LizardGuy
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lizardguy.bsky.social
LizardGuy
@lizardguy.bsky.social
550 followers 270 following 750 posts
Ecologist, poet, environmental educator, concerned about the future. Recognises that we're an ecosystem in an ecosystem. Socialist (not when it comes to billionaires though).
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lizardguy.bsky.social
Sorry, it's Velvet Worms all the way for me. I mean they're like plushy spiderman killer creepy cute critters.
Velvet The Velvet Worm (From the book “Faunaverse Wildlife in poetry Tasmania”) You may know worms that wriggle and squirm with slimy skin that's sticky, without a head or single leg, all pinkish, long and icky. You also might know centipedes, long legged hunting creatures, but it's time to meet another beast with different sorts of features. Velvet is a Velvet Worm, from an age that's long forgotten, she's soft and cute and velvety, her home's in old logs rotten. Her legs are short and many, her antennae wave and wriggle, and as she moves across the log she looks like a small squiggle. Although she's small and soft and cute, Velvet is carnivorous, and smaller creatures sadly find her appetite is ravenous. But how can Velvet catch them? She's certainly not quick. Well, Velvet has a most amazing unexpected trick. She pins her victims to the log with sprays of sticky thread, which form an instant zig-zag net from nozzles on her head. Her victims struggle feebly but they know their time is up, As Velvet says "It's dinnertime!" and she begins to sup. Some Velvet Worms live socially and share a territory, And if others cross the border, the fights can get quite gory, The biggest female rules the roost and though they share the hunt, She'll be the first to have a feed, she'll be the one up front. She's soft and cute and looks just like a tiny plushy toy, But Velvet is a creature I would not like to annoy.
February 10, 2025 at 8:08 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
They're a highly social, playful, chattering bird (sometimes called CWA birds) that live in inland eastern and parts of northern Australia in groups of around 12. Interestingly they and Magpies are sworn enemies wherever they occur. I get great joy from their antics.
An Apostlebird (Struthidea cinerea) running across the ground. These birds spend a lot of the time on the ground foraging for insects and seeds. They're a communal species that all share the task of raising the young. An Apostlebird in a Eucalypt tree. These birds spend a lot of the time on the ground foraging for insects and seeds. They're a communal species that all share the task of raising the young.
February 3, 2025 at 10:58 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
I stumbled onto the story of the Mt Lyell Shrew and was like my goodness they're an ecological analogue of the Narrow-nosed Planigale, a carnivorous marsupial from Australia.
A very small creature which looks like a shrew but has larger ears, slightly larger eyes- and the female has a pouch, because it's a marsupial. These little carnivores live in earth cracks in inland eastern Australia.
February 1, 2025 at 4:04 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
Moving slowly through the world and looking at nature will make you happier, more empathetic, less stressed and if that isn't enough reason, you will see REALLY cool stuff. If you have somewhere safe to nature at night (easy in Australia) that's when a lot of really cool stuff happens. #OzInverts
A dragonfly emerging from its aquatic nymph shell into its adult winged form. The wings have yet to be pumped open and its exosceleton is pale and soft, in stark contrast to the rough, sand-encrusted shell it has just escaped from. North-west slopes of NSW, Australia.
January 31, 2025 at 5:41 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
For #FrogFriday I present a mouth with a frog attached, the New Holland Frog Cyclorana novaehollandiae, a burrowing frog from Australia that lives to sleep, eat and have sex. #OzWildlife #Frogs
A large frog with uneven dark brown blotches over pale brown skin, large eyes and an enormous mouth, which is the widest part of the frog. These burrowing frogs are able to survive long droughts by burying themselves beneath the ground and remaining immobile for months or even years, emerging following prolonged rain events to eat and breed. They eat any animal they can fit in their massive mouths.
January 31, 2025 at 12:28 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
Found a little Strobe ant mimic at Coolatai. Smallest Mutillid I've seen yet!
January 22, 2025 at 1:53 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
January 20, 2025 at 11:25 PM
lizardguy.bsky.social
Playing a dangerous game.
A male St Andrew's Cross spider (Argiope species) approaches a female, wondering if he's going to get lucky and get away with his life. #Spiders #WildOz #OzInverts
A small yellow-brown spider approaches a much larger female St. Andrew's cross spider, her eight legs in four pairs in an X configuration, from the opposite side of the web.
January 19, 2025 at 3:03 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
I found a small strobe-ant mimicking Mutillid in Australia and didn't realise it wasn't a strobe ant (Opisthopsis) until much later while looking closely at the photos.
January 18, 2025 at 4:47 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
Very similar to the Australian Menetia greyii.
A small, thin, glossy-scaled skink with short limbs, a long tail and a linear pattern which includes a white midlateral stripe that begins under the eye and ends on the anterior flank behind the forelimb. Its eye is covered by a transparent scale, a condition known as "ablepherine".
January 9, 2025 at 6:21 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
My wife had Bipolar I Disorder, in and out of psych wards for years for mania and suicidality. In 2016 we started an experiment with Fecal Microbiota Transplants and she has been off all psych meds, and symptom-free for 7 years now. We need to know how to make this treatment safe and cheap.
A mug with a rainbow-colored poo motif labelled "Unicorn Poop"; The implication that only a unicorns poop would be able to cure a disease thought to be incurable by the medical establishment. This references the Fecal Microbiota Transplants that restored a healthy gut microbiome to my wife, putting her Bipolar I Disorder into remission for over seven years now. She no longer requires psych medications, and has no bipolar symptoms at all. Prior to the treatments if she missed her medications for even two days, she would be off to a psych ward within a week. This transformation has been miraculous and absolutely life-changing. We need fully-funded RCTs to work out why this worked for my wife and make such treatments safely and cheaply available to those with Bipolar Disorder. A list of search results from Google asking the question "Can Bipolar Disorder be cured" - and all saying it can be managed but is incurable, which my wife and I have proved is not the case. A list of search results from Google asking the question "Can Bipolar Disorder be cured" - and all saying it can be managed but is incurable, which my wife and I have proved is not the case.
January 8, 2025 at 2:52 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
Instead of a cat flap or a dog flap on our house, we have a lizard flap.
This is Marion, a Cunninghams Skink, who comes and goes as she pleases. #Lizards #OzWildlife.
January 7, 2025 at 9:19 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
With few restrictions on land clearing in Australia we're losing vital connectivity between populations of animals, and we risk the remaining patches of bush becoming islands, vulnerable to stochastic events and loss of genetic diversity. A maximum on paddock sizes needs to be legislated.
A view from the top of a vegetated hill showing large patches of cleared land with at most widely-scattered trees, too far apart for most small birds to safely traverse and way too big for most flying invertebrates. As we haven't catalogued most of the invertebrate species in Australia (and new vertebrates continue to be described) we don't even know what we're losing. We are facing a loss of #biodiversity with huge implications for our own survival.
January 7, 2025 at 8:59 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
Australian Owlet-nightjars (Aegotheles cristatus) exist.
#Cute #Wldlife #HollowsAreHomes #Birds
An Australian Owlet-nightjar, looking more like a mammal than a bird with its large dark eyes and small beak, peers timidly out of a tree hollow. Its beak is surrounded by sensory feathers which almost obscure it, but they have a very large yellow gape for their size which is very alarming if you ever actually get your hands on one.
January 7, 2025 at 8:34 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
Here's my #EmotionalSupportSpood, a Pellenes bitaeniata from the north-west slopes of NSW Australia. #Spiders #OzNature #Cute #Salticidae
A small cute spider with ridiculously large eyes and strong black and white transverse bands looks like an Anime cartoon- but it isn't.
January 6, 2025 at 6:01 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
As an ecological consultant/fauna surveyor for 40 years, if I'd killed EVERY SINGLE reptile and mammal I have encountered on all my surveys I would not have killed as many as would have been killed in this single cotton plantation. (and the population would recover) Fast fashion kills biodiversity.
A plowed, laser flattened paddock of bare earth stretches kilometers to a treeline barely visible on the horizon near Mungindi NSW. This would have been a thriving mixed woodland containing koalas, parrots, possums, bats, frogs, lizards, and a huge diversity of invertebrates. It is now a monoculture where only one species is allowed to flourish, which requires large quantities of water and pesticide to survive. The photograph is taken at 50mm equivalent, so the perspective isn't skewed. This is what it looks like to the human eye. An ecological desert. As an ecologist I have to justify why I need to put animals through the "trauma" of finding them, with spotlights, camera traps or live trapping. If I do this without a permit, I face serious consequences that can include a jail term. The people responsible for this destruction, from which the environment is unlikely to ever recover, will not have faced any consequences apart from financial enrichment. People need to be aware of the cost of their clothing choices, and mouch of the clothing that is produced ends up in landfill. We need to do better.
January 5, 2025 at 3:20 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
What actually makes Australians scream and run:
The Australian Magpie Cracticus tibicen, a species in which some individuals, usually males, take a particular dislike to certain people, or people who look or act like certain people, and which will defend its territory from such with aggressive swooping. Several people have lost eyes and at least one person has been killed as a result of attacks by these zealous birds.
January 3, 2025 at 1:41 PM
lizardguy.bsky.social
This may or may not be true.
A brown huntsman spider eating a rainbow skink (Carlia amax).
January 2, 2025 at 9:52 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
This is true.
A Rainbow Skink, Carlia amax, with a paralysed spider it has stolen from a parasatoid wasp.
January 2, 2025 at 9:49 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
View from the kitchen window- A male superb Fairy wren caught during a full-throated territorial bellow calculated to terrify his rivals. #bird #wildoz #nature
A small bird with a black upper body, caerulean blue cheeks, cap and reversed cravat, skinny orange legs and a long narrow tail stands facing away from the photographer, its beak open as it trills maniacally into the void, asserting its role as the king of the vegie garden.
December 15, 2024 at 2:38 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
December 12, 2024 at 8:51 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
This was definitely one of the most influential books in my life. Not many have heard of it. #Books
Large book with a picture of the curve of Earth from space and the title "The Home Planet Images and reflections of Earth from Space Explorers." Conceived and edited by Kevin W. Kelly for the Association of Space Explorers.
December 8, 2024 at 2:45 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
Brian Thompson, the CEO of a company that caused massive amounts of suffering for thousands of people to enrich those who were already rich, including himself, has been shot dead. He was being investigated for insider trading.
December 6, 2024 at 2:35 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
Meanwhile, in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Canberra, there be bloody dragons all over the place.
Gippsland Water Dragon, Intellagama lesueurii howitti. #herp
Adult male water dragon with black chest and orange, brown and duck-egg blue stripes on its chin, a deep, muscular head and a bright orange eye looks at the photographer from on top of a rock.
December 5, 2024 at 7:31 AM
lizardguy.bsky.social
Correct. The most commonly observed is Argiope keyserlingi because it lives near major cities but check out this fancy-pants spiral lady. #Spider #OzNature.
December 3, 2024 at 4:31 AM