Colin Purrington
@colinpurrington.bsky.social
Nature pics and science. Swarthmore, PA, USA. https://colinpurrington.com
Reposted by Colin Purrington
Does anyone want a survivorship bias shortbread
November 29, 2025 at 4:50 AM
Does anyone want a survivorship bias shortbread
Reposted by Colin Purrington
Who knows their internal parasites? This crawled out of a water strider yesterday 😱
June 24, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Who knows their internal parasites? This crawled out of a water strider yesterday 😱
One of the joys of poking around iNaturalist is learning about organisms I had never heard about. Enough surprises to fill several lifetimes. E.g., here are millipede assassins doing their thing in Namibia. #inaturalist #hemiptera #millipedes #namibia www.inaturalist.org/observations...
Millipede Assassin (Ectrichodia crux)
Millipede Assassin from Klein Windhoek, Windhoek, Namibia on January 17, 2009 at 07:09 AM by Peter Erb
www.inaturalist.org
December 1, 2025 at 1:24 PM
One of the joys of poking around iNaturalist is learning about organisms I had never heard about. Enough surprises to fill several lifetimes. E.g., here are millipede assassins doing their thing in Namibia. #inaturalist #hemiptera #millipedes #namibia www.inaturalist.org/observations...
Reposted by Colin Purrington
A very Eye of Sauron lichen scene. Porpidia (grey) and Lecidia (orange), possibly. #lichen #fungi #fungifriends #hiking
November 30, 2025 at 8:20 PM
A very Eye of Sauron lichen scene. Porpidia (grey) and Lecidia (orange), possibly. #lichen #fungi #fungifriends #hiking
Reposted by Colin Purrington
Watched S5 E1 ("The Crawl") of #StrangerThings last night & was thrilled to see gorgeous examples of drill holes made by a yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) in the trunk of what's likely a loblolly pine (Pinus taeda); Will Byers (Noah Schnapps) for scale. 🧪🌲🪵🐦🕳️
November 30, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Watched S5 E1 ("The Crawl") of #StrangerThings last night & was thrilled to see gorgeous examples of drill holes made by a yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) in the trunk of what's likely a loblolly pine (Pinus taeda); Will Byers (Noah Schnapps) for scale. 🧪🌲🪵🐦🕳️
Reposted by Colin Purrington
Congrats to John Ascher for surpassing 2 million ID’s on #iNaturalist. Without his immense expertise and efforts (>1000 ID’s daily of bees and apoid wasps, worldwide) I wouldn’t be a #bee watcher.
Aside from all the ID’s, this 2020 interview inspired me…
extension.oregonstate.edu/podcast/poll...
Aside from all the ID’s, this 2020 interview inspired me…
extension.oregonstate.edu/podcast/poll...
137 John Ascher - The problem with measuring bee decline
Dr. Ascher is an Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, National University Singapore (NUS). He studies global bee diversity including systematics, biogeography, and conservation, and...
extension.oregonstate.edu
November 30, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Congrats to John Ascher for surpassing 2 million ID’s on #iNaturalist. Without his immense expertise and efforts (>1000 ID’s daily of bees and apoid wasps, worldwide) I wouldn’t be a #bee watcher.
Aside from all the ID’s, this 2020 interview inspired me…
extension.oregonstate.edu/podcast/poll...
Aside from all the ID’s, this 2020 interview inspired me…
extension.oregonstate.edu/podcast/poll...
Reposted by Colin Purrington
This is the Sunburst Candy Spider from Thailand. Not AI (sucks to have to declare this). Very real and had been on my wish list for a long time.
The taxonomic placement is unclear, so we are leaving it at Cyrtarachninae.
The taxonomic placement is unclear, so we are leaving it at Cyrtarachninae.
November 29, 2025 at 3:15 PM
This is the Sunburst Candy Spider from Thailand. Not AI (sucks to have to declare this). Very real and had been on my wish list for a long time.
The taxonomic placement is unclear, so we are leaving it at Cyrtarachninae.
The taxonomic placement is unclear, so we are leaving it at Cyrtarachninae.
Christmas display at Longwood Gardens did not disappoint. #KennettSquare #LongwoodGardens #pennsylvania #christmas #plants
November 30, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Christmas display at Longwood Gardens did not disappoint. #KennettSquare #LongwoodGardens #pennsylvania #christmas #plants
The Wood's cycad (Encephalartos woodii) at Longwood Gardens has a hopeful display of strobili right now. Sadly, no females around, or anywhere on the planet as far as we know. #cycad #plants #botany #dioecious
November 30, 2025 at 11:31 AM
The Wood's cycad (Encephalartos woodii) at Longwood Gardens has a hopeful display of strobili right now. Sadly, no females around, or anywhere on the planet as far as we know. #cycad #plants #botany #dioecious
In grifting news, the content scraper who goes by "Science Girl" is now an author, publishing with Hachette under the name Sabrina Rose (a pseudonym I assume). There's zero chance I'm buying them to review but I'm curious whether they are filled with errors and stolen photographs. #science #books
November 30, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Reposted by Colin Purrington
Its that time of year again: a male Snow Flea, one of 3 seen yesterday in woodland on the Shrops/Herefords border. These 4mm relatives of Scorpionflies live in moss (esp. Polytrichum & relatives) & are winter active as adults. Not fleas of course but they can jump a bit.
November 27, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Its that time of year again: a male Snow Flea, one of 3 seen yesterday in woodland on the Shrops/Herefords border. These 4mm relatives of Scorpionflies live in moss (esp. Polytrichum & relatives) & are winter active as adults. Not fleas of course but they can jump a bit.
Reposted by Colin Purrington
This beautiful ant-mimicking mantis (Acontista festae) was one of the first finds on our survey at Emerald Arch in Ecuador! The adult may not look much like an ant, but its babies will fool you. Acontista nymphs sit on flower heads, so it seems that ants and flying pollinators are their main prey.
November 27, 2025 at 5:10 PM
This beautiful ant-mimicking mantis (Acontista festae) was one of the first finds on our survey at Emerald Arch in Ecuador! The adult may not look much like an ant, but its babies will fool you. Acontista nymphs sit on flower heads, so it seems that ants and flying pollinators are their main prey.
Reposted by Colin Purrington
Fascinating story about evidence that #H5N1 #birdflu infected vampire bats in South America, raising the prospect of a potential new & dangerous host for the virus. Some good news: The virus didn't appear to spread well among the bats. By @martinenserink.bsky.social. www.science.org/content/arti...
Vampire bats may have contracted H5N1 bird flu in Peru, raising worries about further spread
Bats could form a bridge between marine and terrestrial mammals, scientists say
www.science.org
November 26, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Fascinating story about evidence that #H5N1 #birdflu infected vampire bats in South America, raising the prospect of a potential new & dangerous host for the virus. Some good news: The virus didn't appear to spread well among the bats. By @martinenserink.bsky.social. www.science.org/content/arti...
Reposted by Colin Purrington
The remarkable wings of a 0.3mm long Alaptus minimus wasp of the Mymaridae. If you look closely toward the left end of the pair you can see the hamuli (hooks) that link the hindwing to the forewing.
#wasps #entomology
#wasps #entomology
November 26, 2025 at 10:05 AM
The remarkable wings of a 0.3mm long Alaptus minimus wasp of the Mymaridae. If you look closely toward the left end of the pair you can see the hamuli (hooks) that link the hindwing to the forewing.
#wasps #entomology
#wasps #entomology
Reposted by Colin Purrington
Everyone should enjoy a good late season puffball smashing to help spread the spores, just be sure to avoid inhaling the cloud as doing so can potentially result in something called Lycoperdonosis, a respiratory disease caused by inhalation of large quantities of warty Lycoperdon spores. #Mushrooms
November 26, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Some of the walnut husk maggot fly pupae I've collected in my back yard. Hoping that some will have resident Coptera, sleek black wasps in the Diapriidae that have a fondness for Tephritidae. #flies #wasps #diapriidae #walnuts #insects
November 25, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Some of the walnut husk maggot fly pupae I've collected in my back yard. Hoping that some will have resident Coptera, sleek black wasps in the Diapriidae that have a fondness for Tephritidae. #flies #wasps #diapriidae #walnuts #insects
Reposted by Colin Purrington
Sometimes the first thing nature makes you say is "what the heck is that?!" In this case, we're looking at a bunch of Jacobson's Giant Scale Insects (Icerya jacobsoni).
📷 beizi125 on iNaturalist
📍 China
🔗: www.inaturalist.org/observations...
#ObservationOfTheDay
📷 beizi125 on iNaturalist
📍 China
🔗: www.inaturalist.org/observations...
#ObservationOfTheDay
November 24, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Sometimes the first thing nature makes you say is "what the heck is that?!" In this case, we're looking at a bunch of Jacobson's Giant Scale Insects (Icerya jacobsoni).
📷 beizi125 on iNaturalist
📍 China
🔗: www.inaturalist.org/observations...
#ObservationOfTheDay
📷 beizi125 on iNaturalist
📍 China
🔗: www.inaturalist.org/observations...
#ObservationOfTheDay
Reposted by Colin Purrington
More Greenland photos, featuring some geology. Scoresbysund has some fantastic exposures of columnar basalts, which are ~55 million years old (young for Greenland rocks!) related to flood basalts when the Atlantic was opening up. Fantastical shapes and fall tundra colors
November 25, 2025 at 4:13 AM
More Greenland photos, featuring some geology. Scoresbysund has some fantastic exposures of columnar basalts, which are ~55 million years old (young for Greenland rocks!) related to flood basalts when the Atlantic was opening up. Fantastical shapes and fall tundra colors
Reposted by Colin Purrington
maybe i am going insane
November 24, 2025 at 6:49 PM
maybe i am going insane
I would pay a premium for a bag of macadamia nuts that wasn't full of rancid ones. Any tips on companies to order from? #macadamia #proteaceae #nuts #farming
November 24, 2025 at 9:09 PM
I would pay a premium for a bag of macadamia nuts that wasn't full of rancid ones. Any tips on companies to order from? #macadamia #proteaceae #nuts #farming
Charles Darwin's draft title page for "An abstract of an Essay on the Origin of Species and Varieties Through Natural Selection." It was published on November 24, 1859, as "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."
November 24, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Charles Darwin's draft title page for "An abstract of an Essay on the Origin of Species and Varieties Through Natural Selection." It was published on November 24, 1859, as "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."
Reposted by Colin Purrington
Got the furnace serviced today and the guy asked about carbon monoxide detectors so it’s a good day to share my favorite reason for ensuring your CO detectors are fully functional as the winter approaches:
Carbon monoxide is never funny, but one of my best friend’s CO alarm went off at about 11pm after a particularly cold OU-Texas weekend Saturday.
They had had their roof replaced and the vent of their HVAC was not reconnected to the outside air so when the heater kicked on CO just flooded the attic
They had had their roof replaced and the vent of their HVAC was not reconnected to the outside air so when the heater kicked on CO just flooded the attic
November 24, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Got the furnace serviced today and the guy asked about carbon monoxide detectors so it’s a good day to share my favorite reason for ensuring your CO detectors are fully functional as the winter approaches:
In several days you'll likely be sitting next to an ignorant relative who is 100% convinced he knows the difference between a sweet potato and a yam. Here's my primer on the topic. #thanksgiving #sweetpotato #yam #botany 🍠 colinpurrington.com/yams-versus-...
The difference between sweet potatoes and yams » Colin Purrington's blog
Every year at Thanksgiving, families in the United States sit down to argue about politics and the difference between sweet potatoes and yams. This page details how to tell them apart and explains how...
colinpurrington.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:05 PM
In several days you'll likely be sitting next to an ignorant relative who is 100% convinced he knows the difference between a sweet potato and a yam. Here's my primer on the topic. #thanksgiving #sweetpotato #yam #botany 🍠 colinpurrington.com/yams-versus-...
Reposted by Colin Purrington
Though I’ve only encountered it a handful of times, the aborted form of the blushing rosette (Abortiporus biennis) is among my favorite fungi! These coral-like projections are not filled with basidiospores, but instead are filled with ellipsoid to subglobose asexual chlamydospores! #Mushrooms
November 23, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Though I’ve only encountered it a handful of times, the aborted form of the blushing rosette (Abortiporus biennis) is among my favorite fungi! These coral-like projections are not filled with basidiospores, but instead are filled with ellipsoid to subglobose asexual chlamydospores! #Mushrooms