Meera

@gruntleme

Late-model Gen X. Ecologist (especially fond of plants and insects), teacher, abolitionist. Transplant from Singapore to Duwamish land (Seattle). Not sure how much I will be here. (She/her)

515 Siguiendo438 Seguidores698 Publicaciones

Bluesky

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y gruntleme.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Meera@gruntleme· 15d

I know not everyone is a fan of blow flies, but they can be rather attractive I think! This was one of three that were drawn to my pitcher plant earlier this morning.

An iridescent green fly with red eyes perched on the large, flat leaf surface of a pitcher plant that is likely to become its final resting place.

Meera@gruntleme· 16d

I put up a bee house this year and ordered some alfalfa leafcutter bee cocoons. (They are not native, but I would describe them as important naturalized pollinators; like honeybees, they are commercially grown and managed.) This is one of the cocoons that didn't open. Look! An unfinished bee.

Microscope view of a larval bee. It is dark in color and has very large eyes and the small, crumpled beginnings of wings.

Meera@gruntleme· 20d

This week, at the same spot, there were dozens of dead individuals (hard to tell if they were gilled) and no live ones we could see. There were also

A dead salamander, facing upward, under clear water.

Meera@gruntleme· 20d

@tcastanea.bsky.social Hi!! I hope you're all better after your cyclospora encounter! I was wondering if you knew how the northwestern salamander population in MORA is doing. 2 years ago we saw many healthy looking neotenic individuals in Shadow Lake near sunrise. 😍

A gilled salamander at the shallow edge of an alpine lake

Meera@gruntleme· Jul 21

This cat is such a ham

A gray tabby rolled over onto her back with paws held out in front of her demurely. Looking straight at the camera for validation

The same gray tabby, who has moved to appear slightly more Cheeto-shaped and is now pointing all her feet outward as if she is thinking about stretching more, but is too relaxed to

Meera@gruntleme· Jul 12

OK bug folks: who is this?!? Seen today in Washington's Western Cascades.

An incredibly dirty little mud creature sitting on a sandy lake floor

Same creature on my hand, even less identifiable if possible. It looks like a tiny wet turd with legs

Meera@gruntleme· Jun 9

Cute quiz, but as always I think there should be a write-in option for some questions 😂

YOUR CLOSEST COUNTERPART

The Leveller

1640S ENGLAND RADICAL

DEMOCRAT

An Agreement of the People

You think no one is born marked for another's mastery, and that a just government is one the people themselves have agreed to-on paper, in plain words they can hold it to. The poorest he has a life to live as the greatest he.

REPRESENTATIVE

FIGURES John Lilburne, Thomas Rainsborough, Richard Overton

Meera@gruntleme· May 26

This is my queer friend (and barber)'s dog Edgar—I would love to share a portrait with him for Pride! ❤️

The sweet face of an old hound dog with floppy ears, a big nose, and heterochromia (left eye brown, right eye blue)

Meera@gruntleme· Mar 1

I'm sciencing this year's birthday cheesecake for my husband in order to avoid a water bath and also avoid collapse. Definitely achieved the latter, and am cautiously optimistic it will also taste good and have good texture, but we won't know until tomorrow how it turned out.

Cheesecake just out of the oven sitting on a cooling rack with a thermometer sticking into it

Meera@gruntleme· Feb 4

Thanks to @spacedaddy.bsky.social for lending me Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats. Many of the pieces in it are about old cats, which suprised and moved me greatly. This poem is a stunner.

BLACK LEONARD IN NEGATIVE SPACE

All that surrounds the cat
is not the cat, is all
that is not the cat, is all,
is everything, except the animal.
It will rejoin without a seam
when's he is dead. To know
that no-space is to know
what he does not, that time
is space for love and pain.
He does not need to know it.

Meera@gruntleme· Jan 27

Thank you for doing this!

Meera@gruntleme· Jan 16

Hi from my dorktacular cat in Seattle! WE LOVE YOU, go sit on some ICE officers!!!!

Photo of the lower half of a man's body from behind as he kneels on a carpet. A gray calico cat with yellow eyes and an unreadable expression has her head poking out from between his bare feet as if her body is the seat of an extremely short stool on which he is sitting. Note: She has absolutely chosen to place herself in this position.

Meera@gruntleme· Jan 6

We went on a night walk while we were in Singapore last night and saw this exquisite cinnamon frog (Nyctixalus pictus). INaturalist gives its common name as "Peter's frog," which is frankly a little bizarre when "cinnamon frog" was right there.

A small frog (size of a large piece of candy) sits on a leaf illuminated by torch light at night. It is a jeweled orange and completely perfect.

Meera@gruntleme· Jan 1

I read and was filled with awe that we are, still, and will ever be, the only creatures on earth that write.

Cover of Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida

Cover of The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed

Cover of It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne De Marcken

Meera@gruntleme· Jan 1

I read a book that I actually don't think is very good, but that kind of changed my life. :)

Meera@gruntleme· Jan 1

I read for fun.

Cover of The Night Guest by Hildur Knutsdottir

Cover of The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Meera@gruntleme· Jan 1

I read nonfiction that surprised and challenged me.

Meera@gruntleme· Jan 1

I read more speculative fiction than usual.

Cover of The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

Cover of Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Meera@gruntleme· Jan 1

I read books that opened my world.

Cover of The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson

Cover of We Will be Jaguars by Nemonte Nenquimo

Meera@gruntleme· Jan 1

I abandoned 6 additional books and finished many that perhaps weren't worth completing, but there were also so many highlights: I read several graphic novels in print. I reread multiple favorites from decades ago and noticed how they, and I, had changed.

Cover of Boys Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky

Cover of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Meera@gruntleme· Dec 28

I realize that water striders aren't the *first* insect you might think of given the prompt "diving," but they CAN dive. And skate and jump and glide! I think they are the perfect little creatures to complete my quixotic #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025 project. 🎖️🎖️

Pen and ink drawing of several long-legged water striders. Handwritten text reads: I love the dimples / shadows these guys make on the surface of the water: they remind me of freshly groomed show poodles.

#InsertAnlnvert 48

Motion (Diver)

Water strider (family Gerridae)

Meera@gruntleme· Dec 28

I selected a plume moth for my penultimate (mandatory) #InsertAnIninvert2024 in 2025 drawing! I will never get over how cool they are.

Pen and ink drawing of a moth with its extremely feathery wing parts spread open and long legs. A smaller inset sketch shows how it has a "T"-shaped silhouette when at rest. Handwritten text reads: "#InsertAnInvert 47: Motion (Flyer) White Plume Moth (Pterophorus pentadactyla)

Meera@gruntleme· Dec 25

I'm proud of my Bluetongue virus.

Photo of a bespectacled person holding up what looks like a paper doily but is in fact a cutout of a virus snowflake

Meera@gruntleme· Dec 25

The virus snowflakes are a hit! I'm stumped by the instructions for the bacteriophage though @socialinfluenza.bsky.social! 😬 Do you have a photo of a finished exemplar?

Photo of two adults and a child folding and cutting paper around a table

Meera@gruntleme· Dec 5

Oops reposting with the tag! One of my students earlier this year was an absolute springtail stan. This is for you, Riley. #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025

Pen and ink drawing of a pair of awkward-looking globular springtails (Collembola) with slightly hairy antennae. One is considerably smaller than the other and labeled: "Male, about to be carried over the female's head in a courtship ritual." The larger one is labeled: "Female, larger and about to lock antennae with the male." An arrow also points to an appendage underneath the female's body and is labeled: "Furcula tucked underneath the body, used for sproinging."

Handwritten text reads:
#Insert An Invert 46 Motion: Jumper
Water/Aquatic Springtail (Sminthurides aquaticus)
-Approximately the size and sometimes the color of nerds (the candy)

Meera@gruntleme· Dec 3

Yes, although not in the field! I have been high up enough on glaciers to observe them but I think they're mostly nocturnal.

An ice crawler (grylloblatta sp.) in a plastic condiment container

Freezer full of ice crawlers in individual cups and a single loaf of sliced bread in the otherwise empty fridge above

Meera@gruntleme· Dec 2

During my second season of fieldwork on Mt. Rainer, an entomology postdoc from UW-Madison was also on the mountain, collecting grylloblattids. We stayed in the same field house for a few nights. #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025

Pen and ink drawing of a small wingless insect tucked inside a 3 oz plastic condiment container.

Handwritten text reads: #Insert AnInvert 45: Motion (Scuttler)

Ice crawler (Grylloblatta sp.)

Drawing after a photo of a 2016 field-collected specimen belonging to then post doc Rachel Slatyer, resting in the freezer at Nisqually House

Meera@gruntleme· Dec 1

11 months of #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025 down! I can see the finish line!

Pen and ink drawing of a scattering of small 5 to 10 armed star-shaped animals on a jagged rock surface.

Handwritten text reads: #InsertAnInvert 44: Blobfest (Blobbageddon) Star Tunicate (Botryllus schlosseri)

This colonial tunicate has individual zooids (~1-3 mm) that fan outwards from a central point like the arms of a star. Human transport (on ships, for example) has given this tiny organism a nearly cosmopolitan distribution.

Meera@gruntleme· Nov 24

Transparent blobs are hard to draw. These guys are so much cooler than I can render them; please look up some macro photos! #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025

Pen and ink drawing of what looks like a bunch of crinkly-edged cheetos clustered together, clinging to a plant stem. These goofy worms are colonies of freshwater bryozoans.

There is a closeup of part of an individual zooid showing its lophophore (feeding organ) with many tentacles

Handwritten text reads: #InsertAninvert 43

Blobfest (Blobchain) Freshwater bryozoan (Cristatella mucedo)

Colonies can range in size from 1-20cm; zooids are usually no larger than 1mm

Meera@gruntleme· Nov 15

Me to myself this morning, realizing it's mid-month and I hadn't done anything for #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025 yet: "You're not allowed to do any other hobbies until you draw."