Earth

A funky Pholcid from Mexico. I had no idea that there were Cellar spiders with weird heads. Weird heads are one of my favourite features a spider can have. Modisimus sp.

https://bsky.app/profile/thomasbarbin.bsky.social/post/3mgnedo7wxc2r

On another one of my regular beach trips I came across this lil guy or gal fishing for minnows on the foreshore.

There was a couple others further down but this was the best photo of the bunch and even then it's garbage - 8x zoom on a cell phone camera, high beams.

KLEINFELTERSVILLE, Pa. (AP) — Birdwatchers gather before dawn at Middle Creek in Pennsylvania to witness thousands of migrating snow geese lifting off from the reservoir in a swirling mass. The display lasts only minutes before the birds fan out to nearby farm fields to feed as they continue their annual spring migration north toward New York and Quebec. For a few short weeks each year, the migration draws crowds of nature lovers to the refuge, which was created decades ago to attract waterfowl and now welcomes about 150,000 visitors annually.

Banner image: Snow geese take off to resume their northern migration after a stopover at the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area, Friday, March 6, 2026, in Kleinfeltersville, Pa. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/33807

A total of 59 healthy kākāpō chicks have hatched over the last few weeks, according to the latest tally by Aotearoa New Zealand’s Department of Conservation. This marks one of the most successful recent breeding seasons for this critically endangered bird, whose last breeding season was four years ago. The kākāpō (Strigops habroptilus), a flightless bird in the parrot family endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand, has a total population of 236 adults, up from a low of just 51 individuals in the 1990s. Around the same period, the surviving birds were relocated to three predator-free Aotearoa New Zealand islands — Whenua Hou, Pukenui and Te Kākahu-o-Tamatea — but they’ve still struggled with low reproduction rates. “Every new chick brings the species further from the brink of extinction,” Deidre Vercoe, the Department of Conservation’s operations manager for kākāpō, told Mongabay by email. “There’s always a sense of hope and optimism for the future.” Kākāpō only breed in years when the native rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum) tree produces a heavy crop of fruits, which happens every 2-4 years. A chick named Tīwhiri-A1-2026, born on Feb. 14, was the first kākāpō to hatch in four years. Image courtesy of Lydia Uddstrom/New Zealand Department of Conservation. So far this year, 140 fertile eggs have been identified and 52 healthy chicks were born, with an extra seven chicks assumed via remote technology. The data are shared with the public every Friday, with an uploaded photo of the tally written in marker on the department’s refrigerator. Though more…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/33804

With hues of orange and black on its wings and a furry, fluffy face, the painted woolly bat is a stunner. But its beauty has become a deadly liability. People want to hang the bats — dead and stuffed — on their walls, display them as collectibles and even set them in jewelry. In recent years, taxidermied and framed bats have become popular as Halloween décor and, oddly, as Christmas tree decorations, sold to customers in the U.S., as well as Europe and Canada. This macabre trade first came to light in 2015 when scientists found dead bats, including painted woolly bats, for sale in Vietnam’s largest metropolis, Ho Chi Minh City. Then, nearly a decade later, scientists realized that it wasn’t just a few stores selling bats: There’s also a huge online market. In 2024, researchers from the Bat Specialist Group at the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, documented nearly 800 bats for sale on Amazon.com, eBay and Etsy over a three-month period. Their “Dying for décor” study, published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research, suggests that the trade is global. A quarter of the bats sold online were from a single species: painted woolly bats (Kerivoula picta). After a successful awareness campaign by conservation organizations, eBay and Etsy banned the sale of bat products on their sites in 2025. Painted woolly bats are nocturnal and sparsely distributed in the landscape, roosting in small groups. Image by faridmuzaki via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0). Now, a new study…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via This RSS Feed.

I've been beach combing for several years now. My collection of stuff is pretty interesting - hand blown glass globes used as floats for fishing nets,other floats of all shapes and sizes, sea beans, pieces of SpaceX rockets, lobster pot tags from Japan, pieces of plastic w Cyrillic, doll heads, plastic frogs... the ocean's bounty is limitless it seems. I even found part of a wrapped brick of Mexican dirt weed once.

This one didn't make it to the collection but I did pick it up to dispose of when I left the beach.

source

Big Shell Beach convergence zone. Padre Island National Seashore. IIRC according to an old roommate who was studying the geology of the barrier island while going to school to be a marine biologist, this part of the Texas coast is some sort of place where long currents push stuff here from both the south and the north depending on the season. Shellbanks like this are a result of the convergence. Something like 3/4 of the beach in this area is made up of shells and then just covered in with windblown sand. The tidal action has exposed the underlying shells here, showing why its actually called Big Shell Beach. Its normally covered over, with just a shell or two peeking out.

This part of the beach is just lousy with shells currently in case you missed it. Southern Quahogs, Giant Atlantic Cockles, Coquina Clams, Lightning Whelks, Lettered Olives. I have a book of shells endemic to the area and those were the ones I could identify easily before just getting lost in the sheer number of shells. If you are into beach combing this place has so many shells its overwhelming. I spent an hour here alone before remembering I still had miles of beach to go. Further north from here is Little Shell Beach with the same shell composition, just smaller shells due to the way the currents flow.

Its mind blowing that this stretch of shells is visible this week and next week it will be under a foot or two of sand and somewhere else nearby the shells will peek out like this. I venture this shoreline a lot beachcombing and it is never the same. Its appealing.

Coconuts from faraway places.

A rewilding project in Wales

Baby grizzled mantis

https://bsky.app/profile/apsciencebylyn.bsky.social/post/3mfvdjep72s2y

It's a great account for bug/spider photos and vid clips.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/32014

This coverage is made possible through a partnership betweenGristandBPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina.

Andy Hill keeps a wetsuit and snorkel in his car at all times. Sometimes, when he’s driving around Watauga County, North Carolina, he’ll see a particularly clear, swift stream, pull off, suit up, and go looking for an elusive neighbor: the hellbender, a slimy, graceful, and rare salamander widely beloved throughout the Appalachian Mountains. Hellbenders are an iridescent marbled gold and brown when seen underwater, grow to more than 2 feet long, and can live to 30 years old.

For Hill, spotting one isn’t just a curiosity — it’s a moment that borders on spiritual, tied to an animal that many see as part of the region’s identity as much as its ecology.

“The first time that I saw one in real life, in the Watauga River, it changed me,” said Hill, who works as the Watauga riverkeeper for western North Carolina environmental nonprofit MountainTrue. “They’re kind of otherworldly looking.”

The hellbender is a celebrity wherever it’s found. In the Blue Ridge Mountains alone, there are beers, breweries, baseball teams, puppets, and festivals named after it; jokes about it being “from hell” abound. Exhaustively documented nicknames include the mudpuppy, snot otter, and mud devil. In reality, the animals are shy, spending most of their lives under large, flat rocks in cold, high-mountain streams. They’re also environmentally sensitive — a sort of climate bellwether, as Hill said, because they are best suited to water temperatures between 55 and 63 degrees Fahrenheit, and expected to struggle as streams warm with climate change.

Threats lie ahead, but for the eastern hellbender, so much has already been lost. Because they breathe through their skin, the critters require pristine water. But after spending 160 million years living quietly in the same waters their ancient ancestors did, pollution, habitat loss, and collection for the illegal pet trade have driven them ever closer to the graveyard of geologic history. Although the beloved amphibian is still found from Mississippi to New York, 60 percent of the populations once found throughout the East are in active decline. Just 12 percent are holding steady.

Now, Hill worries they may be losing their chance at federal protection.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was expected to designate the hellbender an endangered species by the end of last year, but the decision never came. Instead the salamander, along with other flora and fauna, was moved to a “long-term actions” list. Not a single species has been listed since President Donald Trump began his second term. The Center for Biological Diversity recently filed a lawsuit to force action.

The Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment, but sent Grist a list of resources, including documents listing the next regulatory step as “to be determined.”

“It’s basically just a bureaucratic delay tactic that doesn’t put a definite date on enacting protection for any endangered species,” said Tierra Curry, an endangered species co-director with the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been pushing for federal protection of the hellbender since 2010.

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Although several states, including North Carolina, have listed it as a species of concern, the journey has been marked with obstacles. In 2019, before this renewed push for federal protection, the first Trump administration declined to list the hellbender under the Endangered Species Act, saying captive breeding and release efforts were enough to keep populations healthy. Conservationists do not agree.

The animal’s defenders have hoped federal intervention could interrupt its downward spiral while safeguarding mountain streams as a whole. “Things like clean cold water and these protections would benefit the rest of the ecosystem as well, your native fish and mussels, as well as game fish like trout — and then that ties into our recreation, tourism, economy,” Hill said. “So protecting the hellbender is protecting the vital cultural, environmental, and economic resources of Appalachia as well.”

People in western North Carolina, where vast national forests have long provided one of the last real havens for the species, find these developments deeply concerning. After Hurricane Helene, storm survivors were devastated to find hellbenders washed across mountainsides or wandering — and dying — on roads and even in flooded homes. Hill, along with researchers at Appalachian State University and others, is still tallying the impact, but he’s seen some populations decline by as much as two-thirds.

Despite Washington’s inaction, the local community is expressing its passion, and concern, for the hellbender in as many ways as it can. Four months after Helene devastated the region, Hill worked with Dalton George, the mayor of Boone, North Carolina, on a resolution calling for the salamander’s federal protection. The town later commissioned a hellbender mural and received what George described as bipartisan support for the town’s favorite blobby little creature.

“That’s what’s frustrating to me as a leader,” said George, who also works as the organizing director for the Endangered Species Coalition. A community of conservatives and progressives, of Republicans and Democrats, “all come together and say we’d like to see the hellbender protected” — and yet nothing has happened.

George said the hellbender is more than a beloved animal. It is a symbol of belonging and endurance. Its struggles also seem to reflect a sense of anxiety many residents feel about change in the mountains.

“A lot of people see themselves in the story of the hellbender,” he said. “Lots of folks in Boone and Appalachia feel like they’re being displaced. They feel like there’s fewer places that are made for them to live.” That displacement echoes in the lives of the hellbenders, whether they bear out the storms under their flat, cool rocks, or ride out rising waters to parts unknown.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Appalachia’s iconic salamander was slated for federal protection. It’s still in limbo. on Mar 2, 2026.

From Grist via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/32016

Under the warm light of a hanging lamp, Marty Landorf carefully crumbled the dried flower head of a black-eyed Susan between her fingers, teasing apart the chaff to uncover its puny black seeds. Each one was destined for long-term cold storage alongside roughly 46 million other seeds at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Every seed in the garden’s vault is different. Some seeds have hooks. Others verge on microscopic. A few carry a sharp, deterring scent. And some, like the airborne seeds of the milkweed, the host plant for monarch caterpillars, are fastened to silky fluff that drifts everywhere, hitching rides on volunteers’ clothes and following them home.

“Fluff is fun,” Landorf said laughing, seated alongside five other volunteers cleaning, counting, and sorting seeds at a long metallic table in the garden’s seed bank preparation lab.

Carolyn Kuechler, left, and Marty Landorf, volunteers at the Chicago Botanic Garden, work on separating the seeds from the chaff at the seed bank in the Carr Administrative Center. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

For all their variation, these seeds share a common trait: They’re native to the Midwest. These species genetically adapted over thousands of years and sustain the region’s ecosystems. That evolutionary inheritance makes them indispensable for restoring the nation’s remaining prairies, wetlands, and woodlands.

The problem: Native seeds are in short supply. And climate change is intensifying demand.

“Climate change is affecting our weather and the frequency of natural disasters,” said Kayri Havens, chief scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden. “Wildfires becoming more common, hurricanes becoming more common — that increases the need for seed.”

In 2024, the Chicago Botanic Garden, a 385-acre public garden and home to one of the nation’s leading plant conservation programs, launched the Midwest Native Seed Network, a first step in improving the region’s fragile seed supply. The coalition now includes roughly 300 restoration ecologists, land managers, and seed growers across 150 institutions in 11 states. Together, they are researching which species are most in demand, where they are likely to thrive, and what it will take to produce them at scale and get them in the ground.

The collaborative is compiling information on seed collection, processing, germination, and propagation while identifying regional research gaps and planning collaborative projects to close them. For example, the network is currently collecting research on submerged aquatic plants such as pondweeds, and other species that are challenging to germinate, like the bastard toadflax, a partially parasitic perennial herb.

“We’re addressing these local, regional, and national shortages of native seed that are really just hindering our ability to restore really diverse habitats, build green infrastructure, and support urban gardens,” said Andrea Kramer, director of restoration at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Sarah Hollis, research assistant at the Chicago Botanic Garden, tours the seed bank in the Carr Administrative Center. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

Last year, the network undertook its first major project: a large-scale survey of more than 50 partners across the region. The results were stark. They revealed that more than 500 native species in the Midwest are effectively unavailable for restoration. In some cases, it’s because no one grows them. In others, the seeds are available, but the cost — even at a couple of dollars per packet — becomes prohibitive when restoration projects require thousands of pounds. And for certain finicky species, the bottleneck is technical: Researchers and growers still don’t fully understand how to germinate them reliably or help them thrive in restoration settings.

Kramer said that, ultimately, the goal is to connect the people who need seeds with those who know how to grow them. While the network does not sell seeds, it works with organizations and partners that do. “We are using the network to help elevate what we all know and share what we know to make it easier,” she said.

The shortage itself is not new. In 2001, following sweeping wildfires in the West, Congress tasked federal agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service — which, combined, manage approximately one-fifth of the nation’s public lands — to craft an interagency, public-private partnership to increase the availability of native seeds. But according to a 2023 report, which identified the lack of native seeds as a major obstacle for ecological restoration projects across the United States, those efforts remain unfinished.

Kayri Havens, vice president of science and chief scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden, poses for a portrait in the Carr Administrative Center. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

Wildfires have scorched more than 170 million acres in the U.S. between 2000 and 2025, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. In 2020 alone, the Bureau of Land Management purchased roughly 1.5 million pounds of seed to rehabilitate burned landscapes. In a bad fire year, the agency can buy as much as 10 million pounds.

The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law dedicated $1.4 billion for ecosystem restoration over five years, including $200 million for the National Seed Strategy, a coalition of 12 federal agencies and various private partners established in 2015 to provide genetically diverse native seeds for restoration. The following year, the Inflation Reduction Act invested nearly $18 million to develop an interagency seed bank for native seeds. And in 2024, the Interior Department announced an initial round of $1 million for a national seed bank for native plants.

“The U.S. does have a major seed bank run by the [Department of Agriculture], and it mostly banks crops,” said Havens, the scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden. “But we don’t have that kind of infrastructure in place for native seed.”

Momentum for establishing a native seed bank stalled following funding cuts by the Trump administration. In early 2025, the Department of Government Efficiency cut 10 percent of the staff at the National Plant Germplasm System, which is home to one of the largest and most diverse plant collections in the world.

Andrea Kramer, senior director of restoration at the Chicago Botanic Garden, said the network’s goal is to connect those who have access to seeds to those who don’t. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

“If something isn’t supported on a national level, then it becomes incumbent on states and regions to do that kind of work,” Havens said. “So that’s why we’re focusing right now in the Midwest.”

The network is the first of its kind in the Midwest, though similar initiatives have been active elsewhere in the country for years. Today, there are more than 25 similar networks operating across the U.S. In the western United States, these coalitions have come together in response to post-wildfire restoration projects.

“One of the reasons why we were among the first is because of this federal land ownership that we have in the West, whereas in the Midwest, it’s more private land,” said Elizabeth Lager, a professor at the University of Nevada in Reno and co-founder of the Nevada Native Seed Partnership. More than 90 percent of all federal land is located in 11 Western states.

Kramer said she hopes to run the seed availability survey again in 20 years and get a different response.

“I want them to say, ‘We have access to all the seed we need,’” said Kramer. “And we can move on to the next challenging question, like, ‘Why isn’t the seed establishing in my restoration? Or, how do we manage the next challenge coming with climate change?’”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A regional network is racing to save the Midwest’s native seeds on Mar 2, 2026.

From Grist via This RSS Feed.

The Ruddy Turnstone, I think. I'm still learning. Here it's in its winter plumage. One of the many gulf coast shorebirds I spent the day watching.

Sand burrowing crabs that live right above the water line. I like to watch them in the mornings, pushing loose sand up and out like this one was here.

Went to the beach overnight, on the drive out I followed this scoop of Brown Pelicans for about 25 miles. The pelicans were cruising about 20' off the dunes there. The breeze comes right off the gulf, hits the dune line and shoots upward which allows the birds to just ride the air currents. They flapped maybe once every four or five minutes, otherwise just wings out and cruising, single file like.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/30090

More than 150 giant tortoises have been reintroduced to Floreana Island in Ecuador's famed Galapagos archipelago where they disappeared more than a century ago, the environment ministry said Friday.

Park rangers carried large crates containing the 158 tortoises on their backs, hiking seven kilometers (four miles) across volcanic terrain and hard-to-access areas before releasing them, the ministry said in a statement.

"For the first time in over a century, Floreana is once again home to giant tortoises, a species that plays a strategic role as ecosystem engineers: seed dispersers, vegetation regulators, and promoters of natural habitat regeneration," it said.

The Galapagos Islands, a World Heritage Site, are situated some 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador. They are famous for their unique flora and fauna and are where British scientist Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution.

An NGO, Island Conservation, said it was the first time that giant tortoises have walked on Floreana since the native species, Chelonoidis niger niger, was driven to extinction there in the mid-1800s after the introduction of invasive mammals.

There are 13 living species of Galapagos tortoises on other islands in the archipelago, according to National Geographic. They can weigh more than 250 kilograms (550 pounds). The oldest on record lived to be 175 years old.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

A striking Spinosaurus skull found in the Sahara Desert has been named a new species.

With a large sword-shaped crest on its head, Spinosaurus mirabilis would have been able to attract mates and compete with rivals.

Astonishing’ fossils discovered in Niger have been identified as a new species of Spinosaurus.

When a scientific expedition first encountered scimitar-shaped bones in the Sahara Desert, they weren’t sure what to make of them. Further research revealed that they belonged to a previously unknown species which has now been named Spinosaurus mirabilis.

A study published in the journal Scienceopens in a new window has reveals this 95-million-year-old dinosaur had a distinctive curved crest on top of its head. The scimitar-shaped bones would have been covered in a layer of keratin, similar to the casque of a cassowary, which would have made the crest even longer in life.

Along with a sail running along its back, the crest would have helped S. mirabilis to stand out in the ancient wetlands of north Africa. They might have been used to catch the attention of potential mates, or to scare rivals away from its territory.

Professor Paul Serenoopens in a new window, the lead author of the study, says that the “amazing” find gives an insight into the life of this fish-eating dinosaur.

“I envision Spinosaurus mirabilis as a kind of ‘hell heron’,” Paul says. “It would have had no problem wading on its sturdy legs into two meters of water but probably spent most of its time stalking shallower traps for the many large fish of the day.”

Popular cultivar with lovely creamy pink and yellow inflorescence. Adored by honey eaters*. Yim yum

*Honeyeaters are a group of birds