This is a lifer, but it’s is not from this week…
This is also a demonstration of being patient for confirming id to be made.
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Very cool, congrats! I remember my lifer brant, which I saw late in the evening. It was dark, and I could barely see, but I could see enough to know that they were brants.
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I wouldn’t call a fungus on a plant a “disease” unless I knew more about the relationship. It might benefit both organisms.
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This weekend I took a little vacation to Ogunquit, Maine! This vacation came with many lifers. One thing that I thought was cool to see was a big species of gall, Diplolepis spinosa . This is the biggest gall I have ever seen.
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Oh man. You need to come to California and see the gall of the California gall wasp. I’ve seen them nearly the size of a softball. Baseball size is very common.
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I’ll choose of the species posted this week, but observed last week…
- The red admiral (Vanessa atalanta)
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/251535806
One of my favourite butterfly species
- The mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus)
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/251535804
A beautiful bird, the first time I photographed one
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I went to Zilker Park in Austin to photograph the butterfly migration and add observations, and finally found a Julia Heliconian in Austin, an uncommon visitor.
Also while it technically was not this week, I finally spotted a viceroy butterfly this year (it was October, I got distracted), which is another one I’d been searching out for years. They really look like monarchs.
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I had a bunch of "new to me"s this week but my favorites were this hover fly today, Toxomerus bistrigus,
and this spider whom I spotted a few days ago on the wall of the living room, mostly because I love any of the species that are “yucatensis” or “yucateca” or any such local name. This one is Loxosceles yucatana!
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This redhead. They’re pretty rare where I live.
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We had a king tide on the California coast today, and I found several new lifers in the tide pools today. First octopus I’ve encountered in the wild, and the first nudibranch I’ve ever seen outside of a book or picture on the internet. A very good day ^^
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Lovely picture!
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As a life form that most people have probably never heard of, nudibranchs are quite beautiful!
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This is beautifully decorated with hearts!
Fantastic First!
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Beautiful nudibranch!
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I found a Shirka (an Indian bird). I’ve been trying to find this bird for a year or two, and today I finally found one! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a great picture. It’s probably unidentifiable :(
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Cool! I love cephalopods and nudibranchs. Really beautiful find!
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New moths are increasingly difficult to find. So yesterday I decided to get into woodlice and went to the nearest wasteland (ca. 10 min walking) to turn some stones. 4 (in words: four!) species of isopoda - of course all new. My favourite is (probably) Lucasius andalusicus.
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Wow cool! I’m extremely jealous of the woodlice diversity in Europe, where I am in north America we mostly just have a handful of common invasive species when it comes to woodlice diversity
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Yikes! I didn’t know they were all non-native!
So, i was going in my garden, pulled multiple rocks, expecting some critters.
And i managed to find an long, black ant.
It was a Razorjaw ant, I’ve always wanted to see one!
However this wasn’t just any Razorjaw ant that has been reported from green areas from my city. It was Leptogenys hysterica, my observation is currently the 3rd observation in the world and the 2nd one from India. Also a new species for the state!
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