iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Mya Breitbart @viromegirl.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Yet another devastating science news cycle day, but I’m choosing to focus on today’s Undergrad Research Symposium and all the incredible rising stars I had the chance to interact with. 3 of our lab’s wundergrads presented today! 🧪 🌊 @cmarinescience.bsky.social @bellathebiologist.bsky.social

3 women standing in front of a research poster on the response of an urchin-killing ciliate to different temperature and salinity conditions.

NYU undergrad Skylar Baria presenting her poster on growth variability of an urchin-killing ciliate under different temperature and salinity conditions

USF undergraduate Jewelia Keller presenting about a newly identified bacteria

USF undergrad Zoe Lawrence presenting a poster about using DNA barcoding to identify fish eggs from the West Florida Shelf in December 2024

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Cri 🕊🐝🐜📝🎭⚽😷 @crawlieswithcri.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Is Banana Slug Monday a thing? We should make it a thing! And yes, they come in quite a variety of colors and spots are optional! Note to dogs (and people) DO NOT LICK THE SLUG If dog does lick slug - DO NOT USE WATER TO REMOVE SLIME #inverts #becurious

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 27/01/2025

When I was younger, I naively assumed that every non-beetle species on earth had grad students doing this at some point, and it came as a great shock that there were bugs in my yard that NO ONE HAD STUDIED. I’m so glad the shrew got some!

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Bugz n Slugz @moistmacro.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

So this colourful wee beastie is Mexichromis lemniscata that I found in the United Arab Emirates. It was super small and happened to be hiding under a piece of coral rubble. A lot of #Nudibranch I find in less than 5m of water under rubble and stones where they hide during the day. #SeaSlugs #🦑 #🦐

A photo of a small season that has white, purple, yellow and red candy stripes along the length of its body. It’s rhinophores has bands of orange, purple and pink.

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Zoe Keller @zoekellerart.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Hi Bluesky! I create detailed drawings of the natural world, focusing on at-risk species and ecosystems. Prints and original drawings are available at zoekeller.com. My clients include Texas Monthly, The NYT and Hachette. I am always open to discussing new projects! Email: zoekellerdraws@gmail.com

A highly detailed black and white graphite drawing depicting a surreal scene. A snake skeleton with delicate ribs is entwined around a Copperbelly Water Snake, whose grey scaled body is twists in loose curves. Fragile, transparent strips of snake skin float around the snake and skeleton.

A colorful procreate drawing depicting five species of turtles found in Woodstock, NY. Clockwise from the top left: Wood Turtle, Spotted Turtle, Eastern Box Turtle, and Common Snapping Turtle. The turtles swirl around one another, some frozen in poses that suggest they are swimming through the air. Beneath the head of the watchful Snapping Turtle, hatchling turtles emerge from soft shells. Hatchlings of each turtle species swim among the adult turtles. The stems of American White Pond lilies weave through the ensemble towards the top of the drawing, where lily pads and white blooms rest.

A detailed graphite drawing depicting at-risk species found in the state of Maine. Two orchids bloom across the page: a petite Ram’s-head Lady’s-slipper on the left, and a Showy Lady’s-slipper with two blossoms on the right. A Sedge Wren perches on the stem of the Ram’s-head Lady’s slipper, its tail raised, chest feathers fluffed and its beak slightly parted as if it is mid-call. Slightly below the wren, on the underside of one of the Ram’s-head Lady’s slippers curled leaves, a tiny, dark and shiny Six-whorl Vertigo snail climbs slowly upward, its eye-stalks extended. Below and to the right of the wren, a striped juvenile Black Racer winds itself around the stems of the two plants, its gentle coils resting on the leaves of the Showy Lady’s-slipper, and its head pointed attentively towards the top right, looking at something off of the page. Above the scene, a Twilight Moth flies, its wings extended.

A realistic procreate drawing of a male Ruffed Grouse, with its crest, ruff and tail feathers erect in a mating display.

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Gil Wizen @wizentrop.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

A friend hiding in the leaves wishing you a good morning and a calm week

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Future Historian @futurehistorian.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

おはよう, Skylings! You should know by now of my love for tiny sea creatures. Big ones too, though. Anyway, for my UW pic of the day, here´s the second smallest seahorse ever found. Hippocampus pontohi. He was named after Pontoh, a divemaster! Batu Tiga, North Sulawesi, 2006. 🦑🌊 #UnderwaterPhotography

A tiny (about 1 to 1.5 cm total length) seahorse clings to a twig covered in transparent hydroids. Lateral view looking to the left of the frame. The seahorse is white with yellow coloration along his back, the top of its head and the tip of its tail and he has also red linear markings in the same area. His face and abdomen are white. The background is a dark array of algae, tunicates and encrusting spongers of various colours.

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Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 17/12/2023

What do barnacles parasitize? ✅️ corals ✅️ burrowed into whale flesh (and sharks, and turtle shells) Some that no longer resemble arthropods ✅️ inside of/mimicking sea stars shape ✅️ inside of crabs, making them turn into females and reproduce barnacle babies instead of their own ❎️ you? #Crustmas 🧪🦑

Ascothoracida. L–N, the zoanthid Palythoa with Baccalaureus sp. inside. L shows the colony of fleshy coral polyps with a box labeled M,N. M zooms in on a broken individual polyp which has a disc embedded in it. N shows the isolated disc, which is the ascothoracid barnacle Baccalaureus.

https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/193/3/789/6149353?login=false

Humpback whale with the acorn barnacle Coronula diadema and a few stalked barnacles Conchoderma auritum attached to them. Also visible are whale lice (amphipods) (Photo by Alisa Schulman-Janiger, off California, 2016).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321872992_Barnacles

$Dendrogaster, a pink animal that looks like tubes following the inside of a sea star with fractal other tubes and tubercles coming off them. It has been dissected out and isolated from the host. It is still somehow a barnacle and therefore a crustacean. What the fuck. Pic from the bad place https://twitter.com/manpokenautilus/status/1257966857451012096?s=19$

The interna of Peltogaster sp. (a relative of Sacculina) in the hermit crab Pagurus pubescens reconstructed using MicroCT, dorsal view of the host. Main trunk of the interna (of the barnacle, highlighted in green) in situ inside the host, shown together with the host's organs. Fine rootlets in the carapace region are not shown. Externa (reproductive sac of the barnacle) marked in orange. Organs of the pleon are digitally removed.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138511011530037X

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Bugz n Slugz @moistmacro.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

So here we have a Bubble Snail - which is a type of primitive sea slug - but not a #Nudibranch. This prey on polychaete worms that it finds in the substrate. It is able to sequester toxic compounds from its prey that it utilises for defence. This one was from Oman. #MarineLife #Inverts #SeaSlug

A top down photo of a bubble snail that has an orangey cream body colour. In its centre is a shell that is cream in colour with thin white stripes across its body. There is a slight bluish tinge around its mantle edge.

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Bella Ritchie @bellathebiologist.bsky.social · 26/03/2024

It's finally out, my first first-author paper as a grad student! 🤓🥳 Unfortunately more sea urchins are dying at the hands (or should I say cilia?) of the scuticociliate "Philaster apodigitiformis" in the Sea of Oman, as we report here: academic.oup.com/ismej/articl...

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Mya Breitbart @viromegirl.bsky.social · 19/02/2024

“Ecological Insights and Technological Advances in Coral Reef Monitoring and Restoration” session at #OSM24 tomorrow - come hear about the ciliate causing disease in Diadema from @bellathebiologist.bsky.social @drchriskellogg.bsky.social @ianhewson.bsky.social @brayan-vilanova.bsky.social

Macro photo of the long-spines Black Sea urchin Diadema setosum. Bright orange anal cone and blue chromatophores really make it shine!

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Mya Breitbart @viromegirl.bsky.social · 10/02/2024

Great day at the St Petersburg Science Festival today with local school groups! Free event open to the public tomorrow from 10-4. Come join our lab to learn about seagrass ecosystems and food webs! There’s truly something for everyone at this fantastic annual event! @bellathebiologist.bsky.social

Group of women in front of a fake seagrass maze, holding marine stuffed animals and sitting behind a table of stickers

Group of school kids gathered around scientists learning about seagrass ecosystems. Many students are raising their hands to ask/answer questions

Elementary school kids navigating a fake seagrass maze made of green streamers to collect representative animals that live in seagrass beds which they will later build a food web out of

Group of students constructing a marine food web with the animals they discovered in the seagrass maze

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Mya Breitbart @viromegirl.bsky.social · 15/12/2023

Fantastic lab holiday party today - and so happy to have 2 new micro/molecular/phytoplankton lab groups to celebrate with this year! @margaretbrisbin.bsky.social @bellathebiologist.bsky.social @lydiaruggles.bsky.social @microbusta.bsky.social

Large group of people posing outside in a screened patio with presents for the White Elephant gift exchange in front of them. Many wearing holiday antlers/outfits. Two cute dogs too!

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Mya Breitbart @viromegirl.bsky.social · 28/12/2023

I know @bellathebiologist.bsky.social is working on her application right now! 🤞

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Bella Ritchie @bellathebiologist.bsky.social · 18/11/2023

RIP to my first MacBook 🤧 And please learn from my mistakes: 1. BACK UP EVERYTHING ON A CLOUD DRIVE 2. Close your water bottles fully before placing them in the same bag as your laptop 3. Buy a waterproof case for your laptop 2 and 3 may be completed in any order BUT 1 is required 🥲

Mac laptop, covered in stickers, water damaged on the inside

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Andrés Rufino-Navarro @arufinonavarro.bsky.social · 16/11/2023

4 day old sea urchins. This is how they look like while travelling through the oceans looking for a place to settle and start their benthic life.

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Bella Ritchie @bellathebiologist.bsky.social · 15/11/2023

Let me introduce myself: I’m a PhD student in @viromegirl.bsky.social lab at USF, where half of my research focuses on the interactions between long-spined sea urchins and a scuticociliate parasite!

Me holding a long-spine sea urchin in the lab

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Mya Breitbart @viromegirl.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

My awesome PhD student @bellathebiologist.bsky.social just joined BlueSky! Her research focuses on sea urchin parasites and seagrass viruses, plus she posts cute cat photos 🧪🦑🦠

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Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 17/06/2023

The swimming snail know as a sea angel. So cute. So sweet. So casually everting a crown of tentacles, encircling another helpless snails, and ripping it’s still-living body from its shells to be shredded alive and swallows. Nature, so beautiful. So soothing. 😇 📸 bit.ly/2CJhWfc 🧪

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