Where is the most unusual place you've found an organism?

Some of the frogs were outside of the toilet. Some of the frogs were inside of the toilet. Some I didn’t notice were in the toilet (hiding under toilet rim) until after I did my business, so, uhh, no photos there…

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Dairy section of a local mart (square-headed wasp) - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/15528076
Classroom on the third floor of the building (crab spider) - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/12860181
Bike path (mitten crab) - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2468492

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Oh, yeah…my worst two ever. Not “unusual” as much as “unexpected”.

  1. Big ol’ American Cockroach, probably at least 2 inches long, crawling up through the tub overflow…while I was standing there showering. :fearful: :sob: And it wasn’t even a dirty bathroom. It was just bad luck.

  2. I can only take my trash out during the day. If I throw it in the dumpster at night, a raccoon will pop up right in my face (once, one even chased me), and if I drive past the dumpster, they will jump out and run across the road in front of my car. This situation is because apparently one of the neighbors started deliberately feeding them last year. Who feeds the trash pandas in a neighborhood, apartment complex, or other urban/suburban setting? Do you want them to become roadkill or get desensitized to humans?

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It’s a terrible picture, but https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/40171823 is the varied carpet beetle I found on my towel after getting out of the shower. Step 1: panic, step 2: grab camera.

Things growing on roofs isn’t too rare, but I was impressed at the size this https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/33055407 silver birch had got to once I finally got a good view from the roof terrace of the building next door.

My dad had this bat fall on him, when we were having a tour of a historic mill: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/30263123

I don’t have a specific example, but I am always fond of mosses and lichens growing along the edges of car windows.

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Two observations of beetles in a boat: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1809520, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1243552

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Fish are slippery. Eagles drop them over my camp a lot, and don’t come down to retrieve them because the trees are too dense, I think. So I find quite a few fish out of water every summer.

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This heron I saw on the shoulder of a highway (I hope it was okay): https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/22006311

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This egret, which looks to casually be visiting a waffle house, is still a favorite (not my obs).

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dros :).

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Being an egret, he was probably looking for the Offal House. (Sorry. That was awful.)

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Visit of snowy owl to the research vessel: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/19831059 .

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Underground collector of the Neglinka River in Moscow, Rattus norvegicus: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/19838860 .

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And a handsome specimen, indeed!

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Unexpected until I remembered I was on the Island of Borneo - A scorpion found right in front of my left foot beside the toilet during the early morning - me barely awake until this. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/17163130

This Bat above our motel room door in the morning - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/6816369

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Oh, your bat reminds me:

There was a bat inside the office complex of a former employer. It got into the shared communal space, and then into the law office next door.

The law employees there named it “Bruce” (after Batman) and when the property manager arrived later to remove it they were warning him to be careful and to be sure not to hurt Bruce. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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I once saw a bat hanging over a door in a building in Georgian College. While everyone was a little freaked out, I put on my leather mitts, climbed up on a chair and dislodged the little fellow. Took it outside to a wooded area and let it go. I had a lot of practice doing that - bats used to get into my upstairs bedroom, and I used my leather mitts to catch them when they landed and put them outside.

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I found a Spaelotis clandestina in our bathroom on my wife’s skin moisturizer. https://inaturalist.ca/observations/32911963
I also have a story I find interesting. A couple of years ago a decent sized tree broke in a windstorm down by the Red River in Winnipeg. It formed a triangle over the monkey trail that forms along the river every year. The wood was solid, and showed no sign of rotting away, and the tree top was closer to the river. Last fall was really wet, and the river flooded and the ice froze. Over the winter the water level went down, as did the bank ice. The tree top must have been in the ice, and as it went down, it pulled the tree with it, separating it from the stump/base. Come the spring breakup, the ice - and the tree - got washed away. I find it an interesting example of how ‘nature’ can change over time, in ways not always predictable.

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I recorded a Vanessa cardui flying around inside Broad st station in downtown Manhattan. Pretty much underground

It happens to us all the time. They also like to land on denim blue jeans. I think it’s certain types of butterflies, though. (the shoe ones have all been Painted or American Ladies).

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/50703958
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/31192098
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/58673656
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/53780144

Back in 1979 or so, my husband and I toured parts of Kentucky and Tennessee on our motorcycle - camping along the way. At one spot, there were gobs of butterflies that kept landing on my husband’s shirt. I wasn’t ‘naturing’ back then and I have no idea what they were.

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Hundreds of people gather every summer evening on the Congress Avenue Bridge in downtown Austin, Texas to watch the colony of Mexican Freetail bats emerge. One evening I noticed on a concrete apron that forms part of the foundation of the bridge, dozens of geckos clinging to the nearly vertical surface.

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