and a dull gray when dry. Apparently there is also a darker blue-green morphotype with smaller, scale-like lobes, but I couldn’t find any pictures of it. This variation is dependent on the presence of a green algae photobiont or a blue-green cyanobacterial primary photobiont. It appears that the green algae associated morphotype is more common, though apparently they can grow in the same patch! The lower surface is pale with prominent veins and dark spots called cephalodia which contain a secondary, cyanobacterial photobiont. It produces large, circular apothecia along the leaf margins which are flat, smooth, and dark brown in color. P. venosa grows on moist, mossy soil at high elevations in the northern hemisphere. One of many Peltigera lichens, this one is the easiest to identify due to its characteristic leaf shape, venation on the lower surface, and distinctive apothecia. So go out there and find them! And maybe make some chocolate cookies and bring them by my place please? Thanks.
The Psychedelic Medusa is a deep-sea hydrozoan that is abundant in the North Pacific. The mini-jelly is found at depths between 1000m to 3800m, and are often observed drifting near the ocean floor. It also has an eccentric reproduction behavior uncommon in cnidarians. The females display viviparity, and carry the babies in her bell until they are ready to hatch.
Although the study of the history of life on earth in the 18th and 19th century is often remembered as a time of men, its foundations as a science was unquestionably set by a woman : Mary Anning.
It is no exaggeration to say that Mary made paleontology into its own branch of science, and paved the way to a greater understanding of this planet’s far away past. While in her life, she enjoyed no merits for her phenomenal work in a world of men, I hope that today’s science history books will set the record straight, and put her among the giants of modern biology.
At the Endeavour Segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, the underwater landscape is littered with angular fragments of basalt that were the remnants of an old lava lake. This is a region that was once filled with hot lava and eventually drained. As the ROV Doc Ricketts flew by this area, researchers could see evidence of this cooling and draining in the stacked horizontal layers. The platy horizontal layers of basaltic lava along the back wall were once part of a solid platy surface layer of basalt covering a molten lake of lava. As this molten lava drained, a new top surface was exposed, and a new horizontal platy layer was formed. The pillars were actually created by seawater—as hot magma flowed into the lake during the eruption, some water was trapped below. Being less dense, this water escaped upward through the lava, solidifying tubes of basalt on its ascent. We call these “pit and pillar” features.
