Since we’ll soon be bombarded with Valentine’s Day marketing and ads, I thought – maybe that’s a good excuse for us to share with each other some of the romance details that made us smitten with our favourite species. What were the things, the moments, that made (and still make) you passionate abou…

Thanks for the timely (and thoughtful) Valentine’s Day post, Bob! I love how you went deeper by asking about childhood memories. I started out obsessed with snakes (and I’ve shared that story in other posts ), but one of the most magical things about iNaturalist is the chance to discover entirely ne…

I like this topic so much. My favorite plant, which was indeed my first Observation, I have told the story of , and given that I was concerned about it at first, it feels lovely and unexpected that now Hamelia patens is my favorite plant. (Sadly H. patens is not in our new garden and I often think a…

Great topic! When I was a kid, I went through the classic snake phase — the kind where every walk turned into a hunt for anything scaly, and every adult around me had to endure endless snake facts. That stuck with me for a long time. But once I finally got a camera, my attention drifted toward what…

[image] broacher: Also – have you ever felt any ‘secret desires’ to get into a species area There are so many! Tropical West Africa seems incredible, the Philippine islands have a lot of endemism . . . there is so much to discover out there! It’s another amazing thing about identifying unknow…

Whenever people upload springtail photos from any islands, it’s some sort of undescribed species! Then again, even in mainland North America, there are tons of undescribed species, sometimes just as common as described ones (such as many Isotoma, which were only found to be comprised of many undescr…

[image] broacher: I’m gazing at you, underwater ocean species! [image] eyekosaeder: I prefer taxa that are more “alien” to us. And I like colours. Luckily, my animal evolution and morphology professor has introduced be to a taxon that fulfills all of those: Polychaetes! Yeah, the ocean…

Yes! It was love at first sight for me, as well. But the ‘Purple Sock’? I bet it doesn’t even know I’m alive (sigh). https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/funny-long-or-just-plain-weird-animal-names/3220/456?u=broacher

I don’t know why, but I’m simply in love with Psephellus and Amberboa! Just look at them! I once had a close friend whom I loved very much, and we even had our own Telegram sticker pack with funny cats and other little things that were “ours”. One of the stickers, with Amberboa, came to mean love. …

That’s such an easy seduction, right? You must have stumbled across this one from a guy named Andy Murray. New Zealand, home of the Giants! (Springtails, that is). This guy chases them. Look at these pics and you can see why. https://www.chaosofdelight.org/blog/springtails-chasing-giants

Actually, I had not heard of him, amazing photos for sure! Yeah, the largest known species there gets a whopping 18mm! And they lack a furcula, so they don’t jump away every time they notice you pointing a lens at them, lol.

iLove and iRomance: Share your stories on how you found and fell for... your favourite taxon(s)

Nature Talk

AdamWargon February 2, 2026, 9:05pm 9

Yeah, the ocean is full of things that make you say, “Wait . . . what is this?!" Even taxonomists get stumped sometimes!

For me, this most recently happened with Xenoturbella AKA the purple sock . . .

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iLove and iRomance: Share your stories on how you found and fell for... your favourite taxon(s)

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