Haha, I did the exact same thing and was wondering the same. The paper mentioned in the comments of one of the BC observations says:
Our hypothesis is that seeds of the plant were hitchhikers on the tread of a hiker’s boot. The nearness of the site to the parking lot and its location on the downhill side of this heavily used trail are consistent with that premise.
WOW! So cool.
Thanks, yeah really cool one, claws bigger than the body is quite impressive.
Finally getting around to uploading photos from October and recorded a few life list firsts from a trip to Jeju Island and U Island, off the south coast of Korea.
Four new plants and four new invertebrates from the ‘wild’ observations, with the planthopper Ishiharanus iguchii the most interesting-looking of the batch:
A short trip to northern Morocco this past week brought a whole bunch of lifers including the likes of endangered species like the white headed duck, endemics like the Moroccan three-toed skink with only 2 observations on iNat, and a range extension for the Mediterranean house gecko (though it is likely introduced at that locality), yet easily my favorite was far from the rarest, most range restricted, least observed or most surprising but rather the exquisitely weird and wonderful checkerboard worm lizard.
I think it should be called the Crossword Lizard! Fantastic looking creature.
Thanks, I like that name, and yes, they’re something else, indeed.
Their calm demeanour, tiny, flickering tongue, and caterpillar like movement only make them all the more endearing.
My first ever Mygalomorph!! In my garage no less! I genuinely didn’t think I would ever get to see one, so much so that it wasn’t even on a personal list of species I was looking for this year! I took her in over night to get some better pictures in the morning and managed to get a 48 minute long video of her walking around and making a burrow start-to-finish
If you plan on watching the video I recommend muting it and playing it on 2x speed, or just skimming, lots of background noise from me and youtube videos, as watching a spider loop around the same hole for the 300th time isn’t exactly riveting.
That would definitely be categorized as “Expert” level!
this Southbya tophacea
It is a new species for Slovenia and one of my favourite liverworts:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/203791134
Pale pinion and Powdered quaker in the moth trap this morning, neither particularly rare but but both are new species for me.
And they showcase how different two “dull brown moths” can be. The amazing thing about moths is that each supposedly “dull brown moth” has its own way of life, different from all others.
Grasswidow! I went out specifically to find it, since it’s so pretty and I’ve never seen it before. Ended up having a lovely, peaceful day at the beach with a bunch of seals and sealions.
Two things from the past week.
My first velvet worm, have been wanting to find one for ages - Ooperipatellus viridimaculatus
And since its coming into fungi season, always lots of lifers but I did like the “low angle” on this Sarcodon carbonarius
My favorite lifer from this week are these Marmara fasciella mines that I saw on some fallen pine tree branches.
Where I live it’s still winter, but managed to find a few cold-adapted living insects (and one spider) crawling on the snow the other day, including this Boreus westwoodi.
Pardon my ignorance but are those non-leg appendages on the ‘front’ of the harvestman really folded claws? Another way that evolution is migrating everything to be a crab …
Last summer, I travelled to a location where I was fortunate to find multiple Sassacus papenhoei (lifer). While the gold on this female is impressive…
Second time seeing, first time photographing an American Golden Plover! Also, saw my lifer Upland Sandpiper, but it was too distant with too much heat shimmer for a good photo.
No worries, these ones have modified chelicerae which they use for feeding/fighting.
I do think its interesting looking at a different havestmen (which I saw in colombia) which seems to have developed claws from its palps instead. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/177880063
So its interesting, even within an order (harvestmen / opiliones) the drive to “grasp and fight” is high enough that its been reached as a evolutionary solution in very different ways.
In terms of the “Everything becomes crab” meme. I would argue “Its not even the final form”
If you check out Frog Crabs https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=map&taxon_id=195288&view=species They may be an example of Decarcinisation. Aka get crab perks, then get mobile again.
But to quote "However, there are varying degrees of carcinisation and decarcinisation. Thus, not all species can necessarily be classified as “carcinised” or “decarcinised.”’ I am happy to be called out on that one.
