iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Christmas tree worms (Spirobranchus giganteus) are tube worms, and the ornate spirals are only part of their body, used for respiration and feeding. I've never seen them in such an array of colors as in #Fiji. 🦑 #scuba #diving #coralreef #oceanlife

A piece of pinkish coral that looks slightly like a brain studded with Christmas Tree Worms, visible as little spiky frilly cones in pink, white, purple, orange, maroon, and brown.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

A sprinkling of marine invertebrates 🦑 : Giant clam, nudibranch, tiger cowrie, and tiger flatworm. #scuba #diving #oceanlife #Fiji #marineinvertebrates

A giant clam mostly embedded in the coral substrate but with the fluted opening of its shell and spotted and striped grey and white mantle visible.

A flat sea slug with a white body, a concentric purple ring, and two purple dashes within the ring on a dark rock.

A large snail with a white shell spattered with dark brown polka dots.

A beautiful flatworm. The body is black and edged in deep orange. There is a long lemon-yellow stripe down the length of the body and irregular yellow blotches between the edge of the body and the central stripe.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A few feather stars, aka crinoids. The name crinoid is derived from Greek roots meaning "lily-like", which, um, sure...🦑 #oceanlife #echinoderm #scuba #diving #fiji

A gold and black feather star with its numerous arms curled into a loose ball on coral.

a black feather star sitting in the middle of a patch of pale coral.

A white and a black feather star sitting side by side on a coral mount.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Our very old boi Miska has suddenly decided my wife's Longaberger basket is a perfect napping spot. #catsofBluesky #rescuecats #adoptdontshop

A shaggy black & white cat is curled up in a brown wicker basket sitting on a patchwork quilt atop a cedar chest. He is perfect.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Stelis laticincta (Wide-striped Painted Dark Bee) on goldenrod. It looks wasp-y because it's a cleptoparasite - females invade the nests of other bees, lay an egg on the hosts' pollen ball, & her larva kills the host bee's baby and eats the pollen. #nativebees #nativeplants #entomology #insects

A bee with a shiny dark brown body, yellow stripes on the abdomen, and a yellow edge on the prothorax is perched at the top of a yellow goldenrod flower.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Flies don't get nearly enough love. They can be efficient pollinators, compost dead things, debride wounds, are important parts of the food web, and some are useful tools in forensic analysis. These Green Bottle Flies (Lucilia sericata) are really quite lovely. #insects #Diptera #flies #entomology

A small fly with clear multiveined wings, large maroon-brown eyes, short bristly antennae, and a metallic coppery green body is perched on an orange poppy flower facing the viewer.

Top view of a handsome fly with a metallic green body and deep maroon eyes, perched on a bloomed-out Pacific Bleeding Heart.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

A mulluscan morning hike with PNW iconic gastropods Pacific Banana Slug and Pacific Sideband Snail. #northwestnature #gastropoda #invertebrates #hiking #oregon

A lovely slug with a long keeled olive greenish body patterned with large black splotches, eyestalks fully extended as it slithers along a gravel and dirt path. It looks very self-actualized.

A slug with an olive green/tan body with smaller black spots is sitting curled up on a dead snag, eyestalks shyly retracted. This slug has not yet had its morning coffee.

Snail with a glossy rugose deep maroon-colored body and fully extended eyestalks, rocking a somewhat scratched-up reddish-brown shell with a black stripe spiraling along it. This snail has places to be.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Red-shouldered Ctenucha Moth (Ctenucha rubroscapus), a day-flying moth found only in the Pacific Northwest (low elevations west of the Cascade Mountains and south of Chehalis WA). Larvae feed on grasses but the adults like to nectar on composites like this ragwort. #Lepidoptera #Insects #entomology

A black moth with slender antennae, a red-orange head, two red stripes on the pronotum, and a thin fringe of white on its oval wings is perched on the yellow composite flowers of tansy

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Real Oregonians hike in the rain. And then get beer at a Queer gaming pub afterwards. #waterfalls #rivers #water #pacificnorthwest

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

A bunch of mudpuddling Western Tiger Swallowtails (Papilio rutulus). Butterflies can also puddle on feces, rotting organic material, or your sweaty arm. Males likely engage in this behavior to obtain sodium, nitrogen, or amino acids. #entomology #Lepidoptera #butterflies #northwestnature #insects

Six tiger swallowtail butterflies with black stripes on butter yellow wings sipping the fluid from dark damp mud.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

No Pacific Northwest dive is complete without a wolffish (wolf-eel) or two... 🦑 #scuba #diving #NAUIdiver #HoodCanal

The chunky, spotted grey head of wolf eel is visible in a crevice between some boulders. An orange anemone with tentacles retracted is attached to a rock in the foreground.

A side view of the blunt head of a gray wolf-eel peeking from aunder a rock, The mouth is slightly open.

Looking down at the wolf-eel's face. A large dark eye and spiky teeth are visible.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

It's dragonfly season again! Common Whitetail (Plathemis lydia) and Cardinal Meadowhawk (Sympetrum illotum), both males. #entomology #insects #dragonfly #wetland #odonata

Common Whitetail dragonfly with a dark head, broad silvery pale abdomen, and a dark band 2/3 of the way along each wing perched on a muddy log facing away from the camera.

Cardinal Meadowhawk dragonfly with a bright red-orange abdomen, red face and eyes, and amber wings perched on a small stump, facing sideways to the camera.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Lewis's Moon Snail (Neverita lewisi) eggs. The female lays eggs in a gelatinous sand/mucus matrix called a sand collar (for obvious reasons). This species is the largest moon snail & the sand collars can reach impressive sizes as well. 🐙 #scuba #pacificnorthwest #gastropods #donttouchthoseeggs

A pale grey circular structure that looks like the end of a plunger or the top half of a pottery jar rests on the sand in greenish water.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

What a thing it is to be a Pacific Northwest diver! Luckily this craptastic viz was confined to a band between 15 & 30 feet, so we were able to get out of it. #scuba #diving #HoooCanal

A diver shining a light down into anemones is barely visible through chunky green water.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Patterns: maidenhair fern & the most beautiful bark beetle galleries I've ever seen. #northwestnature #pacuficnorthwest

A polished-looking branch grooved with tunnels left by bark beetle larvae, making a pattern that looks almost like an electrical diagram

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Who doesn't love nudibranchs? What look like little horns are actually rinopores, chemosensory organs for taste and scent reception. 🦑 #sc uba #diving #oceranlife #HoodCanal

Two oval lemon-yellow nudibranchs with nubbly bodies next to each other on a rock.

An oval yellow nudibranch with black speckles and a deep orange anemone together on a rock.

A white nudibranch with tiny yellow spikes on its body.

An oblong, white, ribbon-like nudibranch whose body is edged in yellow.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

First kayaking of the year - a work trip on the lovely Santiam River. Unfortunately, flows are already troublingly lower than normal due to our very low snowpack this winter. #waterislife #rivers #water #kayaking

The bow of a yellow kayak with a bailer & paddle float tucked under the bungee lines extends into a broad river edged with trees, under a sunny blue sky.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Copper Rockfish are common in Hood Canal, lounging on rocks like they were in hammocks. Egg fertilization and development occurs internally followed by live birth of larval fish,and a lot of these girls were just stuffed with eggs. 🦑 #scuba #diving #NAUIdiver #oceanlife #fish #HoodCanal #SundRock

A large fish with an orange-ish body patterned with copper splotches swims away from the camera against a dark background

An orange fish with spiky white dorsal fin and dark coppery splotces on the body hovers above a rock. Her belly is bulging with babies.

Copper rockfish with a belly full of eggs.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Painted greenling (Oxylebius pictus) is one of the prettiest fish in the Pacific Northwest. It's the only species in the genus; the "oxy" part of the name means "sharp" and refers to the shape of the snout. 🦑 #scuba #diving #oceanlife #fish #PugetSound

An alert-looking fish with dark reddish bands on a pale body rests on a rock, looking sideways at the photographer.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Seeing lots of painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) around Portland. Also known as the Cosmopolitan for its broad distribution, this entire genus is known for periodic population surges and migratory behavior. 🦋 #insects #entomology #lepidoptera #butterflies

Small butterfly with long, brown, club-tipped antennae and a white-spotted orange and brown body, perched on a rush.

Small butterfly with long, brown, club-tipped antennae and a white-spotted orange and brown body, perched on a dry soil.

Small butterfly with long, brown, club-tipped antennae and a white-spotted orange and brown body with wings outspread, perched on dry soil.

Small butterfly with long, brown, club-tipped antennae and a white-spotted orange and brown body, perched on a yellow flower against a green background.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

I find Harlequin Bass (Serranus tigrinus) very scooty when approached so I have few photos. Fish often have funky biology and these are no exception; they are synchronous hermaphrodites (have male & female reproductive organs) & can take on a male or female role in spawning & self-fertilize 🦑

A slender fish with a pale upper body and yellowish lower body barred with blotchy black vertical stripes and a black polka-dotted tail hovers above coral, facing away from the viewer at an angle.

Lateral shot of a slender fish with a pale upper body and yellowish lower body barred with blotchy black vertical stripes and a black polka-dotted tail hovers above coral.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Common Green Darners (Anax junius) will be returning north this spring. A. junius is one of 5 migratory dragonfly species in North America; some nymphs hibernate through the winter deep in their local wertland, others emerge as adults in late summer and fly south. #entomology #dragonfly #insects

A male Common Green Darner with a lime green thorax and blue and brown abdomen and female with a green thorax and brown abdomen are perched on a floating twig. Both have long reddish legs. The male is holding the female behind the eyes with structures at the end of his abdomen, while the female inserts eggs into the twig.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Things you learn while playing bar trivia with dive buddies: "sole" is derived from the Latin solea (sandal), which is derived from the equally Latin "solum" (bottom). So, a fish that looks like a sandal or the sole of a foot and lives on the sea floor. 🦑 #etymology #fish #scuba #diving

A wedge-shaped, slightly mottled flat fish the same color as the sand around it with two goggly eyes on the same side of its head lies on the ocean floor pondering its etymological origins.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Old Man Miska had to get some senior blood work done today & now he's sleeping off the trauma with several Churu in his belly. #caturday #catsofbluesky #rescuecats

A shaggy long haired tuxedo cat with mostly black body & a white band across his shoulders is coiled in a circle on a human's lap.

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Zee 🏳️‍🌈🪲🐈🏳️‍⚧️🤿🛶 @zeesm.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

The news is horrifying infuriating depressing so here's my grrrl Io being a happy little harbor seal. #caturday #catsofbluesky

A chonky black with a white chest & white bikini belly is sprawled on her back on a fuzzy gray cat bed with a silly look on her face. All four of her white-tipped paws are curled. She is adorable & I would die for her.

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