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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

This Katydid, Narea elongata was photographed near Kanangra in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney back in January 2004. I don't believe there are many photos of this leaf mimic. #Orthoptera #OzNature #Ozinverts. @nvolpe.bsky.social Have you seen one?

With long antennae and green wings bearing a striking similarity to leaves a Katydid sits on a Eucalypt.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Treecreepers live up to their name by hopping up tree trunks and major branches looking for tasty invertebrates. This is a Red-browed Treecreeper from the south coast region of NSW. #Birds #OzNature #WildOz

A dark, brownish-grey bird with a rufous face, long, sharp bill, a pale throat, white streaks on the breast and a black-barred tail sits on a branch.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

How awesome are Fleay's Barred Frogs (Mixophyes fleayi)? The Faunaverse team explored their habitat and in spite of a recent flood there appeared to be good numbers of these beautiful frogs. #Frogs #Herps #WildOz #OzNature

A Fleay's Barred Frog with yellow flanks, rich brown skin, large black eyes and black bars on the limbs perches on a small rock by a rainforest stream.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

I have seen a lot of wolf spiders in my life. But I have never seen a mother wolf spider so laden down with babies as the one I saw tonight! #Spiders #OzInverts #Lycosids #OzNature

Adult female wolf spider looking at camera while absolutely covered in tiny babies.

Adult female wolf spider so covered in tiny baby spiders that her body's shape is unrecognisable.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

Happy New Year from Team Faunaverse and our very pregnant Cunninghams Skink Glenda. #Lizards #Nature #WildOz #OzNature

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

I was visiting Richmond NSW and decided to go out with a torch and found about 20 Blue-banded Bees, Amegilla cingulata. #Bees #WildOz #Nature #Entomology #cute

Two Blue-banded bees with black abdomens striped with pale blue, fuzzy brown thoraxes, legs with long grey hairs and black tarsi, and greenish eyes grip the stem of a dead vine in their mandibles. This is how they sleep.

Five Blue-banded bees with black abdomens striped with pale blue, fuzzy brown thoraxes, legs with long grey hairs and black tarsi, and greenish eyes grip the stem of a dead vine in their mandibles. This is how they sleep.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Night time is when it all happens and I strongly recommend folks put on some covered shoes and venture forth with a torch (preferably a fairly dim one) to see what you can find. This was at Faunaverse HQ tonight. A native Dubious Dtella (Gehyra dubia) feeding on sap. #wildoz #oznature #gecko

A gecko hangs upside down beneath a narrow branch, its rear limbs wrapped tightly, its front legs extended, its head bent towards the branch with a slightly open mouth. The lizard has a pale belly with small, regular scales, and where its head is bent towards the branch the skin is folded at its throat. Its eyes are like black jewels and each of its toes has a rounded pad at the end, with a small claw sticking up from near the end of each digit. Only the gecko and the branch is illuminated by the small flash, leaving the background mostly black, apart from some of the closer leaves.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Merry #Crusmas - I present the Decorator Crab, Notomithrax ursus, and a #Poem about this amazing crab under alt text. #Oznature #zoology #wildlife #invertebrates

A suspicious lump of seaweed moves across the bottom of a rock pool. Or IS it a suspicious lump of seaweed?
Decorator Crab (from “Faunaverse Wildlife in poetry Tasmania”)
Those creatures in the rockpools have to put up with a lot,
like stormy seas producing waves that crash,
or a low tide on a summer's day that makes the water hot,
it's a wonder they don't come out in a rash!
Look in these water gardens and you may be quite astounded,
that so many things can live in such a place;
You'll see algae-grazing limpets that to the rocks are grounded,
sea-anenomes that wave their arms with grace.
But predators patrol these pools, there's gulls and hungry fish,
that are quick to spot and eat unwary prey,
but if you're quick or clever, you might not end up as a dish,
or breed before you do so anyway.
Let me introduce a friend, a master of disguise,
who you might find in Tassie, if you seek,
but you'll have to look so carefully, as this beast can fool your eyes,
with its mastery of camouflage unique.
The Decorator Crab is really very hairy,
and each hair on his body bears a hook,
and by this short description, it sounds a little scary,
but you'll only see one if you really look.
They use the hairy hooks to hold their camouflage in place,
seaweeds plucked from pools that they inhabit,
and although perhaps not pretty, like silk or bits of lace,
a gull that cannot see it will not grab it.
So they don't attract attention, these crabs are never swift,
and look just like the seaweed moving there,
and to the most observant they are an unexpected gift,
a clever crab with seaweed in its hair.
©Alexander Dudley

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

By the way if you like nature, quirky poetry and stunning wildlife photography or you know someone who loves Australian wildlife, check out the Faunaverse Books, printed in Australia. Australian customers only. #wildoz #poetry #nature www.faunaverse.com.au

faunaverse.com.au

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Visit the post for more.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

Lizards that have evolved to live primarily amongst rocks often have longer limbs and digits than their more terrestrial cousins. This saxicoline (or should that be sexycoline) skink from the Gulf country of north-west Queensland is Cryptoblepharus zoticus. #wildoz #oznature #herps #lizard

A small, pale, copper-brown skink with irregular darker blotches leans diagonally from a rock crevice. It has raised its slender body to avoid the heat radiating from the rocks and is looking at the photographer with its right eye, which is very large for the lizards size but covered in a transparent scale to avoid moisture loss. This scale is the remnant of its lower eyelid which is permanently closed, and one of the common names for this group of skinks is Snake-eyed skinks, because, like snakes, they can't blink.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

How good is camouflage? This Tessellated Gecko (Diplodactylus tessellatus) is using not only colouration to blend in, but posture to disguise its lizardy goodness. Can you see it amongst the pebbles and clay? #FindTheLizard #oznature #gecko #wildoz

A scene of differently-sized, slightly-rounded pebbles on a surface of clay. Some pebbles are yellowish, some are reddish, some ar shades of brown. There are scattered narrow leaves and small sticks on the ground, and amongst this chaotic scene is a small male reddish-brown gecko, which has twisted itself into a very un-gecko-like shape, its short fat tail curved into a sideways hook. The lizard is very easily overlooked among the other colours.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

How awesome are Cunninghams Skinks (Egernia cunninghami)? These social skinks may live on one log or stump for their whole adult lives, which may last for more than four decades (if they're lucky). This one is about to begin its search for a new home. :( #wildoz #lizards #HollowsAreHomes

A large brown skink with scattered white spots, keeled scales and an expressive brown eye surveys its future with some trepidation. It is the last of four siblings to be kicked out of home as it reached maturity, and as it is now 21 months of age it knows it is well and truly time to go. But the risks are huge- it faces a gauntlet feral predators such as domestic cats and dogs, feral foxes, cats and pigs. Native predators such as kites, eagles, goannas, pythons, Spotted Black Snakes and Eastern Brown Snakes are dangerous predators. And when this lizard finally does find a log- if it is already occupied, the chances of taking it over are slim, and if it finds it's own, then fires, firewood collectors and being able to forage safely and return to the log are all issues. This explains why once these lizards secure a territory, they tend to stick to it for their whole lives.

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Reposted by Faunaverse.com.au

Scott Edelman @scottedelman.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

The year before I was born, the threat of polio prompted DC Comics to run ads warning kids to — 1. Keep clean 2. Don’t get fatigued 3. Avoid new groups 4. Don’t get chilled — because no vaccine had yet been invented. Parents and kids lived in terror. That's the world the GOP wants to bring back.

A rectangular box to the right side of a subscription ad in Action Comics #196 (September 1954) with the following text:

Polio research will mean Victory!

Gamma Globulin - obtained from human blood - protects for a few weeks, but it is in very short supply.

When POLIO is around, follow these PRECAUTIONS

1. Keep clean
2. Don’t get fatigued
3. Avoid new groups
4. Don’t get chilled

A VACCINE
A safe and promising vaccine is being tested now, but results will not be known until 1955

THE NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR INFANTILE PARALYSIS

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

For all those who decided to follow team Faunaverse, Fangs a lot! #invertebrate #spider #oznature #wildlife

A badge huntsman spider with alternate half-bands of yellow, black and blue beneath its legs, and black shiny fangs. It is clinging to the underside of a plantain leaf.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Team Faunaverse have a little colony of Eastern Broad-nosed Bats Scotorepens orion living under the capping of the post supporting the clothes line. #HollowsAreHomes #oznature #wildoz

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

I went for a walk last night to see what I could see. Night time is when all the action takes place in the bush in summer. I found this delightful Box-patterned Gecko Lucasium steindachneri posing on a tussock. #WildOz #oznature #gecko

A Box-patterned Gecko in an upright position clutching onto thin grass stalks looks at the photographer with large eyes. The upturned corners of the mouth make the gecko look as if it is smiling. The gecko is reddish brown above with a pattern of milk-coffee reticulations on the head and dots and dashes along the back. The belly is nearly white.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Who like hollows? Way too many animals need hollows for the supply. This Musk Lorikeet's ancestors well all raised in hollows, as will be its family. Unfortunately, in Australia, most usable hollows take more than a century to form. #HollowsAreHomes #wildoz #nature

A Musk Lorikeet, a small, green parrot with a yellow shoulder and a red mask and beak, peaks out of a hollow in a smooth-barked gum tree.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

As a married couple, team Faunaverse have a lot of drama around our home. Fortunately, we adore and respect each other, so we have to go looking for it. At night. With a torch. #wildoz #nature #spider

A Badge Huntsman Spider chewing on a small Scarabid beetle. The otherwise brownish spider's legs are strongly banded with black and white on the underside, and it is hanging from the phyllode (leaf-like structure) of a wattle above the photographer. The spider is manipulating the beetle with small leg-like appendages called pedipalps on either side of its chelicerae.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Unless I'm very, very much mistaken, the resident matriarch of our Cunninghams Skink family, Glenda is up the duff. Bebbies due to be born in early February. Don't be fooled by her calm appearance, I have seen this lizard attack and chase off a Brown Snake big enough to eat her. #wildoz #OzNature

A large rough-scaled brown skink lounges lazily in an open crevice made by two planks of wood. She has white spots on her lips which fade along her body which is covered in keeled scales which form small ridges running along her obviously swollen body. Her tail is relatively short and tapering, and the keels are much more spinose. Her left front limb dangles lazily over the edge of the wood. Her demeanor is relaxed but her eyes are alert.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Found this little lady last night just chillin' on a stick waiting for a passing morsel to pounce on. She's an Eastern Stone Gecko, Diplodactylus vittatus, a common native gecko across much of Eastern Australia. #wildoz #Lizards #OzWildlife

A dumpy brown gecko with a white belly, large, black eyes and a pale brown ragged-edged vertebral stripe, breaking into dark edged irregular blotches on her swollen, rounded tapering tail.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

A native resin bee, Megachile aurifrons, setting up camp in one of my Bee Hotels made from old hosepipe jammed in scrap ag pipe and plugged with clay at one end. #wildoz #OzInverts

A bee with red eyes, a greyish hairy body and a black abdomen banded with grey, its wings blurred by speed, hovers outside pieces of hosepipe jammed into a short length of plastic agricultural pipe.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Will you look at the size of this tick on this poor Eastern Grey Kangaroo!! Holy moly! #WildOz Poem in AltText.

An adult female Eastern Grey Kangaroo gazes pensively to the left of frame. Her left ear is angled back at 45 degrees and a huge, grey tick about the size of a marble is fastened to the base of her ear.
Nobody loves the tick.
Some love the Echidna’s four headed-dick
Or like the phasmid that looks like a stick,
Or respect the Shark that swims so quick,
But,
Nobody loves the tick.

Some people admire the role that ants play,
And some really like snakes at the end of the day,
And though spiders are cool, some make you sick,
I’ve never met anyone who likes the tick.

Is it because they can cause Lyme disease?
They dig into your skin with such consummate ease?
They carry scrub typhus, Q fever and Rickets,
When a tick seeks applause there is nothing but crickets.
It’s clear these arachnids make some people quite sick,
Perhaps this is why people don’t love the Tick.

The response to a tick meme never goes well,
They’re all “Kill it with fire!” or “Burn it in Hell!”
When posting their hating, the memers are quick,
Cause nobody, nobody favours the tick.
©Alexander Dudley/Faunaverse

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Goody! A new spider in the yard at Faunaverse HQ- a small member of the Cyclosa trilobata species complex and a rather weird-looking spider. We really do need more employed taxonomists or our biodiversity will disappear before we know what we've lost. #WildOz #Spiders

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

The Oenpelli Python, aka Nawaran, Nyctophilopython oenpelliensis, is one of the largest species of python in Australia. This spectacular python is fawn brown during the day but turns a silvery grey at night. It is only found on the Kombolgie sandstones in the West Arnhem Province. #OzWildlife.

A slender pale silvery-brown python with irregular brown blotches and a large head is loosely coiled over a sandstone boulder, exactly as it was found back in 2002. At that stage the photographer, Alexander Dudley had been looking for this elusive python for many years. This remains the only specimen he has ever seen in the wild.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Faunaverse HQ is in a tiny town of about 20 houses in the middle of nowhere. Jane and I (Alex) enjoy a quiet life, but there is always drama and wonder to be found about the yard should we seek it out. Like this jumping spider of the family Salticidae feeding on a fly. #OzNature #OzInverts.

A jumping spider, identified by two large forward facing eyes, clutches a tiny fly to its face with elongate dark and shiny front legs. The spider has a black head with a rich brown band on either side and across its face which encloses its six eyes. Its abdomen is a metallic brown colour. The spider is small, about 14mm in length and is clinging to a vertical leaf. Much of its lower face is hidden by the fly it is eating.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Team Faunaverse loves lizards, and fortunately our yard has a resident family of Cunninghams Skinks Egernia cunninghami, a large, social species of lizard that demonstrates care for the offspring by chasing off predators like Brown Snakes. How Many can you see? #FindTheLizard #OzNature #Lizards

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

One of the most striking geckos Team Faunaverse has ever seen is this juvenile Gulf Velvet Gecko, Oedura bella. This one is regrowing a lot tail. #OzWildlife #WildOz #Lizard #Gecko #OzNature

A purplish-grey gecko with almost flourescent yellow bands across its back and a plain, grey tail. The gecko has very has large dark eyes and the upturned corners of its mouth make it look as if it's smiling. Which it isn't. When you live in a harsh environment and everything wants to eat you that is more likely to be a grimace than a smile. Besides these geckos eat centipedes and scorpions, and not many people smile when chowing down on something with too many legs that can bite back.

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Reposted by Faunaverse.com.au

Jean-François Cudennec @limpetnerd.eurosky.social · 28/11/2024

Shifting baselines illustrated : Horseshoe crabs were harvested and used as fertilizer up until the 1970s. How did this impacted our conception of "healthy population" ? (also, can you imagine the smell ?) 🦑 🌍

Black and white photo of large piles of dead horseshoe crabs on a dock

Black and white photo of large piles of dead horseshoe crabs near a canal

Black and white photo of large piles of dead horseshoe crabs

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

It's summer, and time for the March Flies to become active and somewhat annoying. But is there more to these maligned insects than meets the eye? Let the Faunaverse team introduce you to Milena, the heroine of pollination! #WildOz #OzInverts #OzNature. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkHD...

youtube.com

Milena the March Fly music video

YouTube video by Faunaverse

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

I thought I was pretty good with insects, but I've lived on my little block for over 21 years and haven't seen one of these before. Coolatai NSW. #OzInverts #OzNature #WhatsThisBug

A small insect with semi-transparent heavily-veined wings three times its body length, held up at about 80 degrees. It has compound eyes and well-developed legs and a hunched body shape.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

A lot of people don't particularly like spiders, but spiders are eaten by so many things that you have to have some sympathy for them. Especially when one those things is a Pompilid wasp larvae that feeds on the immobilized but still-living spider in a darkened cell beneath the ground. #OzNature

A black wasp with cream bands drags a paralysed Wolf spider through the grass by its belly. The Spider's limbs are relaxed, raised behind it, its limb-like pedipalps on either side of its head are raised, giving the spider the appearance of having its head thrown back.
Beware the wasp, little Spiderling, for she is your nightmare,
She'll sting you and bite off your legs, then drag you to her lair.
Within that darkened crypt my child, she'll lay a single egg,
And when that egg should hatch, my child, for death you'll surely beg.
You cannot move, you cannot scream, you cannot scratch or bite,
You can't escape this horrid dream, this larval parasite.
And as you shrink her young will grow, nestled close and feeding,
All your thoughts, and all you'll know, is pain, and fear and bleeding.
©Alexander Dudley/Faunaverse

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Team Faunaverse are working on a fauna survey in the northern Granite Belt in NSW. How's this Turquoise Parrot feeding on a Pimelia? #OzBirds #Birding #OzWildlife

A Turquoise Parrot, a bird with a turquoise blue face, green back, turquoise-blue wings, yellow belly and green tail looks at the photographer.

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Reposted by Faunaverse.com.au

Michael Johnston (Ecolegacy Pty Ltd) @ecolegacy.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Tragic outcome for this Pied Oystercatcher. Tagged as an adult bird in June 1991. Killed by a feral cat in Sept 2024. >33 years old. French Island, Victoria.

Pair of Pied Oystercatchers, including bird tagged 'J8'.
Photo: Romuald Mikusek

Carcass of Pied Oystercatcher with 'J8' tag. 4 September 2024

Pied Oystercatcher carcass found with field sign indicating kill by feral cat. (No foxes present on this island and not a raptor kill).

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Reposted by Faunaverse.com.au

Heather Neilly @heatherneilly.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Please share, and help me find a #PhD student to study #ecosystem #engineers and their role in #ecological #restoration

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Do you think you can identify a snake by its colour alone? Check out this bunch of Spotted Blacksnakes Pseudechis guttatus from the north-west slopes of NSW! These snakes enjoy their personal space and are best admired from a distance #WildOz #herps #Oznature

A panel of eight differently coloured snakes, all of the same species. The first is reddish brown with a dark grey head, the second is brownish with dark edges on the scales and a flattened neck, the third is cream- coloured with a fine pattern across its body, the fourth has orange scales with dark patterning and is emerging from an upright piece of plastic pipe; The fifth snake is dark blue-black with no pattern at all, the sixth is brown with a black head and upper neck, the seventh is shiny black with a flattened neck, and the eighth is dark blackish brown.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

It's a Spider-eat-spider world out there. The tables can turn at any time. Daddy Long-legs can gang up on a Hunstman Spider, or a Huntsman Spider can eat a Daddy Long-legs. #Spider #WildOz #OzNature #Inverts

Three Daddy Longlegs spiders have wrapped up a small huntsman spider in silk and are eating it.

A largs Huntsman Spider is sitting on a wall with the legs of a Daddy Longlegs spider sticking out from between its mandibles.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

A Camera trap image that sums up Sulphur-crested Cockatoos' character in a photograph. Curious, loud and happily destructive (although they have nothing on humans for any of these qualities).

Two sulphur-crested cockatoos on the ground, white birds with yellow crests, black eyes and hooked parrot beaks. The nearest bird has its wings raised, it's head thrown back and its beak wide open, and is almost certainly screaming.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Looks as if the Daddy Long-legs -or rather Mummy Longlegs' eggs have hatched and our mosquito control and cobweb maker troop is about to go into overdrive. The house rule is as long as they are above head height, they can stay. #WildOz #Spiders #OzNature

Female Daddy Longlegs spider with a cluster of about 40 spiderlings suspended below her jaws. The spider has a small body and ridiculously long legs and is suspended in a web against a white background.

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Faunaverse.com.au @faunaverse.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Faunaverse would like to introduce Glenda, a Cunninghams Skink (Egernia cunninghamii) and a devoted mother (to a point). She presently has six babies from Feb 2024 and one of four remaining from Feb 2023. The others have been evicted. One of the few lizard species to defend their young.

Photo of Glenda, a heavily built, rough-skinned lizard with a short spiny tail. She has longitudinal ridges from keeled scales along her back and white spiny scales at the front of her ear. She looks fat, but she's just pregnant.

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