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Richard Conniff

@richardconniff.bsky.social
763 followers 711 following 913 posts

Author, magazine feature & NY Times essayist, about wildlife, public health, poetry, museums, & other topics. National Magazine Award. Guggenheim Fellowship. Latest book, "Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion" from MIT Press. .

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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
First we pay with our wallets, & later with our lives. richardconniff.substack.com/p/the-deadly...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
U.S. Government "aesthetically terrified" by a painting of "a picnic in a park with flowers and some lesbians." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/a...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
I realize pretty pictures are more the thing on social media, but can anyone help me identify the animal responsible for this poop? 🌿
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Find four bats in this 1611 painting by Jan Breughel--and describe the astonishing thing one of them is doing. (Or just read the story.) substack.com/home/post/p-...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Somewhere in this 1611 Breughel painting there's a behavior scientists only figured out eight months ago. Can you find it? (Or just read the story.) richardconniff.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
At the #KennedyCenter, down comes the "D," the beginning of the end for Donald Trump's pathetic celebration of himself. (Photo: Cliff Owen/Associated Press)
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Backyard chickens are the key to stop people from eating their way down the wildlife food chain. open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
"A wooden crate stands open, revealing what looks like a crude sculpture roughly five feet tall. It’s a tableau of death, a cataclysmic mix of blackened ankles, teeth, femurs and skulls jammed together ..." (Photo: Michael Christopher Brown) open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
As is often the case with Donald Trump, the terrible things he says about others will later turn out to be most true about himself.
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Federal workers are "crooked" & "ruining the country," right? But this one saved us from a hideous disease that had been maiming & killing humans for 10,000 years. 🛟 open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
WaPo owner Jeff Bezos is vain about his physique. But Katharine Graham had bigger gonads & didn't go spineless just because some government jackass threatened to catch "her tit in a wringer." (Image: WSJ)
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Plenty of potential #bison habitat out there, if we just let them at it. New study from WCS, Panthera Cats, Re: Wild, et al. act-green.org
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Cave mummies discovery could lead to restoring one of the most beautiful animals on Earth to lost habitat. 🌿 richardconniff.substack.com/p/cave-cheet...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
You may hate hunting but it played a key role 60,000 years ago in shaping the modern human mind. Poison arrows are the clue. richardconniff.substack.com/p/how-huntin...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
Strange creatures, from an even stranger character in the history of exploration. richardconniff.substack.com/p/slavery-bi...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
Reader comment: "Oh what a great read! Bizarre, macabre and also a bit magical, much like taxidermy!" substack.com/home/post/p-...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
Sorry, I meant to include this photo.
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Part 2 of the desert rhino story richardconniff.substack.com/p/getting-cl...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Is it better to be horned by a charging rhinoceros? Or trampled? A guide tests the question. 🌿 richardconniff.substack.com/p/getting-cl...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Here's the great white shark of the jellyfish world. And other strangely elegant creatures made from snot. An 11-minute read for your weekend. (Photo: George Matsumoto/MBARI) richardconniff.substack.com/p/jelly-bell...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Here's the conclusion of my three-part series on spider webs. Read on to learn how the insects take their terrible revenge. 🌿https://open.substack.com/pub/richardconniff/p/a-spiders-life-hanging-its-butt-in?r=1fcr4&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
Been to the Serengeti. Explored in the Amazon. Trekked in Bhutan. But watching spiders has been one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life as a naturalist. richardconniff.substack.com/p/spider-web...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
You may be a policeman still angry that Trump freed Jan 6 rioters who battered cops, or a coal miner pissed that Trump has blocked regulations to protect you from black lung disease ... If you believe in America, it's your march, too. richardconniff.substack.com/p/heres-why-...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
The shsssssssh-shsssssssh of boots walking through fallen leaves in the Connecticut woods
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
It's never been legal to export Galapagos iguanas from Ecuador. But pet dealers still sell them "legally" in Europe. Time to crack down on the wildlife pet trade. richardconniff.substack.com/p/the-wildli...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
It wasn't a secret, but Trump admits he's using the power of the presidency to fatten his own bank account.
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Also worth contemplating their handiwork, from an 1863 photo of escaped slave Peter Gordon. This photo is now deemed "corrosive ideology" by the Trump regime and banned from display in our National Parks.
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Haunting image of three southern slaveholders, c. 1850. The banal face of evil. Original daguerreotype in the Metropolitan Museum, colorized and restored by Frank Hellsten
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
These Canada geese have an almost mathematical idea of acceptable social distance
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Authors will do almost anything to promote their books. But I'd draw the line at deliberately getting bitten by a black mamba. richardconniff.substack.com/p/how-to-get...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
With regret, a new addition to the Wall of the Dead for lost species seekers. Donovan Kirkwood fell off a cliff in the Western Cape while searching for a critically endangered flowering plant. 🌿 strangebehaviors.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/t...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s anti-science killing your children? That could be just be a photo op for him. richardconniff.substack.com/p/a-chronicl...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
John Deering on the long-running Epstein File Distraction Strategy
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Any clues what this might be? Found under a mattress.
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
On the beach, evening, Duluth, MN. Meadow fritillary?🌿
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
A cloud phalanx?
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
Bees go wild for black cohosh
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
I noticed these small insects circling above lupine seed pods last evening. A mating lek? Some sort of feeding behavior? 🌿
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Substack, the web host for writers who no longer want to answer to billionaire bosses & corporate drones last month beat the traffic on wsj.com and cbs.com. You can subscribe there, free or paid, to my weekly column. richardconniff.substack.com
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Substack, the web host for writers who no longer want to answer to billionaire bosses & corporate drones last month beat the traffic on WSJ & CBS. You can subscribe there, free or paid, to my weekly column on wild things. richardconniff.substack.com
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
Honest headline ("Poorest Americans Dealt Biggest Blow Under Senate Republican Tax Package") and lead graph from @nytimes. Please repost. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/b...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Ok, this photo is not meant to mimic images of the risen Christ (or Batman), and the headline uses "God" only as a literary stand-in for, you know, nature. So read on in the comfort of your beliefs. 🌿 open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Name the #spider quietly practicing external digestion in my shower. Bonus points if you can name its prey (My guess: A housefly, Musca domestica)
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
House cats, a rare hummingbird, and hope on an ocean island. 🦉 substack.com/home/post/p-...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Maybe 25 feet from the feeder, where ruby-throated hummers do combat, we’ve got a nest of Baltimore orioles, & another 25 feet from that, a bluebird couple working on their 2nd clutch of the season.
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
A quarter of the land planted in corn is ALWAYS going to lose money. We pay for that. Why not pay for those acres to go back to birds and monarch butterflies instead? richardconniff.substack.com/p/fixing-the...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
To hell with the politicians, it's the weekend and time for some HEALTHY nonsense. richardconniff.substack.com/p/the-unnatu...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
To hell with Trump. It's Saturday morning and you deserve some healthy nonsense for a change. richardconniff.substack.com/p/the-unnatu...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
The strange, almost hallucinatory, reality that infiltrated books your children read. 📚 richardconniff.substack.com/p/the-unnatu...
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Richard Conniff @richardconniff.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
One minute of dawn chorus where I live, 5:29 a.m.: Baltimore Oriole, Carolina Wren, Cedar Waxwing, Indigo Bunting, Mourning Dove, Scarlet Tanager, Common Yellowthroat, Eastern Wood-Peewee, Black-Capped chickadee, Wood Thrush, Red-eyed Vireo, Blackburnian Warbler. (Photo: Mike Warner)
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