#t5q

This was a ton of fun and the result of an hour long phone call with @elwingflight, narrowing down the Worst Birds. We’ve tried to skip over the most obvious selections (Ocellated Turkey, Jabirou, Shoebill, all vultures, Marabou Stork, Frogmouths, and Potoos) for some truly underrated garbage creatures. As usual, sources are linked:

1. Helmeted Hornbill

2. Red-naped Ibis

3. Helmeted Friarbird

4. Capuchinbird

5. Horned Screamer

hi lauren!! prepare for my most boring list ever lol. i feel like these are basically everyone’s top 5 but hey, they’re classics for a reason!

5. glacier, which is just as beautiful as everyone said it would be and also full of bears

4. katmai, because anywhere i get to meet otis will crack the list

3. zion, my favorite of the 5 parks we have in my home state. it’s gotten really unfortunately overrun with tourists in the past few years though, and i’m hoping they start restricting access a bit more (e.g. free but timed permits or the like)

2. yellowstone, where i volunteered with the wolf project for years

1. Long-tailed Weasel      

2. Least Weasel

3. Altai Weasel 

4. Polecat

5. Siberian Weasel

I know so unfortunately little about trees! This past February, I finally bought two tree guides in the hopes that I'll get a little better, but for now my tree taste is extremely basic (and western-centric). 

1. Tamarack (Larix laricina)

2. Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides)

3. Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta)

4. Pinyon Pine (Pinus edulis) (x)

5. White Spruce (Picea glauca)

6. Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii)

7. Fremont’s Cottonwood (Populus fremontii)

8. Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum)

9. Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana)

10. Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva)

1. This particular Blue Green Chiton that attached itself to a crab to create the cutest little armored sea alien

2. Painted Dendrochiton (dendrochiton flectens)

3. Gumboot Chiton (Cryptochiton-stelleri)

4. Black Leather Chiton (Katharina tunicata)

5. Mossy Chiton (Mopalia muscosa)

If you're asking my top 5 wild canid species, I have that list here. Because I am very intensely a dog person, I'm gonna break this down into top 5 breeds and top 5 individuals. All breed photos are from Wikipedia, all individual photos are from me (or my friends).

[Disclaimer that breeding dogs often leads to serious health issues in the breed, and you should adopt whenever possible, or at the very least do fairly extensive research into ethical breeders if you have specific needs that require breeding.]

Top 5 Breeds:

1. Australian Cattle Dog (I may be a slight bit biased here)

2. Irish Wolfhound

3. Border Collie

4. Great Pyrenees

5. Tamaskan

Top 5 doggos!

1. Gertie (duh), my perfect angel puppy

2. Ganzee (short for Naragansett), a sweet lab who I used to live with

3. Snickers, @hockeyunfortunately's adorable Sheltie, shown here in his winter booties 🥺

4. Shep, my godmother's old rescue border collie

5. Luke and Leia, part of a sled dog team I met in Churchill that I've been absolutely obsessed with ever since

.

I love bats so much! The top 2 are my absolute favorites because I did a bit of field research assisting with them, the others are my favorites because all bats are perfect.

1. Canyon Bat

2. Hoary Bat

3. California Leaf-nosed Bat

4. Townsend’s Big-eared Bat

1. Firefly Squid

2. Stoplight loosejaw and other species in the family stomiidae (barbeled dragonfish)

You can’t really tell from the top photo, but this is a dragonfish with red photophores below the eye (and a green photophore behind that). These  essentially act as a beam of light that only the dragonfish can see, since most everything else at this depth can’t perceive red light. 

3. Eurypharynx pelacanoides, or the Gulper or Pelican Eel, which has a photophore on its tail that likely acts as a lure for prey, like the bulb of an anglerfish.

4. Arachnocampa luminosa

5. Fireflies! This is a Common Eastern Firefly (Photinus pyralis), which I absolutely cannot wait to start seeing around Chicago again later this month.

Bonus fluorescent species:

+1: Another eel, this time a member of the Kaupichphys genus, for having prompted a tidal wave of fluorescence research and discovery.

+ 1. Top fluorescent non-animal: Omphalotus olearius, or the jack-o-lantern mushroom, which is similar to the chanterelle and partially distinguished based on its fluorescence.