Now that I have (mostly) finished identifying the observations from my Reno, Nevada trip, I have a favorite this week. Behold, the Critically Endangered Great Basin ramshorn snail:
This American snout was my 200th species and my favorite lifer this week. Bonus that it was in my front garden and is super cute, plus has a fun Independence-Day-appropriate name. The rattlesnake master it is on even looks kind of like fireworks. 
Thank you!
I had six lifers in the last week. Choosing favorite gets difficult…so I chose these two:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/294911962
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/293474882
(Honorable mentions:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/294855933
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/294621273 )
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/295102565
and
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/295104571
I can’t just choose one!
I just got back from a trip to Southeastern Arizona (as well as Central California), and I got a lot of lifers that I wasn’t able to post the week I saw them, so here are my highlights:
Arizona:
Rose-throated Becard
I had the luck to photograph my first deer flies this week. Not only that, but I’m fairly sure the three individuals I photographed were each a different species.
This Satyrium w-album
Hairstreaks are my favourite butterfies, and this is apprently one of the rarer ones, because it usually flies high up the elm trees.
Wow! Only three observations, what a cool sighting
I found a Maritime Earwig in Ohio. I had never even heard of one, but it could be Ohio’s first ever record. Certainly, it is the first Ohio record on iNaturalist.
I was actually sitting watching an outdoor symphony orchestra concert at the time. It crawled past me, I immediately knew it was something that I had not seen before, so I quickly snapped a few photos before it moved on.
You know how sometimes wasp fans seem a little smug about the sleekness of their obsession?
Well, sometimes you can start to see why.
Messatoporus discoidalis
These strange insects: Brown Wasp Mantidfly.
Not a wasp. Not a mantis. Not a fly.
Something you might expect if Dr. Frankenstein created insects instead of a human monster?
As an added bonus, they were mating. What’s not to love?
I assume they sting, bite, and buzz around annoyingly?
This eight spotted forester moth who was enjoying my garden (as I was enjoying watching him).
This yelloweye rockfish was a very unexpected catch! This kind of fish isn’t a very common one in the area, and they are super cool looking.
These rockfish usually suffer from barotrauma, which happens when the air molecules in their bodies expand as they are brought quickly to the surface. This causes their swim bladder to inflate out of their mouths. We have a special device for rockfish, so we can release them back at the depth they were caught so that the air molecules will shrink. Otherwise, they’ll simply float until they die.
I have seen almost all of the orchid species of Austria - but orchids can hybridize creating an almost unlimited number of hybrid species to discover. Usually hybrids only form between species in the same genus, but in very rare cases, an inter-genus hybrid is possible. Yesterday I found one such hybrid! Pseudadenia × schweinfurthii, the hybrid between Pseudorchis albida and Gymnadenia conopsea. The two parents were very numerous around the spot where there was one single hybrid plant - in the first two pictures I also included the two parents.
My first Paraembolides An Australian funnel web spider but not “those” funnel web spiders.
Vancouver Island marmot!!
Rarest (by # of obs) species I’ve ever seen! Rarest mammal by a factor of ten!
Adorable, one of only five land mammals endemic to Canada, adorable, critically endangered though recovering quite strongly thanks to conservation efforts (from ~30 wild individuals in 2003 to 381 in 2024), adorable, and most of all adorable!
Huge thanks to the Marmot Recovery Foundation for providing a ton of information on the animal and just being extremely pleasant to correspond with!
I’ve spent my entire life in the Great Lakes region and I finally saw our local celebrity piping plovers!
