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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

My Dupuytren's Contracture necessitated a move to a smaller system about 10 years ago. I went M4/3 and haven't looked back. I recognise low-light performance isn't great but for macro work it's a fantastic system.

A huntsman spider munching on a beetle. The underside of the spider's hairy legs are strongly-marked with black and white.

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

OMG- now I feel like an idiot. I know where to find one, too. 😂😂😂 Where's that mirror?

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

"Swampies" are also important vectors of micorrhizal fungi essential for forest ecosystem health, and their diggings accumulate leaf litter and wind-borne seeds and are important refuges from low intensity fires.

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

unless you want to change your name to Claude.

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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

Clearly, Macropods aren't on Team Moth. They're missing out.

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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'd like to point out that geckos aren't generally attached to their egos so it wasn't actually posing. It was elevating itself to increase its visual horizon to increase the chances of spotting prey.

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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 · 07/12/2024

Update. We saw this Kangaroo yesterday and the tick is no longer present. Hopefully it hasn't fallen off in our yard.

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

Endangered Hooded Plovers need all the help they can get. Poem in alt text. #wildoz #birding

Hooded Plover (from Faunaverse Wildlife in poetry Tasmania)
The waves rush in with crash and hiss, leave bubbles on the beach,
I run on tiny legs ahead, barely out of reach.
Then I chase receding foam, probing sand with short stout beak,
it's tiny beach invertebrates like sandhoppers I seek.
Up above the seaweed line, my partner, with bent legs,
camouflaged amongst the sand, is shading precious eggs.
The sun is very hot today, she's diligent and dutiful,
and as my Hooded Plover wife, I know she's also beautiful.
Our beach is quiet and sheltered, but lately we've seen change,
the waves are reaching higher, the weather's getting strange,
When we fly around the headland, we meet less 'Hoodies' every year,
and sometimes we hear barking dogs- now that's a sound we fear.
We're tiny little shorebirds, we live on ocean beaches,
there's nowhere else for us to go, we're not like other creatures.
When you head off for the beach, you can help the Hooded Plover,
by walking on the wet sand with your family or your lover.
You'll know us by our smart black capes, we're small, but we can run,
but running from people or their pets is dangerous, not fun.
We can't leave our eggs to cook or freeze, so please, for our survival,
look for shorebirds on the beach when you make your arrival.
Don't let your dogs run on the beach if you see us about,
although you won't see our eggs, your dog will sniff them out.
We know you really love the beach, but we need it more than you,
so I hope that you will love the little Hooded Plovers too.
©Alexander Dudley/Faunaverse

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

If I had to donate a dollar every time I made a bad pun I would have the debt of a third-world country.

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

I mean she has claws.. I was surprised she hasn't got rid of it already.

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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

There would be so many colours on a single map it would be difficult Ctenotus the difference.

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

That poor possum isn't going to get a lot of sleep..

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

I bet that took some mussles to move.

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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 · 06/12/2024

It was seriously the most heart-stopping nature event I have ever seen. And being an old photographer, I forgot I was holding a video camera (i.e. phone) in my hand at the time, to my eternal regret!

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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

Why are you threatening toucans? What did they do to you?

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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

I worked down there as a Discovery Ranger and saw this same wombat just asleep on the ground and every time I thought she was dead. It's just how she would sleep. 🤔

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

How is the Reconyx attached to the star picket?

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

Let me guess- downslope from Connells Avenue (Road to Waldhiem) in Cradle Valley.

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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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