I recently was tidepooling a little rocky beach in Acadia National Park and found this thing . I don’t know what it is, and just went with the most likely (but still unlikely) CV suggestion. I wanted to know, what are your most baffling, most unexpected, most alien-like observations?

That is so cool looking! they all have different amounts of ‘arms’. I have also found some pretty odd stuff: this one appears to be a piece of an arthropod, but I’m not sure what kind.

Diastrophus… this one is on a red raspberry https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/213537589 this one is on common cinquefoil https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/226988848 and this one is on thimbleberry https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/230375338

This beetle, which mimics a spider in look and movement. I was really confused.

The weirdest thing I found is a bunch of ciliates: This Spirostomum conglomeration appeared randomly in our garden pond in huge numbers. One day the entire pond was suddenly almost completely yellowish. Thinking it was some sort of algal bloom I gathered a jar of them to look at them under a microsc…

Recently, I found a fully intact horse skull just lying on the road.

That is so lucky! I hope you kept it, I have yet to aquire a horse skull. Did you make an observation for it?

Hmm… I actually haven’t posted it yet, but I will soon! It’s still waiting in my collection of photos to be uploaded. Once I get through them, I’ll share the horse skull on iNaturalist. It was such an interesting find, so I’m looking forward to adding it to my observations

If we’re going by most alien observation then I’ll have to go with these drone fly larva I found in a sled full of water in my backyard. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/237737990 They may not be super uncommon, but definitely strange looking. I had no idea what they were when I found them…

Transparency always qualifies as weird wherever it occurs! (In biology.)

Weirdest finds on iNaturalist?

Nature Talk

vreinkymov August 12, 2024, 4:46pm 4

Credit to @Mercedes-Fletcher’s forum topic What are your favorite projects?, take a look at Weird Wild Wonders project.

Edit: @Brycetheplant’s comment above reminded me of these leaf galls which are pretty strange!

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Weirdest finds on iNaturalist?

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