iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Make the forbidden open-coiled cephalopods!

Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I explored a bit when I was doing dissertation fieldwork in the Basin and Range, mostly because I was looking for an excuse to hang out in the eastern Sierra. They are not pretty, but they are recognizable.

A screen grab of a pdf on the distribution of Ordovician graptolites

A screen grab of a pdf on the stratigraphy of eastern Sierra Nevada roof pendants

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Beautiful crisp and clear day for a bike ride in the Oakland hills

A panoramic view including wooded hills with houses, San Francisco Bay, the cities of Oakland and San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Mt. Tamalpais.

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Everyone had their own weird way of coping with the pandemic, and mine was photographing nudibranchs on the California coast. Fun to have been able to parlay that into a PNAS cover, and to have been part of such interesting work led by @isaacpesca.bsky.social & @drcraigmc.bsky.social! #nudibranch

A close-up of an aeolid nudibranch sea slug, Phidiana hiltoni, on a piece of kelp. The slug is translucent white with orange-banded rhinophores and gray cerata with pale orange tips.

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

What is even happening in this sequence? Is he wearing his armor while lounging in a pool floatie?

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Real Sirius Cybernetics Corporation vibes here

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

*wandering uninvited into your mentions* while I have your attention: my former Ph.D student is doing fieldwork around Bikini Atoll and sent this picture of giant mystery tracks. Given the area we're thinking maybe a very large coconut crab? Any thoughts would be welcome...

A person standing on a beach next to a very large trackway, almost a meter in width, made by a mystery animal.

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

~80,000 year-old (MIS 5a) pholads still in their boreholes on a marine terrace, Año Nuevo State Park, California

A wave-cut platform in soft sedimentary rocks that is riddles with boreholes containing fossil shells of boring clams

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Still working my way through pics and videos from sabbatical in Panama: this is Arawacus lincoides, a stripestreak butterfly displaying a predator-distracting "false head", complete with false antennae that wave when it rubs its wings together.

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

More pictures from last year, this time from Las Islas Perlas (Panama): a pair of Harlequin shrimp (Hymenocera picta) on a sea star. Harlequin shrimp mate for life and prey on sea stars—these two seemed to be trying to come up with a realistic plan of attack to flip over this much larger specimen.

Two small but very vividly patterned shrimp that are riding on top of a spiny sea star much larger than themselves.

A closer view showing that they have very large flattened claws and large eyes on long stalks

One of the shrimp on the sand, showing off the vivid color patterning

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Another video from teaching in Moorea this fall, illustrating a classic mutualism: a pistol shrimp (Alpheus sp.) works on clearing and stabilizing its burrow while its goby partner (Ctenogobiops sp.) keeps watch.

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

I was buried with work and completely missed #Nudivember, but here is a late contribution: Hypselodoris imperialis, my favorite new-to-me slug from teaching a field course in the Society Islands earlier this year.

A nudibranch (sea slug) that has a wavy white and deep purple color pattern with bright yellow spots

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Fantastic views of the Basin and Range (Schell Creek Range, Spring Valley, and Snake Range, Nevada) from my eastbound flight earlier this week.⚒️

Aerial view of basin and range topography -two long snow-capped mountain ranges with a broad arid valley between them.

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

Or the weird Australian instrumental trios

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

okay this is gonna get out of control...

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

I don't normally do these things but its unacceptable that I haven't seen this posted yet: Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden or Alice in Chains

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Continuing to try to sort through too many pictures from Panama: here are some of the frogs. Attempted IDs in the alt text (apologies to @rdtarvin.bsky.social for inevitable taxonomic atrocities)(1/6)

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Finally going through 5 months of photos and videos from a blissful sabbatical in Panama and found this clip of hummingbird insanity—a day or so later we decided maybe it was time to take the feeder down for a bit.

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

I have an honorable compromise

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Was searching family tree images to illustrate a point in a lecture and came across this (AI-generated?) genealogy, which...um...yikes😬

A cartoon of a family tree with some very disturbing implications

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Incredible example of how AI is destroying Google search: working on a paper on mollusk shell assemblages in Panama so I tried to search for the classic paper on the left (which I know about because I was a field assistant). Instead Google AI hallucinated a completely fictional architectural firm.

An image of a classic paper by taphonomists Mairi Best and Susan Kidwell

An image of a Google AI description of a completely fictional (as far as I can tell) architectural firm named "Best & Kidwell" that is supposedly based in Panama City. It even includes a picture of one of the partners(?).

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

It really is amazing -I just left it on for an hour in my screened-in office here in Panama, and even with only about half the local avifauna in its database it recorded 34 species -more than can actually be shown here

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

New molluscan phylogeny just dropped, thanks to the amazing evolutionary insights of Google AI

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

I'm not sure I know that site —where is it? This is from Gatun Formation (Late Miocene) cuts next to a housing development in Cativa, near Colon. They make bedforms in places!

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Hold on while I photoshop a vest onto palpatine

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Yellow-rumped cacique vocalizing from somewhere near my office –really wish this made me think of something other than R2-D2. (sound up)

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Biggest yard iguana I have seen yet –must have been close to 2 meters from head to tail

A large iguana with a vividly striped tail clinging to a tree trunk

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

I'll admit its disorienting and disconcerting to be in a place with literally no Paleozoic rock, but the Neogene has its own special charms (like less time spent squinting at cooked limestones thinking "wtf even is that thing?")

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Until June 20th, then I come back to confront the brutal realities of 2025 in the U.S. Have you ever been down here? Good snail country…

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Seth Finnegan @sethf.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Morning scrum at the hummingbird feeder –some great examples here of frame rate aliasing, the same effect that makes fast-moving wheels and helicopter rotors look like they are turning slowly and/or in reverse.

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