boink

This morning Bear, aged 8, stopped on the walk to school and demanded that I take a picture of a perfect snowflake they found on a cold metal railing. They announced that their school’s headmaster had charged them with the task of finding Free Treasure, and that the snowflake had to be documented. Free Treasure is, according to the headmaster, treasure that doesn’t cost anything. This snowflake was so GOOD - and, to a small British child in the soft green south, so RARE - that it was a highly satisfactory start to their quest.

Unfortunately Bear then spotted a snowflake caught in a spiderweb on a garbage bin, which is objectively more interesting and dynamic Free Treasure (snowflake in spiderweb!! Very rare!!) but which photographs badly. There is no way to photograph that free treasure that doesn’t suck. Bear found this quite frustrating.

The vastness of the world, which contains many cold metal railings AND many rubbish bins, briefly overwhelmed Bear with the knowledge that there is quite likely really good Free Treasure, probably just around the corner even, but the rigid routine of the new year - the necessity of going to school - the inevitable rising of the sun and warming of the world - means that they wouldn’t find it. Bear bathed for a moment in this great wash of philosophy, and then ran off.

Graphis lucifica

Glowing script

I love when a scientific name and common name are actually informative. G. lucifica, unlike many other cryptic Graphis species, is fairly easy to ID with a simple UV test: it glows a nice bright yellow due to the presence of lichexanthone in the otherwise unassuming, grayish-white thallus. It also produces script-like, black lirellae (linear apothecia) that are flexuous, and can be short or branched. G. lucifica grows on the thin trunks, twigs, and small branches of neotropical hardwood trees.

images: source

Marbled Cat (Pardofelis m. marmorata), family Felidae, Sabah, Borneo

The Last Sunbathing of the Day - Miho Ichise , 2021.

Japanese , b. 1969 -

‘Ride on you’ – a Japanese stream toad in the Owase Mountains in Mie, Japan

Photograph: Ikuma Norihiro

Brook's Squat Frog aka Brook's Burrowing Frog (Glyphoglossus brooksi), family Microhylidae, Sarawak, Borneo

This species had not been seen for 14 years, when this individual was observed in the forest after a heavy rain. (2025)

Max length of up to 7 cm.

weevil 1005