Brittany Sutherland

@sutherlandbl

Assistant Professor, George Mason University Polyploidy, Evolution, Plants, Mating Systems Plants and Cats and Plants and Cats and

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Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 3h

While I was gone for a week, the boys apparently implemented a new routine. Iroh is no longer forcibly evicting me from my chair at 11:00 PM. Now it’s Kyoshi slowly worming my laptop off and himself into my lap. At least he doesn’t bite!

Dark seal colorpoint male cat, sitting awkwardly on the armrest of an overstuffed chair with his front paws balanced uncomfortably on my thigh. He is looking away, trying to act nonchalant as he slowly evicts my laptop.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 12h

If I have to be sick, at least I have an excellent nurse cat.

Medium-hair black and grey tabby with white patches snuggled up next to my arm and a frumpy (but very comfortable) quilt.

Black and grey tabby with blue eyes and white muzzle and chest with a human arm slung around her. She is looking directly at the camera.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 2d

Last but not least, our chonky boy Iroh. Near as we can tell, he didn’t have the easiest kittenhood. Found alone in a barn with a skin infection that rotted the tips of his ears off, an injured left arm, and no idea how to cat. He’s still our slightly special boy, but he’s come a long way.

Iroh at about six months old, with his tabby point pattern mostly set but still very pale.

Five years old in all his hefty, tabby striped, chair stealing glory.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 2d

Our lowrider girl Opal, Kyoshi’s littermate, was clearly a lynx-point already, but we did not yet know the majestic fluff (and intelligence, and sass) she would be capable of.

A medium hair kitten sitting on a floral throw pillow wearing a shocked expression. She has black and grey tabby stripes on her face, shoulders, back legs, and tail, and hints of striping appearing on her torso.

The same cat much fluffier and darker, with full raccoon tail. She is perched on a cat scratch tower and is obsessively watching birds out a window.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 2d

Kitten photos cropped up, and I’m reminded again just how much all our babies have changed. All three are colorpoints, but only Kyoshi went from Siamese-looking kitten to the very toastiest marshmallow.

Four month old kitten with bright blue eyes crouching on a wooden floor. He has dark tips and face and a light tan body at this age.

The same cat as a four year old. His body is a medium to dark brown, with nearly black face, ears, paws, and tail. Same piercing blue eyes, though.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 3d

Now three for three on cats who have forgiven me for being gone for a week!

Dark faced colorpoint cat sitting on a lap and looking off to the right.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 4d

It’s customary to get you family souvenirs when you go on trips. Tchotchkes with the city name on them, t-shirts from the event, you get the idea. I bought my wife a rock.

A sample of green peridot crystals embedded on a dark grey matrix. Total specimen is about 10x7x3 cm.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 10d

Look. I’m not saying Tucson isn’t lovely this time of year. I’m just saying the top of Mt. Graham today was 30 degrees cooler and had Campanula.

Shot looking down from the top of Mt. Graham to the valley below, about 6000 feet down.

Two flowering stalks of Campanula rotundifolia s.l. showing lovely purple bells on a rocky slope.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 10d

Oh, Tucson! It has been too long…

View up a desert mountain ravine, with rocky outcrops and patches of scrubby green plants.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 11d

Ah, botanists. Can spell Metasequoia glyptostroboides, can’t spell Tucson.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 14d

After months of delays, troubleshooting, service calls, and more troubleshooting, our brand new flow cytometer finally became usable… Three days ago. We leave for Botany on Thursday. At least our data will be fresh??? 😬😅

Raw data acquisition screen for a Cytek Aurora Cell Sorter, showing a number of channels breaking down the spectra of emissions triggered blue and violet laser.

At the top are a series of graphs of clouds of dots, followed by a histogram in which two sharp peaks are shown—one a standard control, one a Campanula specimen (likely hexaploid).

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 21d

Alas, the photos were part of some material I lost when I killed a laptop. I DID manage to find this short clip of one of the very hungry 5th instars happily demolishing a walnut leaflet. Between walnuts and sweet gums, we were able to keep this ravenous little guys fed!

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 21d

Don’t have a rock hammer handy, but I did take a photo next to my hand. I have fairly small paws, but it helps scale it a bit.

A large Saturniid moth with a human hand just left of it to show scale.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· 21d

Beautiful Imperial Moth graced us with his presence this morning!

A male Imperial Moth showing large yellow and brownish-purple mottled patches and a broadly fuzzy texture clings to a screen door. He is about four inches across.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· Jul 1

Screenshot of the complaint options for contesting a photo on Facebook, commonly used a meme shorthand for something hitting too close to home. It says, "What's going on?" in bold black letters and gives four radio button options below: "It's annoying or not interesting", "I'm in the photo and I don't like it" (this one is selected), "I think it shouldn't be on Facebook", and "It's spam".

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· Jun 29

Working from home reviewing a paper and started hear chirps next to my chair. Looked down to see that Kyoshi had put himself in Cat Jail.

Slightly blurry photo of a dark seal-point colorpoint male cat. He has a nearly black face, ear tips, paws, and tail, and a medium brown body that's showing slight tabby stripes in the warm June weather. He is peering out from inside the legs of an octagonal wooden table that forms a cage-like structure our cats love to lurk in. He has wide blue eyes and a curious expression.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· Jun 19

Lastly: Take the Trumpian approach to fixing any problem by making it worse! Algae growing out of control? Pshh...lemme show you some REAL aquatic nightmares! Chuck some water hyacinth and giant salvinia in there! Make it look like a Louisiana bayou. Speaker Johnson will feel right at home!

Pond covered completely with a thick layer of invasive Giant Salvinia. While a water surface, it looks like flat, plant-covered ground.

Small cove of a pond choked with a dense collection of water hyacinth leaves.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· Jun 19

Next up: Too much sun and heat building up with that new dark American Flag Blue bottom? Take the LA approach and add a couple three million shade balls! Blocks the sun, blocks the algae, blocks pesky onlookers from seeing that rapidly disintegrating paint job!

Several thousand tightly packed black plastic spheres floating on top of the blue water of a reservoir.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· Jun 19

Plus, fixing a problem species by adding ANOTHER species is a tried and true method that always works!

Large Cane Toad sitting and staring directly into you soul.

Photo credit to Ian Waldie of Getty.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· Jun 19

First up: Problem with algae? Add some algae eaters! They work in fish tanks and don't ever die to sensitivity to changes in water quality or someone dumping random jugs of H2O2 in their water.

Suckermouth catfish species with mottled grey and black skin skimming along the gravel in the bottom of a fishtank.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· Jun 13

@rogue151.bsky.social is at Heroes Con right now and she’s spoken to multiple artists about botanical accuracy when drawing DC comic hero* Poison Ivy. *sniff* I’m so proud! *Opinions on her being a heroic figure differ. Those who differ are wrong.

A small Toxicodendron radicans (Poison Ivy) plant, showing typical ternate leaf structure and lobed, thumblike lateral leaflets.

Hedera helix (English Ivy) showing simple, slightly lobed palmate leaves with noticeable white veining. This is not Poison Ivy.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· Jun 13

@rogue151.bsky.social is out of town for a few days and the cats have figured out she’s missing. Opal in particular has taken to moping like the old Ze Frank Sad Cat Diary.

Fluffy black, grey, and white female cat laying on her left side on a navy fabric couch. Her eyes stare off into the middle distance like someone who has never experienced joy or churus.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· Jun 2

Agreed, and throwing the southern Louisiana specialty of boudin as my pick!

A cut open boudin saudage (pronounced BOO-dann). Most boudin is a combination of cooked rice, pork, onions, green peppers and seasonings ground and stuffed in a casing.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· May 30

@rogue151.bsky.social was having a crummy day, so I took her out for medicinal hot chocolate. Works every time. 😊

A white woman with short blonde hair holding a paper cup of hot cocoa with both hands and looking over the top of it at the camera.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· May 26

Clean bill of health for Iroh today! Last fall after detecting a heart murmur, he was diagnosed with congenital hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Today's followup found no change in condition and nothing that needs treatment. He was also shockingly well-behaved, given he can be kind of a punk at home.

Close-up of a mostly white-faced cat with grey and black tabby markings near the temples. He has blue eyes and large pupils and is staring through the top grate of a pet carrier.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· May 12

We have a BLOÖDCHEËP in our yard who keeps thwarting me. Every time I try to get a picture of this glorious bald cardinal, he flits off. - Comic from Bird and Moon by the incomparable Rosemary Mosco

Comic from the Bird and Moon series, by Rosemary Mosco. Four squares show different Cardinals--a brownish juvenile, a bright red adult male, a mostly brown adult female, and "Bloodcheep, Frightful Molt-Demon of the Cursed Abyss" showing the catastrophic molt process whereby cardinal lose all their head feathers are once.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· May 11

Undergrad excitedly texted me this photo from the greenhouse. Adding a new phenotype to the Campanula weirdo list!

A six petaled light purple flower. Flowers of this species, Campanula rotundifolia, normally have five petals. While six are not uncommon, they are all symmetrically arranged around the center, not occurring as three mirror-image pairs as in this specimen.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· May 11

Um. Sir…I need to get into that box. I have finals to grade that are in there. *snkkkk* Y’know, that’s a compelling argument. I’ll cone back later.

A dark seal-point (light brown body grading to nearly black tips) male cat is curled on top of a small brown cardboard box. He has one front paw extended with his claws flexed, as though threatening me if I were to touch the box.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· May 9

Every now and then I am reminded that the Ocellated Turkey exists and am re-delighted. Lisa Frank-ass gobblers.

A male Ocellated Turkey puffed out in full strut, with a fan of orange and blue-tipped tail feathers, iridescent blue and orange body, and light blue head.

Brittany Sutherland@sutherlandbl· May 7

Does "scheduled" mean "entirely predictable consequence of Instructure's market takeover and universities' greed" these days?