Nimblenewt
LightNews LightNews
banner
nimblenewt.bsky.social
Nimblenewt
@nimblenewt.bsky.social
700 followers 770 following 1.1K posts
🇨🇦Nature nerd by the Salish Sea. Lichen enthusiast; nudibranchs, liverworts, tiny mushrooms, seaweed, plankton, authors and cats. Also amphibians! And invertebrates...
(Note: any newt-handling photos are only to remove them from roads or other dangers.)
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
nimblenewt.bsky.social
Nimblenewt @nimblenewt.bsky.social · 11d
A baby roughskin newt on moss; an old photo. One of many moved off the road over the years, as they migrate from natal ponds to the winter forest to forage. Somewhere I have a video of this little one's climb from my hand up the rock to this summit.
#moss #bryology #newt #taricha #herps
A very orange baby roughskin newt (Taricha granulosa) is walking over a compact tuft of green moss on a rain-wet grey rock. The baby newt's eye gleams gold on its top half, and black beneath. The baby's orange body is partially transparent as it is backlit by the low winter sun, so various innards show as black blobs inside the newt's abdomen. In other newts this life stage is called an eft, but none of my guidebooks use this term for roughskin newts, I wonder why?
nimblenewt.bsky.social
"I'm blending right in! You can't see me!" {angles eye stripe to mimic arc of leaf}
#frog #herps #pseudacris
A pacific chorus frog (Pseudacris regilla) perches on the pleasingly dramatic leaf blades of a clump of black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus nigrescens), a relative of lily of the valley that does really well in Coastal BC. I'm not actually sure if the frog is trying to blend in, or simply stalking the small european grey slugs that infest the mondo grass in all seasons. Probably both🖤🐸🖤Frog slug patrol, at work!
February 19, 2026 at 6:10 AM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
whoi.edu
In 1949, WHOI researchers recorded what ended up being the earliest-preserved whale song—without realizing what they'd captured! 🐳🎶

Nearly 80 years later, that sound has resurfaced!

🎉Celebrate World Whale Day with the full story: go.whoi.edu/whoi-1949
February 15, 2026 at 11:01 PM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
hairo-iroha.bsky.social
#地衣類 #lichen #fungifriends
February 17, 2026 at 4:06 AM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
amnh.org
Here’s one lobster that you might not want with a side of butter: the lobster moth! Named for its lobster-like larval form, this wide-ranging insect inhabits parts of Europe & Asia. While it resembles a crustacean, it can also mimic ants as a way to deter potential predators.
Head on shot of a brownish-red moth larva on a thin tree branch. It has little white spots on its body. Its silhouette looks not unlike that of a lobster. It's grasping the twig of a plant. The background is green.
February 17, 2026 at 1:09 AM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
So many spring shrubs blooming early, perennials sprouting, bumblebees foraging for their first sips of nectar - just in time for the arctic front rolling through tonight bringing snow and sleet all week. Oh, the joy and heartbreak of gardening in west-coast Canada🥶☃️💙
A stout, dense green rosemary shrub, about 1m tall, is loaded with sky-blue blooms in the winter sunbeams. Its squat shape will help it withstand the heavy wet coastal snow; the more usual wispy structure, that happens when people don't prune them proactively, tends to get crushed and torn apart, either as the snow first sticks to it or when the wind from the next warm front blasts through and whips the snow laden twigs around. It's so hard on shrubs that have been in active growth all winter (10-15C daytime temps this past dec, for example) when a frigid arctic front hits their unprepared cells😞
February 15, 2026 at 9:10 PM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
elizabethbeston.bsky.social
I’m loving this ciliate in slo-mo! Such beautiful cilia action. Keep watching to see it whizz about in real time. ID help appreciated!

#marineplankton 🦑
February 15, 2026 at 8:00 PM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
#Kelp resoration to cope with declines from “marine heat waves, climate change and disrupted trophic dynamics”.

“This project directly addresses those challenges by growing locally adapted kelp at a scale meaningful enough to deliver ecosystem-level benefits,”
#phycology #conservation #seaweed
$240,000 kelp restoration project aims to rebuild salmon abundance in Clayoquot Sound
Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation has partnered with Redd Fish Restoration Society (Redd Fish) and West Coast Kelp Ltd. to undertake a large-scale kelp restoration project on the Pacific Coast.
cheknews.ca
February 15, 2026 at 6:28 PM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
erictopol.bsky.social
What's happening during attention lapses after poor sleep?
A fluid wave. Your brain is trying to clean itself, to wash away waste products.
nature.com/articles/s41...
gift link
wsj.com/health/welln...
February 14, 2026 at 5:12 PM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
andreapeterson.bsky.social
A giant green anemone from my archives

#MarineLife #ColorADay #GreenSat #PugetSound #PNW #Photography #SeattleAquarium
A large green anemone in an aquarium
February 14, 2026 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
almost-elly.bsky.social
Artoo singing for me again today #birds
February 13, 2026 at 8:57 PM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
Relocated pacific chorus frog, from the fern bench to the jungle side where the big Alocasia odoras live. Frog seems very well fed, must be working hard as part of the greenhouse slug patrol crew!
#FrogFriday #herps #frog
A twoonie-sized Pacific chorus frog (Pseudacris regilla) clings to a stout stem of a green leaved Alocasia in a black pot. The frog is one of the winter residents of the tropical greenhouse I look after at work; they usually stay a few months before they are lured away by the spring chorus in a nearby lake. They definitely eat the voracious european grey slugs that eat the plants I grow, and I suspect they also eat the sweet little sowbugs and pillbugs that huddle under all the pots and trundle around before dawn in their little herds. They don't eat the orange rimmed arion slugs though, I saw one cleaning its mouth after trying, once, and spitting it out.
February 14, 2026 at 5:26 AM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
I was moving a crop from a bench when this one hopped out of a maidenhair fern's saucer and surprised me. Safely relocated to the Alocasias!
#FrogFriday #Pseudacris #herps
A pacific chorus frog (Pseudacris regilla), in brown coloration but with characteristic black eye stripe and spots, is perched on the metal webbing of a greenhouse bench. A maidenhair fern's frond arches over the frog. If the frog was green it would blend in nicely with the algae beginning to take over the bench's surfaces. Beneath the metal grid, a row of white variegated fittonias are visible on a shelf - also a favorite hiding spot for frogs hanging out in the greenhouse.
February 14, 2026 at 3:40 AM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
echinoblog.bsky.social
For my #AmericanUniversity students who wanted to learn about some cool squids? the one I spoke of today was called MAGNAPINNA! and there's a whole YT channel devoted to it! But here ya go! youtu.be/aOhxex9rcBs?...
Magnapinna Squid High Quality Close Up | New Footage April 2023 - Magnapinna Archive
YouTube video by Magnapinna Archive
youtu.be
February 14, 2026 at 1:16 AM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
burrowingowl.bsky.social
Good morning! 🪶
Burrowing owlet perched on a wooden stake, winking.
February 13, 2026 at 1:03 PM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
mandulorian.bsky.social
Hear me out: Curling, but with ducks
February 13, 2026 at 2:50 AM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
"The collection — billed as the largest of its kind in the western hemisphere — contains nearly 12,000 specimens from 3,200 species around the world that were available to Canadian researchers and companies.They include many fungi that cause diseases in humans and animals..."
#fungifriends #mycology
Unique Canadian fungus 'bank' with thousands of specimens saved by family foundation | CBC News
A unique collection of microscopic fungi used for Canadian medical and biodiversity research has been saved from being shipped overseas.
www.cbc.ca
February 12, 2026 at 4:15 PM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
Moss garden on a straggly maple next to the grocery store.
#bryophytes #moss
A lichen coated small tree trunk is topped by dead branches filled with beetle emergence holes, flaking bark, stub cuts, and epicormic shoots. Atop this sickly muddle is a thriving little moss garden, with a variety of tufty deep green and gold-green mosses adhering to the varied surfaces in the crotch of the old attempted pollarding.
February 12, 2026 at 2:59 PM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
squamiferum.bsky.social
[New Paper] @currentbiology.bsky.social presents our population genomics study of the iconic Scaly-foot Snail: 125 genomes from 8 Indian Ocean hot vents! Deep currents drive South→North gene flow, while transform faults act as dispersal barriers.
READ FOR FREE: authors.elsevier.com/c/1mbW73QW8S...
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.01.033
February 11, 2026 at 11:48 PM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
davidjbradley.bsky.social
What's so amazing about Jim Henson as a puppeteer is that he could literally be explaining that Kermit is made out of felt and ping pong balls and yet Kermit still feels alive the whole time he's doing it
February 11, 2026 at 10:03 PM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
Not a speck of snow so far, but this blossom-dappling has been going on sporadically since December all over the south Island, and now all the plum trees are creating their own petal-blizzards. The first bumblebees are out and the robins are chirping madly before dawn; it feels like spring.
#plum
A veteran purple leaf plum tree, on one of the old heritage tree boulevards in downtown Victoria, is in full bloom. Its flowers are the size and density of a flurry of white, wet west-coast snowflakes, but they have a tinge of delicate pink, and already some of the purple leaf buds have started to unfurl (shockingly early), which makes the tree looks even more burgundy-ish under the white petals. The flowers are so dense the dark web of branches holding them is hard to discern clearly.
February 12, 2026 at 1:48 AM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
Interesting that the substrate influences the protein content of the mycelium so much!

#fungifriends #mushrooms

alt text for article photo: white fungal growth balloons out of 3 trays resting on a white wire shelf.
N.S. entrepreneur developing mushroom roots as sustainable, high-protein food product | CBC News
Researchers at Acadia University, along with startup Mycaro, have produced mycelium that is about 40 per cent protein. They use local agricultural processing waste as a food source for the mushroom ro...
www.cbc.ca
February 10, 2026 at 2:18 AM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
c0nc0rdance.bsky.social
One last interesting fact about Rena dulcis: the lower jaw is quite small relative to the upper, and ingestion is accomplished by rapid movement: "flinging" or "vacuuming" up small insects into the esophagus.

It looks like it's singing a very tiny little snake song.
Blindsnake with mouth open on woodchip background. It looks like a scaly earthworm, pink and slender, but the mouth seems to be open as if singing. Gerry Images
February 13, 2024 at 1:02 AM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
When this moss is puffed up it resembles a liverwort with its plumped up shiny symmetrical frond arrangement, but when it dries out a bit the tips go all floofy and curly like intricate macrame tufts. It's always a searingly cheerful acid green in all weather, though!
#moss #bryophytes #bark
A dense network of strangely curly moss creeps along and over large ruddy-red-brown bark flakes at the base of a tree. The moss is an intense spring green that looks a bit like the radioactive goo colour from old comic books.
February 9, 2026 at 2:41 AM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
A baby roughskin newt on moss; an old photo. One of many moved off the road over the years, as they migrate from natal ponds to the winter forest to forage. Somewhere I have a video of this little one's climb from my hand up the rock to this summit.
#moss #bryology #newt #taricha #herps
A very orange baby roughskin newt (Taricha granulosa) is walking over a compact tuft of green moss on a rain-wet grey rock. The baby newt's eye gleams gold on its top half, and black beneath. The baby's orange body is partially transparent as it is backlit by the low winter sun, so various innards show as black blobs inside the newt's abdomen. In other newts this life stage is called an eft, but none of my guidebooks use this term for roughskin newts, I wonder why?
February 8, 2026 at 1:59 AM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
echinoblog.bsky.social
A timely encore of this SWIMMING SEA SPIDER for #seaspiderSaturday! #okeanos #pycnogonid youtu.be/7xt-R9UM-j0?...
Gulf of Mexico: The Sea Spider Stroke
YouTube video by Global Foundation For Ocean Exploration
youtu.be
February 8, 2026 at 12:50 AM