This is my first time teaching our new #online topics in #biology course for #masters students. Our focal theme this semester: #UrbanEcology & #urban #evolution.

1/4 We are on our 4th seminar & paper discussion (fascilitated by @perusall !) and some of the side-convos coming up are excellent! Like...

🏙️#CitizenScience: how to standardize, do it ethically, and communicate with the public?
(Prompted by nature.com/articles/s4200…)

2/4

#BlackBirderWeek Day 2 is full of folks doing great #scicom & communication about what the #BlackInNature experience means.

Just a few highlights below! #TIL during #BlackBirderWeek

1) Paleohistology is a really cool field! Check out @Yara_Haridy 's blog & short clip introducing #fossil remnants of #cells ()

Looking for an indoor #ecology game? Try this card game! Would be good for #STEMeducation at several levels I played the single player game and went with these two #biomes first

#marine
Temperate #forest

A thread on #ImageAnalysis & #color in animals:

#AcademicTwitter ,#Herpetology , & folks that analyze #color from images:

Any recommendations for ways to collect data about color & pattern from images of #wildlife? We want to quantify things like %cover by a color & intensity. Have enjoyed reading some of the work by Davis & Grayson on quantifying #color, hue, % coverage in #newts and other animals.

They used Fovea Pro, a Photoshop add in. The newer version (QIA-64) costs ~$800 😬

researchgate.net/publication/26…

It’s the time of year where I grade #HerpFall2019 field notebooks! Always fun to see how they remember things and express themselves.

Favorites below in thread
#herpetology #fieldwork Some #HerpFall2019 students thought belastomatid #insects were “nightmare fuel” 😂

We caught a few of these aquatic predators in our minnow traps. They’ll absolutely eat #amphibians

#Fieldwork yesterday & today yielded several highlights:

A dozen blue spotted #salamander #larvae , plus one dead in a trap (with a massive belastomatid insect [aka "toe biter"]).

These larvae are part of a student's project, which he'll be presenting @MWPARC this August! Plus metamorphosing or recently metamorphosed #amphibians of a few different species! (It's that time of the year in central #Minnesota )

In some spots the ground was littered with tiny wood #frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) metamorphs. You can see this one's remaining tail nubbin.

Fun take on the #biology of the Demogorgon on #StrangerThings !

Demogorgons develop front limbs first. Interestingly, that’s how some #salamanders develop too!

1/4

https://twitter.com/UFExplore/status/1147520656663351296

#Salamanders in the family #Ambystoma (aka mole salamanders) develop their front limbs first as well!

Here is a young marbled salamander #larva showing off its front limbs & frilly external gills.

Happy day listening to #frogs frolic. Boreal chorus, gray tree, and American #toads were calling in force! Saw several amplectant amorous Anaxyrus americanus (American toads) & the fruits of their labors

(Alliteration is #toad -ally awesome)

Happy stories from wrapping up this semester as a #NewPI :

Students in #wildlife pops this semester wrote short papers (4.5 - 5 pgs) about how #research has benefited the #conservation & or management of species of wildlife. (Thanks for the suggestion @BBQ_Ecologist !) Students wrote their own papers & peer-reviewed another student's paper. I then graded the final papers.

Everyone was evaluated as an author and as an editor.

We took class time to discuss how to both give & receive/handle constructive criticism. (amazon.com/Writing-Withou…)

#SalamanderSaturday #fieldwork hunting tiger sals & their eggs today.
🤞🏼 ...all efforts this weekend powered by an unhealthy amount of coffee ☕️☕️☕️

Wrapping up courses, getting finals ready, and prepping for summer research (mine & students') at the end of your first year as a #NewPI means I feel like this:

The #zoology #bioblitz continues! It’s going well!

In a student email this morning: “being a psychology major this is my first bio blitz...this has to be the most fun I have had all semester...I am terrible at catching the specimens it has been a really great experience.” And earlier in the week a team came by my office:

“We’re looking for #mollusks but aren’t sure where to find them.” 😂

I sent them to flip logs for slugs and look in ditches and ponds for snails.

Happy end to first attempt at trapping blue spotted #salamanders (Ambystoma laterale) during #fieldwork in #Minnesota.

This good looking male (see the swollen cloacal region posterior to hind legs) was caught at a pond where we had previously found eggs but not adults. Things I have learned:
- I'm still agile in chest waders 💪
- Blue-spots will lay eggs that are individually attached to vegetation/leaf litter (rather than in clumps, which is what I'm used to with other species of #Ambystoma #salamanders )

#Minnesota #herp #fieldwork thread:

Spent yesterday afternoon with an undergrad researcher (Alex) hoping to find breeding blue-spotted #salamanders

Here's one of the ponds where we've got traps out. 🤞🤞🤞
Didn't see any sally activity, but other #amphibians were active! The three ponds we are trapping for #salamanders had *deafening* choruses of boreal chorus frogs (Pseudacris maculata).

Here's male chorus #frog . You can't see it in the pic, but the skin of their throats turns yellow when they've been calling.

A little less than 1 hour until #ArthropodsGotTalent

19 students submitted their candidate species or groups, with the biggest category being interesting #behaviors (9/19)

I think some students are trying to play up the audience for votes w/references to popular films🤣 Winning #arthropods will be posted after #zoology class!🏆🏅

Acclimating a new office buddy! Another long, slender, gray tube of an #amphibian - the #caecilian !

(It and Perry the #amphiuma will be neighbors) That overbite tho, and those rolls!

Meet Typhlonectes natans aka a “rubber eel.” In reality it’s an #amphibian & more closely related to #frogs than to true #eels .

Early in the semester I told myself this about teaching a #wildlife pops course: "I'll be damned if I come out of this without talking about tribbles."

The time has come.

Because it's fun, and because it can work, I'm making a population growth lab around #StarTrek #tribbles Update: me as the math works out

Went to sample a site for #HerpSpring2018 & turned up: southern leopard #frog tadpoles 1/? @jenylamb plus a munched on #salamander (Siren intermedia, see the gills?) #HerpSpring2018 2/?

Wasn’t going to miss #plethodontidweek ! Wanted to get recent pics of local #salamanders 👁13 gorgeous dwarfs 1/2 @jenylamb and got a good “where’s Waldo?” shot. There is a female dwarf #salamander in this pic! #plethodontidweek

Texas A&M did a nice piece on our discovery of Valentine's dusky #salamander (collabs DB Means & J Bernardo). 1/2 science.tamu.edu/news/story.php… @jenylamb 1 pt to clarify, they mention a "follow up" sexual isolation study. I think they mean this one: asihcopeiaonline.org/toc/cope/105/2… 2/3

✅1st wk of class. Asked students 2📝:1) something interesting about themselves & 2)what they want to learn in gen #biology 2 #nonmajors 1/n Got some great answers that ⬆️excitement about #teaching this class. For Q1)"I'm learning 2 📝 with my feet!" & "I'm obsessed w/mermaids" 2/n