Michael Haslam
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twigtechnology.bsky.social
Michael Haslam
@twigtechnology.bsky.social
5.2K followers 540 following 660 posts
Australian archaeologist, PhD, obsessed with tool-using animals. Steward at Skara Brae, Orkney | http://twig.technology | writing Intelligence Hallucinated with @abigaildesmond.bsky.social for Harvard Uni Press (2027)

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twigtechnology.bsky.social
Michael Haslam @twigtechnology.bsky.social · Dec 24
In October 2016, I filmed this wild New Caledonian crow making a probe tool to extract beetle larvae from candlenut trees.

It carefully trimmed the leaves and ends, testing its grip a few times, then flew off to use the tool. A well planned heist.

📽️ west of Mont Do, New Caledonia 🧪🪶🏺
Reposted by Michael Haslam
kakapojay.bsky.social
After four months and 36 illustrations, I present the final Kem Kem chart – a look at of one of the most incredible ecosystems the world has ever seen.

Short thread below!

#sciart #paleoart
Size comparison between Araripesuchus, Xericeps, Siroccopteryx, Rebbachisaurus, an indeterminate leptocleidid, Galianemys, Laganosuchus, Neoceratodus, an indeterminate iguanodontian, Hamadasuchus, Alanqa, Spinosaurus, an indeterminate titanosaur, Anhanguera, Ornithocheirus, Nicorhynchus, Aidachar, Elosuchus, Afrotapejara, Carcharodontosaurus, Onchopristis, Norisophis, Simoliophis, Bawitius, Apatorhamphus, Deltadromeus, Leptostomia, an indeterminate abelisaur, an indeterminate noasaurid, an indeterminate dromaeosaur, Concavotectum, Axelrodichthys, Tribodus, Haimirichia and myself.
December 22, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
naomialderman.bsky.social
an individual develops AI psychosis when they start to think that the AI is right and the world is wrong.

a culture develops AI psychosis when it starts to believe that the AI can *describe the actual people* better than the people themselves. entering a hall of mirrors & treating it as windows.
December 22, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
idontevencara.bsky.social
Here are some lights to brighten up your feed during the solstice!

How do these animals produce their own light?

1/6 ⚛️🧪
A jellyfish with many illuminated hairs on its body. Image credit Chris Favero via flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.en Tide rolling in at night, glowing blue with bioluminescent microorganisms. Image credit flickr user slworking2, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en
December 22, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
mesabree.bsky.social
#ProjectAnimalia continues with
764: Blue-spotted mudskipper (Boleophthalmus pectinirostris)

Watching these guys wallow around mangrove swamps mudflats is something I miss about the Pacific.

#sciart #dailyart #animalart #scientificillustration #medart #illustration #fishart #fish #mudskipper
Realistic illustration of a Blue-spotted mudskipper (Boleophthalmus pectinirostris), a brown fish with blue spots and a spiny dorsal fin.
December 22, 2025 at 5:22 AM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Folks often ask if Skara Brae will fall into the ocean. Medium term: no, thanks to our sea wall, built in the 1920s and reinforced/extended since.

Long (enough) term: probably. Foot traffic and storms continue to erode the dunes around the wall.

🎥 me, this morning, winter solstice 2025 #Orkney ☀️🏺🌊
December 21, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
twigtechnology.bsky.social
I’m struggling to believe this NASA-published photo of red sprite lightning in France is real, but it seems to be so.

Red sprites can appear very briefly above thunderstorms, exciting high atmospheric gases to produce vivid colour and form. Who needs aliens? 🧪⚡️🛸

📷 Nicholas Escurat, 3 Sept 2022
Photo of a night scene in the French countryside, with a well-lit castle (Château de Beynac) perched on a hill above a town. Seemingly over the castle, although actually in the distant atmosphere, are pillars and tendrils of red light connected to a glowing red cloud. The camera can see into infrared so some of the treetops are greyish.
December 18, 2025 at 7:08 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
I’m struggling to believe this NASA-published photo of red sprite lightning in France is real, but it seems to be so.

Red sprites can appear very briefly above thunderstorms, exciting high atmospheric gases to produce vivid colour and form. Who needs aliens? 🧪⚡️🛸

📷 Nicholas Escurat, 3 Sept 2022
Photo of a night scene in the French countryside, with a well-lit castle (Château de Beynac) perched on a hill above a town. Seemingly over the castle, although actually in the distant atmosphere, are pillars and tendrils of red light connected to a glowing red cloud. The camera can see into infrared so some of the treetops are greyish.
December 18, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
bridgetalex.bsky.social
apt closing from my last SAPIENS story “What archaeology asks of everyone is an openness to alternate worlds. An understanding that your society, with its ways of working, worshipping, learning, loving—even knowing a dog—is just one permutation of endless human and beyond human possibilities.”
December 16, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
hannahcomb.bsky.social
Day 14: Dunkleosteus

Aww, it's a sea puppy! Sea puppies explore their surroundings with their mouth

#ArtAdventCalendar #Art #DigitalArt #Blue #Fish #Thalassophobia #Ocean #PaleoArt #SciArt #Devonian #Paleontology
Digital cel-shaded artwork of an ancient Devonian apex predator fish, Dunkleosteus. It’s just a very very large fish with a very large mouth and big, scale-like bony teeth on a bony face. This one is countershaded with dark shades on top and a white belly, with freckle-dappled midtones between them. Usually this fish is portrayed as being very long and slim, but this dunkleosteus has been rendered more like a, well, for lack of a better term, short king. Very short body. Still fierce and also adorable. The fish is suspended over an isometeric square chunk of sandy seafloor. Water reflections dance over the fish’s skin, hard rocks poking out of the sand, and a discarded nautilus shell. Watermark: http://hmcgill.art
December 14, 2025 at 5:23 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Last light at the Bay of Birsay this afternoon #Orkney
A panoramic photo of a low orange sun setting into the North Atlantic. To the left are stairs that lead down from the Brough of Birsay carpark to the beach. To the right is the Brough itself, an island fortress for the Norse rulers of Orkney a millennium ago. In the far distance is a sandstone headland, typical of those that flank our western coast.
December 15, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
rosemarymosco.com
Animals with misleading names. I'm seeing this go around as part of a viral tumblr thread so I thought I'd reshare it.
A comic called Animals with Misleading Names. There's an electric eel labeled "not an eel". There's a mountain goat labeled "not a goat." There's a maned wolf labeled "not a wolf." There's a king cobra labeled "not a cobra. Also, snakes are typically self-governing." There's a peacock mantis shrimp labeled "Not a peacock. Not a mantis. Also, not a shrimp." There's a horny toad labeled "Not a toad. Only thinks of you as a friend." There's a mayfly labeled "active through the spring and summer." There's an eastern kingbird labeled "found in the west. Many birds do not recognize its authority."
December 15, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
jesszafarris.bsky.social
The word "plagiarism" literally evokes the "kidnapping" of thoughts and ideas.

It's from the Latin plagiare "to kidnap" (or plagiarius "kidnapper"), from plaga "snare, hunting net."
December 15, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
A portrait of Charles Darwin dreaming about the tree of life #ArtAdventCalendar
A digital drawing with thin black lines and sparse colours. Charles Darwin has a long beard, closed eyes and is smiling. Above him a cartoon of the tree of life with some plants, animals, bacteria and fungi.
December 14, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
naomialderman.bsky.social
I wrote this, a long analysis of a single line of Shakespeare and what it’s doing. How good writing is an ethical practice. And my continuing attempts to work out what it is that I’m spotting when I look at a piece of text and go “oh that was written by AI.”

open.substack.com/pub/naomiald...
a single line of Shakespeare contains an ethical universe
on what we get from individual word choice, what good writing is, plus: what I put in my ChatGPT settings to make it helpful
open.substack.com
December 14, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
mesabree.bsky.social
#ProjectAnimalia continues with
759: Marbled lungfish (Protopterus aethiopicus)

Also called the leopard lungfish, this fish must breathe air to survive.

#sciart #dailyart #animalart #scientificillustration #medart #illustration #fishart #lungfish #ArtAdventCalendar
A realistic illustration of Marbled lungfish (Protopterus aethiopicus), on a white background.
December 12, 2025 at 6:37 AM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Another entry in my occasional series ‘What does the artefact see?’

Today I’m visiting Vienna’s Natural History Museum, home of the ca. 30,000 year old Willendorf figurine. This is what the Palaeolithic Venus sees day in, day out, in her own special display room.

(plus tourists like me) 🏺🧪🎨
Photo from behind the glass case of the Venus of Willendorf display at the Vienna Natural History Museum. The stone figurine sits on a thin black stand and faces a red wall with two display panels in German and English. She is, as always, implacable.
December 10, 2025 at 2:49 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Another entry in my occasional series ‘What does the artefact see?’

Today I’m visiting Vienna’s Natural History Museum, home of the ca. 30,000 year old Willendorf figurine. This is what the Palaeolithic Venus sees day in, day out, in her own special display room.

(plus tourists like me) 🏺🧪🎨
Photo from behind the glass case of the Venus of Willendorf display at the Vienna Natural History Museum. The stone figurine sits on a thin black stand and faces a red wall with two display panels in German and English. She is, as always, implacable.
December 10, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
biographic.bsky.social
We are SO CLOSE to reaching our $75,000 fundraising goal!

If you support independent, nonprofit journalism about biodiversity and conservation, your donation could help us get to the finish line! 🫶

give.calacademy.org/campaign/746...
December 9, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
doctorzen.net
This picture has been making the rounds again, and is being misidentified again.

This is a GOOSEFISH.

This is NOT a tasselled wobbegong shark.

It’s a great pic. I get why people are very excited about it. But it’s as easy to give it the right name as the wrong one.

fullfact.org/online/tasse...
GOOSEFISH
December 8, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
drmathildetahar.bsky.social
The next session of our online seminar is tomorrow !!

Angie Pepper will be presenting, on the topic « A good life or their own life? Rethinking nonhuman animal interests in freedom ».

Relevant information can be found here : www.animalinventiveness.com/post/seminar...

You’re welcome to join!
Seminar Agency between Biology and Philosophy 2025/2026
Here, you will find the 2025-2026 programme, and general information about our seminar. The introductory post can be found here.ProgrammeThis year, we will meet each second Wednesday of each month, fr...
www.animalinventiveness.com
December 9, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
manymindspod.bsky.social
New episode!! 🎙️🎉

A chat w/ @pbrakes.bsky.social about animal cultures and animal conservation.

Culture was once thought to be uniquely human. No longer. We now know culture is found throughout the natural world. How does this complicate conservation?

Listen: disi.org/the-value-of...
December 8, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
studiowild.bsky.social
Want a short cozy story, fully written by a human?

Here's a 5 minute read about a witch and guy with a problem she can (hopefully?) solve.

This is my first short story I'm sharing with the world, I would love your feedback!
www.wattpad.com/story/404839...
The Duck - Aela_Grae - Wattpad
A sweet, complete short story about a witch and a fella who's got a problem he hopes she can solve.
www.wattpad.com
December 8, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
mesabree.bsky.social
#ProjectAnimalia continues with
756: Thorny seahorse (Hippocampus histrix)

Chameleon of the sea.

#sciart #dailyart #animalart #scientificillustration #medart #illustration #fishart #seahorse #oceanart #ArtAdventCalendar
Realistic illustration of a thorny seahorse on a white background.
December 8, 2025 at 3:07 PM
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Quick visit to the National Museum of Slovakia 🦖🇸🇰
Photo of a dinosaur facing the camera at close range, with sharp teeth up front and scrappy hairs to the side. There’s a yellowish crest on its head. It’s a glamorous way to be eaten.
December 6, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Reposted by Michael Haslam
mesabree.bsky.social
New animal #illustrations...
#ProjectAnimalia continues with 752: Ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta)

My enigmatic ground-hopping neighbor in Madagascar.

#sciart #dailyart #animals #scientificillustration #medart #sciviz #lemur #Madagascar #ringtailedlemur #animalillustration #dailyart
December 4, 2025 at 3:54 PM