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nimblenewt.bsky.social
Nimblenewt
@nimblenewt.bsky.social
690 followers 760 following 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.)
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nimblenewt.bsky.social
Nimblenewt @nimblenewt.bsky.social · 6d
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?
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
nimblenewt.bsky.social
"The problem is not limited to California’s salmon. Scientists are investigating the possibility that thiamine deficiency is driving chinook declines farther north in British Columbia’s Fraser River and in the Yukon River"
“Herring would be a great vitamin pill,” Mantua says.
#SalishSea #salmon
February 7, 2026 at 10:22 PM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
"The greater Bermuda snail (Poecilozonites bermudensis) was found in the fossil record but believed to have vanished from the North Atlantic archipelago, until a remnant population was discovered in a damp and overgrown alleyway in Hamilton, the island capital, in 2014."
#snails #inverts
Bermuda snail thought to be extinct now thrives after a decade’s effort
Special pods at Chester zoo helped conservationists breed and release more than 100,000 greater Bermuda snails
www.theguardian.com
February 7, 2026 at 7:30 PM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
I've been going through old photos and wow, Vancouver Island sure does have great moss! This is from the base of Mt. Work in a grove of fairly young second growth red cedars.
#bryophytes #moss
A closeup of a green threadlike moss tuft on a branch stub. It is part of a fallen tree whose trunk, running along the forest floor in the background, is softened into a bumpy green mass by its moss colony. In the back of the photo is its standing trunk base, broken at about 10ft. The fallen trees is part of a young red cedar grove with some older doug fir trees like the one the left of the photo, with deeply textured vertically-braided-looking bark.
February 7, 2026 at 3:42 AM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
hyphaltip.bsky.social
journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.... new findings in the ant fungus gardens 🐜🍄
Novel killer yeasts and toxins from the gardens of fungus-growing ants | Applied and Environmental Microbiology
Attine ants perform essential ecosystem services through the harvesting of substrates for fungiculture. The cultured fungi are a food source for attine ants. Characterizing antifungal toxin-producing yeasts (killer yeasts) is vital to understanding how they might protect gardens from invasion by unwanted fungal species. This study also describes a new toxin named Ksino from the yeast Candida sinolaborantium, a member of a new group of toxins found across many different species of fungi. This work supports the role of killer yeasts in the ecology of fungicultures and competition between fungi. The observed high prevalence of killer yeasts in fungal gardens also enables the discovery of novel antifungal molecules with the potential to be applied against disease-causing fungi.
journals.asm.org
February 5, 2026 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
ericdoherty.bsky.social
Yay! "Victoria joins the call for an update to provincial legislation to clearly allow the use of wheelchairs and three- and four-wheel mobility scooters on bike and roll routes."

Read more at: vicnews.com/2026/02/05/p... #yyj #bcpoli @davethompsonvic.bsky.social
February 6, 2026 at 12:50 AM
nimblenewt.bsky.social
Woe: "It is with heavy hearts that CRD Parks staff share the news of the passing of one of the rough-skinned newts at the Francis/King Nature Centre. Newton and Darwin have been a staple at the nature centre for many long years (some estimate their age at over 25!)"

#herps #taricha
Alas poor Newton: Animal lovers mourn ‘dramatic, adorable’ senior Saanich newt - Victoria News
The rough-skinned newt leaves behind partner Darwin at the Francis/King Nature Centre
vicnews.com
February 4, 2026 at 2:00 AM
Reposted by Nimblenewt
indiginews.bsky.social
Researchers are working on understanding how rattlesnake habitats have been affected by a 2021 wildfire that burned through the South Okanagan.

"That actually burnt all known den locations, as well as all known birthing locations."

Story by Sonal Gupta.

indiginews.com/news/syilx-l...
With habitat affected by wildfires, syilx-led program monitors rattlesnakes
The Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre has received new federal funding to continue its research on how the snakes are adapting to a changing environment
indiginews.com
February 3, 2026 at 4:57 PM