Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 16h

Caterpillar? Don’t want to be eaten as a snack? Here’s a popular strategy I found this week in the cloud forest.

A green caterpillar with false eyes on its back

A caterpillar with false eyes on its head

Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 2d

A view into the Amazon from Sumaco Volcano. So many little worlds playing out in the forest below. An entire universe of beetles and monkeys and birds and humans. You could spend all your life learning about the ants in one of those little trees down there. Overwhelmingly beautiful.

A view into the foothills of the mountains that expands into the Amazon basin

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · 7d

I found this rove beetle friend on the rainforest floor. They are so so fast, you can imaging me chasing it around with my camera just rolling around in the leaf litter. Just unbelievable colors. In person the rainbow iridescence is stunning. It’s hard to say much here beyond just wow.

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Reposted by Nathan Harness

Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · May 29

Look. At. This. (!). A fungus spore landed on this weevil. Grew inside and caused it to climb to the top of this plant- while the fungus killed it. Consumed its body. Used that energy to shoot up a red fruiting body to release more spores. To zombify more weevils. A mind controlling killer fungus.

A dead weevil with a fungus fruiting body growing out of it

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jul 29

Cannot forget Boneparte’s Gull

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jul 29

Some vertebrates I found in Southeast Alaska. (It was really great to finally see bubble netting)

A humpback whale fluke in front of a mountain

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jul 26

😍

Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jul 26

The entrance to Fords Terror. A fjord just off of Endicott Arm in Alaska. You can only get into (or out of) this fjord at high slack tide- for about twenty minutes a day. More photos of the stunning effects of glaciers on mountain rock soon to come

A colorful penensula of trees with a long dramatic waterfall in the background

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jul 25

A humpback whale checking out her above water surroundings (Spyhopping)

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Reposted by Nathan Harness

Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · May 26

A weevil at Wildsumaco in Ecuador. Easily found by following the trail of glitter he leaves behind everywhere he goes.

But really- this glitter weevil is always amazing to see and a real wonder of the world. Endless forms most beautiful, indeed.

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jul 19

What spectacular shades of blue. An iceberg just off the face of the Dawes Glacier in Southeast Alaska. That little spec in front of the upper left part of the berg is an Arctic Tern, absolutely dwarfed by this chunk of mountain-carving-ice.

A very blue and very huge iceberg in front of a solid rock wall

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jun 22

Just a stick cleaning its antennae

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jun 3

bsky.app/profile/nath...

Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · May 29

Look. At. This. (!). A fungus spore landed on this weevil. Grew inside and caused it to climb to the top of this plant- while the fungus killed it. Consumed its body. Used that energy to shoot up a red fruiting body to release more spores. To zombify more weevils. A mind controlling killer fungus.

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jun 3

🎶horror music🎶 Another cordyceps victim. This particular species of fungus is targeting a different insect. It’s taken over the bugs body and moved it up a tree, where it killed it and consumed it (leaving behind the exoskeleton) using the energy to grow those orange mushrooms and spread more spores

A bug infected by cordyceps fungus, which has its fruiting bodies growing out of it

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Reposted by Nathan Harness

Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · Jun 3

There have been THREE velvet worm (Onychophora) posts in the last day or so, requiring a megathread. I'll add one of their coolest fossils first, from when they were exclusively marine, drawn by @franzanth.bsky.social for @arthropoda-curator.bsky.social

(see next 3 skeets in thread...) 🧪

Franz Anthony's drawing of Facivermis, a strange stem group onychophoran which has elongate, feathery anterior appendages for filter feeding. It is in a tube embedded in the sediment and has a blobby bit at the posterior end. A second individual is shown hiding in its tube, with only the feathery appendages visible

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jun 2

I love this! I guess I’ll have to visit NZ again soon

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jun 2

ME too

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jun 2

Right??? I think this just CONSTANTLY

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jun 2

Oh and they also hunt by shooting glue out of those little nubs on their face 😃🪱

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · Jun 2

!. Look at this astonishing animal. My velvet worm friend lives on moss in the rainforest. He is ANCIENT. WAY older than dinosaurs, lobopods like him even make an appearance in the Cambrian- when multicellular life became trendy.

You can find him today on a tree at Wildsumaco, in Ecuador :)

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · May 31

Magic on the other side of a tree

(Red-Bordered Stink Bug)

A greenish blue and orangish red stink bug

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · May 30

Very good chance to see one at Wildsumaco in Ecuador. You should go!

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · May 30

Yeah! You should look at it in person lol

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · May 30

!! What a fun experience

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Nathan Harness @nathanharness.bsky.social · May 29

Yeah! And like, SO horrific that nothing in the whole of the rainforest is gonna bother that dead bug. It’ll just become substrate for moss

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