Mike Benard
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benardmf.bsky.social
Mike Benard
@benardmf.bsky.social
290 followers 150 following 79 posts
Biologist, ecologist, herpetologist.

Views expressed here are my personal opinions.

Professor & Department Chair at CWRU

https://sites.google.com/a/case.edu/benard-lab/the-benard-lab-at-cwru
Posts Replies Media Videos
benardmf.bsky.social
Visiting family in the mountains of South Carolina, encountered these large, invasive joro spiders for the first time. Some spots were thick with their webs spread between trees.
A large spider hangs head-down from its web. Its legs are slender and black with orange bands. Its thorax is a silvery-white. Its abdomen is very large, almost swollen- looking. The abdomen has a pale yellow background, with irregular, light blue stripes. A pinkish blotch is near the back of the abdomen.
November 10, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Reposted by Mike Benard
somuchpingle.bsky.social
I'm a little achy, feverish and listless from a Covid vax, so I'm just processing photos tonight. For #FrogFriday here's an African Clawed Frog (Xenopus laevis), observed in SE Free State, South Africa. Note the upturned eyes, perfect for laying in shallow water. #herps #frogs #NaturePhotography 🌿
Angled-down image of a frog lying in shallow, muddy water. The frog's color is a very dark blackish-brown with small streaks of a lighter brown. All four limbs are partially submerged. The eyes are tiny, and are located up on the top of the head.
November 8, 2025 at 2:01 AM
Reposted by Mike Benard
emilytaylorscience.com
Tonight! act.gorgefriends.org/a/rattlesnakes
October 29, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
solomonrdavid.bsky.social
BEHOLD the GARgantuan Alligator Gar!!!

This is the largest Alligator Gar I’ve encountered; at over 7 feet 10 inches (240 cm) and approximately 55 inches in girth, its weight is estimated at 300 pounds (136 kg)!

A true river monster, among the largest caught, tagged and safely released! #GarWeek
A giant Alligator Gar (fish) lies in a boat, captured for research and safely released after measurements and tagging.
October 28, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
stephenbarten.bsky.social
Cooper's Hawk vs. Eastern Gray Squirrel
Spoiler: Squirrel gets away.
Lake County, IL 10.20.25
#coopershawk #graysquirrel #backyardwildlife #trailcam #trailcamera
October 28, 2025 at 4:21 PM
benardmf.bsky.social
Wonderful visit to Holden Arboretum yesterday. My phone video can’t capture the amazing feeling from the emergent tower above tree canopy (120 feet / 37 meters above the ground. Well worth a visit for those in northeast Ohio! holdenfg.org/attractions/...
October 26, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
josephcox.bsky.social
New: a $60 mod to Meta's Ray-Ban glasses disables the privacy LED light. This is supposed to light when people are filming with the glasses. We bought the mod, verified it works. Now you can never be sure whether someone wearing Meta Ray-Bans is filming you or not
www.404media.co/how-to-disab...
A $60 Mod to Meta’s Ray-Bans Disables Its Privacy-Protecting Recording Light
Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses usually include an LED that lights up when the user is recording other people. One hobbyist is charging a small fee to disable that light, and has a growing list of customers ar...
www.404media.co
October 23, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
fossilsndcoffee.bsky.social
Update on the Paleontological Research Institution and their remaining need for donations to pay off their mortgage and avoid foreclosure
#savePRI please share; tag anyone you think might help🧪⚒️🦑

@lastweektonight.com @colbertlateshow.bsky.social @pbseons.bsky.social

www.ithaca.com/news/regiona...
Saving the Museum
After years of financial troubles and millions of funds raised in support, the Museum of the Earth is still struggling to bridge its multi-million dollar budgetary gap. It needs to
www.ithaca.com
October 23, 2025 at 3:47 AM
Reposted by Mike Benard
shannonskalos.bsky.social
Just look at the reductions to the USGS science centers in this document. An 80% reduction in staff is all the scientists. The only people left will be admin and IT staff who will be needed to shutdown the centers. The writing is on the wall for all other EMA science centers…
shannonskalos.bsky.social Shannon Skalos, PhD @shannonskalos.bsky.social · 25d
See for yourself. The releases court document outlines all the planned RIFs for competitive areas that include protected union members. Areas not included are not safe. They simply have no union members relevant to the TRO.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
storage.courtlistener.com
October 21, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
turtleecology.bsky.social
A tale in four photos…

This Green Heron took about 5 minutes to swallow this poor little frog! 🐸

Interestingly, the heron kept dipping the frog in water and rotating it so that the frog was facing the throat before swallowing it whole 😱
Green Heron picking up frog from water Green Heron with frog in its mouth Green heron with frog in its mouth Green Heron with open mouth while swallowing the frog
October 21, 2025 at 12:37 AM
benardmf.bsky.social
New from CWRU alumn Troy Neptune, with Diana Koester (CLE Metroparks Zoo) in @animalecology.bsky.social. Gray treefrogs use daylength as a seasonal cue to prepare for winter. Autumn daylength triggers frogs to accumulate 14-fold more liver glycogen than summer photoperiod.
doi.org/10.1111/1365...
Adult Gray Treefrog. A treefrog is sitting in brown, dead cattail fronds. The treefrog has a mottled pattern of light and dark green patterns on its back. Figure showing the amount of daylength in the three treatments from the start of the experiment (Day 0) to the end of the experiment (around day 90). The early treatment simulates breeding starting in april, and the daylength is about 12.5 hours per day, and goes up to about 15 hours per day. The average treatment simulates breeding in july, and simulates breeding starting in July and at 15 hours of light per day, and going down to around 12 hours of light per day. The late treatment simulates breeding in mid-august. Late treatment starts with about 14 hours of light per day, and goes down to about 10 hours of light per day. Plot of total glycogen in liver. The values are low (between 0 and 20) for frogs from the early and average photoperiod, but are much higher (40) for frogs from the late treatment. Figure showing size-corrected growth rate (grams per day) from the three photoperiod treatments. The late photoperiod treatment has the lowest growth rate, significantly lower than the average photoperiod, and lower (but not significantly different from) the early photoperiod.
October 19, 2025 at 2:14 PM
benardmf.bsky.social
Two little creatures found cohabitating under a log today. A common shiny woodlouse and a redback salamander. Northeast Ohio.
Close up photo of two organisms on a brown/red dirty background. To the left is a shiny woodlouse. It is an oval, flat invertebrate, with its outer body composted of gray armor-like rings. To the right is the head and front of the body of a red-backed salamander. It has a red stripe down its back, and dark sides of its body.
October 19, 2025 at 2:33 AM
Reposted by Mike Benard
prosanta.bsky.social
Loved visiting the recreated wunderkammer or "cabinet of curiosities’ at the Houston Museum of Natural Science today. I always wondered what it was like to stroll through these early natural history collections so eclectically curated.

Also couldn’t resist a coelacanth selfie.
Museum section with taxidermies animals in old school 18th century style with lots of wood Me with a rhino head above and coelacanth among other curios Front entrance of cabinet of curiosities exhibit - crocodile above and taxidermy everywhere
October 13, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
hydaticus.bsky.social
Baird's Ratsnake (Pantherophis bairdi) eating a bat! Val Verde County, Texas.

#herps #predation #snakes
A gray snake with longitudinal dark lines down its back and orange skin between the scales is coiled around a bat. The scene is inside a dark, rocky cave.
October 8, 2025 at 2:01 AM
Reposted by Mike Benard
informative.ink
A broader view of that storm cloud and rainbow reaching toward the lone tree.
Detail of a photograph: a rainbow seems to pour directly out of a storm at a concave point in the dramatically shaded and brilliantly highlighted cloud, down through the horizon near a lone tree off from a large stand, with a copper-colored, partially in-shade field of prairie grass in the foreground. The sky behind and below the cloud ranges from pale turquoise to royal blue.
October 4, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
stephenbarten.bsky.social
Just a glimpse of an opossum carrying a bunch of leaves in her prehensile tail. She's bringing them back to line her nest hole, which must be close by.
#opossums #possum #backyardwildlife #trailcam #TrailCamera
September 24, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
rebeccarhelm.bsky.social
I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
September 24, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
yardgonewild.bsky.social
Here he comes
my favorite boot inspector😄
September 22, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
kbspangler.com
Tried to water the baby asparagus but the spout was blocked so I tried to shove the blockage down into the can but the thing inside shoved back.

Computer…enhance.

#garden #gardening #oopsfrog
A green watering can with its spout blocked by something beige. It’s blocked by a frog! A frog’s face is glaring at me from inside the green watering can.
September 22, 2025 at 1:33 PM
benardmf.bsky.social
One of my favorite amphibians, the narrow-mouthed toad (Gastrophryne carolinensis). This one was seen at night in South Carolina, not far from the beach. I've only seen them a handful of times in my life.
A side view of a small narrow-mouthed toad. It has smooth, slightly shiny skin in colors of gray, blueish-gray, and black. Its body is oval, without a distinct neck and its head comes to a point. Its small, bulgy eyes are black. It is sitting on the ground, which is a mix of white sand, and brown and tan twigs and bits of leaves.
September 20, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
markscherz.bsky.social
Look at the fantastic variety of shape in these wonderful frogs I photographed in Gunung Mulu National Park on Borneo last year. Amazing how much frogs can do with so little. 🐸🧪
Polypedates colletti, a brown treefrog with a very pointy nose Phrynoidis asper, a toad that is very Toad™ Occidozyga cf. laevis, a delightfully round and absolutely Built puddle frog Limnonectes sp. Honestly I have no idea which species this is, I just know it's one that doesn't have a bos on the head. If it weren't from Borneo you might think it's a Rana or a Lithobates or something. It's brown and froggy with a dark tympanic field.
September 19, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Reposted by Mike Benard
jencross.bsky.social
This is a Thistle Tortoise Beetle larva. They carry a poop shield around and wave it predators. I shot 8 frames here and manually stacked to show the poo in all its glory. lol
(Cassida rubiginosa)
A gray, flat large with fronds around the perimeter of the body and a brown pile of poo on its back. It is standing on a thistle leaf.
September 18, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Reposted by Mike Benard
goldengateblond.bsky.social
in light of the kimmel news, just a reminder that a few days ago a prominent fox news host literally called for killing homeless people. right afterward, someone shot up a couple homeless encampments.

that fox news host still has his job.
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Sep 13
Brian Kilmeade endorses euthanizing homeless people: "Involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill them."
September 17, 2025 at 11:23 PM
benardmf.bsky.social
Coquina (Donax variabilis) are a species of little clams common on beaches along the Atlantic Ocean. They can be gathered in large numbers for cooking, but I have not tried that yet.
A small yellow clam in shallow water over sand. Its fleshy siphons are out of the shell on the right, and its foot is out of the shell on the left. Close-up of a person's palm holding 14 little clams that vary in size from about 1 cm to 1.5 cm. They vary in color and pattern including stripes, rings, solid color, with colors including blues, yellows, whites, reddish brown and orange. Close up of a small clam in shallow water on a sandy beach. The clam has white stripes breaking up a reddish-brown background color. A small clam in shallow water on sand. It is slightly open with part of the fleshy mantle coming out. The clor range sfrom pink on the outer edges of the shell, to more yellow and orange near the center.
September 13, 2025 at 6:37 PM