Meera
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gruntleme.bsky.social
Meera
@gruntleme.bsky.social
380 followers 450 following 480 posts
Late-model Gen X. Ecologist (especially fond of plants and insects), teacher, abolitionist. Transplant from Singapore to Duwamish land (Seattle). Not sure how much I will be here.

(She/her)
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gruntleme.bsky.social
Finishing up October with this COMPLETE PERFECT ANGEL #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025
Pen and ink drawing of a millipede. Handwritten text reads: Tiny! Social! Pink! Fungus-eating! Dad's brewed the eggs! Dads will adopt abandoned eggs to brood! ANGELS. #insertaninvert 40: Eyes (Eyeless) Feather Millipede (Brachycybe lecontii)
October 30, 2025 at 4:31 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Not my favorite (I swear insects are the hardest inverts to draw) but HOW AMAZING are these guys' eyes? Look up male mayflies of the Baeditae family.

#InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025
Black ink drawing of a mayfly. Handwritten text reads: Males in this group have so-called "Turbinate" eyes that search for UV light to find females in flight (their wings reflect ultraviolet radiation). #InsertAnlnvert 40: Eyes (Compound eyes) Blue-winged olive mayflies. (family Baetidae)
October 24, 2025 at 3:20 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
This cockeye squid wishes everyone on the streets a day of safety and ferocious community. #InsertanInvert2024 in 2025
Pen and ink drawing of a gorgeous squid. It has one large eye and one small eye. Handwritten text reads: #Insert An Invert 38: Eyes (Lens eyes) Strawberry squid / Cockeye squid (Histioteuthis heteropsis) An arrow pointing to the large eye is annotated: Scans the sea surface above for shadows An arrow pointing to the small eye reads: Scans the depths balow for bioluminescence
October 18, 2025 at 4:50 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Fuck Bruce Harrell. Anyway, here's a clam! #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025
Pen and ink drawing of a clam whose mantle is absolutely covered in spots, squiggles, and stripes. Handwritten text reads: "#Insertaninvert 37: Eyes (Lensless) Giant Boring Clam (as if!), Tridacna crocea An arrow pointing to the clam shell is annotated: Typically you wouldn't see any of the clam shell, because it's all burrowed deep into the substrate!"
October 11, 2025 at 6:34 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
I am a very cool 46-year-old who read this sign and thought for a moment that it was advertising a lecture series called "Ghoul Talks" whose first presentation was going to be about living with a bear
Poster on a street lamp with a picture of a gravestone on it, advertising an event. The text reads Ghoul Talk. Living With a Bear. Violent Beauregard.
October 10, 2025 at 4:54 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Just saving this gif here, no particular reason
October 9, 2025 at 11:36 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Second set of deep sea weirdos/cutie pops for #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025! These are both hella cool Holothurians (sea cucumbers).
Pen and ink drawing of a sea cucumber. Handwritten text reads: #InsertAnInvert 35: Deep Sea (Abyssal) "Gummy Squirrel" (Psychropotes longicauda). "I think I'm the only one who sees this, but the gummy squirrel looks like a bicycle handle with an open brake to me. I keep wanting to squeeze down its sail and ring its bell!" Annotations point out its tail (which is thought to act as a sail) and feeding palps, that it is 2 feet in length, and that it lives 16,000 feet below sea level. Pen and ink drawing of a sea cucumber. Handwritten text reads: #InsertAnInvert 36: Deep Sea (Hadal) "Headless Chicken Monster" (Enypniastes sp). "Only found in the deepest sea and colored pink to red, these fantastic animals are more prom princesses than monsters in my eyes!" Annotations point out its anterior veil for rowing, its tentacles for feeding and swimming, and its visible intestine.
September 26, 2025 at 5:53 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Luckily it's hard to stay mad at anyone, inducing Sara Nelson, on such a fucking gorgeous day in Seattle when I get to take a break from my job to read in the sun
Pov: you're sitting in a sunny back yard next to a container pond, reading
September 18, 2025 at 8:08 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Drew two deep sea creatures today for #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025, both surreal, stalked carnivores.
Pen and ink drawing of three creatures that are basically just open mouths attached to stems. Handwritten text reads: "Do they look like small, transparent submarine turrets that also happen to have hungry, gaping maws? Yes. Do their yawning hoods trip-trap shut when a small crustacean or diatom enters? Yes! Should "Predatory Tunicate" be a band name? Definitely. #InsertAnInvert 33 Predatory tunicate Deep Sea (Mesopelagic) (Megalodicopia hians) Pen and ink drawing of what looks like a cross between a flower and a bunch of balloons. Handwritten text points to one of the balloon shapes and reads: Covered in tiny hooks ("spicules") that form a velcro-y texture to trap foods. Can be 20 inches tall! The Internet claims that the U.S. Navy saw these & thought they were Russian listening devices. Apocryphal? #InsertAnInvert 34 Deep Sea (Bathyal) Ping Pong Tree Sponge (Chondrocladia lampadiglobus)
September 14, 2025 at 8:24 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
More adventures in microscope views of household bugs: I found a dead mozzie
View of a mosquito through a dissecting microscope. You can see its very long legs in this full body image. View of the same mosquito, zoomed in a bit so you can see how fuzzy and iridescent its wings are View of the same mosquito, zoomed in even more so you can start to see its compound eye and feathery antennae
September 8, 2025 at 2:04 AM
gruntleme.bsky.social
It's a two-drawing day and I am officially caught up with #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025! This is sketch 32 of the year. Phew.
Pen and ink drawing of a squishy, sea cucumber with bushy feeding tentacles standing up. Handwritten text reads: #Insert An Invert 32: Coastal (Sand) The handsome red sea cucumber (Cucumaria miniata) is always a special sight. I try to resist poking them gently, but cannot always.
August 31, 2025 at 6:45 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
A characteristic cluster of ochre sea stars (which are also local ecological stars) to continue #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025.
Photo of a purple and orange pen and ink drawing of a whole mess of messy sea stars on a white card. It sits on a table surrounded by pens. Handwritten text reads: #InsertAnInvert 31: Coastal (Intertidal), Ochre Sea Star (Pisaster ochraceus)
August 31, 2025 at 5:28 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
August's coastal theme continues with a cuttlefish. EXTREMELY underrated animals.

#InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025
Handwritten text reads: "Giant" is a relative term, I suppose, since these masters of camouflage would stillonly come up to about my knee. I love their flippy / foldy / curly anatomy. Even their eyes, which like other cephalopods' allow them to perceive polarized light, are wavy... #InsertAnInvert 30 Coastal (Temperate reef) Giant Australian Cuttlefish (Ascarosepion apama)
August 21, 2025 at 1:37 AM
gruntleme.bsky.social
On our hike yesterday I spotted a bracken fern with very narrow, curled and blackened edges on its leaflets. At first they looked like bizarre pods, they were so three-dimensional. Later I found a paper by George Poinar Jr.(!!) that suggested they were probably housing fly larvae. 🪰
The author's hand holding up the underside of a brackenfern leaf. You can see that a few leaflets have tightly curled, blackened edges. Screenshot of a figure from a paper called "Insect Herbivores of Ferns along the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America." Caption reads: A. Black, in-rolled edges of leaf margin galls on bracken pinna (Pteridium aquilinum) protecting larvae of Dasineura sp. (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae). Bar= 6.0 mm. Insert shows mature Dasineura larva inside gall. Bar= 0.5 mm. B. Larvae of Mycodiplosis sp. (Diptera:
August 18, 2025 at 7:28 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Hello. I drew an anemone.

#InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025
Pen and ink drawing of an anemone. It looks like it is wearing a wig made of pacifiers. Handwritten text reads: "A nipply fella, friends with anemonefish (famously). #Insertaninvert (29) Coastal (Tropical reef) Bubble-tip anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor)
August 15, 2025 at 7:56 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
The latest #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025 is a minute resident of a park my sister in law's family loves. They'll probably never see it but I think they'll enjoy hearing about it!
Handwritten text reads: #Insert An Invert 28: Subterranean (stygofauna) Hay's Spring Amphipod (stygobromus hayi) Stygofauna live in groundwater ecosystems. This tiny crustacean is endemic to groundwater beneath Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., and only occasionally is seen spilling out into shallow seepages.
August 1, 2025 at 12:19 AM
gruntleme.bsky.social
We have some volunteer bladderwort (Urticularia sp.) in the pond at the moment! I didn't know anything about them and am grateful to have been able to ID it with my microscope. Would you believe the whole family is carnivorous and the tiny sacs you see here are for trapping invert prey??
View through a microscope of a bright green aquatic plant with a finely branching structure and small oval sacs.
July 28, 2025 at 1:45 AM
gruntleme.bsky.social
We saw these two friends on a hike up the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River in Western Washington today. Anyone know them? #invertebrates #entomology #bugs #InsectID
A tiny mint-green caterpillar on blackened moss A fly that wants to look like a bee but is not a bee fly.
July 27, 2025 at 1:10 AM
gruntleme.bsky.social
The latest #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025 needed some color to differentiate this little dude and the pine cone he is standing over.
Ink drawing of a very long-legged cricket perched over a pine cone. Hand written text reads: "#Insertaninvert 27: Subterranean (Troglofauna). Square-legged Camel Cricket (Tropidschia xanthostoma) These adorable cave dwelling Orthopterans rarely see the light of day. ❤️
July 23, 2025 at 9:41 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Velvet worms are the cutest. Here's another little dude with 3 observations on iNat. :)

#InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025
Black ink drawing of a many-legged worm-like animal with charming curly antennae and chunky little legs. Handwritten text reads: Velvet worms (phylum Onychophora, for "carrying claws") walk softly towards their unsuspecting prey on their foot pads. This troglobiotic (care-dwelling) species lacks both eyes and pigment. white Cave Velvet worm (Peripatopris alba) #InsertAnInvert 6 Subterranean (underground)
July 12, 2025 at 10:38 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Last night I tried a new tack: smearing a mix of chili powder & mineral oil on the rim of the pond. Theoretically they don't like chili but perhaps even more they don't like icky things on their hands. This would at worst cause an upset tummy only if they consumed an improbably large amt. Results:
July 11, 2025 at 11:45 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Two nights ago a clown car's worth of raccoons (family of four) came by and chomped up my water hyacinth, tore leaves off the water lily and pulled it up out of the gravel, and broke stems off the pickerel. 😂🦝
July 11, 2025 at 11:35 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
A new month of #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025 takes us down to earth. I loved sketching this dude in his bed of sphagnum.
Dark blue ink drawing of a ground beetle nestled in a mass of moss. Handwritten text reads: #Insert An Invert 25: Subterranean (Surface) Beller's Ground Beatle (Agonum belleri) These beautiful creatures are endemic to sphagnum bogs in the Pacific Northwest. They prey on the same small invertebrates as the carnivorous sundews that also dwell in these wet, acidic habitats. They are rare and critically endangered in much of their range. This drawing is a wish to someday see one.
July 7, 2025 at 8:15 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Finished this little one last month and forgot to post her. I didn't know ladybird mimics were a thing, so thank you #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025 for the prompt!
Black ink sketch of a fly in disguise as a lady bird beetle, complete with spotted abdomen. In the upper left corner of the picture is a leaf on which a neat cluster of pencil eraser-shaped eggs have been laid. Handwritten text reads: "This adorable parasitoid fly disguised as a lady beetle lays her eggs inside Pentatomid that her larvae can snack on other babies (shield bugs/stink bugs) while they grow! This is such an efficient reproductive strategy that an estimated 10% of all insect species adopt it. #InsertAnInvert 24 Parasites (parasitoid) Gymnosoma rotundatum, Ladybird Fly
July 4, 2025 at 10:05 PM
gruntleme.bsky.social
Rapidly sketched from a challengingly hard-to-parse set of reference images, the latest #InsertanInvert2024 in 2025 is a badass barnacle that parasitizes sharks!
Dark blue ink sketch of what looks like a half-open clam attached to a fleshy tongue that is covered with tiny branching corals. Except the whole thing is really a parasitic barnacle! Hand-written text reads: #InsertanInvert 23: Parasites (mesoparasite). Anelasma squalicola is a large barnacle species that has chosen as its substrate the flesh of a variety of shark species. It lives half-embedded in its host and generally seems like a major pain in the side.
June 29, 2025 at 3:14 AM