Anne Opossum
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oopspossum.bsky.social
Anne Opossum
@oopspossum.bsky.social
Wildland-urban interface trash animal.
🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️🍊
Botanist, scientific illustrator, macro nature photographer, pet beetle owner. ASD, bi ace, poly, Jewitch🍉. Opinions are my own.
it/they/she
Hyperfixation: neolithic - early medieval history
Farewell-to-spring (Clarkia amoena) and hello summer!
Farewell-to-springs vary a lot in their coloration across their range from British Columbia to California. This, plus their good seeding ability, has made them a popular annual flower to grow in gardens.
#BloomScrolling #GardenSky #WestCoastKin
June 26, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Most forget-me-nots have very small flowers and even smaller seeds, called nutlets (the texture of which can help ID to species).

Myosotis laxa are circumboreal, they are native across the entire Northern hemisphere!

#botany #SciArt #nativeplants #etch #ScratchArt #GardenSky #BloomScrolling
June 26, 2025 at 4:52 AM
Columbia tiger lilies, Lilium columbianum, are a native #wildflower across the northwestern US and British Columbia. Their bulbs were used by native peoples for food, and can be cultivated to spread in your garden.

#macrophotography #BloomScrolling #GardenSky #OnlyBeautifulThings #ColorsOfNature
June 24, 2025 at 7:57 PM
All species of Larkspur are toxic, just like most plants in their family, Ranunculaceae. A familiar poisonous relative is monkshood, Aconitum sp.

#SciArt #botany #BloomScrolling #etching #ScratchArt
June 23, 2025 at 9:05 PM
I saw #fireflies (that light up*, see footnote) for the first time last week! It was just as magical as seeing the aurora last year!

*I have seen #beetles in the #firefly family, Lampyridae, in the PNW before. It is just that most Washington and Oregon species don't light up.

#ColorsOfNature #DC
June 22, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Puget balsamroot, Balsamorhiza deltoidea, is a sunflower native to the west coast from British Columbia to California. It's populations thrive with frequent burning, but can still grow in a well drained Western Pacific Northwest garden

#SciArt #FlowerSky #GardenSky #NativePlants #pnw #WestCoastKin
June 21, 2025 at 7:34 PM
The amount of moshing was exactly what you would expect at a historically-punk festival.

At least A Day To Remember wasn't playing this one, otherwise there would have been surfing on the crowd surfers in addition to a general disrespect for your surroundings.

#WarpedTour #DC #emo #PopPunk
June 20, 2025 at 7:15 PM
I'm so excited that my #NativePlant baldhip #roses are finally old enough to bloom! They love the shady forests of the #PNW

#ScratchArt #etching #PriDemonTh #SciArt #QueerArt #botany #GardeningFeed #FlowerSky
June 19, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Aurora were maybe visible in the lower 48 of the Pacific Northwest last night. Here is the best shot I got of it, with varying amounts of editing.
#vaporwave #JazzCup #aurora #NorthernLights #pnw #SkySky #PhotographyOfBluesky
June 4, 2025 at 2:09 AM
There was drama this morning! See the following post for the entire saga of my amazingly observant guard dog/wolf who didn't even see the deer until she moved.
#DogsOfBluesky #mutt #JackRussellTerrier #RescueDog #wildlife #pnw #deer
June 2, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Common camas (Camassia quamash) is usually shades of purple, but periodically all white individuals grow! They are not albinos, as plants with albinism wouldn't be able to photosythesize.

Prairie Appreciation Day at Wolf Haven International was great today!
#LandscapePhotography #NaturePhotography
May 18, 2025 at 12:04 AM
Pangolins are some of the most endangered mammal species in the world. They are popular in illegal wildlife trade, while being difficult to raise in captivity for conservation and re-release.
#wildlifeWednesday #SciArt
May 15, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Golden paintbrush (Castilleja levisecta) is a formerly endangered species. It is closely related to harsh paintbrush (C. hispida), and thus can hybridize, making a range of orange individials.
Prairie Appreciation Day was great this morning!
#pnw #botany #nativeplants #landscapephotography
May 10, 2025 at 11:24 PM
Chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) are not very popular for eating, partially because their meat usually isn't orange. But! One run in Washington, the Nisqually run, do have orange meat.
They occur all around the northern Pacific, so there are probably other unique runs.
#fishfriday #pnw #sushi 🐡
May 9, 2025 at 7:29 PM
White-lined Sphinx moths (Hyles lineata) are known as hummingbird moths, since they are so big. Even their caterpillars are huge and showy! The caterpillars do vary a lot in coloration. These were in Death Valley National Park last April.
#MothMonday #MacroMonday #entomology #DeathValley
May 6, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Another person on here that I enjoy everything I see from them, to the point that I'm worried they will think I'm a weird stalker liking so much!

@hayleyfern.bsky.social's church illustrations are SOOOO beautiful!!!
#stpaulschurch #woodhouseeaves which has a darker appearance and stands high above the road. I drive through Woodhouse every work day but hadn't ever driven the back way and seen this beauty. That's one of the joys of this project- I have got out and discovered these places and buildings!
May 3, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Greater prairie chickens can display a quite noticeable sexual dimorphism, the males have large, brightly colored air sacks. During mating season they inflate these sacks while coo-ing and moving their feathers alluringly. This is called booming!
#SciArt #ornithology #birb #lekking #biology
May 2, 2025 at 2:37 AM
April 29, 2025 at 11:55 PM
Stoneflies (Plecoptera) are one of many ancient lineages of insects that have incomplete metamorphosis, meaning they don't (visually) change a lot between nymph and adult life stages.
The nymphs are also often signals of good water quality in streams!
#aquaticlife #entomology #flyfishing 🐡
April 20, 2025 at 9:08 PM
A couple weeks ago I went to my first snowy Renaissance Faire. Almost a foot of snow in April in New Mexico was quite a surprise.

#RenFaire #costume #NM
April 14, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Western buttercups (Ranunculus occidentalis) are a North American native wildflower, which can be confused with the invasive creeping buttercups (R. repens).

Illustration in #charcoal from a #PrescribedFire I worked on. Photo of buttercups in that prairie the next spring!

#botany #pnw 🐡
April 11, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Military bases around the world house surprising biodiversity, due to the lack of development!
Prairies do especially well on Joint-Base Lewis McChord due to the bombing creating fires, which the flowers are adapted to.

#FlowersOnFriday #WildflowerSky #pnw #WashingtonState
March 7, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Caddisflies (Trichoptera) are a sister taxon to butterflies and moths. It is easy to see the similarities in their caterpillar-like (and fully aquatic!) larva that mostly live in cocoon-like bags they make. There are even aquatic moth species!

#entomology #aquaticlife #artsky #bugsky #evolution 🐡
March 5, 2025 at 7:53 PM
*volume up!*
The weather in Western Washington lately: it's real froggy out there!

#pnw #forest #frog #amphibian #herpetology #naturevideo
March 4, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Last year in February I was traveling around #Alaska, chasing (and catching) auroras!
The KP index of geomagnetic planetary weather goes up to 9. This was near #Fairbanks was only a KP 4 night.

#aurora #TravelPhotography #landscape #NightPhotography #AuroraBorealis #snow
February 25, 2025 at 2:31 AM