How I arrived on Bluesky

From the NonCredibleDefense community on Reddit: I have come from the future. This is the state of the blockades by the end of next month. Explore this post and more from the NonCredibleDefense community

This was, in fact, prophetic.

www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibl...

They're absolutely fantastic.

I just wasn't going to let it escape unrecorded, and if that meant a dreadful pic or three, so be it!

First of a series of truly terrible photos taken with the phone. A small, black ant-shaped insect on the rim of a screw-top jar. It has eight legs, with two sort of looking like a pair of ant antennae. If it were an ant, it would be moving from left to right BUT what looks like the ant's head is actually the spiders bum, and what looks like the ant's bum is the elongated chelicerae (jaws) of the spider. Nature is fabulously weird. Location: Atherton Tablelands, Queensland, Australia.

Another terrible photo of the ant-mimicking spider. This time it's crawling up the inside of a jar and the photo is taken through the glass. It really is very ant-y. Maybe it's doing a Polyrhachis or Camponotus? (I wish I knew more about ants, tbh.) Location: Atherton Tablelands, Queensland, Australia.

Slightly better (but still atrocious) photo of the ant-mimicking spider. It's crawling across a laminated surface. The eight legs are clearly visible and the last pair resemble an ant's antennae. Big chelicerae (jaws) on this one. I guess you'd want something sizeable to keep the bitey (and sometimes stingy and spray-ey) bits of your prey away from you. Location: Atherton Tablelands, Queensland, Australia.

Noticed a funny-looking 'ant' wandering across my desk.

It's an ant-mimicking spider.

Apols for the terrible photos--only a phone to hand. I've encountered them in the house before so I should be more prepared for pics.

It has now been relocated to where there are more ants.

Details in alt text.

Come work with us!

Name four non-person things that make your life liveable:

1. Nature (All of it. Even Stinging Trees at a safe distance.)
2. Books: non-fiction for learnin' and fiction for entertainment (and also learnin')
3. Hot beverages
4. A good night's sleep

A female kakapo on a nest facing the camera, with a young chick in front of her. Credit: Andrew Digby

This year's #kakapo breeding season has been the biggest on record:
- 256 eggs (252 in 2019)
- 148 fertile eggs (116 in 2019)
- 105 eggs hatched (86 in 2019).
It'll be 2+ months until we know how many chicks will fledge (73 in 2019). There are currently 95 alive. #conservation #kakapo2026 #birds

Just finished it through trial and error, and then looked it up. I'd always used the term cannon/canon.

Banksia sessilis or Parrot Bush, a plant with spiky leaves and dome-shaped creamy-yellow flower heads

Dichopogon capillipes, a plant with a pink and purple flower that hangs down

Stylidium repens or the Matted Triggerplant, a plant that grows close to the ground with thin spiky leaves and small pink flowers that have a floral column on a trigger

Hakea petiolaris or the Sea Urchin Hakea,a small tree with groups of flowers that form cream and pink/purple spherical balls like pom poms

In the Perth Hills we are now in the Noongar season of Djeran, a time when the hot weather has passed, the nights are now cooler and some flowers start appearing (IDs in ALT)

#ozflora #wildoz #autumn #nativeplants #bloomscrolling

Wow! What a sighting!

Postdoctoral Researcher in Solanaceae Phylogenomics:South Kensington

Postdoctoral Researcher needed for phylogenomics of Solanum at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington. Salary: £43,645. Apply by 1 May 2026: https://jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetail?JobId=770 #postdoc

Third time's a charm

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This whole thread 👇

Schilthuizen’s Darwin Comes to Town, and You Too Should Join Him worldsensorium.com/schilthuizen...

This is one of a small gang of miscreants going from garden to garden. What they drop, the Brush-turkeys clean up on day shft and the possums on night shift.

I don't know if the neighbour's managed to get any fruit this season!

Very smug-looking Sulphur-crested Cockatoo with a half-eaten guava in its beak. The bird's plumage, which would usually be a pristine white, is a bit grubby because it's been digging around in the red dirt. The yellow crest is lowered. It's side-eyeing the camera prior to fleeing.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo that has just launched itself into the air with a half-eaten guava in its beak. Yes, the plumage is grubby, but there's a lovely lemon-yellow wash under its wings. Still looking smug.

This is a bird with absolutely no regrets.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo raiding the neighbour's fruit trees. Atherton Tablelands, Queensland, Australia.

#BirdsSeenIn2026 #Australia

Hmm...

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Lots of young brush-turkeys hanging around in scruffy gangs. They'll disperse eventually but at the moment they're doing very well off the dropped fruit.

The cockies are moving through. They'll find somewhere else to ransack soon enough!

As described this is my linocut print in blue in on white speckled washi paper of the segmented prehistoric animal Opabinia, with its claw-like proboscis and five eyes on stalks, each segment on a different colourful collaged paper.

This is one of a series of prints of Opabinia, 🧪🐡 an extinct prehistoric creatures which lived during the Cambrian geological time period, carved by hand in linoleum, printed onto lovely white paper with bark inclusions and collaged with Japanese papers in different colours and patterns, 🧵

Cripes! I just looked through the replies and...anyway, enjoy the blackberries!

No one's getting any type of fruit here atm because the sulphur-crested cockatoos have moved in. The brush-turkeys work on the cockies' left-overs, and all I get is a bad back from picking up the rinds.

Aha!

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Oh, that's annoying!

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Nuclear armageddon! Is this it for real? Really?! | First Dog on the Moon The last time I was genuinely worried about nuclear war was more than 30 years ago. It’s nowhere near as fun now

Billionaires speed running the planet to a panopticonesque dystopiageddon.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

look at this baby beaver and feel better briefly

(@ wildheartrescue on TT)

Common Gum Emerald - Prasinocyma semicrocea - top view of a striking green moth with pinkish edges

Striped Hawkmoth - Hyles livornicoides - top view of a moth with brown and cream/grey patterned wings

Heliotrope Moth - Utetheisa pulchelloides - top view of a moth with white wings covered in black and red squares

Proteuxoa sp. ANIC9 - top view of a currently undescribed moth that has cream and brown wings with pattern of circles and zigzags

As we head towards autumn in Australia, there’s been a definite increase in moth diversity that we’re seeing in our Perth Hills garden. A selection from last night:

Common Gum Emerald
Striped Hawkmoth
Heliotrope Moth
Proteuxoa sp. ANIC9

#teammoth #ausinverts #wildoz #Lepidoptera #inaturalist

Well...

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I work a lot in pencils but watercolour & gouache appeal to me in a much more artistic way, perhaps other artists might relate! Small bird paintings coming soon..... #painting #watercolour #watercolor #birdpainting #bird

I would not be at all surprised if there were undescr. spp up here, even on the brush-turkeys. I have also had a smaller sp transfer itself from red-legged pademelons.

I must find out who works on them in Aus, so I can send 'em south if I catch any.

The flies sometimes make the jump but they don't hang around for long.

I'd like to catch some of these flies don't want to encourage brush-turkeys because the neighbours are less tolerant of them than I am.

More musings on brush-turkeys: They host lovely, big, ectoparasitic louse-flies (Hippoboscidae). Don't know what species because I've never had a specimen vial in my pocket when one of the flies has temporarily transferred itself from bird to human.

Memo to self: always carry vials + hand lens