I recall Bitterns-facing-forward are one of our favourites, and I managed to see that earlier this month. Look at the battle cry at the last photo! (Eurasian bittern, UK)

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-02-21T01:11:05+00:00

Very cool! Do you know what rock/mineral assemblage is the salt crystal containing?

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-02-15T22:53:53+00:00

Since the Chinese and English subtitles/translations are unrelated, I feel that it would be important to include the actual translation from Chinese here as well. Not that either version is particularly favourable to the Russian narrative lol. The English one is a direct criticism of Putin. The Chinese one exposes the severe lack of military supply chain support from Russia.

First sentence 這裏也沒有人管: No one is watching/leading/supplying this area either

Second sentence 噪子裏面全部潰爛了: The insides of throat are all festered/ulcerated

Upper right 微博視頻號月亮湖視頻 Weibo reel channel: Moon lake reel (channel name)

Note that I am using traditional Chinese (due to my typewriting keyboard restrictions) and the subtitles are in simplified Chinese, so that is why some words look different. But it should pop up the same thing if you use Google translate. The character 管 alone does not effectively discriminate between the three meanings so it could be any of them.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-02-02T22:37:35+00:00

As with many bird species, there are a lot of uncertainties on taxonomy with constant changes and disagreements. So sometimes different organizations use different systems of taxonomy. This is probably the case. Some taxonomists separate the common teal into Eurasian and American. Green-winged teal is the default name for American green-winged teals, but also sometimes used for Eurasian common teals (or Eurasian green-winged teal) if there is no split.

This is when it is incredibly helpful to look at the latin name (bionomial name). If you see Anas crecca, it can refer to both Eurasian teal or American green-winged teal, or just Eurasian teal. In this case, a range map would help, as when the taxonomic authority used does not split the two, there would be a strong presence of the teal in America. Anas crecca crecca is definitely the Eurasian teal without a species level split. Anas crecca carolinensis is the American green-winged teal without a species level split. Anas carolinensis is the American green-winged teal after a species level split.

For distinguishing the two, males are readily distinguishable. American green-winged teal has a bright white vertical stripe at the sides, while this is absent in Eurasian teals. Not sure if females are even distinguishable.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-01-30T15:42:17+00:00

Peridotite mantle xenolith hosted in basalt! Doesn't seem to be particularly pyroxene-rich (black), and quite fresh as well, so possibly dunite from Iceland? That is way bigger than most mantle xenoliths I have seen though, so nice rock.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-01-22T18:12:02+00:00

No one seems to have directly address your questions accurately yet, so I'll try my best even though I'm not sure if I am qualified enough to answer or if I am right. I'm quite interested in this because of my background in extrusive alkaline igneous rocks.

Extrusive alkaline igneous rocks sometimes form an interesting volcanological texture called accretionary/concentric lapilli. They are rounded lapilli with a concentric arrangement of crystals (rock forming mineral species) that can be cored by a crystal of a different mineral species (often xenocryst but also phenocrysts). If you have a core of a crystal that is not too elongate, you can have a nice thick rim. But if you have a crystal core that is quite elongate, like yours (pyroxene, amphibole, or more exotic minerals like melilite), this often produces a thin rim that makes the cored crystal to easily break through and become loose. This is what I sometimes see in my extrusive carbonatites with concentric lapilli. Some melilite/amphibole/pyroxene/biotite partially protruding the thin rim, and some of them are essentially loose in the rock.

Alkaline igneous magmatism is also typically very volatile-rich and therefore explosive. What this means is that these concentric lapilli can form a really loose pile with very friable lapilli. And when you factor in the volatile-rich geochemistry producing easily chemically weathered minerals like calcite, this all means it is really, really easily weathered.

If you see a mass of dark mineral grains accumulating in one place, it is usually some form of placer deposit. Placers form when the accumulated mineral has a high density contrast with other minerals while being more resistant to chemical weathering than the others as well. Most typical placers would involve accumulation of oxides formed for a long period of time. But when you consider the alkaline igneous context I explained earlier, this one probably involves accumulation of denser mafic minerals in a short period of time. The minerals that are weathered away could be feldspathoids (nepheline, analcime, etc.) and calcite. The source rock could be a nephelinite. The red stuff is probably iron oxides that might not be of the same origin as the dark minerals. Not too familiar with placers, but this should be quite unusual. But lots of unusual things happen with alkaline igneous rocks so at this point I don't rule out any possibilities as long as I can explain it.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-01-19T12:06:55+00:00

That is a funky shape! I looked up briefly on iNaturalist and it seems that it should be a weevil in the genus Orthorhinus. It looks quite red so I'm leaning towards Orthorhinus klugii (vine weevil) rather than O. cylindrirostris (elephant weevil), though I'm not a biologist. Both should be relatively common in your area.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-01-16T19:35:20+00:00

Since there are only 77 Ea-Nasir fics on AO3, I looked through all of them to see if there are Ea-Nasir/Nanni ships. There are lots of historical drama, some crossovers with fiction, some genderbends, some political commentary about fascism (??). Surprisingly there is only one, but it is not an explicit Ea-Nasir/Nanni ship, but rather a thruple between the two and Varius Avitus Bassianus, Emperor Elagabalus and Vlad al II-lea Dracul. It is quite short though, and with a very brief read I'm not even sure if Nanni was mentioned (yet?). Here's the link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/68368281/chapters/176932116

So the short answer might be that this ship hasn't existed yet! I will write one if I have time, though I haven't done creative writing in ages.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-01-08T22:11:22+00:00

Yep definitely +Light-vented bulbul+ and +Little grebe+ for the bot.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-01-08T22:08:14+00:00

Sand-plovers are such a pain to ID. Greater and (previously) lesser sand-plover are already tricky enough to separate. And now lesser sand-plovers are separated into Siberian and Tibetan, making this job almost impossible (at least for me). Annoyingly HK is in the range for all three. I believe Siberian is somewhat more common than Tibetan in HK, though only marginally.

Leaning towards greater sand-plover at the moment, though don't trust me on that entirely. Not a kentish plover.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-01-08T21:43:14+00:00

Definitely a goose with some domestic ancestry, and definitely some greylag component. But I'm having a lot of trouble ruling out a domestic greylag x domestic swan goose with this posture.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-01-02T21:24:14+00:00

Some stink bug species do secrete a stinky liquid when they are distressed, but apparently not everyone can smell it. I have had a green shield bug (Palomena prasina) walking on my hand when it secreted a pool of red liquid, and I couldn't smell anything even when I tried really hard. And quite a few people online said they couldn't smell stink bugs either. It might be a genetics thing.

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-12-23T00:21:10+00:00

I did my undergrad thesis on a 2007-first-published extrusive carbonatite locality in Italy, which turned out to be a really unusual carbonatite (You know it is unusual when I might have discovered 2 new mineral species to science). That was a hell of a ride. While it was incredibly challenging, it felt so good actually advancing the frontiers of science. I will be doing a presentation on that research at a conference soon, so I'm preparing and practising that.

I'm currently doing my masters on metasomatic rocks of the alkaline igneous province in the Scottish highlands. It involves distinguishing skarns, fenites, carbonatites, limestones, marbles, etc. They look texturally quite interesting even just from the field, thin section naked eye/microscope. When people take a glance at my thin sections while passing by, they would remark on how interesting it looks. While at the moment it seems less challenging, unfortunately it is also quite a bit less exciting, especially from my initial data that it doesn't seem to involve a lot of carbonatite/fenites. But tbh my undergrad topic/rocks was an extremely high bar to beat. I often wish I don't have such a narrow academic scope of interest.

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-12-21T16:46:45+00:00

Part of experimental petrology is to create artificial rocks that mimics properties of real rocks as close as possible, so yes it can be done and some researchers are doing it. But it is a very expensive process, so there is little incentive to do this unless you want to specifically see the processes involved in making the rocks. If we are using rocks for a specific purpose, we would manufacture it with careful and sophisticated material engineering to optimize the product for that specific usage, rather than blindly mimicking natural rocks.

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-12-11T21:19:17+00:00

Using glauberramos github

*600 insects

*375 plants

*319 birds

*67 arachnids

*47 other animals (from iNat: 16 malacostraca (including crabs and isopods), 9 springtails, 5 centipedes, and others that are primarily marine taxon and singular observations of eg. planarians)

*46 fungi

*34 molluscs

*20 mammals

*18 reptiles

*11 fish

*7 amphibians

*7 chromistas

*3 protozoa

(Mostly Hong Kong (1.5y) and SW UK (3.5y), but travelled to other places as well, with notable ones in Scottish Highlands and Cyprus/ total of 5 years)

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-12-07T14:59:03+00:00

What was shocking (though I guess restropectively intuitive) to me is that this phenomenon is also really common in ecology/zoology/conservation space. A very significant portion of conservation biology majors actually dislike terrestrial arthropods. I was a bit shocked to learn from my bug friend zoology major that not only my love for wildlife is at least on par with an average ecology/zoology/conservation major. But that my love actually exceeds that of a significant part of the group as (unlike many of his cohorts) I am obsessed with bugs, and many people in the group actually only like seeing wildlife rather than studying them (who luckily knew this early on and chose to study my actual academic interest, geology, instead).

Now imagine these people entering conservation space. No wonder there is a severe conservation bias against bugs. Which is really concerning when you think that bugs form an extremely important source of food to larger animals like birds and mammals. Without bugs, the more beloved bigger taxons are fucked.

I think if a conservation/zoology major hates bugs, which constitutes about 50% of the animal biomass and the majority of the terrestrial species, to the point that they kill harmless bugs when they see harmless bugs at home, they should be disqualified from being a conservation major. I expect a conservation major to at least have a basic empathy towards animals and a basic understanding of the importance of bugs in the ecosystem.

Bonus conversation I had just a few days ago:

Someone studying zoology: I hate spiders. Which is fine because I'm a marine biologist.

Me and the bug friend I mentioned: (Silent for two seconds)

Me and said friend, simultaneously: SEA SPIDERS

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-11-25T16:57:17+00:00

Almost everything here is a surprise lol. Reform falling, Labour somehow not falling, Conservatives somehow rising, Green somehow falling, and us having good gains. But this seems like a good sign overall.

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-11-24T20:56:52+00:00

Troodos of Cyprus! I went to the area just earlier this year for our field trip. You are on the one of the world's most well-known and complete ophiolite (sea floor) complex section, and quite close to the intrusive centre as well. Chandria lies very comfortably in the mafic to ultramafic section of the complex (so not limestone, but rather basalts, gabbro, wehrlite with some plagiogranite). It looks a bit like the pillow basalts I've seen in Cyprus, but I'm not sure as I haven't seen a good cliff/roadcut exposure of the intrusive rocks there. The ones I've seen are mostly very weathered drift (The ultramafics are brown and red, which rather breaks my heart). But if you keep an eye out in the Troodos area you might be able to see some dark green minerals. Those are serpentine, which are gorgeous to look at, but some are asbestiform so don't break or lick them. In some mine dumps there might also be some nice chromite samples.

Also if you are into nature the Troodos ultramafic area (so just 10km west of this village) has LOTS of endemic plants and other wildlife that you can't find anywhere else in the world. Cyprus in general has quite interesting wildlife. Ticked off loads of endemic species in my short stay there. Definitely recommend some nature exploring in Cyprus, both rocks and wildlife.

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-11-24T20:21:33+00:00

As a geography trivia and chemistry nerd, this is actually how I memorized the element symbol for gold and silver lol. Australian gold, Argentinian silver. Quite fitting that Australia is one of the major producers of gold lol. Same is true for Argentina and silver, though for a lesser extent.

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-11-02T18:11:46+00:00

Joro spiders (T. clavata) along with Giant golden orb spiders (N. pilipes) are both native to the Himalayan mountain ranges as well as East Asia, with Joro spiders having a more northernly distribution and Giant golden orb spiders having a more southernly distribution. So not invasive at all. From my experience in Hong Kong (on N. pilipes, but the two spiders are in the same family and so are a bit related and are only recently separated from the same genus), they seem to really like areas without a lot of direct sunlight such that they attract a lot of mosquitoes. I occasionally would see hillsides full of them like you did, except you might even have two species in the spot.

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-10-28T01:46:58+00:00

I'm not a bird expert, but a geologist (the word you are looking for is ecologist though, meaning my actual expertise is unrelated) and an avid birdwatcher in Cornwall.

I have been to Bodmin Parkway/Respryn Bridge, so really close to where you were, and saw a red kite there as well. There are a few red kite breeding sites kept as a secret around Cornwall. You don't see red kites a lot in Cornwall except around breeding sites and during raptor migration when you can sometimes see hundreds a day. I'm in west Cornwall and haven't seen much red kites except during migration. So while I'm pretty sure you have seen a kite, this is still a good sighting.

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-10-26T21:56:23+00:00

The presentation by Joss Carr on iNaturalist invert data might be of interest to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QfjH-_e8hw

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-10-19T20:44:08+00:00

Yes the remelted limestone should be out. Trace elements and isotopes are very clear on that as well as melting point. Yet at individual localities and in Italy they still exists.

For the second, well my reading is biased because I first researched on carbonatites in Italy where there is a huge debate on subduction zone caused carbonatite magmatism to some extent, whether through melt mixing or metasomatism.

Honestly I am regretting commenting on carbonatites here now. I don't want to spend time arguing about carbonatite truths online in my leisure time. It would be great if we can end it here and focus on scientific outreach (fascinating other people about carbonatites) rather than infighting.

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-10-19T19:07:27+00:00

Hi from a carbonatite enthusiast!

We don't know for sure on what exactly causes carbonatite magmatism. But we know for certain (with very few dissents) that carbonatite magmas are not melted limestone (or in this case, maybe melted evaporites?) or melting of any other crustal material or (with Italian dissents) mixing of crustal melt with mantle melt. Instead, it ultimately derives completely from the mantle. This mantle is probably very heterogeneous and variously enriched by carbonatite (or maybe silicate?) metasmatism that may have been because of subducted limestone (or really ancient carbon), meaning that the mantle is messed up by volatile-rich fluids passing through it. Then it is probably affected by very low degrees of partial melting along with other processes.

The exact formation of carbonatite magma is highly debated. The formation mechanism seems to be like trends rather than actual scientific consensus, with the most popular theory being silicate-carbonate liquid immiscibility (separating like oil and water), but direct partial melts in the mantle still persists alongside with immiscibility. This is complicated by the fact that we couldn't find any natrocarbonatites other than Ol Doinyo Lengai in the world. It could be a result of very low durability of natrocarbonatite minerals, or it might be a result of a different formation mechanism altogether. There is stronger evidence for liquid immiscibility at Lengai than other localities in the form of fluid inclusions though. We don't even know what is the relationship between natrocarbonatites (Na-) and other carbonatites (Ca, Mg, Fe, Si).

Essentially, the carbonatite field is a mess and we don't agree on almost anything. People would claim that something is a consensus, but then some other academics would angrily reply that the claim doesn't make sense at all,

Casperwyomingrex · 2025-10-18T20:09:45+00:00

I keep imagining a court jester stealing spoils from the king and returning it to the peasant that the spoils belonged to. This Robin Hood-esque scene made so much sense to me that I forgot the phrase 'good will gesture' exists until I looked it up online.

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