Matching mother and baby #wombat bums. #WombatWednesday #fieldwork #Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #wombats

A beautiful new addition to the #Mammals bookshelves, covering the fascinating #marsupials, #bats & #rodents (and a sadly large number of invasive species) of the Southwest Pacific islands. The species descriptions are coupled with great photos and illustrations. 🤩🦘🦇🐀 @csiropublishing.bsky.social

I'm late to the party, but @andreawulf.bsky.social's masterpiece is utterly brilliant. I knew almost nothing about Humboldt, but his impact on how we see nature in the West - both ecologically and emotionally - was nothing short of immense. But more than that, the story is brilliantly told. Read it!

This #wombat is feeding so frantically it's as if the grass is about to run out. #WombatWednesday #fieldwork #Tasmania #MammalWatching #WildOz #wombats

Aquatic #hedgehog!! 🦔🌊 #Hedgehogs are surprisingly good swimmers - their spines are hollow so they float easily. This one was swimming from rock to rock to get across the stream. #BreconBeacons #WildWales #MammalWatching

🚨 #MUSEUMJOBS KLAXON🚨 We're looking for a Senior Digitiser and two Digitisers to work across @zoologymuseum.bsky.social & @camplantsci.bsky.social to help create biodiversity data for the researchers who need it, through #DiSSCoUK. 1. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/senior-... 2. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/digitis...

Daubenton's #bats have a distinctive flight pattern, swooping in figures-of-eight over the water's surface to swoop up bugs. (But it's still cool to have the Echo Meter bat detector to confirm the ID). 🦇🔊 #MammalWatching #WildWales #BreconBeacons

Back in the same spot in Bannau Brycheiniog six months later, still searching for #otters, only this time with more leaves, less water, and more midges. 🦦🦟🏞 #MammalWatching #WildWales #BreconBeacons

How are specimen collections used by CSIRO (Australia's national science agency) researchers to help save the world? I reviewed Andrea Wild's book "Wild Collections" (@csiropublishing.bsky.social) for Archives of Natural History (@sochistnathist.bsky.social): www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/...

W onderful O blong M arsupial B urrowing A dorable T ubby #WombatWednesday #fieldwork #Tasmania #wombats #MammalWatching #WildOz #wombat

As well as it being the 200th anniversary of @zslofficial.bsky.social this year, today marks 200 years since the death of Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of the Zoological Society of London (& key colonial figure in Southeast Asia: the founder of modern Singapore). He was also born #OTD in 1781.

Coypu nest in long burrows (the damage these burrows cause is one of the reasons they're such a problem as #InvasiveSpecies), but in the daytime, they rest on grassy "beds". It looks like there's no room in the bed for this big fella though. #MammalWatching #WildFrance #rodents

NICE big piles of #PlatypusMatters on show at #LondonZoo shop! 🤩 (@zslofficial.bsky.social we're kind enough to grant me the ZSL Award for Communicating Zoology for this book.)

Through their live collections, museum, fellows & publications, @zslofficial.bsky.social has been one of the UK's most influential institutions in the history of natural history. This week, we're at #LondonZoo to celebrate their 200th anniversary, for @sochistnathist.bsky.social's Summer Meeting.

A very exciting parcel has arrived: my first copies of #NaturesMemory in a foreign language! 🤩 The Korean edition looks gorgeous (and has a new foreword to set a context in #Korea's relatively young natural history #museums sector). 🇰🇷🇰🇷🇰🇷

A mindful minute of a big old #coypu preening itself. Swimming mammals have to keep their fur in top condition so or stays waterproof, so they spend a lot of time scratching. Also, check out the size of those webbed feet! #MammalWatching #WildFrance #rodents

My ecologist brain is trying to tell me that it is not a Good Thing to see coypu in France (these giant invasive #rodents were introduced from South America in the 19th century for their fur), but they really are cool beasts. #MammalWatching #WildFrance

A beautiful smooth #snake, off on a hunt for for lizards to swallow whole. 🐍 #WildFrance #snakes #herping

Sound ON for one of nature's great symphonies: the frog chorus. 🔊🐸🇫🇷🎶 #WildFrance #frogs

Staring at the river hoping that a beaver might show up, when a pine marten puts in a little visit! 🤩 #MammalWatching #WildFrance

Three hours well-spent between trains in #Paris: 🏛 Saw some sights. 🖼 Spied some notable art. 🍷 Got served what appeared to have been a pint of wine at a patisserie. 📚 Spotted my #NaturesMemory (newly in paperback) at an English-language bookshop.

I will have to return to #Romania, if only to find this glorious beast: a lesser blind mole-rat. 😍 [This #taxidermy sausage is indeed a perfect representation of this species]. #MammalWatching #WildRomania #rodents

Say it with me: 👏PLATYPUSES. 👏ARE. 👏NOT. 👏"PRIMITIVE"👏 All living species are equally "evolved". If you think a #platypus is "primitive" for laying eggs as its a trait they retained from mammals' reptile-like ancestors, then humans are also primitive for retaining legs from their amphibian ancestors

Rate My #Platypus: #Bucharest edition: - A little skinny, a representative of the platysausage subspecies. - Nibbled by moths, patched with fur of the wrong colour. - Generous in suggesting that #platypuses have a neck, rather than being a solid plump head-trunk unit. - Bill a little dry. #taxidermy

Another museum, another #echidna with legs pointing in the wrong direction. In life, #echidnas' hindfeet point backwards: they can flex to scratch between their shoulders, and do jazzhands with all 4 feet to drill vertically into the soil to hide. But taxidermists twist them forward so the skin rips

A curious-looking "ringtail #possum" in the Australian jungle diorama at the Natural History Museum in #Bucharest (it's actually a ringtail racoon from North America). #whoops 🦝 #TaxonomyFail #taxidermy

"Bright-eyed" is not usually a phrase you'd associate with a #wombat, but don't tell that to this chipper #taxidermy fella in #Bucharest. #WombatWednesday #wombats

Taxidermy is an art-form - it requires extraordinary skill and deep zoological knowledge to get it right. So, of course, we can't really appreciate what good #taxidermy looks like without experiencing its equally satisfying sibling: #CrapTaxidermy.

There was some really high quality #taxidermy on display at the Natural History Museum in #Bucharest (if sometimes a little faded). Good quality taxidermy can give you a real sense of the living beast - a valuable life-fullness

There are some really rich dioramas in the natural history museum in #Bucharest, covering the impressive fauna of #Romania, rooms and rooms of world wildlife, and some early examples from 1907, following the styles of the large American #museums of the time. #taxidermy