That first ampullaria is sweet!

In college, genetics seemed pretty cool, and honestly, a field with more funding than herpetology. In grad school the mutant mouse I was studying turned out to have a mutation in a neuron-specific gene. So, slow drift into neurobiology.

Yeah, it’s a big one. I think it’s mostly genes from N. northiana, plus some hybrid vigor, that make it so large.

Nepenthes pitcher plants mostly get their nutrients from trapped insects, but there are several species specialized to serve as toilets for tree shrews and one that houses ant colonies that eat trapped insects, swim in the pitcher fluid, and feed the plant with the poop and leftovers.

1981 Brittanica, but yes.

…from bullfrog, green frog, Cope’s gray treefrog, narrowmouth toad, spadefoot toad, cricket frog, spring peeper, amd chorus frog respectively.

There’s huge variation in the frog sounds just in my back yard: grumpy bull, banjo, loud scream, unhappy sheep, indescribable nasal bleaugh, clicking pebbles, chiming bells, scraping comb teeth…

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I think “ribbit” is mainly American English, and in British English frogs just say “croak, croak”.

It is perhaps not coincidental that much of the southeastern US is more directly derived from UK settlement, while the north and midwest has greater input from Germany and Scandinavia.

Just scrolling Bluesky while I wait for 8:00 pm

Last time my daughter and her friends had a ouija board, they took it to the old grave yard in the woods. That’s better than in the house, right?

No mushrooms, as far as I know, though. Maybe a big bag of sour patch kids.

*gritted teeth* “there are no wolves in the book!”