Deer

🩵🩵🩵 sending belated birthday love your way.

not the cranberry poppi 😭

first sunset / dusk sky gradient of autumn

let me share a little story about a remarkable wasp that I encountered yesterday in our local deserts

I stumbled across her, and scrambled to get a few crappy photos .... but then realized that she had a burrow, perhaps a better photo op was possible ??

here she is at her burrow entrance.

A stem with a cluster of five leaflets, with prickly margins like holly leaves, brilliantly colored for fall. The leaves, in a vibrant mix of red, yellow, pink, orange, and green, show up brightly against the muted browns and grays of the forest floor.

Berberis repens (or Mahonia repens - plant folks don't all agree), aka Creeping Oregon Grape. Only a few inches high, it's one of my favorite native plants. It has yellow flowers in spring, followed by dusty blue berries, then amazing fall colors. This stem was particularly beautiful. (Montana) 🌿🍂

agave weevil (Scyphophorus acupunctatus) found this morning. quite the robust beetle!

cute but dangerous (for other insects, that is)! assassin bug nymph

bugs spotted this week at work 🙂

a female kit fox with two small pups (kits) by her side, on open ground near the burrow

kit fox mama with kits, from a few months back, far northern Nevada. two more kits were in the burrow, and even though I waited patiently, I couldn't capture a frame will all together

when I first drove past (at 55 mph) I thought to myself, "hmmm, prairie dogs". then I contemplated further ....

clouds and saguaros from yesterday evening

I remember watching a bunch of them strip flesh off some sort of small dead animal and it was amazing how fast they worked. Those mandibles must really be sharp

yes! The way she takes off with a chunk of it 😭

Fern with small, fuzzy lobed leaves growing out from beneath a rock

A more typically-shaped fern growing out from beneath a rock. The leaflets are shaped like oak leaves.

A cluster of fern leaves that are gray-green and soft in texture.

A very green, sort of leggy/spiky looking moss creeping among chunks of rock.

three species of ferns and bonus moss from a short walk in the mountains this afternoon

I always appreciate seeing spiders just Doing Their Thing; here’s a little wolf spider today doodling around

Digital art of a village scene in mostly browns and tans with little pops of color. Some elk-like creatures appear to be talking from the sides, with another elk in the distance and a human watering flowers in the far background. There are fall leaves on the ground.

Hey do you like fluffy deer llaama elk reindeer? my ARPG's biggest event of the year is happening now! You can start with a (make-your-own) free character anytime, but if you join during this event, you get other bonus goodies too! Check our news post for deets! www.bepotelkh.com/news/53.autu...

very on brand for the time and probably why I no longer own any dressy shirts lmfao

some penance for my lack of posting here! (off being deranged elsewhere)

recently fb reminded me of a photo taken 13 years ago of me skinning out a roadkill gray fox and I couldn’t stop laughing about how in the photo I’m wearing like. a dressy shirt. Why

A photo of three different colorful tea towels folded next to each other. The vibrant patterns from left to right are: Redwood Forest Floor, North American Moths, and Nudibranchs.

A second photo of the tea towels folded next to each other, this time close up and at an angle to show the cotton fabric. The designs feature 1) small redwood forest critters like snakes, slugs, and salamanders, 2) various species of North American moths, and 3) sea slugs/Nudibranchs of vibrant colors and shapes

A photo of the same three tea towels, this time displayed folded horizontally and arranged top to bottom.

New tea towels just got added to the shop! Redwood Forest Floor, North American Moths, and Nudibranchs!! 🦋☘️🌊

Available here! shop.fossilforager.art

I’m always accepting photos of the weird critters you see,

sorry for the lack of posting here!!! it's been a very odd summer!

A macro photo, front three-quarter angle, of a round, flattened, orange and metallic gold beetle with a few black dots, on a piece of old wood. The beetle's head, legs, and antennae are tucked under the edge of its tortoise-like "shell" - the elytra (hard wing covers over the abdomen) and pronotum (shield-like upper surface of the thorax). The front part of the pronotum is actually transparent.

🐙🌿 Happy #InverteFest! Shall we talk about anal forks? Hold on, we'll get there. First, here are your Tuesday Tortoise Beetles. (I think this one is Jonthonota sp.). TBs are a subgroup in the leaf beetle family Chrysomelidae. They're often small and round and can sort of resemble ladybugs. Their--

An illustrated poster showing 9 different species of velvet ants, which are actually female flightless wasps. They are mostly brownish, yellow, orange, and red in color, with various degrees of black markings. They are illustrated on a vibrant orange background.

Velvet Ants of North America! 🐜

saw four different species of snakes on a recent night hike. the coral snake was a new species for me. the other three pictured are tiger rattlesnake, desert king snake, and blind snake

A macro photo looking down at a solifugid - aka wind scorpion, camel spider, or sun spider - in a rock crevice. This arachnid (in their own family, Solifugae, so not actually a spider or scorpion) has an orange head and legs, and a dark purple-brown abdomen.

🐙🌿Here is your Sunday Solifugid - an arachnid in the family Solifugae. They have several common names - sun spider, camel spider, wind scorpion - but are neither spiders nor scorpions. They have no venom. They are predators, and have cool, double-crab-claw jaws at the bitey end. This one was--

a lovely amblypygid from last night!

Yeah I’ve only seen one once, years ago! I couldn’t believe how tiny it was

A macro photo, ground level on the desert sand, of the head and front of the body of a strange, worm-like snake. The snake is of uniform thickness, with no "neck," and vestigial black eye spots under the head scales. It is overall pinkish, like an earthworm, and its scales are smooth and shiny.

Texas Blind Snake, aka Texas Thread Snake (Rena dulcis), SE Arizona. 🐍 These tiny, harmless snakes usually live underground eating termites & ants. A study of Eastern Screech Owls back in the late 1980s showed that the owls, which usually only bring dead prey to their chicks, brought these snakes--

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