A’liya Spinner
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cladist-magpie.bsky.social
A’liya Spinner
@cladist-magpie.bsky.social
Incoming PhD candidate — hopefully.
Entomological archivist.
Author of fiction (speculative) and non-fiction (sciency) in various places. Novel on query (represent me?)
Unapologetically queer. she/him.

https://ajhspinner.wixsite.com/aliyaspinner
Sometimes working in the collections means finding a dead mole by the parking lot, asking the mammal curator if he wants it, and getting sent back out with a ziplock bag and gloves. He was fairly impressed because usually these carcasses are too decayed to collect when found. Not mine tho
October 15, 2025 at 6:04 PM
My understanding is that that’s a subject of much paleontological debate, but one paper posits that different tooth shapes along the whorl allowed it to eat and process both hard-shelled prey (ammonites, etc.) and other cartilaginous fishes
June 28, 2025 at 5:06 PM
The bestie and boyf and I are participating today in the extraordinarily popular cultural phenomenon Helicoprion* in which we watch Jaws and Spiral: From the Book of Saw back to back

* Helicoprion is a genus of extinct shark known for its spiral-shaped “whorl” tooth
October 22, 2023 at 6:26 PM
Sketched three of my novel characters as “Esmeralda und Phoebus von Claude Frollo ueberrascht” by Auguste Couder (1837) during a Deadlands session last night. Those familiar with the novel know that I’ve designated the entire Hunchback of Notre Dame musical as its soundtrack.
September 8, 2023 at 4:25 PM