Shauna
I'd rather be outdoors - Wildlife Biologist - health and education should be free - get a library card - clean the air-playing my ukulele-she/her
- Painted lady butterfly wings viewed through a dissecting scope #inverts #butterfly
- It’s okay to step away for a moment when things are unbearable. Small, ordinary, beautiful things aren’t pointless when things are heavy. A reminder to notice the beauty that’s still here. Dragonfly compound eyes.
- Please share something beautiful you saw today 💕🌺
- Reposted by ShaunaThe fossil record preserves bones, not biodiversity. But extinction happens at the scale of bacteria, fungi, mosses, microfauna, parasites, soil invertebrates. Entire kingdoms of life disappear without leaving a mark.
- “and this all follows from sympathy, a fundamental element of the social instincts. A man who possessed no trace of such instincts would be an unnatural monster.” Darwin, The Descent of Man, Chapter IV
- My phone camera was able to pick up just a hint of the pink and green of the Northern Lights over Virginia tonight. 10 second exposure
- I missed last night’s show but glad to see even just a hint tonight
- Reposted by ShaunaA seeming bit of history tonight as Ghazala Hashmi becomes the first Asian American to win statewide office in Virginia - and the first Muslim woman to win statewide office *anywhere* in the United States.
- Moss? Idk. found on the ground in Virginia USA at St Mary’s Wilderness near the falls #nature
- Novavax has been available in the US since 2022. How are pharmacists still not familiar with it? #GetBoosted #CovidIsntOver
- Online recipes used to be fun. Now half of them are AI garbage missing major steps and written awkwardly. If it’s from 2025, I’m skipping it. #CookingFail
- Reposted by ShaunaAlrght everybody, get your Tin Can Telephones out. We need your help! We reach new people by word of mouth. Send all your educator friends this pic! Teachers, librarians, scout troop leaders, etc! We offer our program for free, so we need help getting the word out without advertising $$.
- Reposted by ShaunaThis fall, @megstampede.bsky.social & I are collaborating to create a 2026 calendar! Each month features a different animal, facts about them, & actions we can take to help them! Sales will fund our '26 Native 🌱 Project Order before 10/1 to get a free plant sticker! www.etsy.com/listing/4366...
- Lots of mushrooms popping up after all the rain.
- I think the ectotherm crew is pranking the bird and mammal crew because I keep hearing/finding live crickets in the office but we don’t use live crickets in the bird and mammal diets. #animalkeeper #zoos
- Reposted by ShaunaToday is the 1st day of early voting in VA. Let’s do some flipping and make VA bluer. Let’s elect @abigailspanberger.com for Gov., give her a bluer house of delegates, elect Ghazala Hashmi for Lt Gov, & Jay Jones for AG. Make a plan to vote & go to iwillvote.com?state=VA to find your polling place!
- A new species for me- a short-tailed shrew, i think. It could be either the N. or S. species. Rare for mammals it has a venomous bite. Carnivorous. I found it scavenging around in seed the birds dropped, probably looking for worms and insects. It uses ultrasonic clicks to help it navigate. #mammals
- Reposted by ShaunaHow many species have been rediscovered? Which were surprising? What are the prospects for finding the remaining lost species? Learn more in a free webinar from @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social on Sept. 18 @ noon ET: birdsoftheworld.org/bow/news/sea.... #birds 🌎
- My teen is researching cryptid creatures of Ecuador/South America through books and articles for a high school psychology class, but we’re curious 🧐 Are there any local tales or stories they might be missing? Any insights would be amazing #Cryptozoology #Anthropology #FolkloreStudies #Ethnobiology
- It’s finally happened. One of my kid’s childhood friends (who they are still friends with) is a student in the class I teach at the university. I hadn’t seen them since elementary school about 8 years ago but I immediately recognized them. #worldscollide #adjunct
- Highlight of my day was relocating several hundred (thousand?) teeny tadpoles from a concrete watering hole to the wild. Swim free and grow strong legs little ones! #amphibians
- I’m in my early 50s, and It’s wild to think that no one had detected planets beyond our sun until I was in college. Now thousands are catalogued, with some potentially in the ‘habitable zone.’ #science is amazing.
- Any minute now these beauties will have their wings and another generation will continue the migration to Mexico. #butterflies #MonarchButterfly #invertebrates #arthropods #pollinators
- They’re here! #pollinators
- Reposted by ShaunaThose endless waves of seagrass that cover the California coast might appear unremarkable—but they’re bastions of biodiversity that have both supported Indigenous culture and flourished under Native stewardship for centuries.
- doing fieldwork on bats in the southwestern deserts often meant working in the middle of nowhere at night. bears? fine. coyotes? fine. rattlesnakes? fine. but headlights on a dirt road in the distance? terrifying. animals are predictable. humans with unknown intentions are not. #fieldwork
- Yellow aphids on milkweed in the garden. Where are the ladybugs?
- Fun find in the garden today -- Bird Nest Fungus! #fungi
- 30 years ago before streaming music and podcasts existed I was often alone in the desert southwest doing wildlife field work, often in the middle of the night. NPR was the only signal I could get, and it kept me sane.
- New set of wings #pollinators #butterflies
- The monarch butterflies have been visiting. I haven’t seen any flying around the garden but they left me some treasures. #butterflies #nature
- When I step out onto the deck and catch a whiff of fennel I know the caterpillars have been busy munching on the herbs #pollinators #backyardwildlife #butterflies
