Here in Michigan those are called “widow-makers”
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We do have standing dead trees, and that’s all I’ve heard them called. Some of the woodcutters will put out ads saying they will remove the standing dead trees.
The dead trees that are snags are also standing, but are riddled with holes, mostly woodpeckers. They make lovely calling drums! It’s kind of sad when they do fall.
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I don’t know of a word that means dead but fully upright. Snagged trees may be dead or they could still have part of their root plate functional and live for many years, as can trees that have fully fallen over.
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I learned about the existence of workerless inquiline ant species. The queens insert themselves into the nests of multi-queen species and that colony feeds and raises their new queens and drones
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Today – on two occasions – I saw mockingbirds singing while flying. This was a surprise to me, because all other times when I have seen birds singing, it has been while they were perched, then they might fly to a new perch between songs. I was not aware that birds could sing and fly at the same time.
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Today I learned that I cannot differentiate female Tulip-tree Silkmoths from Promethea Moths as easily as I thought I could. My confidence is shaken. 
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Today I learned that there’s a moss (Hylocomium splendens) with branches up to 20 cm long. I didn’t think that’s possible in a non-vascular plant.
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I was watching one of those expert reacts videos on youtube last night. It was a biologist of some sort rating animal scenes in movies. One clip was from “Free Willie”. I’ve never actually seen the movie myself, but for those who don’t know, it’s a movie about a captive Orca Whale who was part of a water park show.
The scene shows Willie trying to get a kid to play with him, and the biologist points out that the dorsal fin is curled down. He explains that this is a reaction to great emotional stress, and that once they curl like that, they never come back up. Even if the whale is released, they stay curled down and and hinder their ability to swim.
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I learned that this thread is awesome.
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I bet you especially enjoy that you don’t have to put on your staff hat and chime in to clarify things or calm the waters that are sometimes roiled in other threads…
Kleptoplasy. It’s when a heterotroph, usually a protist, consumes an autotroph, usually algae, and keeps the plastid with chlorophyll intact instead of digesting it, thereby giving the host the short-term ability to photosynthesize! It’s like acquiring a superpower. The continuum from autotroph to heterotroph is more fascinating than I would have imagined.
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This led me to a short article about sea slugs that can do this on a longer term, using a method called horizontal gene transfer. Cool stuff.
https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/evolutionshorts/2015/12/10/evolution-of-photsynthetic-sea-slugs/
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I just read something about Great Blue Herons making their nest spots above alligator infested waters to prevent other tree climbing animals such as racoons from climbing up and stealing their eggs.
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The Great Blue Heron rookery I saw in Michigan was in tall trees over inland water…no alligators, but the water would keep some predators away.
Rookeries are so…prehistoric
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Stepping on a snake is a terrible idea…almost did that yesterday!! https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/305831718
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Acetabula, the lens-like structures on the underside of water mites, are involved in osmo-regulation.
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According to the Woodland Trust’s latest newsletter, a dead tree which is still standing is a rampike.
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While researching vetches (genus Vicia), I learned about root nodules which many plants have on their roots where they form a symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
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That’s cool! And welcome to the forum!! 
It’s recently been found that many species of fish will carry sea anemones around in their mouths. The current best guess is that it is some form of defense mechanism.
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