Simo is definitely a weird one!

My faves are Vlad (who looks like he's seen some shit), Fluffy (sleep paralysis demon vibes), Hubble (a big goofy floof) and Ophelia (who's just in the process of teleporting in)

....sweet dreams!

They’re over 70.

No need for a proper sink in the kitchen as they exist on Wiltshire Farm Foods 👍

Rip out the horrible interior, extend, it could look really nice!

In it's current state though, it's just bizarre. It's like an 'upmarket' house in the countryside for sex parties.... Maybe the weird hand wash basin in the kitchen is for rinsing your dick in?

No probs, I'm already in the process of selecting some

I had the idea to start off with the moderately tweaked, then descending into the acid trip, until the dimensions melted into WTF....

.....with the quotes hopefully giving a preview of the images, and some context of her process

I love her work, she's also got some excellent cat and human collages that I'll be exploring at some point soon 👍

I discovered The CryptoNaturalist over at the other place, and ending up buying 'Field Guide to the Haunted Forest' and 'Love Notes from the Hollow Tree' by Jarod K. Anderson....

Which is unusual for me as I detest poetry. I think it's a pile of long-winded, navel gazing wank...Except for haiku, (because they're short and sweet, and condense things down to their essence, which I like).

I like The CryptoNaturalist though, probably because they write about nature in a weird, beautiful and wonderous way. I want to use the word 'magical' to describe it, but am reluctant, for reasons

Also, thanks to this post I just found out there's a couple of other books available which I'm going to buy tonight 😀

I think I prefer moths to butterflies, the colours are more subtle and I love the general fluffiness....keep a look out as I'll be doing some more hawk moth posts 👍

I'm rather taken by the green one myself! I'll probably make it the star of its own post soon

A&E would be full of people with bugs in their ears if that was the case....we'd all be wearing earplugs in bed....

.....now brain eating amoebas and leeches on the other other hand.... 😱

Thank you, you can always stalk me from a distance lol...I'm finding that mander has some really nice communities which are more receptive to my wildlife posts, so you'll see me over here from time to time 😀

Ah thank you!

I do really enjoy scrolling through nice photos on flickr and anywhere else, there's some amazing photographers out there....and one day, I'll sit down and concentrate long enough to go through some of my efforts to share 😀

I do think that's an idea I want to try out and I think it may help get a discussion going.

I'll see what's involved in terms of research, and even if I can only manage 1 of these types of post a week it'll vary things up a bit

Thanks for the input, I appreciate it!

From what I can tell, no. The majority of photos are taken by scuba divers in the nudibranchs natural habitat, others may be from aquariums etc

Nudibranchs really do look like this!

I found this where UV light is used for night dives for finding hard to locate (camouflaged creatures) it does mention that some specimens are carefully taken ashore for ID and probably additional closeup photography and study

These 2 photos of Cats Eye Zoa show the differences between normal light and UV (and have given me an idea for a future post!)

Show

Normal light

Show

UV light

That would have been a much better post title!

Also this link has a time lapse video from the BBC for those who want to see the fungus in action!

You're welcome, and cheers 👍

That lady (the pensioner, not Thatcher) deserves either a rise in her state pension and/or a New Year honour, perhaps a Baroness....?

Some 'scales' or marks will be the plants version of a scab, where it's been damaged and has 'scabbed' over, the insect scales do look a bit more 'stuck on' and 'foreign' as in not created by the plant, if that makes sense? They can also be picked off, and the appearance is different to the plant surface.

I'm currently fighting scale insects on one of my houseplants (I think I'm winning), the adult females form the scale, and the nymphs/larvae are 'crawlers' (little white, woolly lines about 1-2 mm long), both can be physically removed by scratching them off, but the scale is tougher and water runs off it

This has some pictures of scale insect pests, and they look very different to plant tissue (and don't forget, they proliferate very quickly, so tend to show up in large, noticeable groups). Another thing is that the surrounding plant tissue will look yellowy/stressed when under attack instead of it's usual healthy, normal green

From wikipedia

They're quite small, the females are often flightless and without limbs, they conceal themselves under domed scales for protection. They like to suck the sap from plants, some ant species will 'farm' them for the honey dew they secrete. Some species are pests and can infest and damage the plants they feed on, while others can be used commercially....checkout one of my other posts here The oldest fossils found date to the early cretaceous.

You're welcome and thanks for the feedback!